Diamond

  “Sis.”

  “…”

  “Sis!”

  “…”

  “Diamond!”

  “Huh? Sorry, I was distracted. What is it?” Diamond asked.

  Luna replied, “You’ve been staring at a blank sheet of paper for a long time.”

  “Oh…” She looked in the direction of Mom’s bedroom. The door was still closed. Amber and Sarah were in there, too, and so was that foxkin lady.

  “It’ll turn out okay,” Luna reassured her, though she seemed a little unsure herself.

  “But they’ve been acting weird all day!”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes that happens when they have to do adult stuff I think?”

  “I suppose…”

  “Let’s just ask them when they come out!”

  “Yeah, okay…”

  They remained sitting at the table, but neither was able to focus.

  Who is Roumazi? She showed up out of nowhere and now everyone’s acting weird.

  A while later, the four women finally stepped out of the room. Roumazi seemed kind of anxious. They all sat down at the table with them.

  Mom started, “Girls, this is Roumazi, who you briefly met earlier. I’m sorry we’ve been busy all night, but we had to talk about some important things."

  She looked at her second daughter. “Diamond, she has answers about your birth.”

  Diamond stood up, placing her forepaws on the table. “Really?! I’ve been worried! I know I wasn’t born normally, but I’m not weird, am I?!”

  Roumazi looked guilty, and Michelle gestured for her to explain. She began speaking, and an aura of warmth and comfort emanated from her words, “Hello, Diamond. And hello again, Luna. I’m happy to see you’re doing well after all this time. My name is Roumazi, but most people know me as the Goddess of Water.

  “And no, Diamond, you aren’t weird,” she ended with a slight smile.

  “Goddess!?” Luna exclaimed, jumping up from her seat as well.

  Diamond looked between her sister and the foxkin woman. “You’re really a goddess? I’ve never felt anything like that before. It felt familiar…”

  The girls sat back down. It was a stroke of luck that the table and chair set had come with six chairs, so all of them could be seated. Roumazi was seated next to Diamond.

  “Yes, I am a goddess,” she began. “I’m sorry to say that I only just found out about you today, but there are some things I must explain…”

  The goddess then went into a rehearsed explanation of what had happened, leaving the two girls dumbfounded.

  Diamond looked at Roumazi with awe. “You’re my mom…” She looked at Mom. “My other mom, I mean.” Mom giggled.

  Finally getting answers to her questions and her unease being blown away, on top of gaining another mom, Diamond was ecstatic. She jumped off her chair and spun around in a circle. “Aaaaah! This is so cool!”

  The wolf stopped spinning, and with her tail wagging dangerously fast, excitedly asked, “Oh, does this mean I get a Gift, too?”

  Smiling at her daughter’s happiness, Roumazi replied, “With that remaining bit of my mana you had, you gave yourself a Gift; the ability to change your size. You considered it important, so it became a part of you.”

  “Oh…” Her ears flattened. “So I had a Gift this whole time…”

  Seeing Diamond’s drooping figure, Michelle spoke, “We have something else to tell you, Diamond.”

  She perked back up. “What is it?”

  “Roumazi is going to be living here with us from now on.”

  “What!?”

  The goddess laughed, “Yes, I’ll be using Sarah’s room.”

  The wolf hopped back onto her seat and gave Roumazi a lick, “I’m glad!”

  Roumazi lifted her hands in Diamond’s direction, but stopped. She looked at Michelle, who nodded urgingly at her. Roumazi resumed her movement and finally hugged her daughter for the first time.

  Diamond hadn’t felt this happy since the day she was born. This is nice. I’m so glad I know what happened back then.

  “Hey, Mom?” Diamond asked. Michelle and Roumazi both looked at her. “Uh, I mean, um… Mom? No, wait…”

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  Michelle chuckled and provided, “It’s Mom Michelle or Mom Roumazi. That’s how people here do it when it’s relevant.”

  “Oh, okay. Wait, should I be calling them Mom Amber and Mom Sarah, too?”

  “Uh…” Michelle looked between her girlfriend and friend, and ended up shrugging.

  Amber said, “It’s… fine? I hadn’t actually thought about that kind of thing…”

  Sarah shrugged, “I didn’t expect it, but I’m not against it.”

  The wolf girl yelled, “Yay!”

  Luna looked around the table at everyone. “Should I be calling all of you Mom, too?”

  Michelle replied, “You don’t have to if you’re not comfortable with that.”

  She looked at her sister whose tail was still wagging rapidly as she happily happily sat there with Roumazi’s arm around her. “I-I guess I’ll try it…”

  Diamond abruptly asked, “Oh yeah, Mom Roumazi, can you help me with my homework? I couldn’t focus on it earlier…”

  The foxkin woman smiled. “Of course.”

  Sarah chimed in, “Before that, we should eat. It’s getting late and we haven’t had dinner yet.”

  Yay! I have four moms now!

  ———

  Five weeks later…

  Amber

  Living with an actual goddess turned out to be rather underwhelming. Her duties as a deity hardly ever came up in regular conversation, and other than her masterful use of magic, nothing else really stood out.

