First Demonic Dragon

Seras finally returned to the bedroom, looking no worse for wear than she had when she left.

"You're back! Finally!"

Bekka immediately floated off of the bed and carried her naked body over to the doorway to meet Seras.

"Y-Yea, sorry it took me so long. I guess more people than just us were hungry tonight."

Bekka plucked the bags from the hands of her sister and gave her a loud smooch as thanks.

But she paused when she thought she tasted a mysterious salty element on her lips.

"Seras, you.."

The red skinned dragoness was a raging storm of anxiety. With every fiber of her being, she hoped that her sister would not be able to notice the lingering tears she shed earlier.

Luckily, with Bekka's current dietary demands, it was quite easy for her to misconstrue the lingering taste of salt on her lips.

"You ate a fry, didn't you? After all that gripping you did about having to go and get food in the first place."

An entire dictionary could not contain the words to properly describe the relief that washed through Seras' body at that moment.

The group began eating and chatting happily into the night and Seras tried her best to remain normal as possible.

She was particularly glued to Abaddon and tried her best not to tip off his unnaturally keen empathic abilities.

"H-How come you're not eating anything, babe?"

"Ah.. Certain dynamics I suppose." He shrugged.

"What does that mean?"

Abaddon picked up a carton of fries and waited.

Not two minutes later, Lailah came crawling across the bed and plucked away a couple of fries for her own stomach.

"Don't you have your own?" Abaddon asked with a smirk.

Lailah shrugged innocently. "I was checking to see if yours tasted better."

"And?"

"Yes, they do." As an equal trade, she gave him a small kiss on the cheek and a flirtatious wink before retreating.

Abaddon then turned back to Seras with a 'that''s why' look.

"I-I'm sure it's not that common of an occurrence." She defended.

Abaddon pointed down.

Seras looked at her own hands and realized that she had also started attempting to pilfer her husband's food unknowingly.

'Is this some hidden condition for being married..? I acted without even realizing it as if this were my divine purpose..!' she gasped internally.

"S-Sorry, honey..."

Seras looked embarrassed and quickly pulled her hand away.

Abaddon tilted his head a bit in confusion.

Usually, Seras would have just said something like; 'Well you were the one who decided to marry eleven different women. You should have been prepared for something like this.'

Her lack of playful banter was somewhat unnatural.

"...Are you alright, love?"

Seras quickly realized she'd let her mask slip and tried to correct the mistake by smiling impishly.

"O-Of course I am. I just realized I shouldn't be taking your food all the time, you know? I don't want my handsome husband to get too thin to pick me up again."

Abaddon wondered if maybe his earlier assessment was just a small trick of his hyper vigilance.

Seras soon went back to acting like her normal self and he was unable to discern anything out of the ordinary for her.

'Am I just being paranoid after all..?' He wondered.

-

Despite the fact that the group spends a lot of time together, they mostly each have their own day jobs and things that they do independent of each other.

Lately, Tatiana has been organizing a cooking competition tv show that was already receiving stellar ratings.

Eris goes around creating community gardens and parks in random neighborhoods.

Lisa visits schools of young children all across Tehom and reads to them; or just acts as a motivational speaker.

Most all of them have something to do like that.

By midday, Seras is usually visiting the Euphrates base and helping whip them into shape, or she is visiting her father's legion to do the same with his troops, or even just spar with him.

But now, it was 3:22 PM and she still hadn't gotten out of bed.

Even Abaddon and Bekka had already gotten up, and they were usually the last ones to get out of bed, if they ever got up at all.

For Seras who was especially active, this was certainly out of character, but this kind of thing did occasionally happen with the wives from time to time.

Sometimes it was nice to just lay in the bed and rot, you know?

Seras only opened her eyes when she heard someone knock at her bedroom door.

Using every bit of strength in her sore body, she sat up while rubbing her eyes slowly.

Her hand waived the door open at the same time that Abaddon's prized hoodie appeared over her nude figure.

The lingering warmth as well as the smell of her husband was like a soft reminder of the fact that everything was going to be alright.

It was something she so sorely needed that it was scary.

Eventually, the bedroom door fully opened and Hajun's massive frame came peeking in.

"There's the cutest patootie in the whole wide abyss!"

Seras smiled wryly as she straightened her bed head.

Against her expectations, she had gotten much better about not lashing out at her father whenever he tried to baby her a bit too much.

