Chapter 44: Loose Ends

Storm

I looked at the camera.

Seven months old, Devin stood on my right thigh, and his brother Quin stood on my left with my arms supporting them. Sky sat cross-legged across on my lap and leant against me. Kim was at my right shoulder with his right arm around Sarah. Beside him was Lindell her arm around him and Bonny.

Raina fussed and finally said she had a lovely picture. Sky scrambled down to run to her big sister and see the results. Sarah bent and kissed me and claimed Devin while Bonny claimed Quin. She and Lindell also dropped kisses on my cheek before wandering off with Sarah.

Kim replaced my kids and cuddled into my lap. I rubbed his large tummy, and he groaned and snuggled into me. “Even ten weeks is too long,” he said.

“Well at least you’re only having one,” I told him.

“Did you have to knock us all up at the same time?” he groused.

I chuckled, “Don’t you like me having the only cock in the bedroom?” I asked.

He chuckled, “Damn, Bull. I bet Bron is still laughing.”

“That he is, that he is,” I replied and hugged Kim closer.

I looked out over the people assembled at our party. It was a bit daunting when you realised they were all magical people. We were having a Wizards day in Platinum City. Mikal and I, with a lot of other people’s input, had spent the time rebuilding the city as the Wizards Retreat and School.

It functioned as a small city, but the expanded citadel was set up a lot like Bron’s Retreat. We just had a lot more room to play with and a lot more wizards and magical people to accommodate. Amusingly enough it was used by all of the Queens, and the wizards and even Mikal had his own suit of rooms.

Here, we weren’t rulers, we were just people, we all insisted on it. The town’s people came to accept this was our principle holiday home as well as its other functions. We were all to be treated like any other customer in a store. We didn’t dress up fancy for day-to-day activities.

I looked over the throng and thought about my last entries into my diary. I got everyone to give me an account of the last seven months and just added them, as their summaries. You might like to read some of them, so I’ve included them here to finish this tale for now.

Who knows what the next year will bring.

Ant

Storm wanted me to summarise my time here so far.

Where do I start? I guess meeting my dad might be a good place. Seeing him as a woman certainly took me a few moments to get over, I can assure you. I must admit he gave Zena Warrior Princess a run for her money. He is a total babe, and I had a hard time reconciling that he was my dad.

Then there are Raina and Crystal my half-sisters. Seriously, my dad had created some smashing looking girls. Being told Crystal was 62 was a bit of hard swallow but then Davin had been over a thousand, so I just told her she looked pretty good for age.

Mikal was another. While I had got to know him on the wheelship, I was hard pressed to think he was fifty-seven when he looked younger than I did. He certainly didn’t act his age all of the time. But you did do as he asked. He had that ‘dad’s voice’ that you just had to obey.

As for Sage, Teal and Bonica, he sure gave them a workout. He was just as likely to screw all of them three times a day. From what they said, it was probably more often than even I managed with Celadon. The more magic he played with, the more often they got screwed. They didn’t seem to mind, as apparently, he made sure they enjoyed their time with him.

Then there is my Celadon. While I knew that Zara had made her for me, she still blows my mind. She has all of this knowledge, and yet, it is the oddest things that she doesn’t know. She is a constant wonder to me. Her devotion to me and her love for me are astounding. It didn’t take me too long to return them.

With Celadon, I feel complete. I’ve never had a lover like her. She can turn me on with a look and then she takes a lot of delight getting me turned back off again. When Mikal joined us on Zara and told Phil and I that we could shape change since we had shifters for lovers you could have knocked me over with a feather.

The first time I tried changing gender, I stood naked in front of a mirror and tried to think of what I’d look like as a girl. After my body blurred and the strange tingling stopped in my body, I couldn’t take my eyes off myself.

Then Celadon came in behind me. She changed, and her hands found my tits. But they didn’t feel like a woman’s hands. When her cock pressed into my arse, I was bit disconcerted, but then the sight and feel of my cunnie getting wet sent odd sensations through me.