  Once she learned that they wanted to eventually open a store of their own, Roumazi also began taking alchemy and enchanting lessons. She had actually learned the craft before, but that had been centuries ago, so her knowledge was somewhat out of date. She was rapidly catching up, however, and would just get an ordinary job until everyone else was also ready.

  I still just can’t wrap my head around the fact that a divine being can be so normal…

  The other big change was that both Diamond and Luna called her and Sarah “Mom” now. Neither of them had been expecting that to happen, but it also made it clear that they had all really become a family in their time here.

  Amber wasn’t just the person Michelle was dating, and Sarah wasn’t just a friend. They all cared deeply about each other.

  Roumazi’s addition to their pool of income also then eliminated any remaining worries over money they might’ve had. The amount of money an apprentice made wasn’t high, but unlike on Earth, they could actually afford to live on what they were paid for entry-level work.

  Still, even with the extra money, they decided to hold off on looking at houses for now. Starting a business would change their living requirements quite a bit.

  All four of them were flying through their apprenticeships as well. They weren’t required to stay for several years before being allowed to complete them, they just had to keep at it until they were deemed ready.

  Amber was motivated to turn her cosplay hobby into a job again, and while still on Earth, she had studied actual armor and weapons to help improve her skills.

  Michelle had enjoyed making custom parts for her motorcycles, and was excited to get back into making intricate things out of metal again.

  There was no way Sarah could’ve had any experience with alchemy or enchanting on Earth, but she was intelligent, and had plenty of chemical knowledge to start out with from her avid reading. And her experience with helping her cousin with electronics projects would actually translate somewhat into enchanting, or at least the thought process would. The enhanced sense of smell she had as a beastkin also gave her an extra edge.

  Roumazi’s previous experience and mastery of her magic helped her catch up quickly. She also helped the others with the knowledge and skills she had, and helped them train their magic as well.

  And Amber and Michelle had another advantage; their hearing. Elves naturally have incredibly precise hearing, able to pick out the sources of sounds and minute differences between two similar sounds with much more accuracy than non-elves.

  When it comes to hitting and grinding metal and monster materials, they can hear the differences much better than their coworkers can.

  It’s because of this ability that many elves naturally have a knack for music. Michelle had never touched an instrument before the flute, but she had been picking it up quite quickly for a novice.

  It’s honestly a bit of a shame that Michelle dropped her flute lessons, though. Despite all jokes to the contrary, she was actually starting to get the hang of it. But she has other, much stronger interests, and Luna’s reaction during her birthday party might’ve traumatized her a bit.

  All four of them and the girls also trained with their weapons and magic with combat in mind, which was normal for a kid to learn in this world. Roumazi’s weapon of choice turned out to be a spear. That’s when the others learned that a well-crafted weapon imbued with mana will always be stronger than the same weapon made entirely of the user’s magic, meaning Michelle's idea of making a sword entirely of her ice wouldn't be the awesome thing she'd hoped it would.

  They did practice sessions every morning, but the actual training at the Slayer’s Guild happened once a week. They also decided they would get into the habit of occasionally taking a slaying job. Partially for the experience, partially for the extra money, and partially as practice for when they might eventually go out to get their own ingredients and materials from time to time.

  Everyone was also motivated further by the fact that they had a goddess living with them, and wanted to prove that they wouldn’t be bad people to spend time with and that they wouldn’t be bad parents. Roumazi actually had to tell them to calm down, because they were pushing themselves too hard.

  ———

  Despite how early it was to begin planning out future projects, Amber just couldn’t help herself. She was sitting at the table sketching out various designs, using her experience and books to guide her.

  It was an interesting challenge, because she had to account for actual usage, but she also wasn’t limited to historical types of armor and weaponry like what Earth had. The existence of magic allowed for many exciting things. There was also the fact that no one on Earth had ever fought a monster before, which meant their armor was specifically designed for fighting other humans.

  Roumazi happened to walk by the table and picked up some of the drawings to look at. “Your design sense is fascinating. Though I’m surprised none of your ideas for Michelle include a whip as a weapon, given the way you two joke about it.”

  “What, like a riding crop?” Amber asked.

  “Or that,” she smirked.

  “O-Oh, you meant… But yeah, now that you mention it, I would love to see her use a whip in combat. She would look amazing. I’ll ask her when she gets back.”

  Earlier, Michelle and Sarah had gone out somewhere together, both to get groceries and just to hang out with each other.

  When they eventually returned, Amber asked, “Michelle, how would you feel about using a whip?”

  “What, like a riding crop?” Michelle asked.

  She and Roumazi both snorted. “No, like an actual whip.”

  “Oh, uh, I already use a sword, though?”

  “Yeah, but think of how hot you would look!”

  She giggled. “You make a compelling argument, but I’ll stick with my sword.”

  Sarah suggested, “What about combining them? A whip sword. I’ve seen plenty of games with one.”

  The two elves shared a look. Michelle rushed to help put away the groceries, then sat next to her girlfriend to get to work on the design. The individual parts would require some precise crafting. Sarah and Roumazi both joined in as well to work out how to enchant it so that it could easily retract into its sword shape.

  Michelle said, “Alright, I know we’re definitely going to try to make this, so… I guess I’ll need to learn the whip as well in the meantime.”

  Amber hugged her, “I am so ready to see you in action!”

  “You always are,” she responded, giving her a kiss.