Perhaps seeing her own husband do the same thing with their daughters was what finally helped her dispel her hostility.

"Hi, dad. What brings you here?"

"You didn't show up at the grand hall today. I was looking forward to seeing you break a few of those newbies over your knee and give them a real taste of what war is!"

Seras smiled wryly as she leaned against her headboard.

"R-Right… I'm sorry I missed it, I was just really exhausted today for some reason."

Seras was one of those people where if they said they were tired, you knew they meant it.

She was a very active overachiever who quite literally worked herself to the bone with her training.

So Hajun was actually glad to see that she was taking a rest.

"Do you need me to get you anything?? I've just been gifted some new protein powder I think you might like. O-Or I could maybe run out and get you some-"

"I'm fine, dad, really." Seras insisted.

If she let her father leave and bring her back anything, he would return with over half of Tehom's natural resources and their entire vanilla supply.

Seras liked vanilla flavored things.

"What is that..?"

Hajun looked down at the skull adorning his waist that seemed to have captured his daughter's interest.

He unhooked it before proudly raising it above his head like it was some grand trophy.

"Oh this? Just a little souvenir from our most recent trip. It is the skull of my first foe… I'm sure Abaddon has told you all about it."

"Erm.. no actually." Seras shrugged.

When asked about the trip by his wives, Abaddon just said 'It sucked' and stripped.

The girls couldn't possibly have cared less about anything else in that moment.

Hajun's eyes sparkled like rainbow struck diamonds.

Was this an opportunity to make himself look cool in front of his daughter (and possibly embellish his heroics just a bit)??!

If so, then he had to take this rare opportunity to tell the grandest bedtime story of all time!

"Well, pookie bear, allow me to regale you with the tales of how your great father bested an entire world of dragon slayers all on his own!"

"Ooh." Seras feigned her level of engagement but Hajun didn't seem to notice.

Her father painted a very bright and harrowing tale about how none of the other men wanted to do anything on vacation but gripe about how much they missed their women.

Leaving him as the sole member of the trip who was actually willing to work and get his hands dirty.

But since the planet was comprised of small fry, of course they were nothing to him!

With one swing of his axe, he cleaved heads from millions of men at once!

The ground itself shook with the force of his mere footsteps!

All feeble weapons and magic broke against his mighty scaled skin! (This one was true, but Hajun had seriously embellished the amount of attacks that had come his way at once)

Against all expectations, Seras found herself giggling and listening rather attentively to a story that she was 97% sure was a fabrication.

Hearing the flow of events through her father's imagination was certainly an interesting way to wake up in the morning. Or… afternoon.

"At the end of this harrowing, but easy adventure, I felled the mortal enemy of prideful Helios all by myself! I admit, he was stronger than the rest of the rabble… it took two whole swings of my axe to reduce him to paste!!"

Seras clapped audibly while trying to hide her smile.

Hajun sat on the edge of their huge bed and presented his daughter with the skull that had first caught her eye.

"And now, just as I have presented my wife with the skull of my last enemy, I would give my daughter the one belonging to my first."

Hajun spoke in a rather cheesy Shakespearean manner that was honestly unfitting for someone like him, which made his behavior all the funnier.

Seras accepted the gift and actually seemed rather content with it.

She used to have a hobby of collecting the skulls of her enemies in the past, so this was like a small reminder of two hundred years ago.

"Thank you, dad. I will cherish it well." Seras said with a happy smile.

Hajun could have fallen over and died from happiness at right that moment.

He may not have been able to be damaged by most weapons or attacks, but his daughter's cuteness would always be a critical hit.

"I'm a bit surprised that mom would accept something like this too." Seras replied as she glanced over the skull. "She usually pretends to be such a refined noble lady."

Helios laughed heartily, as that observation of his darling wife was fairly accurate.

"Truthfully, I believe that she might have rejected it at any other time. But it seems she was in a good mood on the day of my return."

"Oh? Has the continuation of your intimacy boosted her morale?"

*A-Ahem* "No.."Hajun tried to hide his embarrassment over such a topic.

"It seems she's been experiencing a wave of fulfillment as a grandmother lately.

Do you know that little Courtney asked her to teach her the way of the sword when she got bigger?"

Though Hajun meant no harm and was simply gushing over his wife as he had always done, he made a grave error.

He would only learn of this once he heard the sound of bone cracking from the skull in Seras' hand.