Hopeless Love

23-Kids Make Me Happy

I had been here for years now. I was a permanent fixture in this Pod, especially after I had the twins.

They were 5 now, both with black hair, although Lexy had golden eyes and Hael had iridescent eyes. Lexy had a black mountain lion and an even darker pea crab. Hael had a black lynx and a mantis shrimp that had monochromatic colors. They both broke expectations, breaking the chain of lion beastias and being some of the first mermaids to have a beastia that wasn't a fish.

It seemed that we were changing and expanding, hopefully for the better. I had heard reports of centaurs being born with goat or sheep beastias and werewolves with coyotes. It excited me and scared others. But everyone in the Pod was excited; the ones who were scared left after my children were born with different beastias than the norm.

Lexy was the better musician and Hael protected her with all the ferocity of a 5 year old who sucked at music but was great at fighting. I sat watching them with Sebastian. Their sphinx beastias were already bigger than mine, and they had fun giving me rides around the fields surrounding the camp.

There was another small attack that day. I went out alone and killed every one of those zombies. Sebastian said I had become fiercer after I had the kids. Before I was a whirlwind, and now I was a tornado. Basically the protectiveness of a mother personified. That description always made me happy. I loved defending the Pod.

Sebastian carried me around in my beastia for a while before I had him set me down to watch something unfold between the children and their friends. Lexy was sitting down playing a song on her clarinet; a new instrument she had come up with after hearing the wind blowing through the reeds. Hael was next to her, a dagger in hand as he sat and listened to her music. He always had that when he listened to her, just in case someone made fun of her.

I saw his grip around it tighten as a young boy came up to her. It was Ali, a young phoenix boy the Pod had taken in around the time the twins were born when we found him half-drowned at the place where the river met the ocean. He had bright blond hair that was almost white and blazing silver eyes that reflected the white flames and silver eyes of his white egret.

Ali sat in front of her and closed his eyes, swaying slightly to the music she played. She stopped playing and he opened his eyes, smiling broadly at her. They started talking and they laughed together and smiled.

That night, Lexy came to me and told me she was going to marry Ali someday. I smiled and said she could do that if she still liked him when she was seventeen. She nodded and passed out with Hael. I frowned a bit looking at him, because he only hung out with Lexy and I wanted him to have other friends along with his sister.

The next day a young vampire girl with rose colored eyes and warm brown curls was brought into the Pod by a mermaid who had gone on a trip for a few years. Her name was Maia. The mermaid had adopted her, although he wouldn't tell us what had happened to her for him to do that. She was a flying fox, quite a bit bigger than Hael in his lynx beastia. He was enraptured at first sight, and he talked to her the second day she was here. They talked all the time and he eventually told Sebastian that he wanted to marry her. Sebastian told me about his confession and I told him about Lexy's. We got into a small fight about not wanting her to get married but being fine with the same situation for Hael. It only lasted a day though. I didn't let him eat anything I cooked, and he loved my cooking.

I smiled at the children as they ran around with the two kids they planned on marrying. They all became one friend group quickly. I wondered what they would end up doing in the future and whether they would still be friends by the time they were grown up.