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But like all who dwell in that house of tragedy, her backstory is not so kind...! Learn now what is to suffer silently in paradise... and find joy in Hell itself!\n\nAs always with Devilish offerings, there is a lot of pain and suffering abounding within the pages... Albeit for once, with an ending that is a little bittersweet! Read at your own risk. ", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Lady Lavender has been a fixture of \r\n\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDarlonDemonic\r\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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's manor for some time... But like all who dwell in that house of tragedy, her backstory is not so kind...! Learn now what is to suffer silently in paradise... and find joy in Hell itself!

As always with Devilish offerings, there is a lot of pain and suffering abounding within the pages... Albeit for once, with an ending that is a little bittersweet! Read at your own risk. ", "writing": "The canvas of the sunset spread wide across the sky, painted with lively hues of red and gold, gave way to the coming dark. As the evening wore on, and the moon ascended to her glittering throne, the night became overtaken by the prettiest shades of blues and violets… \n\n...lavender swathes of grandiose beauty.\n\nA Noivern sat, her lanky legs dangling over the cliff-side’s edge as she watched the divine display with wonder... Her eyes sparkled as she peered up at the beautiful moon that dominated the sky; icy, yet warm… Ominous, yet comforting…\n\nIt was clear why it represented motherhood to so many…\n\nThe draconic girl was old enough now to begin having ambitions. Others of her kind were chasing mates of high stature, or chittering about how they would make grand eyries and rule as a vicious draconic monarch…\n\nThis one held no such desire. No grand need to be displayed for all to adore and fear… While others cloyed for males who could give them power… She merely wanted the children that the warm embrace of a lover could provide…\n\nHer ambition was simple; The soft sigh of her baby, the feel of their cheek against her chest… That is all she would ever need…\n\nShe stood on the cliff’s edge and spread her wings to the coming night… She basked in the moonlight’s glow, and she envisioned the weight on her front…\n\nShe thanked whatever divinity was listening for her chance at maternity… Then she turned and walked back through the swaying grass towards her home, a song on her lips and her strides nearly a dance of happiness...\n\nIt would be only a few years later that she was knelt again upon that same cliff… Her tears flowed endlessly… Her shoulders shook with silent sobs… \n\nHer claws were clutched so desperately to a damningly flat and empty midsection...\nAs the sun rose and cast its light over the hidden village… Lavender slowly opened her eyes, and groaned softly…\n\nBad dreams. Bad memories… A moment from her past that always haunted her when she least expected… The ghost of children she never had, fluttering to her side in the night and snipping at her viciously…\n\nIt was many years later from that dream. Too many to count, or perhaps simply enough that it no longer mattered. The valley was a gem untouched by outer influences… The humans never found this place, and any other malign forces were oblivious thanks the valley’s cradle, and the protective, dense sea of trees that hid it.\n\nLavender had been born here. Pokemon made their way perfectly fine without anything to bother them… In fact, this village had erected huts, buildings for common use… A budding city in its infancy… Though…\n\nIt would likely stay that way. The Pokemon therein were still beholden to their natures… Males still stalked the streets and demanded of females, even those not necessarily ‘theirs’. The hierarchy of the town began at the strong protectors of them all, descended to the stalwart mothers among them…\n\n...and at the bottom, those who could do neither, and so merely scraped by on charity and… desperate hope…\n\nLavender brushed her fur out with a crude wooden comb. With her ruff looking presentable, she adorned herself with lunar gemstones… still in the vain hope that the moon would grant her wishes…\n\nShe stepped up to her front door. The great, feminine bat took a moment to rub her face and put herself in the correct mindset…\n\nThe listless, empty expression on her face was teased out. She forced the gaze to be a little more jovial, and remembered to push the corners of her mouth up in a way she hoped didn’t seem like a grimace. She pulled her shoulders out of their depressed slump, and fixed a few stubborn curled locks on her furry collar…\nShe made herself presentable… At one point it was to display how fitting a mate she was… To attract a male. Even a magically inclined female…? She was not picky at this point, given all she really wanted was… a...\n\nHer renewed expression faltered a bit… She thought she might cry, and so stamped her foot and started muttering to herself to distract…\n\n“...mm, must be sure to go to the Intelleon outside of town. The mill should have flour. I can bake a bit on the quiet days and the little ones will enjoy what I over-make for certain…”\n\nShe nibbled a claw, and soon her mind had wicked away the growing blanket of dread and doubt. As she focused on caring for her babies, she took a cloak that was hanging by the door and settled it on her shoulders, the hood being carefully arranged to shade her eyes…\n\nThen she emerged unto the sunny street, and closed the door to her modest hut behind her…\n\nAlready, Pokemon of all shapes and sizes were milling, lumbering, rushing, and playing out their lives. It was a peaceful place, no matter the trouble brewing under the surface; a Lucario yanked his Lopunny mate a bit tighter against him and proudly declared to his gathered friends that they were having another. The bunny looked miserable, with two in her arms, one at her leg, and one bulging her front…\n\nLavender averted her eyes. She tucked her wings softly, like the sleeves of a robe, as she continued on…\n\n“...Hello Ms. Lavender…” the bunny said, as she passed. The Buneary clinging to her mama’s leg suddenly released and ran over to Lavender’s leg instead…\n\n“Mama Lavvy Mama Lavvy…”\n\n“Shush you.” The Lucario said, quickly pulling his baby back… “You’ll see her when you’re taken to the school. This is your mama…”\n\nThe Lopunny gave a pained, apologetic smile to Lavender. The stone-set expression on the dragon’s face didn’t faltered, and the shadows helped hide the agony that such an interaction caused…\n\n“I will see you at the school, little one.” she cooed. The Lucario waved his paw without looking to dismiss her, and returned to scolding his child…\n\n“Honestly, what did she carry you in her body for… All that time and effort and you’ll call some barren nobody your mama…”\n\n“Mama Lavvy is nice…”\n\nLavender closed her ears to the rest, difficult as that was. Her species made it painfully easy to catch sounds from far away, but thankfully a bit of effort let her focus shift from listening to a bunny baby start to cry for being scolded, to a gathered gaggle of cooing, excited voices…\n\nShe kept her mind firmly upon them as she strode through the streets. She made for an intense presence; some who didn’t know her as anything but the ‘schoolmarm’ gave her a wide berth, and it wasn’t hard to work out why; she was taller than even other Noiverns of her age, and her body was shaped a bit differently too… A little more upright, and certainly more buxom. It was a somewhat common mutation, especially in this region of the world. She was tolerated… But…\n\nLavender always felt more than one eye glancing up at her in confused disgust… And those giant ears couldn’t help but pick up some of the snide comments…\n\n“...ugh, who would want a mate like that… Not even remotely huggable… monstrous brute… At least she makes a good teacher…”\n\nShe ignored them. She had to. The hood on her face kept her eyes hidden from the sun, and so that others couldn’t see the silent, downcast face of pain she now wore… A glare at the grass under her path as she walked… At the light chub of her tummy that indicated nothing more than too many sweet berry cakes to bury her sorrow…\n\nAnd yet even now… Her head lifted, and her smile returned to her face with genuine brightness…\n\n“Mamaaaaa!”\nShe walked around a corner and into the fenced yard of the school… There was not much to teach young ones in a simple place as this valley, so it was more of a glorified day-care than anything else… But Lavender took her job very seriously, and did her best to teach these little ones just as well as she would her own…\n\nImmediately, a dozen young Pokemon had gathered around her legs. They tugged and begged and stared up with cute faces, eyes glittering happily at the sight of someone who brought them such joy… To them, it didn’t matter who ‘gave birth’ to them… Lavender’s was the aura of warmth that they demanded each day when they awoke…\n\nSimple, naive creatures… Beautiful and innocent. She crouched and spread her wings. Her hood fell back, but she no longer had anything to hide… Her smile now was real and eager as she took each one into a firm embrace, not letting a single one be left out…\n\n“There you are, my lovely babies…” she cooed. From the erected hut of wood and clay that served as the schoolhouse, an Audino emerged. Unlike Lavender’s gentle smile, she wore a pouting frown of exhaustion… It was quite unbefitting, given how soft and sweet her species usually were…\n\n“...Finally… You were almost a few minutes late this time… And you know time is money…”\n\n“Mmm.” Lavender answered. This Audino was one of the few she didn’t mind turning her back on, with how sour and… ungrateful… she was.\n\nIndeed, her own front was heavily laden. She acted as the town’s doctor, and now would have to doctor herself. Lavender would be even more busy once the Audino could no longer show up early in the morning for the nocturnal Noivern…\n\n“Look… I am taking my ‘break’, starting tomorrow. I’m not staying on my feet for another week…”\n“...I see.” Lavender said gently. Her eyes never left the babies around her… A Froakie wanted to show off a cool pebble they’d found in the river… ‘so smooth!’, Lavvy responded by gasping in delight, as if they had found a piece of treasure… Another, an unsure Flaaffy, huddled nervously against Lavender’s thigh, freshly evolved and having difficulty adjusting. She started whimpering louder… The bat mother responded by hoisting her up to cling to her side. The little ones felt safer in those wings, with their faces hidden in ‘mama’s’ furry collar, oh so soft…\n\n“Mm? I didn’t expect that. I thought you’d be more upset at having to get up with the morning light…”\n\n“It is what it is. I wouldn’t make a mother as heavy as you stand on her feet for so long. It would endanger your little one…”\n\n“Heh…” The Audino sighed, and leaned against the doorway heavily… “Yeah, suppose it would… But you can’t be late. If someone shows up to drop their kid off… Then…”\n\n“I will sleep here. In the Schoolhouse.”\n\n“That… There’s no bed. No anything. Are you sure…?”\n\n“Of course… The thought of a little one left on the doorstep, alone… Unable to help themselves…”\n\n“Yeah, yeah…” The Audino rolled her eyes. She glanced down at a Ralts who tugged her hand… And even the grouchy nurse-mon couldn’t help but pat their head. Her sour pout became at least a smirk as the Ralts burbled happily…\n\n“Well, fine. If you want I can get a male to drag a cot in there for you, at least…”\n\n“Thank you, my dear…” Lavender finally stood, the flaaffy still clinging and sniffling… “Go now to your rest. I will be fine here…”\n\n“That much I can trust. You don’t really belong anywhere but here, eh?”\nLavender’s expression remained bright as she watched the Audino go. As soon as she had gone, however, the Noivern’s face fell heavily…\n\n“...I suppose I don’t, hm…?” she muttered very quietly to herself… “This valley is… where I ‘belong’...”\n\nNo matter how many nights she begged the silent shadows… No matter how often she found herself knelt on her bedroom floor, sobbing her eyes dry from desire… From NEED…\n\n...this village ‘paradise’ could not grant it to her.\n\nThere was not a single Noibat among these gathered children… As much as the youthful congregated Pokemon stared up with sparkling eyes and eager faces, as much as she loved them… As much as she would sever her own wings just to assure their happiness…\n\n...none had come from her… The void remained maddeningly unfilled… And sometimes she wondered if indeed she was tormenting herself by being at this schoolhouse, with all she wanted so tantalizingly close and yet…\n\n“...Miss Lavender…?”\n\nShe started from her thoughts, realizing she had been stood there stupidly the entire time... letting the odious, depressive sadness sneak up on her… In broad daylight… In front of her babies no less.\n\nThe Flaaffy stared in silent, concerned confusion… But Lavender perked and chuckled away the gloomy aura to hug her tightly…\n\n“Come then, little ones. Lavvy is going to teach you to use pigment from berries to create pictures…”\n\nThey cheered with an innocent excitement that made Lavender’s heart flutter. She herded them carefully into the schoolhouse, and away from her weighty troubles. She would not allow the doubts to linger a moment longer when she could be enjoying the company of the only creatures in this world who could soothe the endless, starving ache within…\nThis was her routine. Each day she would awake, a bit later than the others, given her nocturnal nature, and make her way to the schoolhouse. She fed the children, and nibbled on what was left to fill her own needs. She corralled naughty babies with a soft sweep of her wing, and shushed tantrums by cradling them to her chest. When there wasn’t enough to go around, Lavvy could always make sure the babies would share, and feel happier doing so…\n\nIt was the only time of the day she felt… alive. She had given up flirting the moment it became clear that her dire affliction would leave her and a mate unhappy forever. The males in the village might have once acknowledged her beauty, but her looming height and her surprising ferocity when it came to protecting and nurturing her babies had turned off suitors… until the moment where they no longer had a reason to even try.\n\nThough they built homes together and kept common laws, these Pokemon were barely above the feral savagery of the mindless Pokemon within the surrounding forests. They valued the natural cycle of life above all things; the strong protected the weak… The males made the nests, and fought off threats…\n\nAnd females… Were SUPPOSED to carry children… And one who could not was seen as ugly, no matter how beautiful they truly were...\n\n“Mama Lavvyyyyyy…”\n\nLavender was jarred from her thoughts once more. She turned around curiously to see a sniffling little Azurill there, bouncing nervously on their tail…\n\n“Goodness Ruru, what is…?”\n\n“Sebi hit me…”\n\nThe bat matron’s ears flicked gently, and she sighed softly. She walked across the room, careful to avoid disturbing the various little children all gathered up in little groups, drawing their pictures…\nShe crouched to a sit in the corner, with a little Mawile. The baby had her face pushed into the corner, her arms hanging limp with frustration… She was already punishing herself… She was used to it…\n\n“Sebi… Did you hit Ruru?”\n\n“...I’m in the corner, mama…”\n\nLavender sighed and looked back to the Azurill. The weepy thing was already back with friends, dabbing their tail in berry juice and dragging it across the simple parchment paper to make pretty colours. They’d forgotten about the incident already, feeling acknowledged… But…\n\nSebi was always in trouble anyway, for just this kind of thing…\n\n“...Did she do something, Sebi…?”\n\nSebi pushed her face more firmly into the corner. Lavender remained there, hands set on her legs daintily and her lap open. Within a moment of resisting, the little one had given up, and quickly stumbled over to collapse against Lavender’s chest instead. She gently wiped the dust from the girl’s forehead and nose…\n\n“...took my rice biscuits…”\n\n“Ahhh… She took something from you?”\n\n“...s… she asked if she could have one… So I gave it to her… I s-shared mama, like you said…”\n\n“I know you don’t like to eat much else… Did you get upset because you had less?”\n\nThe little girl couldn’t articulate it that well. She merely whimpered and clutched at ‘mama’ desperately, simultaneously begging not to be in trouble and apologizing with blubbered, half whined words…\n\n“Ahh, shh, shh… It’s okay Sebi, you’re not in trouble… You can’t hit other students, but that’s because you might hurt them, hm…?”\n\n“I d-don’t wanna hurt… I just want my… My biscuits…”\n\nLavender frowned deeply and thought for a moment. She stared down at the little one against her chest, who was sniffling and muttering upset little nothings to herself. The Noivern knew that her little ward had more than a bit of trouble with the incredibly sweet berries that were given to the babies each day to eat…\n\n“...Sebi dear… If I gave you a berry that didn’t ‘hurt your tongue’… Would you be less upset if your rice biscuits were gone?”\n\n“A-All the berries hurt my tongue…” responded the girl, sullenly… “And in my cheeks… And…”\n\nLavender embraced her gently again, shushing her. Her ears tilted carefully as she listened to the gentle, playful conversations of the children around her, monitoring them ever for something she could help with. She hadn’t moved from the spot there on the ground so little Sebi didn’t feel pressured and wasn’t stared at… She was a fragile little thing, underneath all that upset rage that could occasionally spout…\n\n“What berry does your mama at home feed you…?”\n\nShe sniffled deeply and rubbed her eyes, thinking…\n\n“...she puts Tamato on my rice biscuits sometimes… that makes me… r-really happy…”\n\nLavender blinked in surprise… Such a berry would usually burn the mouth quite heavily…\n\n“I suppose… she has a good recipe?”\n\n“Ah? She… She just slices it… And puts it on…”\n\nLavender tilted her head slowly, as if she was having trouble believing it… She chuckled softly, and petted the girl’s back gently...\n\n“Well… Then I will request that they start delivering a few of those as well. So you can have food here, even if your rice biscuits are gone…”\n\n“...Mamaaaa… noooo… that’s too niiiiiice…”\n\n“Aha! Nothing is too nice for one of my little ones…” she cooed, and cuddled the girl firmly… She turned and lifted herself, with the girl still in her wing clinging tighter, her expression brightening eagerly…\n\n“Come along Sebi… For now, we will join the others in drawing…”\n\n“T-Thank you… I didn’t wanna miss it…”\n\n“Mmmhm… One thing, however…”\n\n“Ouh…?”