[Chapter Size: 3100 Words.]
Third Person POV
Mizunagi.
...
...
It was the middle of the morning when he woke up.
In the end, they had stayed up for a few more hours, until their son grew more tired, no longer able to keep going, falling asleep in Ciri's arms. They decided to take him inside and finally get some sleep, after all, they could continue their conversation the next day.
Madara and Ciri didn't take him to the bed in the room prepared for him, but instead to their own bed, placing the boy between them. Then they slept a little later into the morning, with Madara and Ciri getting out of bed a bit earlier.
Aren woke up some time later alone in the bed, but with the unmistakable scent, especially that of his mother.
He immediately looked around and soon heard a roar coming from downstairs the moment his feet touched the cold wooden floor. As if his mother could know the instant he opened his eyes.
"Aren, come here! I'm preparing something for you to eat, you can come down!" Ciri's voice echoed through the castle, while he immediately moved forward, a little startled by the sudden shout.
He was still approached by his mother like that, but he couldn't think too much about it when his parents were so amazing.
The boy went down the stairs and ran with his little legs to the kitchen, finding his mother there preparing something while wearing an apron and holding a spatula over a frying pan on the fire, frying eggs and meat.
Although Aren didn't know what that piece of clothing was, it certainly served to protect the dress she was wearing underneath, preventing it from being stained with food.
She immediately opened a smile when she turned to him.
"Good morning, son!"
Ciri took off the apron and left the food for a moment, went over to him and grabbed him, pulling him in to give several kisses on his cheek.
Aren couldn't help but let out a little giggle, and that was a true delight for Ciri, who was beginning to see her son, still somewhat withdrawn, slowly opening up little by little.
"Now first, let's wash that face," she said as they moved toward a place with a mirror and water in a corner at the end of the kitchen, a basin with clean water and a cloth.
Aren was caught by surprise, but his mother began cleaning his face with water warmed by her magic, before placing him back on the floor and handing him a towel to dry himself.
"I want you to always clean your face every morning, we'll ask your father to make a little step stool, so you can reach this and it won't be dangerous," she said in an oddly serious tone.
He dried his face while nodding to her, not failing to show a smile.
"Okay, mommy," his voice was more cheerful.
Ciri's smile widened even more.
"Come on, let's eat something."
She pulled him toward the table, while Madara appeared wet and shirtless, holding something in his hand. Behind him, the unicorn followed alongside Aren's father.
Aren could swear that the doors of the house and the kitchen seemed bigger, since the door wasn't large enough for a unicorn to pass through it so easily, and the sofa they had sat on before, although now there was only the chair his mother had used for the transformation, was much farther from the main table than yesterday...
But he didn't think much about it, since his mother soon placed eggs, meat, and bread in front of him.
"Hey, that's too much food!" Madara approached and saw the table full of food for just a first meal in the middle of the morning.
Ciri let out a little laugh while pointing at him with her hand extended.
"I don't want our son to go hungry," she joked while Madara rolled his eyes, feeling Ciri's magic over his body as she began drying him with a simple spell. Soon he was completely dry.
"Why was daddy wet?" Aren asked curiously.
"I went for a swim in the lake and took the opportunity to fish." Madara said with a smile to the boy, while showing the fish he had caught with his own hands instead of using a fishing rod.
Aren looked surprised by that, although he still didn't understand much about fishing, maybe it was normal to him. There was no way to know when no one had taught him about it at the temple.
Ciri pointed at the fish.
"And what exactly did you catch there...?"
"You said you wanted to prepare a good fish meal in the middle of the day, so I caught the best one in the lake." Madara said that while showing off the golden fish over 100 centimeters long.
"You talk about me, but you also brought something pretty huge there!" Ciri shot back with her arms crossed.
"We can't let our son go hungry, right?" he replied using her exact same words while displaying the prize he had swum across the lake chasing after to catch. Ciri started laughing.
Aren was still getting somewhat used to his parents' sense of humor, but he certainly didn't feel like they were truly arguing. And according to his mother, they traded jabs, but never disrespected one another.
"So? Do you want juice, coffee, or tea? We have many things we learned to make over the last few years..." his mother asked, sitting beside him while running her fingers gently through his hair.
"Juice, mommy," Aren said. Meanwhile, the unicorn stared at him, making Aren become a little uncomfortable.
"He's a little shy," said Eira.
Madara sat beside his son. It was a sight full of contrast. The 3-year-old boy was thin and small compared to his father, who had long hair, stood well over 1.90 meters tall, and was full of muscles.
Even Aren seemed to notice that when Madara turned toward him, opening a smile and ruffling his hair before looking at Eira.
"It's because he's still not used to you... or to us," Madara said in a calm tone.
