Pairs of Pumpkins #03: Duodecaplets

Ana's head tilted aside, digesting the thought for a long moment before continuing. "Zarron doesn't experiment for the money," she said before she blinked a new thought into her head. "You're Miss Marmalade the Conjurer."

"Enchanter," the feline inserted.

"I've seen the ledgers. You own more of our brothers than almost anyone: five hybrids and one... pureblood. I've seen the billing formula too. He charges a minimum of three times more for hybrids and purebloods. Zarron charged you less than the base price for them all and the pureblood was free. Nobody else ever got a free one."

"You remember all that? Look at the brains on those tits!" the feline chuckled to herself, looking up to the bull for affirmation but his reaction was predictably absent. "Yes, actually all that is correct. I have them all except the... what did you call it? Pureblood?" She huffed. "What a pretty sounding word for 'inbred.'"

"It's what it says in the ledger," Ana gave a small shrug to a bigger effect on the front of her robe. "There's only one pureblood here: Stone."

Duayne took a few steps away from Evangeline, pushing back his ears with hands, gripping his head. "Nobody said Stone was going anywhere! She can't take him!" He retreated to stand between them and the brute of a fox who was still over the sleeping equine, staring at the ceiling and oblivious to the room's exchange.

"You're here for Stone?!" Eva said in disbelief and gave an aloof shrug. "I wasn't aware that he's inbred but that makes perfect sense. I don't know if you noticed but he's a drooling moron. So, good luck with that. You get what you pay for, I guess."

Marmalade cracked a smile and turned her palms out toward the black-haired vixen. "I don't need him for interesting conversations. Besides, he's nice to look at. But seems he's a bit dense..."

CRACK!

Another jolt surged through the room and a new pillar of smoke pushed up from the seal. This time, Zarron was in the air, falling backward. He landed hard on the stone floor, unconscious.

The conversation froze and all eyes moved to him, crumpled unglamorously, his tongue half hanging out of his drool-oozing muzzle. His pink cloak heaved with deep and obvious breath, made moreso when he began to snore.

Evangeline was the first to move, balling her fists and growling. "Wake up! You're going to let my whore mother get the best of you?!" She crumpled at his side, shaking him by the shoulders but he was heavy and limp. "Three times and you couldn't stop her?! What kind of wizard are you?!"

"Not that kind, Bubbles. Life wizards are generally healers, or in this case, a baby-peddling opportunist. It's a conjurer you want in a fight." She started toward Zarron and Eva at a casual stroll, her hands presented outward as she looked up to the twelve crossbowmen above her then to Duayne.

"Don't shoot her. Yet," the young fox spat.

The feline rolled her eyes and continued, stopping behind Evangeline. "Do me a favor dear: pull that thing out of his chest."

Eva glared back then looked him over and quickly found a small dart standing out from Zarron's robe,. She plucked it out and held it up: a feather-fletched needle, covered in an oily fluid. "She POISONED him!? The devious witch."

"She only knocked him out," Marmalade said, stepping to the other side of Zarron and squatting down and casually snapping over his face. Nothing happened beyond the feline's brow crumpling with frustration. She gestured elaborately with both hands before slapping them loudly together.

"WAKE!" she commanded and Zarron, obliged, sitting upright in a panic. Her eyes moved the dart, still in Eva's hand. "That's some strong, knockout juice."

"Get off the seal! I'm going back in!" Zarron grabbed Eva's shoulder then Marmalade's knee to pull himself to his feet.

The eldest daughter scrambled back on all fours until she was clear of the circle. "Bring her back in chains! Or in pieces!" She doubled forward and snarled encouragement.

Marmalade for her part, was much more casual in vacating the seal but she did and Zarron closed his eyes and nodded once more.

Again.

Nothing.

"Dammit!" His fists clenched and his teeth gritted harder under a rising snarl and he nodded again, to no effect. He walked several small circles before he tried and failed again.

"GRRRRRRRRNNNGGGHHH!" He nodded again violently with no results but with the next nod, he slumped, deflated and defeated. "The seals are all broken. There isn't safe way to teleport back to the Pale Lands now. And she's got Joseph."

"She broke all the teleport seals?" Ana stepped in closer. "How did she find them all?"

"A Runaway Princess just got the best of you?" Marmalade crossed her arms and shifted her weight.