After she turned me and kissed me, and then rubbed against me, I kinda forgot I was still mostly a bloke in my head and submitted to her attentions. When her fingers slid inside my cunnie, the new sensations were very intense. I don’t think I’ll ever forget her taking me to heaven as a woman that first time.

I now know why the shifters here tend to use spouse rather than husband and wife. When you can be either gender the same as your partner, there is no distinction. You are just two people who love each other. I love making love to Celadon in both our genders as we both to enjoy the different sensations created.

I still have moments when I miss things from my old life, but here I have a life that is so different there is no comparison. For one thing, I have learnt that I love sailing as much as I loved flying through space. For a second, being a wizard is seriously awesome.

When I touched that Captain dude and his bling deserted him, I was astounded. Mikal had told me that if bling finds a better candidate, it could desert its current owner. I had to put a spell on the poor bastard to render him unconscious. He was screaming as if someone was thrusting a hundred knives into him.

All those hours with Mikal and the others teaching Phil and I magic had been well worthwhile. Mikal was a very patient teacher, and we all learnt a lot more from him than I think I even realised. Even Davin for his age and experience was delighted to have Mikal as our teacher.

Anyway, after we had sorted out the ship and I went to pick up the wizard’s box to take to dad, the bloody box opened and my bling disappeared. So I became a wizard. Celadon made sure she touched the Captain that had my apprentice’s box and had no compunction claiming it as hers.

Kerri and Angel were the funny ones. They took turns touching the other apprentice wizard and Angel was delighted when his box chose her. She sure didn’t waste any time in claiming poor Luke either. The bloke is totally besotted by her.

Nile, Mikal’s son who is still on Zara, had told me the twins were enough to wear even a wizard out. Luke still walks around dazed after Angel has been with him. If Storm wanted Luke kept on the straight and narrow, he couldn’t have picked better than Angel to keep tabs on him.

Asking Luke to do anything that Angel wouldn’t approval was like asking the moon to land on Amity. I wouldn’t call him pussy-whipped, but he does take dad’s faith in him very seriously too. We were all delighted when we felt the change in Queens.

I like my nephew well enough, but it just felt right to have my Dad as the Regent of our decad. I know Luke had already pledged his loyalty to my dad. Dad had believed there was enough good in Luke to trust him and Luke plans never to break that trust. I’m sure he had a crush on Dad.

I still have to laugh about my dad sitting beside Luke on the ship he had just wrecked and sharing a reefer with him. I know it’s one of Luke’s fondest memories. I have got to give it to dad; he sure knows how to get into the psyche of a person. He won Luke over there and then and he knew it.

Caledon and I spent three months with Luke and Angel, and then we moved to Tree Isle. Phil laughed so hard he cried when I told him where I was moving too. He thought it was poetic that a Nature Wizard lived on an island called Tree Isle.

He jokingly said we should name it Ant Island and now everyone calls it that, so I guess it has stuck. Andy, the bloke, who rules Weston, said the island’s name has even changed on their map. King Andy, by the way, is now part of Kim’s decad, and we get on great with him. Queen Mary who rules Lime Island also joined Kim’s decade as did Olivia, who rules the continent, Orient.

Matte has settled in the Nut Islands with Kerri, and the other newest members to our decad are a Captain Robert Keel, and his friend Captain Rick Strong, who is his apprentice. Robert married Kale’s sister, Sarina and Rick married Lord Hugo’s niece, Jane, so it seems somehow some way, we are all interrelated. They have settled on Boot Island.

They were perfectly happy to change operations to become part of the Navy like the rest of our decad. We wizards spend more time looking after the logistics, but we like to get out and do a bit of patrolling now and again.

We don’t have the level of pirates or slavers that we once had, but we still catch the odd one. We spend as much time helping ships, which have run into storms or some other grief as much as anything else we do these days. At least it keeps us busy.

To be honest, I love my life here. I have an entire island to explore and find new plants and animals on; it’s a long-term project for me. Celadon has given me a little girl and told me I get to have the next one. I have a sneaky feeling she isn’t joking either.