Ciri huffed after leaving the table to get some juice and brought a glass for Aren.
"Speak for yourself. He's even laughing with me."
Madara looked at him.
"Is that so, Aren?" he said. Despite the comment, Madara wasn't hurt by it in the slightest.
The boy drank quickly and shook his head.
"No, daddy! It's... it's because mommy tickled me!" he said quickly.
"Well, I guess I need to make you smile too... So how about we have some fun? Have you ever swum before, son?" Madara asked.
Eira adjusted herself in a corner and lay down near the table, as if she had gone back almost four years, like she used to do when Madara and Ciri took her to various places, when she was just a foal.
Aren looked at Madara and shook his head.
"No. Actually, I never left grandma's temple..." he spoke in a somewhat restrained tone.
"Well, then we have to do something about that," Madara said openly while touching his shoulder.
"We can also take him for a walk in the forest," Ciri suggested with an excited voice.
"But aren't there monsters in the forest? Aunt Hilda always said forests are dangerous and that Grandpa Geralt sometimes goes into them to kill monsters!" he said in an urgent and innocent tone.
"Your father, without you noticing, cleared out the entire forest around the castle as soon as we arrived here. Didn't you think it was strange that there were only insect sounds last night?" Ciri reminded him.
The boy opened his eyes wide and looked at his father full of admiration.
"Really, daddy?"
Madara looked at him and nodded.
"Of course. Your father destroyed all the monsters so none of them could come near our castle."
He said that while winking at the boy, making Aren let out a silly little laugh.
"Speaking of that, is this really a castle, like the ones kings and queens have?" He bit into the bread with meat and asked with his mouth slightly full.
"And like the ones princes have..." His mother gave a smug look, and Madara rolled his eyes at her reaction.
"Talk after you finish chewing, Aren." Madara reminded his son, who nodded at him, though he laughed along with his mother beside him.
Madara grabbed something to eat, and Aren finished eating everything, praising his mother's cooking a lot, while she stored everything away again inside those green portals so the food wouldn't spoil.
Aren still had many questions about his parents' abilities, but that wasn't the moment for them.
Because in the very next instant, he was laughing loudly while being tossed into the air above the middle of the lake.
After eating, Madara picked him up and went out walking over the water with the boy in his arms, who wore only a pair of shorts his parents had given him.
To tell the truth, Aren now had plenty of children's clothes that they had brought from other worlds. They hadn't stolen them. They paid with gold in the worlds they visited. Over the years, they had accumulated a massive stock precisely for the moment they found Aren again, so they would be able to dress him in clothes using both the fashion of this world and others.
There were even several thousand outfits for boys from 1 year old up to the beginning of age 3, which no longer fit Aren anymore, but they would still continue keeping them.
Ciri and Madara now had their own dimensional spaces. Ciri was learning how to use hers. And although Ciri's was far more practical, opening rifts in space instead of storing everything inside scrolls, even so, today all the clothes were still among Madara's scrolls.
Now at the lake, Madara saw his son become surprised, and a little afraid while watching them walk over the water toward the middle of the lake.
Then Madara simply canceled the chakra beneath his feet, sinking together with Aren, who clung to him like glue, completely terrified.
But soon the boy lost that tension as Madara kept him firmly against his chest, while they floated without any danger. Aren was beginning to get used to it.
He had never felt a sensation like that before. In truth, he had never felt anything similar to what he had been experiencing since the previous day. After all, he had never left the temple. He couldn't even join the other side of the temple, where more people were.
So for him, everything was new. And he began loving all of it with his parents, they were incredible!
Being there with his father in the middle of the lake, while Madara never let him sink, made him start playing with the water while laughing, also being tossed into the air before falling into the water and being pulled back to the surface with Madara playing around with him.
He truly loved that.
He loved having his real parents!
Soon, a green glow appeared beside them, while someone simply appeared and jumped into the water as well to join the two of them, laughing loudly with her feminine and cheerful tone. Ciri joined in together with them, even while wearing a dress, entering the fun.
With only a single pair of eyes, the unicorn as a witness watched from a distance, still lying on the deck as if he already belonged to that place, watching the family have fun in the middle of the lake.
After enjoying the lake, they returned to the castle while Ciri began preparing the fish, cooking it whole with culinary magic assisting her, since even Eira would join lunch to eat it. Although the unicorn wasn't used to eating fish, he would make an exception today.
Madara was sitting in a corner of the castle's entrance hall beside the kitchen together with his son, while Eira was also lying beside them as well.
Aren sat on his father's lap, with Madara beginning to take out several toys to show him. There were many souvenirs from countless worlds. Wooden toys, modern toys, and even magical toys.