"Almost twenty years passed since she ran away, Marmalade. I know people like us can easily lose perspective on time once age doesn't matter anymore but she's had half a lifetime to learn new skills. It turns out she really did take up adventuring and learned how to fight. And she was completely resistant to my magic!" He pushed off the ground and wobbled as he rose to his feet, one hand holding his back.

"Interesting. I just had the same thing happen to me with your inbred, ogre-fox."

Zarron paused and squinted, his ears moving closer together atop his head. "You tried to use magic on Stone?" He said before his eyes lit up with realization. "Ahhh, you tried a Charm. No, that won't work. Stone is too stupid for any mental spells to affect him. No, Princess Vasiljev must have acquired some kind of magical resistance."

He paused for a moment and a scowl wiped over his face. "Don't use spells on my things."

"Well, that's why I'm here Zarron: I believe that per our agreement, he is my thing," she straightened herself out in a confident poise, her tail swishing behind her. "But if he's resistant to mental magic then we might have a problem."

The raccoon simmered and glared under a heavy, grey-speckled brow. "If it wasn't obvious, this isn't really a good time."

"Not my concern."

"Aren't you early?"

"By over a month!" Young Duayne stepped forward and barked, only to shrink right back under the feline's wicked glare.

"You owe me, Zarron. And your location isn't exactly convenient so unless you want me and my boys as houseguests for a month, I suggest we resolve this now. Regardless of who in this freak family of foxes are fucking each other."

Zarron slouched and sighed. "Look Marmalade: the whole 'pureblood' thing?"

"Inbred," Marmalade corrected.

"Wait, there are other inbred brothers and sisters?" Evangeline gasped. Anastasia who gave a small nod, either nonplussed or already aware.

"Tati and Titian were also... inbred," Anastasia whispered before Eva recoiled.

"Those little two monsters?"

Zarron's cold glare silenced them both before he turned to the feline, considering his words. "They were all failures. The first two boys, Tati and Titian, were twins... natural twins. I didn't force a split.

"They were the most abominable, little monsters I've ever seen and at this point, I've seen a lot of children. I sold them off to a military academy when they were five, hoping they'd learn some discipline. I received a complaint from them a few years back that the boys they bought turned out to be... not quite boys. Last I heard they ran away. It was a complete mess.

"The next three, I sold off earlier. Two of them since disappeared as murder suspects and the last one was returned after a few years because he was too damn stupid to be of much good. He's strong but no one wanted to buy a dim-witted, six year old. The last one I tried making was a feeble runt who will probably never walk and I sold him off for next to nothing. I believed your theory that this bloodline benefited from inbreeding in the past but all I got was freaks, psychos, runts and morons."

"That grand experiment was a bust. The Vasiljev children, it turns out, are affected negatively by inbreeding just like anyone else. Maybe even moreso."

Anastasia glanced at Stone then Marmalade, studying her reaction while she bit her lower lip, holding back.

The feline sorceress took a moment to consider the explanation. "Great. So now the child that I tracked down and seduced a damn PRINCE for, is returned merchandise and a fucking idiot that I can't even Charm? That wasn't the plan, Zarron. They were supposed to be unique. Bubbles here said you charge more for the inbreds."

Zarron grumbled. "We don't talk about pricing with the customers, Anastasia. You know that." With his attention back to Marmalade, he continued. "I got triple for three of them but I had to give two, normal sons up, when they returned Stone. The twins and the runt I basically gave away. Nobody has enough money to buy a designer child but only enough to buy a defective one."

Marmalade considered the situation with her tail swishing faster, irritated. "So you owe me the price of three. Three sons." Zarron's whole face squished into a scowl. "It isn't my fault that they turned out terrible and that was the going rate when we made our deal: I bring you the sperm of a Vasiljev man. You make your little inbred experiments and I get one, triple-price child for free."

"You stole sperm from someone so you could breed it with his sister?!" Eva swung her hands out before her with a jostle of her chest, glaring between them. "What the fuck is wrong with you two?"

"The whole idea that there was any value in the inbreds was your idea!" Zarron snapped at the feline sorceress.