It’s a bit of a wild concept to get into my head but then seeing my dad pregnant was a bit of reality check for me. I have thought of going back to Earth, but it holds nothing for me anymore. I know I have kids there, but they have long since grown up, and I was never really part of their lives.

Ask me in a year or so, and I might change my mind, but for right now, this is my home.

Phil

Dad asked me to write about my time here so far.

I’m not really sure what to say. My life has changed so much in the last year. One of the saddest things is that my Anne is gone. Lee called me up about six months ago and told me.

Apparently, after Ant and I disappeared she quit and stayed home to have my daughter. Mary-J is now forty-one and is soon to become a grandmother herself. She and her family were on one of the first migration ships to the new planet Terra.

Anne had died ten years before from cancer in her bones. She apparently went back to flying and even lived on the Moon for a time. She did marry again but had no more children. Like Ant, I didn’t have anything to do with my other kids, and I agree that we would be a disruption in their lives at this point.

The men who had fathered them weren’t the same men anymore. Since we are now shifters and magicians, I doubt that we could fit back in on Earth. While they know about people like us, I’m not sure I would be comfortable there.

Cyan would also be a problem. She doesn’t look like a regular earth woman. Personally, I find her fascinating. Every morning that I wake and find her beside me is a blessing as far as I’m concerned. She isn’t Anne, but that too is a good thing.

Cyan doesn’t pretend to be anyone but herself. Each day she digs further and further into my heart. It may read a little heartless but the day Lee told me about Anne, I cried and cried. I then tucked her in a special place and finally allowed Cyan have the rest of my heart.

Lee has allowed me to get past my guilt of leaving Anne and finding another to love. I suspect Zara knew that Anne would not be alive when she brought Ant and me to this time. I believe she also didn’t tell me, as she knew that I did need to hold onto a little hope.

Cyan and I are now very happy, and when she presented me with my twin daughters two months ago, I knew I had room in my heart for a few more people to love. I had to chuckle when Dad turned up with two of the biggest, brightest blue Koala’s I have ever seen. Cyan though they were wonderful.

I told her that one day I’d take her to Earth so she could see them for herself. Dad chuckled and told me to just go visit Ant, as he got the real ones. This cracked me up, and I had to call Ant. He was over the moon because Storm had given him eight of them. His island had eucalyptus trees, and he planned to section off a piece of land for them.

I asked dad who got the kangaroos, and he said, Daniel. He’d monitor them and make sure they didn’t become a pest. He had given him reds, greys and rock wallabies.

“What about the platypuses?” I asked wondering what dad would come up with.

“Crystal wanted them. Apparently, she has always had a fascination with them and so has Mikal. They even said they had some perfect homes for them,” Dad told me with glee.

I could see he was delighted with his odd gifts. Just to stir, I said, “So where are my echidnae?”

“Damn, I knew I forgot something,” he said. He blinked and then blinked back moments later. He handed me a crate. Inside were eight balls of spines. I looked at him flabbergasted.

“I’m sure you’ll find somewhere for them to live. Oh, you may wish to get these established. Just be aware that they will spread.” He then handed me six containers with small ant colonies in them. “I have it on good authority that this variety is the least invasive. They do have a problem here with vegetation break down being slow, so they shouldn’t cause any real difficulty.”

“These little guys once you let them loose will keep the ants in check. In the meantime, just feed them ground up camla or longhorn meat, and they should like yoghurt made from camla milk. Mix in a few ants when you can and give it a year or so, and you can let these little fellows loose,” he told me.

“So what did you pick?” I had to ask.

“Oh I went for something easier to look after, I picked Kookaburras. I love the sound they make, and there is more than enough local wildlife that they can eat so they can feed themselves,” he told me.

I had to laugh, Dad was so practical, it astounded me. The fact that Cyan and I were busy setting up Amber City also wasn’t lost on me. The chunk of land it was located on would mean it would take the ants a long time to spread over the rest of Federation.

I might have a problem with catalo’s trying to eat the echidnae, but they were good at protecting themselves and not fast breeders. Like the others, who had received dad’s gifts, I’d just have to monitor them once they were set loose.