There was all kinds of things that Aren didn't even know where to begin. He simply started wandering around the place, looking at each of the strange things around him and asking his father what this or that was.
Until he saw something that caught his attention more than anything else.
"What is this, daddy?" he asked, looking at three objects in a corner: one red, one blue, and another yellow.
"Those are dragon eggs," Madara said.
"They certainly weren't dragons from this world." Eira couldn't help but comment while sniffing them. He didn't recognize those eggs from this world, nor even from the other worlds he and his mother traveled through.
"Is that true? Dragons?" Aren's eyes widened.
"Yes, Aren. And Eira is right about that. They're different from the dragons of this world. They're more obedient and accept human riders on their backs as long as you have magical blood... They even obey commands. We got them from a world where a family could ride them like horses and use them as weapons of war." He said, pausing for a moment.
"Getting them was quite easy. After all, that world was rather weak and fragile compared to our strength," Madara replied to Eira before looking once more at the three eggs.
"Ciri studied that family's blood after we took some of it... even if by force. She studied that blood and could even apply the magic that exists within it, regarding dragons, to herself and even to our son," Madara said, pausing before opening a smile.
"After all, she was always jealous because I have a dragon to fly on," he added.
"Who's jealous of who?" Ciri shouted from the kitchen, able to hear their conversation perfectly.
"Daddy is going to hatch the dragons!?" Aren immediately asked.
"Of course, but we'll do that another time. You know daddy has already flown on top of a dragon, right? These dragons are for you and your mother," Madara replied.
"I know, everyone said you rode a dragon!" Aren said, and the little boy moved closer to the egg, touching it.
"It's warm!" he exclaimed as he felt it.
Madara watched with satisfaction. His son could feel it, that was good... It was obvious that their son would have a dragon to ride in the future. Maybe he could even dominate a dragon the way Madara had done. But it would be good for him to also have his own dragon, instead of trying to practically enslave one of the dragons from that world, which were more intelligent and prideful.
Madara practically had to use his strength to subjugate them every single time he summoned them.
Speaking of that... How was that dragon he placed inside the dwarves' vault doing? Now that he thought about it.
That also made him think about his summons. His green dragon had come with an invitation from the Dragon Queen, wanting to see him three years ago. He didn't know how Ignavros was now...
And there was his griffin... his name was Totó, and it was something Madara intended to go check on after lunch to see how the griffin was doing.
He had practically left Totó under the care of King Bran Skellige. Since Totó wasn't aggressive toward humans, he only needed to be fed, because even though he hunted, he was still used to being fed by Madara ever since he was young.
At the time, before going to the meeting of sorcerers and mages in Aretuza, Madara had asked King Bran if he could feed him occasionally and not hunt him.
King Bran said that wouldn't be any problem. But Madara still didn't know the griffin's condition after three years, even though they were in Skellige, he hadn't had time for that yet.
They went to eat as soon as Ciri finished, leaving some mess in the entrance hall with the toys, but that didn't matter. Ciri still had to store all those things inside her dimensional space, since it was more practical to hand them to Aren whenever he wanted his toys.
Madara could make good food, but Ciri wasn't far behind either. She learned to become an excellent cook throughout those years and even studied with some chefs from other worlds with the intention of pleasing and serving her husband in the best way possible, while Madara dealt with the greatest dangers of the worlds. She also used magic with a repertoire full of assisting spells, so cooking wasn't a very difficult task for her.
Aren was praising his mother's food, while Ciri became completely giddy about it.
Eira also ate the fish happily.
Madara was the first to leave the table.
"I'm going to the forest and I'll be back soon," he said.
Ciri felt everyone hear Madara disappear with his Hiraishin.
Aren looked at her searching for answers, while Ciri only smiled, already knowing what her husband was going to do.
"Your father is going to see an old friend. Don't worry, he'll return soon," Ciri said, touching the boy's head, loving to play with that black hair of his that was just like her husband's.
Meanwhile, in the forest not far from the castle, Madara formed hand seals before striking the ground after cutting his finger.
"Summoning Jutsu!" he exclaimed.
An explosion of smoke appeared immediately afterward, covering more than seven meters in diameter in front of him.
Then the sound of an eagle echoed from inside the smoke. Soon, a griffin over five meters long and three meters tall appeared with its wings spread open.
There were scars on its eyes and across its body as well, showing that it had fought against some dangers over the past few years, but there was no doubt.
That was their griffin.
Totó.
As Ciri had named him back in Cintra when Madara took the cub and brought it to the castle at that time.
"You look like you did well, Totó..." Madara opened a smile while the griffin stared at him with those eagle eyes, stunned.
Then Totó quickly approached for the reunion. Madara simply extended his arm to receive him.
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