"We made a hypothesis and it wasn't correct but that doesn't change what the deal was: I did a job worth the base price, times three. You owe me that, Zarron. Not like you don't have enough of them," she gestured to the dozen canines on the balcony, still ready to fire. "Frankly, having five of these little brats in my house made me rethink immortality. How many hundreds did you made? Are you at a thousand yet?"

Zarron grimaced and fumed for a long moment. "Fine. Three kids."

"Three sons. You know I don't want daughters. Not like them," Marmalade said and glared sideways to a disbelieving Eva and a blank-faced Ana.

Eva spun to look at her brothers on the balcony above. "She's insulting us and she's fleecing Zarron. Will someone please just pull the trigger?!"

"Stop it, Eva." The raccoon rolled his eyes. "Fine. Three sons."

"Three MATURE sons." Marmalade insisted. "I agreed to wait all these years because that's when the spell will work. I can't wait again and I will never have another crying baby in my house."

"We have to start young if we want them to imprint with you. You want to raise them your way, you have to actually raise them!"

"I came here to pick up a grown boy. So you give me three, mature sons or something else of equal value. I can handle the imprinting. You know that."

Zarron clenched his fists but stopped himself short of pouting with a long exhale before looking up to the balcony and the twelve canine soldiers on it. Their crossbows remained at ready but their postures had softened and confused glances now exchanged among them. At their elevation and distance, they were too far away to be following the conversation. "Fine. I'm losing my ass to keep all these mouths fed anyway."

"And one Teleport scroll. To get us home." Marmalade blurted and Zarron glared.

"Fine. But nothing else!" Angry eyes waited for her to acknowledge. She did, closing her eyes with a genial smile. He grumbled and looked up to the armed teens that surrounded them.

"DUODECAPLETS: STAND DOWN."

Marmalade watched with curiosity as the raccoon commanded and they obeyed. They all tucked the crossbows up and in, so that a misfire would now only hit the ceiling. All twelve of them clapped their boots together and stood upright. Zarron lifted his finger and pointed between the third and fourth among them before he gestured splitting them. "You three: come down here. The rest of you are dismissed."

The teen soldiers exchanged concerned looks but before hesitation would have become disobedience, they split as directed and nine of them turned back to the corridor from where they had emerged, their pace slow and slumped.

The unease of the remaining three was more obvious before they turned to the closest stairway, a long, grand sweep downward from the furthest extent of one side of the balcony.

"You let this woman come into your home, insult you and us and now you're going to give her three of our brothers?"

"You have hundreds of brothers and sisters, Eva," Zarron glared back at the eldest daughter. "Every one of them past you two have been merchandise. What do you suddenly care about three?"

"Suddenly?" She buckled. "I've always cared about my family. The Duodecaplets were raised with us."

"They didn't come up with you two, Evangeline. Anastasia, I raised as a daughter and a student. You I raised..." he paused and reconsidered his words. "This lot was raised by teachers and instructors to be obedient soldiers and you happened to have seen them around over the years. They don't live with us, speak with us or dine with us."

"They've been here in our home since they were infants," Eva held back her snarl, ears flat back against her head.

"In a separate wing. They aren't a part of this household."

"They are!" she protested, her thick tail swinging with agitation.

Zarron turned his body to square off with her then jabbed a finger to the bottom of the stairwell where the first of the three reached the ground floor. "What's his name?"

"You didn't give him one."

Zarron's tone became firm and challenging. "I did. You know his name."

Eva's head was tilted forward, glaring under her eyelids as she growled: "Duodecaplet."

"And him?" The raccoon pointed to the next in line as they drew closer.

"Duodecaplet."

"Him?"

"You gave them all one name," Eva was barely opening her mouth to talk now, her tail lifted behind her along with the fur of the back of her neck. "You treat twelve of them as one and any less than that as a fraction."

"No, I treat them as twelve. Twelve who are all the same. Duanye got a name. Even Stone got a name. But these boys weren't supposed to survive being born," Zarron's attention was fully on Evangeline as he spoke.

Anastasia was several steps over Evangeline's shoulder now, for her angry advances while Duayne had shifted nearly into her shadow, fearful eyes looking to Stone. The brutish canine was unconcerned with the conversation or anything else. He stood next to the sleeping stallion after his last command had been executed, like a machine of flesh that was currently switched off.

"Evangeline, you know the story: I was just trying to see how many times I could split an egg. It became less reliable after five or six so when I tried twelve, I didn't expect them to survive, let alone be so healthy."