\n\n“You’ll have to apologize to Ruru…”\n\n“...aaarrrggh…”\nLavender giggled and set her near the Azurill. The two made up very quickly, and soon the children were all happily engaged in their artwork…\n\nIf that was all her life was… Solving the pain of these beautiful little children, and ensuring their health and happiness… Oh, the sweetness of her existence would have hurt Sebi’s tongue for sure… Lavender stood there, leaned softly against a wall, her eyes roving over them… And for a moment, she was overwhelmed with such longing…\n\n...the creeping dread of the world outside soon came back to grasp her away from the gentle dream she so desperately wished to live…\n\n“What do you mean ‘again’… She isn’t starting fights, is she?”\n\nSebi frowned down at the path below. It was late now, and all the children had been taken back with their parents. Sebi was the last, and Lavender had mentioned the day’s events, as she often did… Simply to relive the memories one last time before they slipped through her fingers…\n\n“Oh… I…” Lavender glanced away. Sebi’s mother was there; an adult Mawile who had a sharp attitude, and could be hostile at the drop of a hat. Lavender always dreaded talking to her…\n\n“...she’s had a few small incidents, is all. She got frustrated and swung her arm.”\n\nThe Mawile glanced down at Sebi, her eyes narrowing. Sebi flinched softly…\n\n“...Thank you for telling me that. She’s got a lot she needs to adjust…”\n\n“I d-didn’t…” began the child nervously, but the massive set of jaws behind snapped just above her head, making her flinch harder…\n\n“Quiet. We’ll talk about this…”\n\n“Miss, I don’t mean to say she started fights. She… She struck another child, it happens… She’s only working out emotions…”\n\n“And my daughter is not going to be a thug… Why did you fight anyway?”\n\n“...My… Biscuits...”\n“You and those damn things… If you ate ANYTHING else, I would…”\n\n“Ah!” Lavender perked… “Wait, she mentioned something…”\n\n“...yes?” The Mawile asked, raising her eyebrow…\n\n“Tamato. She enjoys it.”\n\nThe Mawile blinked softly, and then seemed to realize…\n\n“...Hmm. You know, you’re right… I didn’t even think about that. I put all sorts of berries on top of her biscuits to try and get her to eat… I usually just end up having to clean plates of old berry mush…”\n\nSebi stuck her tongue out quietly at the idea of all the sweet tang that the contact with the berry had left with her biscuits…\n\n“I didn’t even realize she’d eaten those ones… How did… She won’t talk about…”\n\nThere was a sudden, quiet stillness. It was late evening, and Lavender’s eyes were gently aglow with the fading light. The Mawile looked her up and down… And then looked at Sebi…\n\n“Do you like the spicy Tamato?”\n\n“Yes… mama.”\n\n“...It doesn’t burn?”\n\n“A little, but… not like, bad. I like it…”\n\nThe Mawile’s expression grew distant once more. Lavender nervously shuffled, unsure what to think as the silence became tense…\n\n“...That… Audino, I heard her ranting today. Talking smug about taking a bunch of time off because of her baby…”\n\nLavender smiled weakly and gestured gently to the schoolhouse behind…\n\n“Yes. I will stay here, to ensure I’m always ready to care for our young...”\n“Not… In your home?”\n\n“The… Ah, Audi said she was going to find me a cot to lie on, but… She appears to have forgotten…”\n\nThe Mawile looked frustrated, though her ire was far more entertaining when it happened to be pointed at your enemies. She sighed softly…\n\n“If you like… I can take the early morning classes.”\n\nLavender gasped… She tilted her head gently in surprise…\n\n“What? You would do that? Why…?”\n\nThe Mawile chewed her cheek for a moment before turning her head away entirely…\n\n“...Look… Little Sebi… No one has ever gotten her to eat anything besides her favourite food. I was… really worried she wouldn’t grow up proper without… I… Tried so many times to make her tell me what she liked, but she never…”\n\nShe fell silent, and then abruptly turned around…\n\n“They call you mama, right…?”\n\n“I don’t… ask them to do that… They simply insist on it… They say teacher is not what I am…”\n\nThe Mawile looked down at her daughter, and watched the younger Pokemon flinch away heavily from her gaze. Then she saw Sebi glance up at Lavender, with the look she should have been giving to her mother…\n\nSave me, mama…\n\n“I’ll be here. Don’t worry about it…”\n\n“Miss…”\n\n“My name is Tasse.” she muttered…\n\n“Ah… Tasse then…” Lavender said, a bit more confidently...\n“I don’t mean to imply anything… Only that I take my job here very seriously… I treat these children as my own… And if I ever knew that something bad happened to them, e-even if I was not the one watching after them… I don’t believe I’d forgive myself… So… Please, when you do take them in tomorrow morning? Just… Be… Be kind to them. They are their own little creatures…”\n\nTasse’s large maw curled and ground its teeth. Lavender stood her ground, though it would have been very easy for Tasse to harm her… Quite badly, in fact…\n\n“...I… understand.” Tasse responded, as she squeezed Sebi’s hand gently… “You don’t have to worry about it, Lavvy…”\n\n“Oh… Lavvy is what they call me too…”\n\nTasse gained a dry grin and nodded… “I know… Some nights, Sebi won’t shut up about you…”\n\n“S-Sorry, mama…”\n\n“...don’t be, baby. She’s someone to talk about, huh?”\n\nThe two Mawile walked off into the growing dusk. Lavender let out a held breath, sighing in relief that nothing bad had happened… And better, that she had seemed to help Sebi…\n\nShe even walked without her hood, and even with a gentle sway and a sigh of happiness…\n\n“...Lavender.”\n\nShe froze, and her warm mood iced over instantly. She turned slowly, her claws tucked meekly to her chest…\nThe sharp, studious gaze of a Clefable met her eye. They were a particularly fecund looking female, though their eyes were sunken and they’d clearly gone past their once prodigious days of child-bearing…\n\nThe village Matriarch. The Lady, mate to the powerful Pokemon who had declared themselves the protector and ruler of this land… A creature of much influence and purport…\n\n“Yes, ma’am…?” muttered Lavender, as if she was staring down a creature twice her size, instead of it being the other way around. The Clefable tapped her claw against her arm, inspecting the woman with a particular air of disgust and annoyance…\n\n“Who was that just now that you were speaking to?”\n\n“...Ah, Sebi… Sebi’s mother, Ah, um… Tasse. That’s what her name was, Tasse…”\n\n“And did I hear she offered to take the early spot for you?”\n\n“Yes, ma’am…”\n\n“...Hm.” The Clefable seemed ponder this for some time, before shaking her head softly…\n\n“...She was a taskless layabout. She isn’t even bearing more offspring. She claims the one she has is rough enough… Hmph. I’m talking to the wrong female…”\n\nLavender turned her head away. The Clefable either didn’t notice, or didn’t care…\n\n“If she’s going to be tending the young, be assured she can do so properly. I’ll put her failures on your head.”\n\n“Yes ma’am…”\n\n“Good. Go on.”\n\nLavender turned and quickly moved away, fleeing down the streets from the glare of the Matriarch… The older Pokemon turned and sighed heavily, rubbing between her eyes before continuing on…\n“...bloody waste of meat Dragon type…”\n\nLavender made her way to her hut, and stepped inside.\n\nWhen she closed the door, it was nearly pitch black. Her ears allowed her to ‘see’ just fine… But even to her adjusted eyes, there was little to take in…\n\nNot much furniture. No real adornments on the walls, besides some lunar décor… and every drawing, sculpture, and ‘cool rock’ she’d ever been given, hung festooned across one wall…\n\nShe sat softly across from it. Her brush in one paw, she carefully maintained her beauty… But her eyes were grey, and her gaze was distant… Any mote of warmth within her was gone as soon as she was alone…\n\nAnd she was indeed alone…\n\nShe kept the ritual. She groomed herself to be presentable to potential mates, as vaporous as they might have been… She heated a stew over a small fire, and took it to maintain a healthy weight…\n\n...it all tasted like nothing. Every tugged strand of fuzz from the ruff on her neck hurt a little less. She already wasn’t paying attention to the clumps she was pulling free, as the comb raked through...\n\nWas she that old, already? Wasn’t it yesterday she was sitting at the cliffs, thanking the gods above for her chance at such perfect maternity? Exulting her existence, her purpose… Before she knew what a cruel joke life was…\n\nShe was not old in years. Dragons lived for so very long… But her spirit creaked and sagged like rotted wood under heavy stones at the thought of ‘living’ with a cursed existence as this one…\n\nDying of thirst… Stood in the rain… Mouth taped firmly shut…\n\nShe felt a patter against her hand, and looked at the tears glistening in the moonlight… She reached up and wiped them away…\n\nShe went on… And if ever she had to question why, she simply had to look up at the wall opposite her… See the silver light that cascaded from the moon shine down on the terrible drawings and the misshapen sculptures… All of them… Irreplaceable treasures… \nAnd she could not leave them… She could not bear the thought that they wouldn’t understand why she was gone…\n\nShe sighed gently, and stood. She paced her room… She tidied up… She attempted to read a small parchment of lore, something to perhaps teach the children… But it all seemed so insignificant… \n\nIn the end, she returned to her bed, and tucked her wings gently around herself. As the moon faded in the sky, her eyes closed… Her dreams were once more tormented by the faces of sneering suitors, and the children she felt incomplete without…\n\nThe routine would continue. She had little choice in the matter at this point. To brave the forest paths that lead out was folly for one who shied away from fighting all her life… And her prospects here were increasingly dry…\n\nAll she had was her children. To push her way past the beginning and end of each day to get to the glorious middle of it… Those smiling faces… The eager laughter…\n\nIt was all she had any more...\n\nShe met Tasse at the schoolhouse the next morning. Once the awkward female had left with barely an acknowledgement, Lavender heard giggling tales from the children of how strange ‘Mrs. Tasse’ was, how she was so stiff and could be snappy… Sebi was incredibly embarrassed, and she whined to Lavender about it whilst happily chewing on a Tamato…\n\nLavender was surprised… In truth, she had been tense about leaving the class in the care of someone who seemed as child-safe as a large pair of scissors… And yet…\n\n“She was nice…!”\n\n“I think she was mad all the time, but she was trying not to show!”\n\n“Is she really gonna be our teacher now too… My other mama?”\n\nLavender chewed her cheek and set Sebi on her knee to kiss her forehead gently…\n\n“She is your first mama. It seems she truly wants to try to teach, at least…”\nThe Noivern sighed happily, and set Sebi down to shoo her along with the others. She stared out of the window, down the path Tasse had taken, and contemplated deeply…\n\nFrom then on, as Tasse tried to leave, Lavender would ask her to stay…\n\nAt first, it was for only a few moments… To show her simple things, such as how to signal the children to line up, or how to quickly count heads, (or closest equivalent to head at least)… But with each day, Tasse stayed a little longer… She went from someone who would sweep up dust piles and dry leaves, muttering about being there later than she should have… To someone who quietly watched Lavender work, with silent awe…\n\nChildren were a sore subject in a village that demanded as many of them be made as possible, and as quickly as possible, at all times. Females tended to resent their roles as ‘factories’, while males were pressured constantly to have and provide for massive families… The valley operated under two primal rules; physical strength, and fertility.\n\nLavender, though she was supposed to have both, sadly had neither. But she wouldn’t have used the strength even if she had it… She knew how to care for children…\n\n“A natural born mother… But… She’s infertile, huh? Damn… Fate is a cruel bitch sometimes…” Tasse muttered to herself, perched in a far corner of the room as if she too were a child, sat with her head in her hands and listening to story time…\n\nHer sense of pity for the dragon only grew over the weeks she observed Lavender… Tasse saw her, not only within the schoolhouse’s walls, but in the market and sometimes passing by someone else’s nest, where she would be shyly discussing events at the schoolhouse in much the same way she had to the Mawile mother…\n\nThe Steel type suddenly felt a crushing amount of guilt, loathe as she was to admit… But it was incredible what something so small as changing your diet can do… Sebi was happier, healthier… She was even beginning to open up about foods she enjoyed. Perhaps in time, she would start to try new things again… And it was all thanks to Lavender simply… Listening.\n“With those big… Stupid ears and…”\n\n“Hmm?”\n\n“OH!”\n\nTasse stiffened and went red, as she turned and looked up at Lavender. Disarming as she was, she was still as tall as four Tasse’s stacked up on one another…\n\n“Aha… Nothing, just… Talking to myself…”\n\n“You do that a lot… Though it rarely makes much sense…”\n\n“It’s just me spitefully saying things I shouldn’t just to vent some ste-… HEY. Wait… I was muttering all of those under my breath!”\n\n“Eheh. ‘Big stupid ears’, remember?”\n\nTasse blushed deeply… They were standing outside the schoolhouse, and it was late enough in the day that the sky had faded from its crisp blue to a muffled orange, soon to be replaced by the chilly gleam of night…\n\n“Sorry. If I say things that offend you…”\n\n“...You know, Tasse, I would of course say not to mention it… But I notice something about you as the weeks go on…”\n\n“Hm…?”\n\n“You seem to be… Happier.”\n\nTasse smiled weakly and nodded, turning to look at Sebi… She was talking excitedly to Ruru, and hadn’t had an ‘incident’ in awhile… and it wasn’t just because her ‘mean’ mama was there glaring down at her all the time at school…\n\n“...She’s better. Or, rather… She’s happier. And… If you hadn’t done what you did, I would have just kept forcing things that made her sick onto her...”\n“You would have understood eventually. You are her mama…” Lavender said, gently…\n\n“No, I’m not.” she sighed, as she shook her head firmly… “I’m just the female who gave birth to her. You were her mother for the longest time…”\n\nThe words struck them both. Tasse hadn’t meant them to be so stark, but now she turned, and rubbed her eyes. Lavender glanced away… And then reached to touch her shoulder…\n\n“You have always been her mother… Now you simply understand how to be a good one… Right?”\n\nTasse didn’t answer… Lavender didn’t move her hand…\n\n“...Tasse… It’s not too late… She is already relaxing so much around you… Whether you harmed her or not before is not what… what you should be focused on, right?”\n\nTasse stared across the yard at her daughter, the little girl snapping her jaws playfully at Ruru… Before, she might have called out… Demanded she not do that, to behave, but… She couldn’t imagine doing that to the sweet girl before her now… And it was a particular agony to realize she had always been that way…\n\n“...I’m not perfect, Lavender. I know I’m going to screw this up…”\n\n“T-Tasse…”\n\n“...But… I love her. And I…”\n\nLavender turned her and pulled her into a gentle embrace. The Mawile flinched, but sighed and hugged back gently…\n\n“That…” Lavender said, as she released the hug and stood back up once more… “That is all you need… You love her.”\n\nTasse wicked away a tear… Only a single one, compared to the twin streams Lavender now had… But once they had both composed themselves, they bid each other farewell, and Lavender watched as Tasse went to Sebi, picked her up, and walked off into the distance with her and Ruru… All of them still softly chattering with their spirits high...\n...A joyful little family… Once more, Lavender was alone… Once more, the needles sunk in, one by one…\n\nTime to return to that torture device called ‘living’…\n\nShe took a few steps, when she realized that something was pricking her ear…\n\nShe twitched it, and aimed it to catch the sound better… And then she heard it more clearly…\n\n“...G-Goodness… Something is… Is hurt…?”\n\nShe turned, as if to go into the village and quickly get someone to help. But another, far more dire squeal set her maternal instincts sharply on edge… And without thinking much, she turned and ran quickly…\n\nShe strode across the green plains… Along the hill and to the treeline… The beginning of the paths that would take one out of the village… Occasionally, a traveller was attacked on these paths, or a wild Pokemon fell at the village outskirts. That’s all it likely was, and Lavender couldn’t do much to help in either case…\n\nBut that screech… That desperate wail sounded so much like a child in distress that her mind’s sense simply vanished in favour of something far simpler…\n\nProtect the children…!!!\n\nShe pushed into the trees without thinking. She followed her ears like a hound would follow her nose, her eyes lidded as she turned her head, and then pushed through the under-brush…\n\nHer fluffy collar would be a mess by the end of all this…\n\nShe finally emerged unto a clearing, and stared quietly with horror. She saw a Sawsbuck, laid there on her side and writhing… Her pregnant belly was slashed severely, and her steaming organs were sagging from her pelt…\n\n“...You bloody little buffoon… Do you want to mush the meat…!?”\n“W-Why would it matter…!?”\n\nSMACK!\n\nLavender’s eyes widened as she heard the cry again… Indeed, an anguished young cry… She backed away from the corpse nervously, feeling her stomach churn painfully at the sight and scent…\n\nAnd then she felt herself bump into something… Something that felt like a knot of pure muscle, just under a soft and rubbery skin…\n\n“...Ugh.”\n\nLavender wasn’t sure what happened next… She was sent spinning, and crashed heavily into the trees. She opened her eyes dizzily, watching everything swirl as mere colours in her view for how hard she had hit a tree… She began to panic when she realized she had been tossed against the corpse, and its blood was now splattered over her form…\n\n“I-I… I… W-Wha?!”\n\nSomething landed daintily on her thigh… She gripped her head and shook it firmly before opening her eyes again and staring in confusion…\n\nA particularly smug looking little Floragato sauntered up her leg and stood on her belly. She grinned gently, and with as much menace as she could muster… But it was shattered in a moment when an arm smacked the back of her head, and made her whine like the child she was once more…\n\n“You… Ruined. It.”\n\n“H-How did I ruin it, Crimmy…”\n\n“Crimson. CRIM. SON.”\n\nThe cat pouted hard. Lavender’s heart raced as a cruel looking, shark toothed Manaphy floated into view…\n\n“...the womb spilled its contents all over… We came all this way to find a good Sawsbuck and… It wasn’t even fully formed. Gross...”\n“Awwwhhh! Why do we need to cook them together anyway?!”\n\n“You want to be the cook, don’t you?!”\n\n“NOT REALLY.”