Ben, Raina, Kelli, Bonica and David all decided to stay native since they were already raising wyverns. Crystal had to tell her wyverns to leave her platypuses alone. Wyverns will eat just about anything that moves, and they were excellent at fishing.

I was amused the day Crystal turned up with a girl in her arms, and handed her to Kale and said Gia was his problem and disappeared again. Raina chuckled and reminded him of dumping Pip on dad’s doorstep. The poor thing was very confused when she woke up.

Crystal had said she had lost part of her memory and that she was Luke’s niece and a Paragon. She became Kale’s shadow. When he started teaching her to heal, she took to it like a duck to water. She also did her best to seduce him, and she worked on Selene too.

It took her a month, but she did end up breaking him down, and we all knew when she became their consort. It didn’t take a rocket scientist like me to work out that she was madly in love with Kale. I think the fact that Kale made her work for his love, did her more good than harm.

He didn’t let her change him in that Kale had made a place for her in their lives, and she had to stay within the boundaries he had set. I observed that Kale didn’t bend to her will too often and that was a good thing too. He and Selene gave her the love that she required, and she thrived once she knew that they did love her.

When Raina asked if Cyan and I wanted to go check out Amber City and see what was required to make it habitable, I loved the idea. Kale and Selene also decided to join us. Kale taught me how to activate a controller, and we soon had the shield up and running again.

I was amused when Gia took an interest in the shuttles I found. I was working at getting one going, and she wanted to know everything. I took her on a flight once we had it fixed and found myself teaching her how to fly it. She was a natural.

We had all worked out that she had an insatiable need for information so we all had to spend time with her to teach her whatever she wanted to know. Even a small amount of praise went a long way to keep her happy. Her confidence in herself grew by leaps and bounds, and she became very handy to have around.

In the six months we have been in Amber City, it has grown substantially. The fact it provided a Deepwater Port at the opening of the Slit was also an advantage. A lot of large cargo vessels berthed with us and smaller ones then ferried their goods down the Slit to various smaller ports.

We also had agents set up here, so the smaller vessels brought goods to us, which were then sold on to the companies who owned the big ships. Amusingly, Gia took over the running of the port. She said she could smell a pirate from fifty metres. She just seemed to know what was needed where and how to make the Port run efficiently.

We four wizards decided to monitor, but otherwise, we let her loose. When I look at Gia today, I find I’m as proud of her as Kale and Selene are. She has matured a lot and come into her own. The one thing that hasn’t changed is that she is still very much in love with Kale. I know she loves Selene too, but not with the same intensity.

I know it’s a possibility that Cyan and I could end up with others in our relationship, but so far we are happy with things the way they are.

Daniel

Conner City was a delight.

Not only did it have working androids but it also had a controller. Inka said that she was very young when the Wizards’ War happened. She was lucky and hadn’t been hit by any of the meteors. She had also been under construction.

The Gold Wizard had been having her constructed for one of his sons. She only had a small human workforce here when the war started getting serious. When they heard about the fighting in Golden City, they went home as they had family and friends there.

Some of them were planning on getting their families and coming back but none actually did, so she and her androids just kept working and waiting. Sometimes shipwrecked sailorshad lived with her for a while, but they had either later left or died.

Some magical people had tried to enter her harbour from time to time but the mages who were buildering the city were fearful of corrupted people coming here, so they had put extra protections on her shields.

She told me there were several small villages down the coast, but she doubted that they even knew she was here as her shield hid her from non-magical people. She wasn’t a large city as far as the buildings went, as they had planned it out for about ten thousand inhabitants. I suspected she would have been expanded as time went on and her population grew.

Conner City was located beside a lovely deep harbour and a short peninsular on the south side had a beautiful beach for swimming. The Citadel was actually cut into the end of a low mountain range that ran back to the south-west. On the other side of the wide harbour was a range that ran all the way across and split Aurum from Saran.