The three canine soldiers arrived and lined up before Zarron before standing at attention, with no sign of fondness or even acknowledgement of their two elder sisters. Evangeline clenched her eyes shut, lowering her head further.

Marmalade started her inspection, pacing around them, more interested in her merchandise than the conversation. Up close now, it was easy to see their patterns and builds were as lupine as they were vulpine and the twelve were so strong and formidable for the influence of a wolf as a father.

"The Duocaplets are only remarkable because they survived infancy. Now they are just more mouths to feed. Nine of them are more than enough to protect us with all the magic we've got around here. After my current line of experiments are complete, we won't have to wait years to grow a new one.

"You have no connection to them, Evangeline. They were bodyguards. Now they're merchandise. Let it go."

Marmalade's eyes followed their exchange but her head only moved at the last words, as her curiosity piqued. She stepped forward, glancing over to see the eldest vixen fuming but not looking long enough to maintain her ire. Instead, she turned her attention back to her new acquisitions, giving a poke of them here and squeeze there, assessing their fitness and asserting her dominance. "You split an egg twelve ways to make them?"

"It was the last time I tried so many. I think I just got lucky. Six is the limit these days."

She squeezed one of their bare biceps. "They certainly seem healthy to me."

At so close an inspection, it was clear they were entirely identical, from their six-foot four height and strong, athletic builds to matching, grey and white fur patterns. Though they were disciplined and rigid, all could see they were concealing some nervousness. Marmalade turned back to Stone, appraisingly then gave a small shrug. Rolling off her booted heel, she leisurely strolled back around the three of them to rejoin the old raccoon. "Yes, they'll do. I will need a private place to conduct the ritual."

"What ritual?!" Evangeline took a step forward, and this time, Anastasia followed with some interest. The three young men kept their heads straight and attentive while their darting eyes betrayed a spike in nervous curiosity.

Zarron stifled a smile. "You wouldn't be interested, Anastasia. It's sex magic."

She cleared her throat and dipped her muzzle but didn't reply otherwise. The nervousness of the three young men changed tangibly to a different kind of excitement but all the while, they kept their poise.

Marmalade canted her head aside and squinted, ears pushing back and stared squarely at the bustier daughter. "Why wouldn't this cow like sex magic? She can't be good for much else besides breeding."

Eva threw her hands up and turned to Zarron expectantly. He answered for her, looking right past the eldest vixen. "Anastasia here is my apprentice as a sorcerer and she's quite good at it. And I tried introducing her to sex magic because... I mean, look at her," he pointed while she remained motionless in her upright posture, her robe hanging from the overabundance of her chest, masking all her other womanly curves under the umbrella it formed.

"I see that part," Marmalade eyed her with disdain. "I just don't see how this empty-eyed bimbo can move her arms with enough range to ever throw any spell with a somatic component."

"True, there's a lot of magic she'll just never be able to do with those giant breasts in the way," Zarron was all too casual in conceding her disability. It was one Anastasia knew that he'd quite intentionally given her and her jaw tightened just enough that might have been noticed, were anyone minding her face just then. "But she can still do a lot. Just not sex magic!" he said with a laugh. "As soon as she started flipping through those the spellbooks and seeing the illustrations, she had a bit of a meltdown and threw up all over my study. A priceless, erotic spellbook was ruined. I guess nobody really needs a permanent erection but some of the fertility spells could have been useful."

"I was younger then," Ana spoke matter-of-factly through her tight jaw but Zarron only laughed.

"Not that much younger, Ana. I don't know how with your heritage, you could be so afraid of sex. You certainly don't get it from your mother."

"The pictures. It looked like they were hurt," she defended softly.

Ana tried to relax her lips, hiding her clenched jaw though her fast blinking betrayed her restraint. Eva gave a huff of a laugh at the story. "Lucky not all your girls are prudes. Zarron's got big plans to pop my cherry on my next birthday."

Marmalade turned her head slowly to Zarron, like a cog struggling without adequate grease, her brow craning as high as the muscles of her forehead would allow. The elder raccoon took an unconscious step back at the feline's ire, shrinking in his posture. "A man needs a wife. A woman needs a husband. What's more perfect than one he raised and trained himself?"