\n\nCrimson gave her a vile glare, and the kitten gave a shaky, submissive smile, before Crimson’s head turned to look at Lavender…\n\n“...Well, this one is good enough… She’s even better, actually. She’s a dragon… That meat is good, if it’s soft…”\n\nLavender gasped gently as she felt a claw prodding along her belly and chest…\n\n“Yep… Yep! This one is nice and soft...~”\n\n“Heh…” Crimson’s smirk grew wide, baring the jagged and bloodied fangs below… “Alright… Guess what, ‘lady’… You’ve gotten very lucky… You’re gonna serve me a nice meal…”\n\n“Serve… AS the nice meal, nya? NYAH!”\n\nAutumn’s head jerked forward again as Crimson bonked her softly…\n\n“Don’t just say it out loud, fool… Tie this one up…”\n\n“She’s flat…”\n\n“Then you’ll practice your alchemy today too, huh?”\n\nThe Floragato grumbled heavily and produced a binding vine. Lavender was too shocked to resist…\n\nAs she was bound up, her head lifted in the direction of the village…\n\n“...wait… n-no…”\n\nShe gasped softly and gave a groan of despair as they began to drag her away, deeper into the forest… And away from her babies...\nIn the dank cells below the devil’s manor, the degraded female sat in chains…\n\nThey were a cruelty, and nothing more… A sick joke, mocking her attempts to escape… She wouldn’t have tried even if they had dropped her untethered on the front lawn...\n\nShe knew of this place. She had heard whispered stories about it at least… A dark realm tucked away within the forests, on the edge of the coast somewhere… A nightmare that no Pokemon ever returned from…\n\n...A Hell, ruled over by the cruelty of one odious monster…\n\nThe cell’s door swung open, and light flooded the chamber. In the nearby cages, other Pokemon cried out in desperation…\n\n“H… Help us…”\n\n“My water…!”\n\n“O… Oooh…”\n\nLavender could hear them all, tormented by their laboured screams. In the doorway, the Floragato stood, her tail flicking and her paws on her hips. Her eyes glowed eerily in the shadow, like ashen embers…\n\n“...Why aren’t you BIG?!”\n\nLavender started and pulled herself nervously to a stand. The chains around her wrists rattled softly… They didn’t appear to be attached to anything, and they had a lot of slack… But… They were very heavy…\n\n“Big…? I…”\n\nThe petulant kitty stomped her foot and looked briefly like she might cry with frustration, before she shook the expression from her face and stood up a bit straighter…\n\n“You were supposed to be pregnant… I gave you the shot myself… I-It was the right mix, I know it was!”\nLavender barely remembered what had happened after she was dragged through the forest. Eventually, as she struggled and begged to be returned, she was forced to gaze into the twin lights at the end of the Manaphy’s antennae… Her mind fizzled into her usual taunting nightmares after that…\n\nShe could vaguely recall being tossed in this cell… Having the manacle clapped on her... She remembered wondering why they were putting her in a separate place from the other desperate females she could hear screaming in this hellish hall…\n\n...And then it had all become clear in an instant... It all hit at once, like a knife to her heart... As she rubbed her eyes of the bleariness, the Noivern realized they put her apart because every other girl in these cells had a belly… Every one, except for her…\n\n“...Hey… HEY.”\n\nLavender blinked slowly and turned to look at the cat. She would have almost been a funny sight, so short and young and yet stood there demanding. She suddenly pulled a vine whip tight in her paws, and it smouldered with embers…\n\n“...Your face, your expression… It was getting a little spooky there. I don’t care what you’re thinking about though…! Why aren’t you pregnant?!”\n\n“...I am unable…”\n\nThe Floragato stomped her foot and grit her teeth frustratedly, glaring as if Lavender had just mocked her…\n\n“Liar. You’re a female. And a really mama-like one too, you’ve definitely had kids before…!”\n\n“No, little one…” she said, her voice perhaps a bit more forceful than she intended… A hint of frustrated rebuke to what she saw as yet another child, albeit one very much misbehaving… “My womb lays dormant. Some wire is crossed or something has not developed correctly, I…”\n\nShe stopped speaking, and simply turned her head away. She decided she didn’t have any patience for her would be killers… She would rather they simply be done with it. At least then… Her useless form would serve a purpose...\n“…That’s… That’s not truuuuue… And it should have wo-worked anyway…”\n\nLavender’s ear perked, and she quickly turned, her eyes widening with soft confusion… The Floragato had turned her back…\n\n...and was instead facing the silhouette that loomed behind her…\n\nAll the cages had gone silent. Lavender hadn’t even realized, for how distracted she was with her pain…\n\nThe Grass type was clasping her paws behind her back, trying to seem proper… Trying not to cry… But Lavender’s gaze had been drawn back by the pitiful tremble in her voice…\n\nA sad child who had failed their papa…\n\n“...Hm. Perhaps… it was not your fault, Autumn…”\n\nThe sinister voice of the Devil was enough to make Lavender shudder nervously. She found herself stepping back until she was pressed against the cold wall behind her…\n\n“Go on.” said the Devil, gesturing softly. The Floragato hesitated, as if expecting this to be a trick. The Devil shook his head… “Shoo. You will still prepare this meal proper. Study what went wrong within your alchemy in the meantime…”\n\nAutumn’s ears were flat, as if she expected far worse… But she crept slowly from the cell, and then bolted from the dungeon as quickly as she could. She wasn’t sure why her failure wasn’t being punished, but she seemed more than a bit relieved that it wasn’t…\n\nLavender watched the Devil worriedly, as he shut the door and turned back to her… His hands were casually folded, and his smouldering gaze was enough to make even the greatest warriors crumble…\n\nThe poor Noivern stood no chance. She turned her head away quickly… \n\n“...heh. So… You are unable to bear children…?”\n\n“...Yes, I… since I was a child myself...”\nThe Devil chuckled softly, mostly to himself. It seemed to be a joke only he understood…\n\n“I seeeee… Well… Perhaps you’ll consider this a gift then… For however brief you can enjoy it…”\n\nThe demon stepped forth, and then held his palm out. It hovered just barely above Lavender’s flesh, and her skin tingled… The intensity slowly grew, until it felt like her insides were melting…\n\nShe grit her teeth and slowly slumped to her knees, as the Devil stepped back and flexed his hand softly…\n\n“Hm… Indeed, infertile. But I had a vision for you, dear. And it requires a midsection full of life…”\n\nHe flashed a worrisome grin, his jagged fangs the kind that could sink through soft flesh with a snap, if he so desired. Lavender shook, as the demon turned and pulled a lever on the wall, before casually walking from the cell and back towards the stairs…\n\nThere was a soft ‘thunk’, and then a pair of red orbs mounted near the ceiling slowly filled with scarlet light… The chains tugged firmly until her wings were spread wide…\n\nShe was hoisted by her wrists, and forced against the wall. She was lifted until she hung there, stretched and straining at each shoulder for how tightly the heavy chains kept her pinned in a splayed pose… \n\nShe swayed there… Her eyes filled with burning tears… She wondered why it was that she wasn’t simply tossed into the furnace of the ovens then and there…\n\nGet it over with… Stop drawing it out…!\n\n...Then, suddenly…\n\nA twinge… She froze, as everything around her faded…\n\nHer midsection… Beneath the matted fur… Within the seemingly barren flesh… A sensation she had envisioned again… and again… and again...\nThe Devil smirked as he heard her howling behind him. He exited the dungeon, not understanding why she was screaming loud enough to silence all of the other females captured here…\n\nJoy… Pure, unbridled happiness… There in the chains, stretched painfully into a grim and sadistic piece of wall art, the tears that streamed down her face were those of ecstasy…\n\nAfter her cry, she quieted and was reduced to soft sobbing there in the dank cell… She couldn’t take her eyes away from her middle, and though there was a tinge of pain at the thought it was going by so fast, she experienced… everything…\n\nHer stomach heaved, but it was too empty to release anything. Her hips ached, her spine bent as her womb swelled and greedily took more than its share of space within her body… It was a pain she treasured, despite how odd that would have sounded… The stretch of the skin on her front, threatening to tear for how quickly her stomach bloated from whatever unnatural curse the Devil had put on her… Lavender clung to every moment, unwilling to let it go…\n\nIt was not entirely what she envisioned… She lamented she would miss out on sitting by the fireplace, cradling her growing middle, feeling the…\n\nKick!\n\nYes…! A squirming movement came that she couldn’t tell from the clenching muscles in her abdomen… But the sharp kick that came soon after was unmistakable…\n\nShe cried even harder… Her only regret now was that she could not cradle the heavy thing that tugged her body forward, forcing her wrists more painfully into the chains… Their metal dug into her skin, but she didn’t care…\n\nShe would be content… Come what may, she had what she needed now…\nThe sun was rising when her baby first swelled inside her. By the later afternoon, when it was time to start preparing the evening meal, the cell door opened once more…\n\nThe Devil entered… Crimson did too, albeit reluctantly. She had an immensely sour look on her face, and her arms were folded carefully about a middle that might have simply been pudgy belly… But Lavender’s keen, obsessive gaze could not help but wonder… Especially as the piranha looked away from her probing eyes…\n\n“...stupid bat…” she growled, as the Devil was thinking quite the same thing. Though his expression was even, there was a gleam of annoyance in it… Lavender was staring at him not with the expected fury, hatred, or despair…\n\n...she looked… Almost happy? No, not almost… She was smiling… And her eyes were warm…\n\nHe glanced at the lever nearby. Crimson followed his look, and quickly moved over to yank it instead…\n\n“AHH! OUF!”\n\nLavender was sent tumbling to the ground. Crimson’s smile widened in anticipation, and then collapsed once more to a glare as Lavender twisted herself to protect her middle as she fell…\n\nThe Devil raised an eyebrow. He heard something in Lavender’s shoulder give when she impacted. She shuddered, and whimpered… but she never stopped clutching that midsection…\n\n“...Feh… Let me finish her, papa…”\n\n“...no… She’s going to be a meal, that was planned.”\n\n“I can at least tenderize the meat, right…?” Crimson growled, floating forward and hovering over the Noivern… “...smash against her belly and…”\n\n“...i-if you harm my baby… I will take you with me into the oven…”\nCrimson’s eyes snapped wide and she backed off to the Devil… She wasn’t intimidated… Merely shocked… No one, especially not FOOD, had ever threatened her before… But Lavender laid there, curled tight around her middle and ignoring the dull throb of a hurt wing to keep herself in a protective pose around her baby…\n\n“...Oh now you HAVE to let me pull her head off…”\n\nThe Devil rolled his eyes and ignored the Manaphy, which caused her to tremble softly with frustrated rage. She spun suddenly and exited the room. The heavy iron door to the dungeon SLAMMED as hard as a flimsy bedroom door would, briefly shaking the manor at its foundations…\n\n“...stubborn little…” muttered the Devil to himself, and Lavender was not clear who he was speaking of… But with the violent little sea-monster gone, she took a chance to painfully tug herself up to kneel in front of him… Sat there on her thighs, one wing laid lax and the other wrapped firmly about her midsection, she stared softly up at him…\n\nThe Devil hated that look… He desired their terror… Their impending fate should have spread through them like poison until it gripped their hearts and strangled the beat from it…\n\nBut her eyes… He disliked the look in this one’s eyes… An ‘empty’ meal was no good, and she was not only flat in the midsection, but her emotions seemed to be gone… Every ‘juice’ within her meat that might have seasoned it was deadened. She had welcomed the flames of the oven before, that much he could be sure of… \n\nNow, however, she seemed vibrant once more… That was nearly worse…\n\nShe had a smile on the edges of her mouth… A gleam in her eyes… Her fingers rubbed idly over her belly, as if even now, she thought of it as merely a wonderful child whom had been giving to her by…\n\n...by a loving mate? A husband…?\n\n“...Hm.” he muttered, turning around so he no longer had to look at that soulful stare…\n\n“...you… you intend to butcher me… And my baby?”\nShe pulled herself up a bit fuller… Unconsciously, she was puffing her neck’s fuzzy collar, and… accentuating her body’s curves with her pose… She wanted to appeal, as if to a strong male in a mating display. The Devil quickly turned his head away again… Was that a blush she spied on his face…?\n\n“I had never thought I would experience this, you know… All of the doctors and witches in my village could not cure whatever was wrong with me… I-I was destined for a life of barren emptiness, but you… With… With only a flick of your wrist… You have done what I thought impossible…”\n\nThe cells were silent. In the presence of the demon who ruled the manor, none dared to scream or interrupt, for fear they would catch the odious monster’s gaze…\n\n“...May I ask something…?”\n\n“Your muzzle is not bound, as regrettable as that situation is.”\n\nLavender’s ears flattened nervously, and she took a moment to draw her palm over her middle, to remind herself of her confidence…\n\n“Would you consider… Letting me live?”\n\nThe Devil spun, and it was his turn to looked as shocked as his oceanic daughter…\n\n“Live…???” he said, only just barely controlling his voice. Even without snapping or shouting, his tone bordered on a growl that made Lavender flinch nervously… Was she making a mistake…?\n\nHer hand curled and clutched her middle tighter…\n\n“Yes. Live. I have not gotten to experience this to its end… I… I so desperately want to be a proper mother, and I am so close…”\n\nShe closed her eyes and lifted her chin… She was trying to be proud, as she was taught… There was even a time she hoped to be a Lady herself… Now, of course, that goal was far behind her…\n\nEven so… She would not give up on her desires… Even in the face of the Devil himself, she pleaded softly...\n“...You did not punish your kitten…”\n\nThe Devil’s pupils narrowed dangerously…\n\n“She ‘failed’… But you recognized it was not her fault. You had no reason to strike at her… And your other, the piranha… The fact she acts out so much, but you do nothing to retaliate…”\n\nThe Devil’s face didn’t change, but his aura grew terrifying, as if the shadows became darker, and the few torchlights guttered and flickered…\n\n“I know you have… SOME mercy in you, you must… You would not have granted me my child if you did not...”\n\nFinally, he flicked his wrist and jammed the lever, only enough to wrench her arm up hard enough to break it. She screeched in pain, and then fell back to her knees… The chains did not suspend her fully from the wall this time, merely forcing her to an awkward half stand while her limp, somewhat crooked wing sagged painfully there… Her eyes filled with tears, in agony once again… Had she been wrong? It had been desperate ploy, to try and appeal to a dark creature as the Devil for his kindness… \n\n“Please… If not for me, then for yourself…!”\n\nThe demon had been about to turn and leave when she said that. He whirled around and, for a few moments, his own wicked teeth were bared in frustration. The family resemblance was suddenly apparent…\n\nHe marched up to her and gripped her by the ruff. His other hand pressed on her head, and he quickly rooted out her selfishness and deceit… The desire to live that was hiding behind her snivelling demand for her baby, or to ‘help’ the poor Devil…\n\nInstead, the only emotions he found were genuine…\n\nThis female, who he could see had suffered much, took pity on him… He had jarred her from her grey stupor by granting her what she had been hopeless for, all this time… And now, the emotions she felt for him were not dull, nor were they vile and angry…\n\n...she seemed to truly want to care for him… Even now, after everything, her thoughts were for her baby… For the Devil. Not herself...\nHe shoved her back roughly. She trembled, but untensed as he backed away. She thought she might have pushed too far there, and was about to have her throat slashed prematurely…\n\n“...AUTUMN.”\n\nHis voice rumbled through the manor, echoing as if a giant had shouted it. Lavender flattened her ears… Within a few moments, the kitten had appeared in the doorway…\n\n“Yes father…!”\n\n“Master.” he growled sharply, and then stood a bit straighter. He quickly composed himself, hiding his grinding fangs behind a flat, blank expression…\n\n“This is your meat. It’s ready for you…”\n\n“...Yes sir.” she said, as she looked up at Lavender and sighed… “I’ll get the cart…”\n\n“Make her walk.” the Devil muttered, as he turned to leave…\n\nThe kitten put her hands on her hips and shook her head. She was still pouting, annoyed at having to do any of this. She liked cooking! She didn’t like that Crimson smacked her around if she didn’t cook right…\n\n“Come on.” she huffed. She flicked a vine whip to pull the lever, letting Lavender down. Then she came forward and opened both shackles…\n\n“He… He’s simply going to end me, isn’t he?”\n\n“Hmm…? No. He’s going to eat you. I’m going to prepare you with honey and mushrooms… It’ll be really good, and I won’t burn it this time…”\n\nIt. As if she was literally just a hunk of meat. She stood shakily, her wing hanging unnaturally limp and her fur covered in dust and grime. But she stood anyway, and lifted her head. With her other wing tucked tenderly under her middle, she walked with pride from her ‘chambers’, and on through the cells. The other females stared at her as she passed by, unsure if she was brave, or simply stupid…\n\nMany still thought she must have been broken inside… And yet, the soft smile tickling the edges of her mouth even now proved otherwise… Her claws traced on her middle pleasantly, and through the dread and resigned despair, she thought up baby names to comfort herself…\n\nShe was washed roughly with water and cleansing oils. Autumn stretched her wing out, ignoring the multiple cracking noises that made Lavender screech with pain…\n\n“...we need maids… This is too much work for one cat…” the Floragato complained, but soon she had finished, and instructed Lavender to lie down… on the kitchen’s preparation table…\n\nIt was an ominous little island stand, set just before the roaring flames of the oven… The function was clear; ‘meals’ would easily be able to go from one to the other… Lavender’s ears flattened in pain just from the heat of the oven near her legs…\n\nAutumn hopped up, a knife being dragged up behind by her vine whip… She took the thing in her paws, having to grip with both for the size difference…\n\n...but she was also a demon… And that meant that for all her awkwardness, she had the strength and precision she needed to bring the blade down and…\n\n“KKKYYYYAAAAHHH!!!”