The city had been constructed in the valley around the wide river that ran from the south of west, and there were kilometres of land suitable for farming. Inka’s shields covered a 30km area, and she operated both copper and silver mines.

Her androids found enough small iron deposits and other base minerals that the recyclers were able to reclaim sufficient to keep the place in good repair. She was short of alumina if I wished to acquire her some. The androids had also found quite a few precious gems, but they hadn’t mined many of them, mostly only the quartz when she needed it and any others if a specific mineral was required.

They had maintained the gardens and farms, which were considered to be the minimum required for the expected population. When we observed her stockpiles, Pip, Sage and I were surprised by what we had to play with. Even the citadel was ready to move into, as were most of the other buildings.

For us the weather was the decider; it was glorious. Sage and I both had to chuckle when Pip also pointed out the mountain would be perfect for providing good thermals so we could go flying. Pip had shown Sage her scary side before I got her pregnant. Sage said she was the most beautiful dragon she had ever seen.

Personally, I think they were both beautiful in their dragon forms. I wonder if getting Pip pregnant while we in that form would make a difference to our kids. I might have to ask Lee to ask Drako for me when I next talked to her.

I chuckled and replied, “Hey Pip, do you think Sable, Teal and Laci would like to come flying with us after you lot all have your babies?”

Pip said, “After some of the stories he and Bron told us, I would say that is a definite yes. Sable might even be able to teach us how to do it better.”

“Hey, I was taught by a real dragon,” I retorted.

“Then maybe you need to get the dragon to come and teach us,” she said smugly.

I looked around and knew that the dragons would love it here. They could handle a little bit of cool weather. JJ had said that no one lived to the west of us and there was an abundance of animals to feed a small clan. It was something to think about.

One other great find was the six shuttles. Sage was able to fly one, so I had her follow us home when we left. We told Inka that we would be back. I made sure she could communicate with JJ and Ardra, Titan City’s controller. We then headed home.

I took great delight in promoting Dale to be my Lord Wizard and telling him what I had planned. Since it was spring, I wanted him to organise a meeting of the Doyens from Jindal, the other large towns on the west coast and the Nomad Clans. They were also to bring anyone whom they believed had magical abilities to a meeting here, in four weeks’ time.

Sage agreed to be the pilot and she would take Dale and Carlos with her. She was to teach Carlos to fly. I’d try and find a few people to teach how to fly in the meantime. When I whispered to her that she was free to follow her heart while she was away and to give Dale a chance to get to know her, she gave me an odd look.

Pip also looked at me oddly after they left, “What was that about?” she had to ask me.

“Dale needs an apprentice,” I said.

Her eyes went wide, and she scolded me. “Seriously? Daniel, I’m surprised at you leading poor Sage on like that.”

“No, I didn’t. If you remember, I told her if you were happy for her to join us in mutual satisfaction then I was happy too. I didn’t promise anything Pip. Have you once heard me tell her that I love her or have I once initiated contact other than holding her hand when she was with us?”

Pip frowned at me as she though. “No, you haven’t. But I thought you wanted her to join us? That’s why I agreed.”

“Pip, you know I have no issues with multiple partners. To be honest with you, I’m not sure we are ready for a permanent third person. If anything, I thought that since you liked Sage you might be ready for some experimentation that was all.”

“My Love, I won’t push you into any situation that you are uncomfortable with. In case you didn’t notice, I’ve let you or her lead, and I simply did whatever you two wish me to,” I told her.

Pip gave me an odd look then shook her head. “Wow, you are really devious. You did that just so I didn’t feel guilty about finding out what you find appealing about multiple partners?”

I grinned at her and pulled her into my arms. “So did you discover what I found appealing about multiple partners?”

“Hum, I think I did. We did have fun, didn’t we? Sage was a good lover, but I don’t love her like I love you,” she told me.

“I didn’t expect you too. But she was an excellent teacher for you. Your dad and Zara had taught her well,” I said.

“Yeah, I think that might have been part of the problem, knowing she had been dad’s lover first. I know she made out with Teal and Bonica too, but still,” she said.

