Twelve Days of Spring

Chapter 8: Afternoonsiez

Rocket hopped through the kitchen door into the pub room carrying a tray filled with a variety of freshly baked bread. "The afternoonsiez are ready!"

All the colourful individuals cheered.

Rocket adressed a strong looking individual in purple. "Victoria, would you be so kind to fetch the soup? I'm having a hard time picking up the kettle."

"On it, dad," Victoria said as she saluted and then went to the kitchen.

Huwa laid her wing on Nicole's shoulder and guided zhem to a long table in the back. "Victoria wants to be a Royal Guard, but nobody wants to train her, the poor love. But we'll make sure she gets strong enough to show them all wrong. She's already stronger than all those Guards together, but they focus on physical strength. Little do they know that doesn't get you far in life. But she'll show them, I'm sure of it."

Huwa took a chair off a pile of chairs and placed it at the table. "Here," she said, "You sit next to Victoria and Henry and in front of Ruby, Nicole."

The individual dressed in orange sat next to zhem and nodded a greeting when Henry was said.

"So," Henry said, "The peacock kidnapped you... Do you know what for?"

"I'm apparently Santa's child?"

"Oh, you're the one dad has been trying to track down?! It's an honour to meet you."

Nicole raised an eyebrow. "Dad?"

Henry gestured at Rocket who was now carrying a cheese platter to the table.

Nicole looked at Rocket and then back at Henry. Rocket was a bunny and Henry seemed human.

Zhe then looked at Victoria walking in the room with a big kettle of soup.

Victoria had called Rocket dad too and she seemed human as well, but there was no resemblance at all between Victoria and Henry either.

Huwa handed Henry some bread and Nicole heard him say Thanks, mom.

But Huwa was a hen, Rocket a bunny and Henry a human.

Nicole uttered: "How?"

Henry snickered at Nicole's confusion. "We aren't blood related, if that is what you're trying to wrap your head around. We've all been adopted by mom and dad.

Some of us, like Ruby, are still tied to our birth families and use this place as a safe haven to hide.

But most of us," Henry said as he gestured around the room, "were found by dad while we were on the run and have been brought here into safety. We then decided to stay and have been part of this family ever since."

Henry gestured at Huwa and Rocket. "They're the loving parents we all need."

Henry took a bit of his bread. "But I guess you're desperate to finally meet your birth father?"

The smell of freshly made soup trickled Nicole's nostrils. Zhe passed Victoria zheir soup bowl as zhe spoke.

"I... I don't really know. I mean, I've been longing to meet him for whole my life, but from what I've heard he may not be the person I had hoped him to be.

In my mind he was a funny knight in shining armor who wanted to get to know me and be with mom, but couldn't because some evil dragon kept him away, but..." Nicole remained silent. "From what I've heard he's quite the hypocritical anti-feminist and I don't know if I want him to know about me. He could easily treat my mom and me like he has treated Eostre and Ruby - our situations are the same - and I don't think I'm strong enough to handle that.

There must have been a reason why mom kept me hidden from him, right?"

Huwa shook her head. "I don't know why your mom didn't tell him about you, Nicole, but your situation isn't the same as Ruby and Eostre's."

"I get along with mom, that's not what I meant. I meant both households consist out of a single mother with a daughter."

"And both daughters are children of Santa. But it's the way your mothers treated him that's vastly different.

From what I've heard your mom was and still is the love of his life and he'd do everything to be with her, only if she would want so to.

But Eostre... She took advantage of him in a way nobody should be taken advantage of and when she ended up pregnant after that... It's understandable he doesn't want anything to do with that."

Ruby looked down and fiddled with her bread. "Mother wants to use me to tie him to her. That's why she wants me to be a boy. Because boys have an advantage over girls, she always says, especially when it comes down to father's, but I disagree, just like mom and dad." Ruby glanced at Huwa and Rocket.

She then looked at Nicole as sadness clouded her eyes. "It's a wanted child that has an advantage over an unwanted one."

Ruby looked down and focused on fiddling with her bread. "So you go meet our father and be happy for the both of us."

Nicole nodded. "I won't let you down."