\n\nAutumn nearly dropped the knife in surprise at the sonic scream that the Noivern let out. It doubtless echoed through the manor as well, as the screams of her ‘ingredients’ often did…\n\n“Stop that! Or I’ll cut your throat open so you can’t!” hissed Autumn, yanking the knife out of the deep cut it’d made, before hanging again. This one hit bone, and the unholy vibration it sent through Lavender’s frame made her retch, and see white…\n\nAutumn rolled her eyes and lifted the knife again… And then paused…\n\nThe Devil stood in the doorway, arms loosely folded behind his back as he looked into the kitchen, his eyes locked upon Lavender…\n\n“Ouh! I-I didn’t know you were coming to watch, fa-auh, master…”\n\n“...hmn…” the Devil muttered, as he walked up to her. He looked over her form, and saw her twitching and trembling with the pain of her wing, and her leg…\n\nHe touched her forehead carefully again, as if he was merely inspecting her after her bath… But he absorbed her intentions for a second time, as if he could not believe…\n\nYet, they hadn’t changed… \n\n“...You said you wanted to live. For your baby.”\n\n“Yes… Y-Yes, please…! I… Ouhhh…”\n\nShe groaned, a bit delirious with pain, but she squeezed her eyes shut, swallowed heavily, and nodded firmly…\n\n“You are my meal. Mine. And I don’t give things off my plate. What kind of Devil would I be? At the end of this day, I will taste your flesh…”\n\nAutumn lifted the knife softly in her arms, as if to answer… The Devil gestured for her to lower it again…\n\n“...But… Your child… That might live. Since you have begged, I will give you a chance… The same chance I gave to Autumn’s mother…”\n\nThe kitten’s ears flattened and her expression grew unhappy…\n\n“Push this child out. Prove you are worthy of the title you chased for so long, ‘mother’… And if so, you have my pact as a demon that your child shall live, unharmed.”\n\nLavender’s eyes snapped open, and then locked on his…\n\n“...my baby…?”\n\n“Your… your baby. Yes… do you accept? Or shall I take this knife and push it through your heart, so you are spared the suffering you will go through…?”\n\nLavender didn’t hesitate… She spoke instantly…\n“Let me try… I-I can!”\n\n“It will be difficult…” The Devil admonished, lifting his hand and curling it into a fist. Lavender arched and gasped as she felt something she also never thought she’d have to face: Harsh, agonizing contractions…\n\n“You have never birthed a child before, obviously… And I grow IMPATIENT… So if you fail, I won’t hesitate to declare you the loser of this little game… And your child will pay the price…”\n\nThe oven flared below her, but it seemed as if the flames came from Lavender herself. Her vibrant eyes glowered as she curled and gripped her belly with her working wing…\n\n“...I will do this… For them…! For my little one… I will give them life…”\n\n...even if it meant sacrificing hers. The Devil’s pupils were as narrow as pinpricks, and his chest rose and fell subtly faster…\n\n“Then begin… And Autumn…”\n\nHe clenched his fist again, and Lavender arched and shrieked in agony as a torrent of fluid splattered across the preparation table…\n\n“Keep preparing my dinner, if you would… I don’t want it to be late…”\n\nLavender had never experienced this agony… It was said that bearing a child could be the most painful experience anyone would ever go through, and here she was; an inexperienced mother who had only swollen up that day, with a knife sawing at her leg bone and her wing throbbing in agony…\n\nBut every pain… Every squeeze of her middle, no matter how terrible, was something she endured for her baby… As if she was stood in a hail of hot iron, but so long as she could spread her body and wings over the innocent thing she protected, the smile remained on her face…\n\n...well, in her heart at least. Her expression now was one of unhallowed torment. She arched and screamed, clawing at the cutting board below enough to leave gouges, and fragments of her claws… Blood spurt from her as something ruptured immediately, her body entirely unready… Nothing had the time it usually had to prepare, and so she had yet another nail driven into her flesh atop all the other obstacles she faced…\nShe curled and pushed… Tears streamed down her eyes… Autumn grit her teeth and brought the knife down hard in frustration…\n\nNot a clean cut by any means… The bone splintered and cracked… Once the leg had been tugged away, at least it gave some spread for her bulging, livid sex to work with… But the confines of the table and the fatigue meant that every bit of it was needed…\n\nToo difficult… This would have been a trial for a goddess of mothers, let alone a poor bat with a foolish dream. The baby moved through her, and she could feel every inch. It might as well have had a head as wide as her hips… although, given it was her first baby, it was actually somewhat small. Her ravaged form still struggled with it, and each shove brought a fresh rupture… A new gushing of blood from her weakening body…\n\nAutumn had begun cutting the next leg. The Devil made no effort to hide his excited grin now, walking around the cutting table and listening to her strain…\n\n“...Are you already tiring? Is your last effort going to be this short? This pitiful? Come now…”\n\nHe stood beside her head, leaning down and putting his hand tenderly against her cheek… Her eyes fluttered open, as he wicked away a bit of sweat from her brow…\n\n...and then, with a flash that made even Autumn gasp in surprise, he swiped his arm… And severed her wing…\n\nLavender’s mouth opened in silent scream of agony… Her voice was hoarse and desperate as the Devil sunk his claws briefly into her wound, deep into her flesh, before extracting his fingers and licking at her blood probingly… Tasting her…\n\nLavender felt the wound burn with an unnatural heat...\n\n“You… Want to be a part of us, don’t you? Show me… that you’re worthy…”\n\nAutumn wobbled, nearly dropping the knife. She looked up at her master suspiciously… But as his penetrating gaze fell on her, her fur poofed and she quickly went back to hacking at Lavender’s leg…\n\nAt least, until she had to step back in surprise, when Lavender’s opening began to spread firmly…\n\n“S-She’s… Doing it?!”\n\nThe little cat threw the knife to the floor in anger… Her plans for a dish would be ruined…! For a moment, it looked like she would drive her razor claws straight into the emerging Noibat…\n\nThe Devil’s eyes glowed brighter, and forced her to step back nervously. By now, Crimson was peering in too, albeit from far away and behind the door…\n\nShe had recognized the power that flared as well… Very intimately…\n\n“H… Haaaah… Haaaaahhhh…!”\n\nThe Noivern screamed weakly and pushed… Pushed…!\n\n...the baby slipped back in, and settled heavily on her hips… She panted desperately, but her vision was already fading. It would take so much more to get this baby out… Too much…!!!\n\nThe Devil stood at her side, and then glanced at his two ‘daughters’… He smiled, with a perverse sense of warmth and love… He seemed almost serene, compared to the roar of passion that had flared around him just moments before…\n\n“Ah… Do you question me…?”\n\n“...N-No! No Master… I don’t question who you decide is food, and who is family…”\n\n“Then we’ll take care of her well, won’t we?”\n\nCrimson growled in frustration, and drew the Devil’s gaze. She hid, but he beckoned her… And with her eyes downcast, she floated to his side… A twisted, familial scene around the ‘dinner table’…\n\n“...Don’t fret, love… You’ll still be getting your meal. Noivern meat is… So sweet and juicy, and this one tastes divine…”\n\nThe Manaphy looked nervously up at the Devil, unsure what his game was… But his finger slid softly along her middle, causing her to shudder and grit her teeth…\n\n“...And you need a bit of extra, don’t you… Autumn, the knife…”\n\nThe kitten dutifully retrieved the blade and offered it to her master reverently. He twirled it once, glancing at his red-tinged reflection in its polished blade…\n\nAnd then, unceremoniously, he shoved it directly into Lavender’s heart…\n\nThe poor female could feel the child was just breaching her lips… A few more firm pushes would have crowned it, and then it would have been safe… She was… So close…\n\n...so close to being a mother, that she tried to seduce a devil…\n\nHer vision faded… She heard Autumn laughing in excitement at the gush of blood that splattered along the table when the knife was yanked back. Crimson drooled and, despite herself, clung a bit harder to her papa…\n\n“...no… I… lo… lov…”\n\nHer breath whispered from her throat. Her body stopped moving… Her baby’s squirming was the only thing giving the half butchered corpse any motion at all…\n\n“...Finally, so… Autumn, are you gonna finish making it now?”\n\n“Yeah yeah… For a second I was worried… I thought we wouldn’t get any meal tonight…”\n\n“We will.” The Devil said, idly. He released Crimson, and handed the knife back to Autumn… “In fact…”\n\nLavender’s stomach bloated firmly. The kitten stumbled and nearly fell off the table with surprise…\n\n“...you will be making one more serving from now on, Autumn… Plan accordingly…”\nThe Noivern’s middle bulged larger and larger, until it had nearly returned to full term. It thrashed wildly, as a symbol slowly appeared to burn itself intricately into the flesh on her deformed midsection, just above her womb… The pressure was enough to make the baby crown firmly on its own. With the body so relaxed, muscles tore and flesh snapped fully, releasing the squirming Noibat child into the Devil’s waiting arm…\n\nHe tucked it against himself, much to the shock of the younger demons, before he placed his hand against the bulging womb and drew his claw down in one clean slice…\n\n“PAAAHHH!”\n\nAnother Noibat… Much larger and more mature than the other, but still very young… And her features, her shape, were somehow… Familiar… She fell from the sliced womb and onto the table with a thump, tumbling to a sit as her eyes drooped dizzily. Her blurred vision slowly cleared… And she looked up to realize the Devils all still loomed over her…\n\n...the heat of the oven was much less intense… She shivered and stood shakily, and the Devil held the small child out, setting them in her arms…\n\n“You asked to live. So you shall. I gave you back your life, so it is mine…”\n\nShe wrenched her eyes away from where they gazed at her whimpering baby, and they remained filled with awe, and adoration… The Devil gazed back with a similar glint, having just witnessed something enviable… Something he dreamed about every time he watched a female struggle for their child…\n\nThat purity… That simplicity… That sheer, single-minded, wonderful determination…\n\nShe was a mother, and always destined to be.\n\n“You… Are mine.” he said, his voice dark and ominous… But the newly made Demon Lady heard only the soft coo of a loved one…\n\nEvery ache and pain in her body echoed on her form, and she stood in a pool of her own blood. Her still-warm corpse laid around her, and yet…\n\nShe looked up at him with the gaze of someone who had finally found their way home…\n\n“Of course… My dear…” she said, and though her voice was a bit higher pitched, it was full of the same love as his…\n\n===\n\nIt was some time later when Lavender emerged from the woods once more and peered around at the village she had left behind…\n\nHer identity would be at least somewhat hidden by the heavy, hooded cloak she wore, as the evening sun cast the sky above in heady, bloody reds…\n\nNo one would recognize her. Maybe they might see her height, or even remembering her swaying, half-danced steps. But they would dismiss the idea that their mysterious Noivern teacher had returned after her equally mysterious disappearance…\n\nAfter all, it couldn’t be Lavender. This one had a child in her arm, and one unmistakably growing on her front…\n\nIn the dim gloom of evening, she stood on the outskirts of the village… She watched as the schoolhouse emptied, and she clutched her sleeping baby a bit tighter… Her heart throbbed with clashing emotions of pride and sorrow as she saw a Marill she didn’t recognize… Until she realized it was Ruru…\n\nOthers had evolved… Others had grown to forms strange to her… And some had grown out of being in school all together…\n\nNew faces… Old ones that had changed so much, even in a relatively short time… That was the nature of children, after all… And there was a thought that held her even now, to simply march back in and be welcomed back to her place caring for the little ones… She feared that their spirits would be broken in this dreadful village, and the thought had made her want nothing more than to hold each of them close and safe in her wings once more…\n\nBut that was not her destiny. She had already found that, and it stirred within her middle as if to remind her…\n\nAnd if she needed a reassurance that all would be well… Fortune was finally smiling on her, after all these years...\n“Banno come on… Not on the roof…”\n\nTasse walked from the schoolhouse and shooed a few children to their waiting parents. She reached up with her jaws and tenderly gripped the nape of a young Purrloin, who whined as she was dropped onto the back of a Liepard mother…\n\n“Tomorrow. We’ll talk to the Lady about getting a climbing structure. But that’s tomorrow. For now, go home and rest…”\n\n“Mama Taaaaaaassse…”\n\n“No, shush. Time for evening meal and rest, or your arms won’t be able to hold you up…!”\n\nShe crouched in front of the Liepard, to be eye level with the Purrloin baby…\n\n“...They’re gonna give out at just the wrong moment… And send you plummeting to your doom!”\n\n“...nooooo…”\n\n“Then go eat healthy, and sleep well.” she said, patting the pouting kitty firmly. She stood straight once more and placed her hands on her hips. The light in the schoolhouse went out… And Sebi emerged, running up to hold her mama’s hand eagerly…\n\n“...so much… more mature… I feel as if I missed too much…”\n\nTasse and Sebi spun around with a gasp. Stood there in the dim shadow of the schoolhouse was a cloaked figure… But if her presence couldn’t give her away, she ended all doubt by softly pushing her hood back to expose her smiling face…\n\n“Mama LAVVY!” Sebi squealed excitedly and ran forward. She hugged Lavender’s leg tightly, until the motherly bat hefted the young Steel type, despite the weight. She held her in one arm, and her baby in the other. Tasse walked up to her, with a soft and tired smile on her face…\n\n“Hey… I didn’t think I’d see you alive ever again, after you disappeared...”\nLavender gave a merry chuckle that made Tasse’s heart skip a beat. She settled a hand on her chest and glanced away…\n\n“...and you’re pregnant…” muttered Tasse, seemingly a little astonished… “What happened?”\n\n“I was found and taken somewhere… warmer. And their doctors were able to cure me.” she said, hesitantly. She was a poor liar, and Tasse could see she wasn’t being truthful… But she didn’t want to spend a reunion like this probing…\n\n“...you’ll go back there then?”\n\n“I’m afraid I must… This place holds nothing for me anymore anyway…”\n\nTasse nodded, folding her hands across her chest silently. Lavender’s keen eyes took in her immediate shift in mood… And the subtle curve to her midsection…\n\nBut the Noivern hadn’t come to chat. In fact, she had come only to assure her babies were still happy… And yet, seeing Tasse act so maternal and seeing her daughter run up to be with her so eagerly…\n\n“...you’ve done well for my babies…” Lavender said, with nothing but genuine joy in her voice… Admiration and gratitude, flowing like water for one who had kept her children safe…\n\n“Heh. I wasn’t about to start snapping at them again, after all… And it really is different. They don’t see me as a… as a monster anymore.”\n\nTasse turned away, holding her arm awkwardly, unsure what else to say or do. Lavender reached her claw out and placed it on her shoulder, as she had done so long ago. It made Tasse quiver softly with so many emotions… Frustration and fury… Sorrow and despair… Joy and comfort…\n\n...such longing… Such envious upset stirred within her… To see a former partner happy was one thing, but she was still…\n\n“...trapped…” she muttered to herself. Lavender sighed gently, her ‘big stupid ears’ still in perfectly good working order, after all...\n“...Tasse…”\n\nTasse turned around to face Lavender, finally. The Noivern set Sebi in her mother’s arms, and the younger Mawile cuddled firmly…\n\n“I will visit, when I can. This valley is a bit far from my new home… Yet, I see no reason to stay away from such good company. I would tell you to come with me, and have a better life… But for you… It may not be.”\n\n“...what does that mean? Where did you end up, Lavvy?”\n\nThere was silence, save for the rustle of breeze through the grass, and the soft sounds of a sleeping Noibat, nibbling her finger…\n\n“Somewhere… better for me. But it might simply be more torture for you…”\n\n“I don’t see how anywhere could be worse than this…” muttered Tasse. Lavender gave an uncharacteristically hearty chuckle at that thought, and then shook her head…\n\n“You’ve done well… You are these children’s protectors now. I did not want to meet them, for fear they would cling so hard I could not bear to leave… But I didn’t want to come here without showing you I was okay…”\n\nTasse nodded and rubbed her eye with the heel of one of her palms, concealing the growing tears…\n\n“...That night… You said such kind things to me… Then you disappeared without a trace. Everyone thought that… That you had finally…”\n\n“...But I live. And so does my womb.” she said, pleasantly. Sebi cuddled tighter into her mother’s arm, as Tasse bit her lip…\n\n“I will see you again, dear. Until then… Please… Keep them safe.” Lavender said, kneeling on one knee and extending a wing…\n\nTasse hesitated… Then she stepped forward and hugged herself firmly to the Noivern… The hug was held for a long time, its warmth seeping into them both, and assuring they would always be reminded of one another…\n\nThen, Lavender turned and waved… Sebi waved too, as the matron of the devil’s manor pulled her hood up and turned towards the treeline again...\n“Why doesn’t she want to stay with us, mama…?” Sebi asked, waving to her beloved teacher and watching her leave the village once more…\n\n“...because, Sebi…” Tasse sighed softly, as she turned to walk back towards her own nest…\n\n“...I think she finally found her family.”\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "The canvas of the sunset spread wide across the sky, painted with lively hues of red and gold, gave way to the coming dark. As the evening wore on, and the moon ascended to her glittering throne, the night became overtaken by the prettiest shades of blues and violets…