I chuckled and then kissed her. I had guessed what her problem was. Once we became involved with each other, Pip had let her inhabitations slide in her desire to learn but I knew that although we’d had a lot of fun, Sage wasn’t meant for us.

I was sure Sage had also started to work it out too. She had just been surprised that I was pointing to Dale. It would be interesting to see what transpired. I hope that she does give him a chance, as I felt she would be really good for him.

He had certainly found her appealing and had no argument about going off with her. I grinned. “What has that devious mind come up with now? Pip said.

“Carlos, he would make a great Shield Mage,” I said.

Pip just shook her head and blinked me to our room. I had no problems with meeting with her requests and it was all the sweeter for it just being us. Pip made love to me as if I was the only person in the world that she cared about.

As I hugged her to me afterwards, I knew that we would find others, but just not yet. We’d had fun with Sage and we had both learned what we needed to learn from the experience. I think the fact that I had found someone who loved me, for being just me, was still too new to me.

I wasn’t any more ready to share Pip on a permeant basis than she was ready to share me. Plus I had finally gotten her pregnant, and we had our first, oh dear, Pip is going to kill me when she finds out. “Honey, how many kids do want?” I asked her tentatively.

Pip started giggling, and then it turned into a full belly laugh and tears were rolling down her cheeks. She finally settled into little hic-giggles and got out, “So you finally decided to check?”

“Sweetie, triplets are like, Wow! The only person I’ve known to have triplets was a Faerie Queen, and she needed the dragons to help her.”

“True, but Lee said Sparky’s problem was heavy gravity. My dad is from a heavy gravity world, and Amity has a lighter gravity like Harmony, so she thinks I’ll just eat everything in sight for the next eight weeks. She also said that if they fussed about who was going first, you could encourage them to behave nicely,” Pip said.

“When did you talk to Lee?” I asked.

“When you were off battling pirates. Greta told me I was having triplets. She knows these things. She said they weren’t identical either. She said you must have really got my hormones in a tizzy for me to release so many eggs.”

“Dragons commonly release three eggs,” I said without really thinking. That cracked Pip up and me too, as we remembered what we did that night. I realised I no longer needed to ask Drako what the side effects were of impregnating a dragon lady when she was in season.

“Wow, talk about instant family, my mum is going to be chuffed,” I told Pip.

“Well she has her own on the way, so a family party is going to be interesting in the future,” she replied.

I chuckled and reminded her just how big our family was when you added in the aunts, uncles, cousins and in-laws. Pip’s eyes went wide and glistened with tears, “We are so lucky aren’t we?”

“Yes, my love, neither of us is alone anymore,” I told her.

“I’ll never be alone as long as I have you, my love,” Pip told me.

That kinda choked me up, and I found I had to express my love for her again.

The next four weeks were busy. We told the locals that we were moving down the coast and they would have Dale as their Lord wizard. I explained about my idea of trying to find wizards for the main factions and that I was investigating developing low flying vehicles so they could trade better across the nation.

I told them about the new Queens, that Pip’s dad was our new Emperor, and how the changes would affect things. For the locals, Mikal probably didn’t mean much but the fact that I was now their Regent and they had their own Lord Wizard was more important.

I asked people to tell me if they wished to move, and mentioned a few of the jobs that I needed filling. Pip set up interviews for finding some people to look after our new citadel and people wanting to learn to fly.

Some of this was made easier by the fact we got a sudden influx of people who wished to move to the city. Mikal had contacted me and told me what he and Crystal had done to Dolton. He mentioned that as they were leaving, he found out about a camp that Dolton had set up and the people he had been collecting to form an army.

Pip and I flew out to the camp and found a sorry collection of people. It took us three days to just get the drugs out of their systems and remove the residual effects of spells, which Dolton had on them and any magical items they wore.

We did have to cuff a few bad apples, but for the most part, half of them didn’t even know what they were doing, they were so drugged up. The five blokes Mikal had put in charge of berry disposal soon found themselves with a lot of volunteers. Ricardo, the new Temporary Mayor, actually proved to be a godsend.