...lavender swathes of grandiose beauty.

A Noivern sat, her lanky legs dangling over the cliff-side’s edge as she watched the divine display with wonder... Her eyes sparkled as she peered up at the beautiful moon that dominated the sky; icy, yet warm… Ominous, yet comforting…

It was clear why it represented motherhood to so many…

The draconic girl was old enough now to begin having ambitions. Others of her kind were chasing mates of high stature, or chittering about how they would make grand eyries and rule as a vicious draconic monarch…

This one held no such desire. No grand need to be displayed for all to adore and fear… While others cloyed for males who could give them power… She merely wanted the children that the warm embrace of a lover could provide…

Her ambition was simple; The soft sigh of her baby, the feel of their cheek against her chest… That is all she would ever need…

She stood on the cliff’s edge and spread her wings to the coming night… She basked in the moonlight’s glow, and she envisioned the weight on her front…

She thanked whatever divinity was listening for her chance at maternity… Then she turned and walked back through the swaying grass towards her home, a song on her lips and her strides nearly a dance of happiness...

It would be only a few years later that she was knelt again upon that same cliff… Her tears flowed endlessly… Her shoulders shook with silent sobs…

Her claws were clutched so desperately to a damningly flat and empty midsection...
As the sun rose and cast its light over the hidden village… Lavender slowly opened her eyes, and groaned softly…

Bad dreams. Bad memories… A moment from her past that always haunted her when she least expected… The ghost of children she never had, fluttering to her side in the night and snipping at her viciously…

It was many years later from that dream. Too many to count, or perhaps simply enough that it no longer mattered. The valley was a gem untouched by outer influences… The humans never found this place, and any other malign forces were oblivious thanks the valley’s cradle, and the protective, dense sea of trees that hid it.

Lavender had been born here. Pokemon made their way perfectly fine without anything to bother them… In fact, this village had erected huts, buildings for common use… A budding city in its infancy… Though…

It would likely stay that way. The Pokemon therein were still beholden to their natures… Males still stalked the streets and demanded of females, even those not necessarily ‘theirs’. The hierarchy of the town began at the strong protectors of them all, descended to the stalwart mothers among them…

...and at the bottom, those who could do neither, and so merely scraped by on charity and… desperate hope…

Lavender brushed her fur out with a crude wooden comb. With her ruff looking presentable, she adorned herself with lunar gemstones… still in the vain hope that the moon would grant her wishes…

She stepped up to her front door. The great, feminine bat took a moment to rub her face and put herself in the correct mindset…

The listless, empty expression on her face was teased out. She forced the gaze to be a little more jovial, and remembered to push the corners of her mouth up in a way she hoped didn’t seem like a grimace. She pulled her shoulders out of their depressed slump, and fixed a few stubborn curled locks on her furry collar…
She made herself presentable… At one point it was to display how fitting a mate she was… To attract a male. Even a magically inclined female…? She was not picky at this point, given all she really wanted was… a...

Her renewed expression faltered a bit… She thought she might cry, and so stamped her foot and started muttering to herself to distract…

“...mm, must be sure to go to the Intelleon outside of town. The mill should have flour. I can bake a bit on the quiet days and the little ones will enjoy what I over-make for certain…”

She nibbled a claw, and soon her mind had wicked away the growing blanket of dread and doubt. As she focused on caring for her babies, she took a cloak that was hanging by the door and settled it on her shoulders, the hood being carefully arranged to shade her eyes…

Then she emerged unto the sunny street, and closed the door to her modest hut behind her…

Already, Pokemon of all shapes and sizes were milling, lumbering, rushing, and playing out their lives. It was a peaceful place, no matter the trouble brewing under the surface; a Lucario yanked his Lopunny mate a bit tighter against him and proudly declared to his gathered friends that they were having another. The bunny looked miserable, with two in her arms, one at her leg, and one bulging her front…

Lavender averted her eyes. She tucked her wings softly, like the sleeves of a robe, as she continued on…

“...Hello Ms. Lavender…” the bunny said, as she passed. The Buneary clinging to her mama’s leg suddenly released and ran over to Lavender’s leg instead…

“Mama Lavvy Mama Lavvy…”

“Shush you.” The Lucario said, quickly pulling his baby back… “You’ll see her when you’re taken to the school. This is your mama…”

The Lopunny gave a pained, apologetic smile to Lavender. The stone-set expression on the dragon’s face didn’t faltered, and the shadows helped hide the agony that such an interaction caused…

“I will see you at the school, little one.” she cooed. The Lucario waved his paw without looking to dismiss her, and returned to scolding his child…

“Honestly, what did she carry you in her body for… All that time and effort and you’ll call some barren nobody your mama…”

“Mama Lavvy is nice…”

Lavender closed her ears to the rest, difficult as that was. Her species made it painfully easy to catch sounds from far away, but thankfully a bit of effort let her focus shift from listening to a bunny baby start to cry for being scolded, to a gathered gaggle of cooing, excited voices…

She kept her mind firmly upon them as she strode through the streets. She made for an intense presence; some who didn’t know her as anything but the ‘schoolmarm’ gave her a wide berth, and it wasn’t hard to work out why; she was taller than even other Noiverns of her age, and her body was shaped a bit differently too… A little more upright, and certainly more buxom. It was a somewhat common mutation, especially in this region of the world. She was tolerated… But…

Lavender always felt more than one eye glancing up at her in confused disgust… And those giant ears couldn’t help but pick up some of the snide comments…

“...ugh, who would want a mate like that… Not even remotely huggable… monstrous brute… At least she makes a good teacher…”

She ignored them. She had to. The hood on her face kept her eyes hidden from the sun, and so that others couldn’t see the silent, downcast face of pain she now wore… A glare at the grass under her path as she walked… At the light chub of her tummy that indicated nothing more than too many sweet berry cakes to bury her sorrow…

And yet even now… Her head lifted, and her smile returned to her face with genuine brightness…

“Mamaaaaa!”
She walked around a corner and into the fenced yard of the school… There was not much to teach young ones in a simple place as this valley, so it was more of a glorified day-care than anything else… But Lavender took her job very seriously, and did her best to teach these little ones just as well as she would her own…

Immediately, a dozen young Pokemon had gathered around her legs. They tugged and begged and stared up with cute faces, eyes glittering happily at the sight of someone who brought them such joy… To them, it didn’t matter who ‘gave birth’ to them… Lavender’s was the aura of warmth that they demanded each day when they awoke…

Simple, naive creatures… Beautiful and innocent. She crouched and spread her wings. Her hood fell back, but she no longer had anything to hide… Her smile now was real and eager as she took each one into a firm embrace, not letting a single one be left out…

“There you are, my lovely babies…” she cooed. From the erected hut of wood and clay that served as the schoolhouse, an Audino emerged. Unlike Lavender’s gentle smile, she wore a pouting frown of exhaustion… It was quite unbefitting, given how soft and sweet her species usually were…

“...Finally… You were almost a few minutes late this time… And you know time is money…”

“Mmm.” Lavender answered. This Audino was one of the few she didn’t mind turning her back on, with how sour and… ungrateful… she was.

Indeed, her own front was heavily laden. She acted as the town’s doctor, and now would have to doctor herself. Lavender would be even more busy once the Audino could no longer show up early in the morning for the nocturnal Noivern…

“Look… I am taking my ‘break’, starting tomorrow. I’m not staying on my feet for another week…”
“...I see.” Lavender said gently. Her eyes never left the babies around her… A Froakie wanted to show off a cool pebble they’d found in the river… ‘so smooth!’, Lavvy responded by gasping in delight, as if they had found a piece of treasure… Another, an unsure Flaaffy, huddled nervously against Lavender’s thigh, freshly evolved and having difficulty adjusting. She started whimpering louder… The bat mother responded by hoisting her up to cling to her side. The little ones felt safer in those wings, with their faces hidden in ‘mama’s’ furry collar, oh so soft…

“Mm? I didn’t expect that. I thought you’d be more upset at having to get up with the morning light…”

“It is what it is. I wouldn’t make a mother as heavy as you stand on her feet for so long. It would endanger your little one…”

“Heh…” The Audino sighed, and leaned against the doorway heavily… “Yeah, suppose it would… But you can’t be late. If someone shows up to drop their kid off… Then…”

“I will sleep here. In the Schoolhouse.”

“That… There’s no bed. No anything. Are you sure…?”

“Of course… The thought of a little one left on the doorstep, alone… Unable to help themselves…”

“Yeah, yeah…” The Audino rolled her eyes. She glanced down at a Ralts who tugged her hand… And even the grouchy nurse-mon couldn’t help but pat their head. Her sour pout became at least a smirk as the Ralts burbled happily…

“Well, fine. If you want I can get a male to drag a cot in there for you, at least…”

“Thank you, my dear…” Lavender finally stood, the flaaffy still clinging and sniffling… “Go now to your rest. I will be fine here…”

“That much I can trust. You don’t really belong anywhere but here, eh?”
Lavender’s expression remained bright as she watched the Audino go. As soon as she had gone, however, the Noivern’s face fell heavily…

“...I suppose I don’t, hm…?” she muttered very quietly to herself… “This valley is… where I ‘belong’...”

No matter how many nights she begged the silent shadows… No matter how often she found herself knelt on her bedroom floor, sobbing her eyes dry from desire… From NEED…

...this village ‘paradise’ could not grant it to her.

There was not a single Noibat among these gathered children… As much as the youthful congregated Pokemon stared up with sparkling eyes and eager faces, as much as she loved them… As much as she would sever her own wings just to assure their happiness…

...none had come from her… The void remained maddeningly unfilled… And sometimes she wondered if indeed she was tormenting herself by being at this schoolhouse, with all she wanted so tantalizingly close and yet…

“...Miss Lavender…?”

She started from her thoughts, realizing she had been stood there stupidly the entire time... letting the odious, depressive sadness sneak up on her… In broad daylight… In front of her babies no less.

The Flaaffy stared in silent, concerned confusion… But Lavender perked and chuckled away the gloomy aura to hug her tightly…

“Come then, little ones. Lavvy is going to teach you to use pigment from berries to create pictures…”

They cheered with an innocent excitement that made Lavender’s heart flutter. She herded them carefully into the schoolhouse, and away from her weighty troubles. She would not allow the doubts to linger a moment longer when she could be enjoying the company of the only creatures in this world who could soothe the endless, starving ache within…
This was her routine. Each day she would awake, a bit later than the others, given her nocturnal nature, and make her way to the schoolhouse. She fed the children, and nibbled on what was left to fill her own needs. She corralled naughty babies with a soft sweep of her wing, and shushed tantrums by cradling them to her chest. When there wasn’t enough to go around, Lavvy could always make sure the babies would share, and feel happier doing so…

It was the only time of the day she felt… alive. She had given up flirting the moment it became clear that her dire affliction would leave her and a mate unhappy forever. The males in the village might have once acknowledged her beauty, but her looming height and her surprising ferocity when it came to protecting and nurturing her babies had turned off suitors… until the moment where they no longer had a reason to even try.

Though they built homes together and kept common laws, these Pokemon were barely above the feral savagery of the mindless Pokemon within the surrounding forests. They valued the natural cycle of life above all things; the strong protected the weak… The males made the nests, and fought off threats…

And females… Were SUPPOSED to carry children… And one who could not was seen as ugly, no matter how beautiful they truly were...

“Mama Lavvyyyyyy…”

Lavender was jarred from her thoughts once more. She turned around curiously to see a sniffling little Azurill there, bouncing nervously on their tail…

“Goodness Ruru, what is…?”

“Sebi hit me…”

The bat matron’s ears flicked gently, and she sighed softly. She walked across the room, careful to avoid disturbing the various little children all gathered up in little groups, drawing their pictures…
She crouched to a sit in the corner, with a little Mawile. The baby had her face pushed into the corner, her arms hanging limp with frustration… She was already punishing herself… She was used to it…

“Sebi… Did you hit Ruru?”

“...I’m in the corner, mama…”

Lavender sighed and looked back to the Azurill. The weepy thing was already back with friends, dabbing their tail in berry juice and dragging it across the simple parchment paper to make pretty colours. They’d forgotten about the incident already, feeling acknowledged… But…

Sebi was always in trouble anyway, for just this kind of thing…

“...Did she do something, Sebi…?”

Sebi pushed her face more firmly into the corner. Lavender remained there, hands set on her legs daintily and her lap open. Within a moment of resisting, the little one had given up, and quickly stumbled over to collapse against Lavender’s chest instead. She gently wiped the dust from the girl’s forehead and nose…

“...took my rice biscuits…”

“Ahhh… She took something from you?”

“...s… she asked if she could have one… So I gave it to her… I s-shared mama, like you said…”

“I know you don’t like to eat much else… Did you get upset because you had less?”

The little girl couldn’t articulate it that well. She merely whimpered and clutched at ‘mama’ desperately, simultaneously begging not to be in trouble and apologizing with blubbered, half whined words…

“Ahh, shh, shh… It’s okay Sebi, you’re not in trouble… You can’t hit other students, but that’s because you might hurt them, hm…?”

“I d-don’t wanna hurt… I just want my… My biscuits…”

Lavender frowned deeply and thought for a moment. She stared down at the little one against her chest, who was sniffling and muttering upset little nothings to herself. The Noivern knew that her little ward had more than a bit of trouble with the incredibly sweet berries that were given to the babies each day to eat…

“...Sebi dear… If I gave you a berry that didn’t ‘hurt your tongue’… Would you be less upset if your rice biscuits were gone?”

“A-All the berries hurt my tongue…” responded the girl, sullenly… “And in my cheeks… And…”

Lavender embraced her gently again, shushing her. Her ears tilted carefully as she listened to the gentle, playful conversations of the children around her, monitoring them ever for something she could help with. She hadn’t moved from the spot there on the ground so little Sebi didn’t feel pressured and wasn’t stared at… She was a fragile little thing, underneath all that upset rage that could occasionally spout…

“What berry does your mama at home feed you…?”

She sniffled deeply and rubbed her eyes, thinking…

“...she puts Tamato on my rice biscuits sometimes… that makes me… r-really happy…”

Lavender blinked in surprise… Such a berry would usually burn the mouth quite heavily…

“I suppose… she has a good recipe?”

“Ah? She… She just slices it… And puts it on…”

Lavender tilted her head slowly, as if she was having trouble believing it… She chuckled softly, and petted the girl’s back gently...

“Well… Then I will request that they start delivering a few of those as well. So you can have food here, even if your rice biscuits are gone…”

“...Mamaaaa… noooo… that’s too niiiiiice…”

“Aha! Nothing is too nice for one of my little ones…” she cooed, and cuddled the girl firmly… She turned and lifted herself, with the girl still in her wing clinging tighter, her expression brightening eagerly…

“Come along Sebi… For now, we will join the others in drawing…”

“T-Thank you… I didn’t wanna miss it…”

“Mmmhm… One thing, however…”

“Ouh…?”

“You’ll have to apologize to Ruru…”

“...aaarrrggh…”
Lavender giggled and set her near the Azurill. The two made up very quickly, and soon the children were all happily engaged in their artwork…

If that was all her life was… Solving the pain of these beautiful little children, and ensuring their health and happiness… Oh, the sweetness of her existence would have hurt Sebi’s tongue for sure… Lavender stood there, leaned softly against a wall, her eyes roving over them… And for a moment, she was overwhelmed with such longing…

...the creeping dread of the world outside soon came back to grasp her away from the gentle dream she so desperately wished to live…

“What do you mean ‘again’… She isn’t starting fights, is she?”

Sebi frowned down at the path below. It was late now, and all the children had been taken back with their parents. Sebi was the last, and Lavender had mentioned the day’s events, as she often did… Simply to relive the memories one last time before they slipped through her fingers…

“Oh… I…” Lavender glanced away. Sebi’s mother was there; an adult Mawile who had a sharp attitude, and could be hostile at the drop of a hat. Lavender always dreaded talking to her…

“...she’s had a few small incidents, is all. She got frustrated and swung her arm.”

The Mawile glanced down at Sebi, her eyes narrowing. Sebi flinched softly…

“...Thank you for telling me that. She’s got a lot she needs to adjust…”

“I d-didn’t…” began the child nervously, but the massive set of jaws behind snapped just above her head, making her flinch harder…

“Quiet. We’ll talk about this…”

“Miss, I don’t mean to say she started fights. She… She struck another child, it happens… She’s only working out emotions…”

“And my daughter is not going to be a thug… Why did you fight anyway?”

“...My… Biscuits...”
“You and those damn things… If you ate ANYTHING else, I would…”

“Ah!” Lavender perked… “Wait, she mentioned something…”

“...yes?” The Mawile asked, raising her eyebrow…

“Tamato. She enjoys it.”

The Mawile blinked softly, and then seemed to realize…

“...Hmm. You know, you’re right… I didn’t even think about that. I put all sorts of berries on top of her biscuits to try and get her to eat… I usually just end up having to clean plates of old berry mush…”

Sebi stuck her tongue out quietly at the idea of all the sweet tang that the contact with the berry had left with her biscuits…

“I didn’t even realize she’d eaten those ones… How did… She won’t talk about…”

There was a sudden, quiet stillness. It was late evening, and Lavender’s eyes were gently aglow with the fading light. The Mawile looked her up and down… And then looked at Sebi…

“Do you like the spicy Tamato?”

“Yes… mama.”

“...It doesn’t burn?”

“A little, but… not like, bad. I like it…”

The Mawile’s expression grew distant once more. Lavender nervously shuffled, unsure what to think as the silence became tense…

“...That… Audino, I heard her ranting today. Talking smug about taking a bunch of time off because of her baby…”

Lavender smiled weakly and gestured gently to the schoolhouse behind…

“Yes. I will stay here, to ensure I’m always ready to care for our young...”
“Not… In your home?”

“The… Ah, Audi said she was going to find me a cot to lie on, but… She appears to have forgotten…”

The Mawile looked frustrated, though her ire was far more entertaining when it happened to be pointed at your enemies. She sighed softly…

“If you like… I can take the early morning classes.”

Lavender gasped… She tilted her head gently in surprise…

“What? You would do that? Why…?”

The Mawile chewed her cheek for a moment before turning her head away entirely…

“...Look… Little Sebi… No one has ever gotten her to eat anything besides her favourite food. I was… really worried she wouldn’t grow up proper without… I… Tried so many times to make her tell me what she liked, but she never…”

She fell silent, and then abruptly turned around…

“They call you mama, right…?”

“I don’t… ask them to do that… They simply insist on it… They say teacher is not what I am…”

The Mawile looked down at her daughter, and watched the younger Pokemon flinch away heavily from her gaze. Then she saw Sebi glance up at Lavender, with the look she should have been giving to her mother…

Save me, mama…

“I’ll be here. Don’t worry about it…”

“Miss…”

“My name is Tasse.” she muttered…

“Ah… Tasse then…” Lavender said, a bit more confidently...
“I don’t mean to imply anything… Only that I take my job here very seriously… I treat these children as my own… And if I ever knew that something bad happened to them, e-even if I was not the one watching after them… I don’t believe I’d forgive myself… So… Please, when you do take them in tomorrow morning? Just… Be… Be kind to them. They are their own little creatures…”

Tasse’s large maw curled and ground its teeth. Lavender stood her ground, though it would have been very easy for Tasse to harm her… Quite badly, in fact…

“...I… understand.” Tasse responded, as she squeezed Sebi’s hand gently… “You don’t have to worry about it, Lavvy…”

“Oh… Lavvy is what they call me too…”

Tasse gained a dry grin and nodded… “I know… Some nights, Sebi won’t shut up about you…”

“S-Sorry, mama…”

“...don’t be, baby. She’s someone to talk about, huh?”

The two Mawile walked off into the growing dusk. Lavender let out a held breath, sighing in relief that nothing bad had happened… And better, that she had seemed to help Sebi…

She even walked without her hood, and even with a gentle sway and a sigh of happiness…

“...Lavender.”

She froze, and her warm mood iced over instantly. She turned slowly, her claws tucked meekly to her chest…
The sharp, studious gaze of a Clefable met her eye. They were a particularly fecund looking female, though their eyes were sunken and they’d clearly gone past their once prodigious days of child-bearing…

The village Matriarch. The Lady, mate to the powerful Pokemon who had declared themselves the protector and ruler of this land… A creature of much influence and purport…

“Yes, ma’am…?” muttered Lavender, as if she was staring down a creature twice her size, instead of it being the other way around. The Clefable tapped her claw against her arm, inspecting the woman with a particular air of disgust and annoyance…

“Who was that just now that you were speaking to?”

“...Ah, Sebi… Sebi’s mother, Ah, um… Tasse. That’s what her name was, Tasse…”

“And did I hear she offered to take the early spot for you?”

“Yes, ma’am…”

“...Hm.” The Clefable seemed ponder this for some time, before shaking her head softly…

“...She was a taskless layabout. She isn’t even bearing more offspring. She claims the one she has is rough enough… Hmph. I’m talking to the wrong female…”

Lavender turned her head away. The Clefable either didn’t notice, or didn’t care…

“If she’s going to be tending the young, be assured she can do so properly. I’ll put her failures on your head.”

“Yes ma’am…”

“Good. Go on.”

Lavender turned and quickly moved away, fleeing down the streets from the glare of the Matriarch… The older Pokemon turned and sighed heavily, rubbing between her eyes before continuing on…
“...bloody waste of meat Dragon type…”

Lavender made her way to her hut, and stepped inside.

When she closed the door, it was nearly pitch black. Her ears allowed her to ‘see’ just fine… But even to her adjusted eyes, there was little to take in…

Not much furniture. No real adornments on the walls, besides some lunar décor… and every drawing, sculpture, and ‘cool rock’ she’d ever been given, hung festooned across one wall…

She sat softly across from it. Her brush in one paw, she carefully maintained her beauty… But her eyes were grey, and her gaze was distant… Any mote of warmth within her was gone as soon as she was alone…

And she was indeed alone…

She kept the ritual. She groomed herself to be presentable to potential mates, as vaporous as they might have been… She heated a stew over a small fire, and took it to maintain a healthy weight…

...it all tasted like nothing. Every tugged strand of fuzz from the ruff on her neck hurt a little less. She already wasn’t paying attention to the clumps she was pulling free, as the comb raked through...

Was she that old, already? Wasn’t it yesterday she was sitting at the cliffs, thanking the gods above for her chance at such perfect maternity? Exulting her existence, her purpose… Before she knew what a cruel joke life was…

She was not old in years. Dragons lived for so very long… But her spirit creaked and sagged like rotted wood under heavy stones at the thought of ‘living’ with a cursed existence as this one…

Dying of thirst… Stood in the rain… Mouth taped firmly shut…

She felt a patter against her hand, and looked at the tears glistening in the moonlight… She reached up and wiped them away…

She went on… And if ever she had to question why, she simply had to look up at the wall opposite her… See the silver light that cascaded from the moon shine down on the terrible drawings and the misshapen sculptures… All of them… Irreplaceable treasures…
And she could not leave them… She could not bear the thought that they wouldn’t understand why she was gone…

She sighed gently, and stood. She paced her room… She tidied up… She attempted to read a small parchment of lore, something to perhaps teach the children… But it all seemed so insignificant…

In the end, she returned to her bed, and tucked her wings gently around herself. As the moon faded in the sky, her eyes closed… Her dreams were once more tormented by the faces of sneering suitors, and the children she felt incomplete without…

The routine would continue. She had little choice in the matter at this point. To brave the forest paths that lead out was folly for one who shied away from fighting all her life… And her prospects here were increasingly dry…

All she had was her children. To push her way past the beginning and end of each day to get to the glorious middle of it… Those smiling faces… The eager laughter…

It was all she had any more...

She met Tasse at the schoolhouse the next morning. Once the awkward female had left with barely an acknowledgement, Lavender heard giggling tales from the children of how strange ‘Mrs. Tasse’ was, how she was so stiff and could be snappy… Sebi was incredibly embarrassed, and she whined to Lavender about it whilst happily chewing on a Tamato…

Lavender was surprised… In truth, she had been tense about leaving the class in the care of someone who seemed as child-safe as a large pair of scissors… And yet…

“She was nice…!”

“I think she was mad all the time, but she was trying not to show!”

“Is she really gonna be our teacher now too… My other mama?”

Lavender chewed her cheek and set Sebi on her knee to kiss her forehead gently…

“She is your first mama. It seems she truly wants to try to teach, at least…”
The Noivern sighed happily, and set Sebi down to shoo her along with the others. She stared out of the window, down the path Tasse had taken, and contemplated deeply…

From then on, as Tasse tried to leave, Lavender would ask her to stay…

At first, it was for only a few moments… To show her simple things, such as how to signal the children to line up, or how to quickly count heads, (or closest equivalent to head at least)… But with each day, Tasse stayed a little longer… She went from someone who would sweep up dust piles and dry leaves, muttering about being there later than she should have… To someone who quietly watched Lavender work, with silent awe…

Children were a sore subject in a village that demanded as many of them be made as possible, and as quickly as possible, at all times. Females tended to resent their roles as ‘factories’, while males were pressured constantly to have and provide for massive families… The valley operated under two primal rules; physical strength, and fertility.

Lavender, though she was supposed to have both, sadly had neither. But she wouldn’t have used the strength even if she had it… She knew how to care for children…

“A natural born mother… But… She’s infertile, huh? Damn… Fate is a cruel bitch sometimes…” Tasse muttered to herself, perched in a far corner of the room as if she too were a child, sat with her head in her hands and listening to story time…

Her sense of pity for the dragon only grew over the weeks she observed Lavender… Tasse saw her, not only within the schoolhouse’s walls, but in the market and sometimes passing by someone else’s nest, where she would be shyly discussing events at the schoolhouse in much the same way she had to the Mawile mother…

The Steel type suddenly felt a crushing amount of guilt, loathe as she was to admit… But it was incredible what something so small as changing your diet can do… Sebi was happier, healthier… She was even beginning to open up about foods she enjoyed. Perhaps in time, she would start to try new things again… And it was all thanks to Lavender simply… Listening.
“With those big… Stupid ears and…”

“Hmm?”

“OH!”

Tasse stiffened and went red, as she turned and looked up at Lavender. Disarming as she was, she was still as tall as four Tasse’s stacked up on one another…

“Aha… Nothing, just… Talking to myself…”

“You do that a lot… Though it rarely makes much sense…”

“It’s just me spitefully saying things I shouldn’t just to vent some ste-… HEY. Wait… I was muttering all of those under my breath!”

“Eheh. ‘Big stupid ears’, remember?”

Tasse blushed deeply… They were standing outside the schoolhouse, and it was late enough in the day that the sky had faded from its crisp blue to a muffled orange, soon to be replaced by the chilly gleam of night…

“Sorry. If I say things that offend you…”

“...You know, Tasse, I would of course say not to mention it… But I notice something about you as the weeks go on…”

“Hm…?”

“You seem to be… Happier.”

Tasse smiled weakly and nodded, turning to look at Sebi… She was talking excitedly to Ruru, and hadn’t had an ‘incident’ in awhile… and it wasn’t just because her ‘mean’ mama was there glaring down at her all the time at school…

“...She’s better. Or, rather… She’s happier. And… If you hadn’t done what you did, I would have just kept forcing things that made her sick onto her...”
“You would have understood eventually. You are her mama…” Lavender said, gently…

“No, I’m not.” she sighed, as she shook her head firmly… “I’m just the female who gave birth to her. You were her mother for the longest time…”

The words struck them both. Tasse hadn’t meant them to be so stark, but now she turned, and rubbed her eyes. Lavender glanced away… And then reached to touch her shoulder…

“You have always been her mother… Now you simply understand how to be a good one… Right?”

Tasse didn’t answer… Lavender didn’t move her hand…

“...Tasse… It’s not too late… She is already relaxing so much around you… Whether you harmed her or not before is not what… what you should be focused on, right?”

Tasse stared across the yard at her daughter, the little girl snapping her jaws playfully at Ruru… Before, she might have called out… Demanded she not do that, to behave, but… She couldn’t imagine doing that to the sweet girl before her now… And it was a particular agony to realize she had always been that way…

“...I’m not perfect, Lavender. I know I’m going to screw this up…”

“T-Tasse…”

“...But… I love her. And I…”

Lavender turned her and pulled her into a gentle embrace. The Mawile flinched, but sighed and hugged back gently…

“That…” Lavender said, as she released the hug and stood back up once more… “That is all you need… You love her.”

Tasse wicked away a tear… Only a single one, compared to the twin streams Lavender now had… But once they had both composed themselves, they bid each other farewell, and Lavender watched as Tasse went to Sebi, picked her up, and walked off into the distance with her and Ruru… All of them still softly chattering with their spirits high...
...A joyful little family… Once more, Lavender was alone… Once more, the needles sunk in, one by one…

Time to return to that torture device called ‘living’…

She took a few steps, when she realized that something was pricking her ear…

She twitched it, and aimed it to catch the sound better… And then she heard it more clearly…

“...G-Goodness… Something is… Is hurt…?”

She turned, as if to go into the village and quickly get someone to help. But another, far more dire squeal set her maternal instincts sharply on edge… And without thinking much, she turned and ran quickly…

She strode across the green plains… Along the hill and to the treeline… The beginning of the paths that would take one out of the village… Occasionally, a traveller was attacked on these paths, or a wild Pokemon fell at the village outskirts. That’s all it likely was, and Lavender couldn’t do much to help in either case…

But that screech… That desperate wail sounded so much like a child in distress that her mind’s sense simply vanished in favour of something far simpler…

Protect the children…!!!

She pushed into the trees without thinking. She followed her ears like a hound would follow her nose, her eyes lidded as she turned her head, and then pushed through the under-brush…

Her fluffy collar would be a mess by the end of all this…

She finally emerged unto a clearing, and stared quietly with horror. She saw a Sawsbuck, laid there on her side and writhing… Her pregnant belly was slashed severely, and her steaming organs were sagging from her pelt…

“...You bloody little buffoon… Do you want to mush the meat…!?”
“W-Why would it matter…!?”

SMACK!

Lavender’s eyes widened as she heard the cry again… Indeed, an anguished young cry… She backed away from the corpse nervously, feeling her stomach churn painfully at the sight and scent…

And then she felt herself bump into something… Something that felt like a knot of pure muscle, just under a soft and rubbery skin…

“...Ugh.”

Lavender wasn’t sure what happened next… She was sent spinning, and crashed heavily into the trees. She opened her eyes dizzily, watching everything swirl as mere colours in her view for how hard she had hit a tree… She began to panic when she realized she had been tossed against the corpse, and its blood was now splattered over her form…

“I-I… I… W-Wha?!”

Something landed daintily on her thigh… She gripped her head and shook it firmly before opening her eyes again and staring in confusion…

A particularly smug looking little Floragato sauntered up her leg and stood on her belly. She grinned gently, and with as much menace as she could muster… But it was shattered in a moment when an arm smacked the back of her head, and made her whine like the child she was once more…

“You… Ruined. It.”

“H-How did I ruin it, Crimmy…”

“Crimson. CRIM. SON.”

The cat pouted hard. Lavender’s heart raced as a cruel looking, shark toothed Manaphy floated into view…

“...the womb spilled its contents all over… We came all this way to find a good Sawsbuck and… It wasn’t even fully formed. Gross...”
“Awwwhhh! Why do we need to cook them together anyway?!”

“You want to be the cook, don’t you?!”

“NOT REALLY.”

Crimson gave her a vile glare, and the kitten gave a shaky, submissive smile, before Crimson’s head turned to look at Lavender…

“...Well, this one is good enough… She’s even better, actually. She’s a dragon… That meat is good, if it’s soft…”

Lavender gasped gently as she felt a claw prodding along her belly and chest…

“Yep… Yep! This one is nice and soft...~”

“Heh…” Crimson’s smirk grew wide, baring the jagged and bloodied fangs below… “Alright… Guess what, ‘lady’… You’ve gotten very lucky… You’re gonna serve me a nice meal…”

“Serve… AS the nice meal, nya? NYAH!”

Autumn’s head jerked forward again as Crimson bonked her softly…

“Don’t just say it out loud, fool… Tie this one up…”

“She’s flat…”

“Then you’ll practice your alchemy today too, huh?”

The Floragato grumbled heavily and produced a binding vine. Lavender was too shocked to resist…

As she was bound up, her head lifted in the direction of the village…

“...wait… n-no…”

She gasped softly and gave a groan of despair as they began to drag her away, deeper into the forest… And away from her babies...
In the dank cells below the devil’s manor, the degraded female sat in chains…

They were a cruelty, and nothing more… A sick joke, mocking her attempts to escape… She wouldn’t have tried even if they had dropped her untethered on the front lawn...

She knew of this place. She had heard whispered stories about it at least… A dark realm tucked away within the forests, on the edge of the coast somewhere… A nightmare that no Pokemon ever returned from…

...A Hell, ruled over by the cruelty of one odious monster…

The cell’s door swung open, and light flooded the chamber. In the nearby cages, other Pokemon cried out in desperation…

“H… Help us…”

“My water…!”

“O… Oooh…”

Lavender could hear them all, tormented by their laboured screams. In the doorway, the Floragato stood, her tail flicking and her paws on her hips. Her eyes glowed eerily in the shadow, like ashen embers…

“...Why aren’t you BIG?!”

Lavender started and pulled herself nervously to a stand. The chains around her wrists rattled softly… They didn’t appear to be attached to anything, and they had a lot of slack… But… They were very heavy…

“Big…? I…”

The petulant kitty stomped her foot and looked briefly like she might cry with frustration, before she shook the expression from her face and stood up a bit straighter…

“You were supposed to be pregnant… I gave you the shot myself… I-It was the right mix, I know it was!”
Lavender barely remembered what had happened after she was dragged through the forest. Eventually, as she struggled and begged to be returned, she was forced to gaze into the twin lights at the end of the Manaphy’s antennae… Her mind fizzled into her usual taunting nightmares after that…

She could vaguely recall being tossed in this cell… Having the manacle clapped on her... She remembered wondering why they were putting her in a separate place from the other desperate females she could hear screaming in this hellish hall…

...And then it had all become clear in an instant... It all hit at once, like a knife to her heart... As she rubbed her eyes of the bleariness, the Noivern realized they put her apart because every other girl in these cells had a belly… Every one, except for her…

“...Hey… HEY.”

Lavender blinked slowly and turned to look at the cat. She would have almost been a funny sight, so short and young and yet stood there demanding. She suddenly pulled a vine whip tight in her paws, and it smouldered with embers…

“...Your face, your expression… It was getting a little spooky there. I don’t care what you’re thinking about though…! Why aren’t you pregnant?!”

“...I am unable…”

The Floragato stomped her foot and grit her teeth frustratedly, glaring as if Lavender had just mocked her…

“Liar. You’re a female. And a really mama-like one too, you’ve definitely had kids before…!”

“No, little one…” she said, her voice perhaps a bit more forceful than she intended… A hint of frustrated rebuke to what she saw as yet another child, albeit one very much misbehaving… “My womb lays dormant. Some wire is crossed or something has not developed correctly, I…”

She stopped speaking, and simply turned her head away. She decided she didn’t have any patience for her would be killers… She would rather they simply be done with it. At least then… Her useless form would serve a purpose...
“…That’s… That’s not truuuuue… And it should have wo-worked anyway…”

Lavender’s ear perked, and she quickly turned, her eyes widening with soft confusion… The Floragato had turned her back…

...and was instead facing the silhouette that loomed behind her…

All the cages had gone silent. Lavender hadn’t even realized, for how distracted she was with her pain…

The Grass type was clasping her paws behind her back, trying to seem proper… Trying not to cry… But Lavender’s gaze had been drawn back by the pitiful tremble in her voice…

A sad child who had failed their papa…

“...Hm. Perhaps… it was not your fault, Autumn…”

The sinister voice of the Devil was enough to make Lavender shudder nervously. She found herself stepping back until she was pressed against the cold wall behind her…

“Go on.” said the Devil, gesturing softly. The Floragato hesitated, as if expecting this to be a trick. The Devil shook his head… “Shoo. You will still prepare this meal proper. Study what went wrong within your alchemy in the meantime…”

Autumn’s ears were flat, as if she expected far worse… But she crept slowly from the cell, and then bolted from the dungeon as quickly as she could. She wasn’t sure why her failure wasn’t being punished, but she seemed more than a bit relieved that it wasn’t…

Lavender watched the Devil worriedly, as he shut the door and turned back to her… His hands were casually folded, and his smouldering gaze was enough to make even the greatest warriors crumble…

The poor Noivern stood no chance. She turned her head away quickly…

“...heh. So… You are unable to bear children…?”

“...Yes, I… since I was a child myself...”
The Devil chuckled softly, mostly to himself. It seemed to be a joke only he understood…

“I seeeee… Well… Perhaps you’ll consider this a gift then… For however brief you can enjoy it…”

The demon stepped forth, and then held his palm out. It hovered just barely above Lavender’s flesh, and her skin tingled… The intensity slowly grew, until it felt like her insides were melting…

She grit her teeth and slowly slumped to her knees, as the Devil stepped back and flexed his hand softly…

“Hm… Indeed, infertile. But I had a vision for you, dear. And it requires a midsection full of life…”

He flashed a worrisome grin, his jagged fangs the kind that could sink through soft flesh with a snap, if he so desired. Lavender shook, as the demon turned and pulled a lever on the wall, before casually walking from the cell and back towards the stairs…

There was a soft ‘thunk’, and then a pair of red orbs mounted near the ceiling slowly filled with scarlet light… The chains tugged firmly until her wings were spread wide…

She was hoisted by her wrists, and forced against the wall. She was lifted until she hung there, stretched and straining at each shoulder for how tightly the heavy chains kept her pinned in a splayed pose…

She swayed there… Her eyes filled with burning tears… She wondered why it was that she wasn’t simply tossed into the furnace of the ovens then and there…

Get it over with… Stop drawing it out…!

...Then, suddenly…

A twinge… She froze, as everything around her faded…

Her midsection… Beneath the matted fur… Within the seemingly barren flesh… A sensation she had envisioned again… and again… and again...
The Devil smirked as he heard her howling behind him. He exited the dungeon, not understanding why she was screaming loud enough to silence all of the other females captured here…

Joy… Pure, unbridled happiness… There in the chains, stretched painfully into a grim and sadistic piece of wall art, the tears that streamed down her face were those of ecstasy…

After her cry, she quieted and was reduced to soft sobbing there in the dank cell… She couldn’t take her eyes away from her middle, and though there was a tinge of pain at the thought it was going by so fast, she experienced… everything…

Her stomach heaved, but it was too empty to release anything. Her hips ached, her spine bent as her womb swelled and greedily took more than its share of space within her body… It was a pain she treasured, despite how odd that would have sounded… The stretch of the skin on her front, threatening to tear for how quickly her stomach bloated from whatever unnatural curse the Devil had put on her… Lavender clung to every moment, unwilling to let it go…

It was not entirely what she envisioned… She lamented she would miss out on sitting by the fireplace, cradling her growing middle, feeling the…

Kick!

Yes…! A squirming movement came that she couldn’t tell from the clenching muscles in her abdomen… But the sharp kick that came soon after was unmistakable…

She cried even harder… Her only regret now was that she could not cradle the heavy thing that tugged her body forward, forcing her wrists more painfully into the chains… Their metal dug into her skin, but she didn’t care…

She would be content… Come what may, she had what she needed now…
The sun was rising when her baby first swelled inside her. By the later afternoon, when it was time to start preparing the evening meal, the cell door opened once more…

The Devil entered… Crimson did too, albeit reluctantly. She had an immensely sour look on her face, and her arms were folded carefully about a middle that might have simply been pudgy belly… But Lavender’s keen, obsessive gaze could not help but wonder… Especially as the piranha looked away from her probing eyes…

“...stupid bat…” she growled, as the Devil was thinking quite the same thing. Though his expression was even, there was a gleam of annoyance in it… Lavender was staring at him not with the expected fury, hatred, or despair…

...she looked… Almost happy? No, not almost… She was smiling… And her eyes were warm…

He glanced at the lever nearby. Crimson followed his look, and quickly moved over to yank it instead…

“AHH! OUF!”

Lavender was sent tumbling to the ground. Crimson’s smile widened in anticipation, and then collapsed once more to a glare as Lavender twisted herself to protect her middle as she fell…

The Devil raised an eyebrow. He heard something in Lavender’s shoulder give when she impacted. She shuddered, and whimpered… but she never stopped clutching that midsection…

“...Feh… Let me finish her, papa…”

“...no… She’s going to be a meal, that was planned.”

“I can at least tenderize the meat, right…?” Crimson growled, floating forward and hovering over the Noivern… “...smash against her belly and…”

“...i-if you harm my baby… I will take you with me into the oven…”
Crimson’s eyes snapped wide and she backed off to the Devil… She wasn’t intimidated… Merely shocked… No one, especially not FOOD, had ever threatened her before… But Lavender laid there, curled tight around her middle and ignoring the dull throb of a hurt wing to keep herself in a protective pose around her baby…

“...Oh now you HAVE to let me pull her head off…”

The Devil rolled his eyes and ignored the Manaphy, which caused her to tremble softly with frustrated rage. She spun suddenly and exited the room. The heavy iron door to the dungeon SLAMMED as hard as a flimsy bedroom door would, briefly shaking the manor at its foundations…

“...stubborn little…” muttered the Devil to himself, and Lavender was not clear who he was speaking of… But with the violent little sea-monster gone, she took a chance to painfully tug herself up to kneel in front of him… Sat there on her thighs, one wing laid lax and the other wrapped firmly about her midsection, she stared softly up at him…

The Devil hated that look… He desired their terror… Their impending fate should have spread through them like poison until it gripped their hearts and strangled the beat from it…

But her eyes… He disliked the look in this one’s eyes… An ‘empty’ meal was no good, and she was not only flat in the midsection, but her emotions seemed to be gone… Every ‘juice’ within her meat that might have seasoned it was deadened. She had welcomed the flames of the oven before, that much he could be sure of…

Now, however, she seemed vibrant once more… That was nearly worse…

She had a smile on the edges of her mouth… A gleam in her eyes… Her fingers rubbed idly over her belly, as if even now, she thought of it as merely a wonderful child whom had been giving to her by…

...by a loving mate? A husband…?

“...Hm.” he muttered, turning around so he no longer had to look at that soulful stare…

“...you… you intend to butcher me… And my baby?”
She pulled herself up a bit fuller… Unconsciously, she was puffing her neck’s fuzzy collar, and… accentuating her body’s curves with her pose… She wanted to appeal, as if to a strong male in a mating display. The Devil quickly turned his head away again… Was that a blush she spied on his face…?

“I had never thought I would experience this, you know… All of the doctors and witches in my village could not cure whatever was wrong with me… I-I was destined for a life of barren emptiness, but you… With… With only a flick of your wrist… You have done what I thought impossible…”

The cells were silent. In the presence of the demon who ruled the manor, none dared to scream or interrupt, for fear they would catch the odious monster’s gaze…

“...May I ask something…?”

“Your muzzle is not bound, as regrettable as that situation is.”

Lavender’s ears flattened nervously, and she took a moment to draw her palm over her middle, to remind herself of her confidence…

“Would you consider… Letting me live?”

The Devil spun, and it was his turn to looked as shocked as his oceanic daughter…

“Live…???” he said, only just barely controlling his voice. Even without snapping or shouting, his tone bordered on a growl that made Lavender flinch nervously… Was she making a mistake…?

Her hand curled and clutched her middle tighter…

“Yes. Live. I have not gotten to experience this to its end… I… I so desperately want to be a proper mother, and I am so close…”

She closed her eyes and lifted her chin… She was trying to be proud, as she was taught… There was even a time she hoped to be a Lady herself… Now, of course, that goal was far behind her…

Even so… She would not give up on her desires… Even in the face of the Devil himself, she pleaded softly...
“...You did not punish your kitten…”

The Devil’s pupils narrowed dangerously…

“She ‘failed’… But you recognized it was not her fault. You had no reason to strike at her… And your other, the piranha… The fact she acts out so much, but you do nothing to retaliate…”

The Devil’s face didn’t change, but his aura grew terrifying, as if the shadows became darker, and the few torchlights guttered and flickered…

“I know you have… SOME mercy in you, you must… You would not have granted me my child if you did not...”

Finally, he flicked his wrist and jammed the lever, only enough to wrench her arm up hard enough to break it. She screeched in pain, and then fell back to her knees… The chains did not suspend her fully from the wall this time, merely forcing her to an awkward half stand while her limp, somewhat crooked wing sagged painfully there… Her eyes filled with tears, in agony once again… Had she been wrong? It had been desperate ploy, to try and appeal to a dark creature as the Devil for his kindness…

“Please… If not for me, then for yourself…!”

The demon had been about to turn and leave when she said that. He whirled around and, for a few moments, his own wicked teeth were bared in frustration. The family resemblance was suddenly apparent…

He marched up to her and gripped her by the ruff. His other hand pressed on her head, and he quickly rooted out her selfishness and deceit… The desire to live that was hiding behind her snivelling demand for her baby, or to ‘help’ the poor Devil…

Instead, the only emotions he found were genuine…

This female, who he could see had suffered much, took pity on him… He had jarred her from her grey stupor by granting her what she had been hopeless for, all this time… And now, the emotions she felt for him were not dull, nor were they vile and angry…

...she seemed to truly want to care for him… Even now, after everything, her thoughts were for her baby… For the Devil. Not herself...
He shoved her back roughly. She trembled, but untensed as he backed away. She thought she might have pushed too far there, and was about to have her throat slashed prematurely…

“...AUTUMN.”

His voice rumbled through the manor, echoing as if a giant had shouted it. Lavender flattened her ears… Within a few moments, the kitten had appeared in the doorway…

“Yes father…!”

“Master.” he growled sharply, and then stood a bit straighter. He quickly composed himself, hiding his grinding fangs behind a flat, blank expression…

“This is your meat. It’s ready for you…”

“...Yes sir.” she said, as she looked up at Lavender and sighed… “I’ll get the cart…”

“Make her walk.” the Devil muttered, as he turned to leave…

The kitten put her hands on her hips and shook her head. She was still pouting, annoyed at having to do any of this. She liked cooking! She didn’t like that Crimson smacked her around if she didn’t cook right…

“Come on.” she huffed. She flicked a vine whip to pull the lever, letting Lavender down. Then she came forward and opened both shackles…

“He… He’s simply going to end me, isn’t he?”

“Hmm…? No. He’s going to eat you. I’m going to prepare you with honey and mushrooms… It’ll be really good, and I won’t burn it this time…”

It. As if she was literally just a hunk of meat. She stood shakily, her wing hanging unnaturally limp and her fur covered in dust and grime. But she stood anyway, and lifted her head. With her other wing tucked tenderly under her middle, she walked with pride from her ‘chambers’, and on through the cells. The other females stared at her as she passed by, unsure if she was brave, or simply stupid…

Many still thought she must have been broken inside… And yet, the soft smile tickling the edges of her mouth even now proved otherwise… Her claws traced on her middle pleasantly, and through the dread and resigned despair, she thought up baby names to comfort herself…

She was washed roughly with water and cleansing oils. Autumn stretched her wing out, ignoring the multiple cracking noises that made Lavender screech with pain…

“...we need maids… This is too much work for one cat…” the Floragato complained, but soon she had finished, and instructed Lavender to lie down… on the kitchen’s preparation table…

It was an ominous little island stand, set just before the roaring flames of the oven… The function was clear; ‘meals’ would easily be able to go from one to the other… Lavender’s ears flattened in pain just from the heat of the oven near her legs…

Autumn hopped up, a knife being dragged up behind by her vine whip… She took the thing in her paws, having to grip with both for the size difference…

...but she was also a demon… And that meant that for all her awkwardness, she had the strength and precision she needed to bring the blade down and…

“KKKYYYYAAAAHHH!!!”

Autumn nearly dropped the knife in surprise at the sonic scream that the Noivern let out. It doubtless echoed through the manor as well, as the screams of her ‘ingredients’ often did…

“Stop that! Or I’ll cut your throat open so you can’t!” hissed Autumn, yanking the knife out of the deep cut it’d made, before hanging again. This one hit bone, and the unholy vibration it sent through Lavender’s frame made her retch, and see white…

Autumn rolled her eyes and lifted the knife again… And then paused…

The Devil stood in the doorway, arms loosely folded behind his back as he looked into the kitchen, his eyes locked upon Lavender…

“Ouh! I-I didn’t know you were coming to watch, fa-auh, master…”

“...hmn…” the Devil muttered, as he walked up to her. He looked over her form, and saw her twitching and trembling with the pain of her wing, and her leg…

He touched her forehead carefully again, as if he was merely inspecting her after her bath… But he absorbed her intentions for a second time, as if he could not believe…

Yet, they hadn’t changed…

“...You said you wanted to live. For your baby.”

“Yes… Y-Yes, please…! I… Ouhhh…”

She groaned, a bit delirious with pain, but she squeezed her eyes shut, swallowed heavily, and nodded firmly…

“You are my meal. Mine. And I don’t give things off my plate. What kind of Devil would I be? At the end of this day, I will taste your flesh…”

Autumn lifted the knife softly in her arms, as if to answer… The Devil gestured for her to lower it again…

“...But… Your child… That might live. Since you have begged, I will give you a chance… The same chance I gave to Autumn’s mother…”

The kitten’s ears flattened and her expression grew unhappy…

“Push this child out. Prove you are worthy of the title you chased for so long, ‘mother’… And if so, you have my pact as a demon that your child shall live, unharmed.”

Lavender’s eyes snapped open, and then locked on his…

“...my baby…?”

“Your… your baby. Yes… do you accept? Or shall I take this knife and push it through your heart, so you are spared the suffering you will go through…?”

Lavender didn’t hesitate… She spoke instantly…
“Let me try… I-I can!”

“It will be difficult…” The Devil admonished, lifting his hand and curling it into a fist. Lavender arched and gasped as she felt something she also never thought she’d have to face: Harsh, agonizing contractions…

“You have never birthed a child before, obviously… And I grow IMPATIENT… So if you fail, I won’t hesitate to declare you the loser of this little game… And your child will pay the price…”

The oven flared below her, but it seemed as if the flames came from Lavender herself. Her vibrant eyes glowered as she curled and gripped her belly with her working wing…

“...I will do this… For them…! For my little one… I will give them life…”

...even if it meant sacrificing hers. The Devil’s pupils were as narrow as pinpricks, and his chest rose and fell subtly faster…

“Then begin… And Autumn…”

He clenched his fist again, and Lavender arched and shrieked in agony as a torrent of fluid splattered across the preparation table…

“Keep preparing my dinner, if you would… I don’t want it to be late…”

Lavender had never experienced this agony… It was said that bearing a child could be the most painful experience anyone would ever go through, and here she was; an inexperienced mother who had only swollen up that day, with a knife sawing at her leg bone and her wing throbbing in agony…

But every pain… Every squeeze of her middle, no matter how terrible, was something she endured for her baby… As if she was stood in a hail of hot iron, but so long as she could spread her body and wings over the innocent thing she protected, the smile remained on her face…

...well, in her heart at least. Her expression now was one of unhallowed torment. She arched and screamed, clawing at the cutting board below enough to leave gouges, and fragments of her claws… Blood spurt from her as something ruptured immediately, her body entirely unready… Nothing had the time it usually had to prepare, and so she had yet another nail driven into her flesh atop all the other obstacles she faced…
She curled and pushed… Tears streamed down her eyes… Autumn grit her teeth and brought the knife down hard in frustration…

Not a clean cut by any means… The bone splintered and cracked… Once the leg had been tugged away, at least it gave some spread for her bulging, livid sex to work with… But the confines of the table and the fatigue meant that every bit of it was needed…

Too difficult… This would have been a trial for a goddess of mothers, let alone a poor bat with a foolish dream. The baby moved through her, and she could feel every inch. It might as well have had a head as wide as her hips… although, given it was her first baby, it was actually somewhat small. Her ravaged form still struggled with it, and each shove brought a fresh rupture… A new gushing of blood from her weakening body…

Autumn had begun cutting the next leg. The Devil made no effort to hide his excited grin now, walking around the cutting table and listening to her strain…

“...Are you already tiring? Is your last effort going to be this short? This pitiful? Come now…”

He stood beside her head, leaning down and putting his hand tenderly against her cheek… Her eyes fluttered open, as he wicked away a bit of sweat from her brow…

...and then, with a flash that made even Autumn gasp in surprise, he swiped his arm… And severed her wing…

Lavender’s mouth opened in silent scream of agony… Her voice was hoarse and desperate as the Devil sunk his claws briefly into her wound, deep into her flesh, before extracting his fingers and licking at her blood probingly… Tasting her…

Lavender felt the wound burn with an unnatural heat...

“You… Want to be a part of us, don’t you? Show me… that you’re worthy…”

Autumn wobbled, nearly dropping the knife. She looked up at her master suspiciously… But as his penetrating gaze fell on her, her fur poofed and she quickly went back to hacking at Lavender’s leg…

At least, until she had to step back in surprise, when Lavender’s opening began to spread firmly…

“S-She’s… Doing it?!”

The little cat threw the knife to the floor in anger… Her plans for a dish would be ruined…! For a moment, it looked like she would drive her razor claws straight into the emerging Noibat…

The Devil’s eyes glowed brighter, and forced her to step back nervously. By now, Crimson was peering in too, albeit from far away and behind the door…

She had recognized the power that flared as well… Very intimately…

“H… Haaaah… Haaaaahhhh…!”

The Noivern screamed weakly and pushed… Pushed…!

...the baby slipped back in, and settled heavily on her hips… She panted desperately, but her vision was already fading. It would take so much more to get this baby out… Too much…!!!

The Devil stood at her side, and then glanced at his two ‘daughters’… He smiled, with a perverse sense of warmth and love… He seemed almost serene, compared to the roar of passion that had flared around him just moments before…

“Ah… Do you question me…?”

“...N-No! No Master… I don’t question who you decide is food, and who is family…”

“Then we’ll take care of her well, won’t we?”

Crimson growled in frustration, and drew the Devil’s gaze. She hid, but he beckoned her… And with her eyes downcast, she floated to his side… A twisted, familial scene around the ‘dinner table’…

“...Don’t fret, love… You’ll still be getting your meal. Noivern meat is… So sweet and juicy, and this one tastes divine…”

The Manaphy looked nervously up at the Devil, unsure what his game was… But his finger slid softly along her middle, causing her to shudder and grit her teeth…

“...And you need a bit of extra, don’t you… Autumn, the knife…”

The kitten dutifully retrieved the blade and offered it to her master reverently. He twirled it once, glancing at his red-tinged reflection in its polished blade…

And then, unceremoniously, he shoved it directly into Lavender’s heart…

The poor female could feel the child was just breaching her lips… A few more firm pushes would have crowned it, and then it would have been safe… She was… So close…

...so close to being a mother, that she tried to seduce a devil…

Her vision faded… She heard Autumn laughing in excitement at the gush of blood that splattered along the table when the knife was yanked back. Crimson drooled and, despite herself, clung a bit harder to her papa…

“...no… I… lo… lov…”

Her breath whispered from her throat. Her body stopped moving… Her baby’s squirming was the only thing giving the half butchered corpse any motion at all…

“...Finally, so… Autumn, are you gonna finish making it now?”

“Yeah yeah… For a second I was worried… I thought we wouldn’t get any meal tonight…”

“We will.” The Devil said, idly. He released Crimson, and handed the knife back to Autumn… “In fact…”

Lavender’s stomach bloated firmly. The kitten stumbled and nearly fell off the table with surprise…

“...you will be making one more serving from now on, Autumn… Plan accordingly…”
The Noivern’s middle bulged larger and larger, until it had nearly returned to full term. It thrashed wildly, as a symbol slowly appeared to burn itself intricately into the flesh on her deformed midsection, just above her womb… The pressure was enough to make the baby crown firmly on its own. With the body so relaxed, muscles tore and flesh snapped fully, releasing the squirming Noibat child into the Devil’s waiting arm…

He tucked it against himself, much to the shock of the younger demons, before he placed his hand against the bulging womb and drew his claw down in one clean slice…

“PAAAHHH!”

Another Noibat… Much larger and more mature than the other, but still very young… And her features, her shape, were somehow… Familiar… She fell from the sliced womb and onto the table with a thump, tumbling to a sit as her eyes drooped dizzily. Her blurred vision slowly cleared… And she looked up to realize the Devils all still loomed over her…

...the heat of the oven was much less intense… She shivered and stood shakily, and the Devil held the small child out, setting them in her arms…

“You asked to live. So you shall. I gave you back your life, so it is mine…”

She wrenched her eyes away from where they gazed at her whimpering baby, and they remained filled with awe, and adoration… The Devil gazed back with a similar glint, having just witnessed something enviable… Something he dreamed about every time he watched a female struggle for their child…

That purity… That simplicity… That sheer, single-minded, wonderful determination…

She was a mother, and always destined to be.

“You… Are mine.” he said, his voice dark and ominous… But the newly made Demon Lady heard only the soft coo of a loved one…

Every ache and pain in her body echoed on her form, and she stood in a pool of her own blood. Her still-warm corpse laid around her, and yet…

She looked up at him with the gaze of someone who had finally found their way home…

“Of course… My dear…” she said, and though her voice was a bit higher pitched, it was full of the same love as his…

===

It was some time later when Lavender emerged from the woods once more and peered around at the village she had left behind…

Her identity would be at least somewhat hidden by the heavy, hooded cloak she wore, as the evening sun cast the sky above in heady, bloody reds…

No one would recognize her. Maybe they might see her height, or even remembering her swaying, half-danced steps. But they would dismiss the idea that their mysterious Noivern teacher had returned after her equally mysterious disappearance…

After all, it couldn’t be Lavender. This one had a child in her arm, and one unmistakably growing on her front…

In the dim gloom of evening, she stood on the outskirts of the village… She watched as the schoolhouse emptied, and she clutched her sleeping baby a bit tighter… Her heart throbbed with clashing emotions of pride and sorrow as she saw a Marill she didn’t recognize… Until she realized it was Ruru…

Others had evolved… Others had grown to forms strange to her… And some had grown out of being in school all together…

New faces… Old ones that had changed so much, even in a relatively short time… That was the nature of children, after all… And there was a thought that held her even now, to simply march back in and be welcomed back to her place caring for the little ones… She feared that their spirits would be broken in this dreadful village, and the thought had made her want nothing more than to hold each of them close and safe in her wings once more…

But that was not her destiny. She had already found that, and it stirred within her middle as if to remind her…

And if she needed a reassurance that all would be well… Fortune was finally smiling on her, after all these years...
“Banno come on… Not on the roof…”

Tasse walked from the schoolhouse and shooed a few children to their waiting parents. She reached up with her jaws and tenderly gripped the nape of a young Purrloin, who whined as she was dropped onto the back of a Liepard mother…

“Tomorrow. We’ll talk to the Lady about getting a climbing structure. But that’s tomorrow. For now, go home and rest…”

“Mama Taaaaaaassse…”

“No, shush. Time for evening meal and rest, or your arms won’t be able to hold you up…!”

She crouched in front of the Liepard, to be eye level with the Purrloin baby…

“...They’re gonna give out at just the wrong moment… And send you plummeting to your doom!”

“...nooooo…”

“Then go eat healthy, and sleep well.” she said, patting the pouting kitty firmly. She stood straight once more and placed her hands on her hips. The light in the schoolhouse went out… And Sebi emerged, running up to hold her mama’s hand eagerly…

“...so much… more mature… I feel as if I missed too much…”

Tasse and Sebi spun around with a gasp. Stood there in the dim shadow of the schoolhouse was a cloaked figure… But if her presence couldn’t give her away, she ended all doubt by softly pushing her hood back to expose her smiling face…

“Mama LAVVY!” Sebi squealed excitedly and ran forward. She hugged Lavender’s leg tightly, until the motherly bat hefted the young Steel type, despite the weight. She held her in one arm, and her baby in the other. Tasse walked up to her, with a soft and tired smile on her face…

“Hey… I didn’t think I’d see you alive ever again, after you disappeared...”
Lavender gave a merry chuckle that made Tasse’s heart skip a beat. She settled a hand on her chest and glanced away…

“...and you’re pregnant…” muttered Tasse, seemingly a little astonished… “What happened?”

“I was found and taken somewhere… warmer. And their doctors were able to cure me.” she said, hesitantly. She was a poor liar, and Tasse could see she wasn’t being truthful… But she didn’t want to spend a reunion like this probing…

“...you’ll go back there then?”

“I’m afraid I must… This place holds nothing for me anymore anyway…”

Tasse nodded, folding her hands across her chest silently. Lavender’s keen eyes took in her immediate shift in mood… And the subtle curve to her midsection…

But the Noivern hadn’t come to chat. In fact, she had come only to assure her babies were still happy… And yet, seeing Tasse act so maternal and seeing her daughter run up to be with her so eagerly…

“...you’ve done well for my babies…” Lavender said, with nothing but genuine joy in her voice… Admiration and gratitude, flowing like water for one who had kept her children safe…

“Heh. I wasn’t about to start snapping at them again, after all… And it really is different. They don’t see me as a… as a monster anymore.”

Tasse turned away, holding her arm awkwardly, unsure what else to say or do. Lavender reached her claw out and placed it on her shoulder, as she had done so long ago. It made Tasse quiver softly with so many emotions… Frustration and fury… Sorrow and despair… Joy and comfort…

...such longing… Such envious upset stirred within her… To see a former partner happy was one thing, but she was still…

“...trapped…” she muttered to herself. Lavender sighed gently, her ‘big stupid ears’ still in perfectly good working order, after all...
“...Tasse…”

Tasse turned around to face Lavender, finally. The Noivern set Sebi in her mother’s arms, and the younger Mawile cuddled firmly…

“I will visit, when I can. This valley is a bit far from my new home… Yet, I see no reason to stay away from such good company. I would tell you to come with me, and have a better life… But for you… It may not be.”

“...what does that mean? Where did you end up, Lavvy?”

There was silence, save for the rustle of breeze through the grass, and the soft sounds of a sleeping Noibat, nibbling her finger…

“Somewhere…  better for me. But it might simply be more torture for you…”

“I don’t see how anywhere could be worse than this…” muttered Tasse. Lavender gave an uncharacteristically hearty chuckle at that thought, and then shook her head…

“You’ve done well… You are these children’s protectors now. I did not want to meet them, for fear they would cling so hard I could not bear to leave… But I didn’t want to come here without showing you I was okay…”

Tasse nodded and rubbed her eye with the heel of one of her palms, concealing the growing tears…

“...That night… You said such kind things to me… Then you disappeared without a trace. Everyone thought that… That you had finally…”

“...But I live. And so does my womb.” she said, pleasantly. Sebi cuddled tighter into her mother’s arm, as Tasse bit her lip…

“I will see you again, dear. Until then… Please… Keep them safe.” Lavender said, kneeling on one knee and extending a wing…

Tasse hesitated… Then she stepped forward and hugged herself firmly to the Noivern… The hug was held for a long time, its warmth seeping into them both, and assuring they would always be reminded of one another…

Then, Lavender turned and waved… Sebi waved too, as the matron of the devil’s manor pulled her hood up and turned towards the treeline again...
“Why doesn’t she want to stay with us, mama…?” Sebi asked, waving to her beloved teacher and watching her leave the village once more…

“...because, Sebi…” Tasse sighed softly, as she turned to walk back towards her own nest…

“...I think she finally found her family.”
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