The Wandering Calamity

Ares took great joy in hugging his small child. It was a different kind of joy compared to Appa because, while the shade was softer, this fox kin was squishier! Though it took him a while to extricate the child from his hands, he did eventually manage it before finally asking the question that had been on his mind for a while now. "So what's this sweet little girl's name?" He simply had to know! 

Candy unravelled herself from Ares' back and slithered around to his frontside while picking up her daughter and proudly displaying her to Ares. "Her name's Cotton!"

Pft. 

Ares couldn't help but laugh when he heard the name. "I can take a guess as to who named her... Still, I think the name is perfect." Ares crouched down in front of Cotton and looked her in the eyes as Candy let go of her. "Hello! I'm sure Candy's already filled you in on the details but, from now on, I'm going to be your father. I'm really sorry I can't be with you, outside the pagoda, right this instant but the situation is pretty complicated..."

Cotton shook her head side to side and gave a very mature response that Ares hadn't been expecting from such a tiny ball of fluff. "No, that's fine. I get why you can't be here for now so I'll wait patiently. Just having a dad makes me happy. Thank you for saving Candy too. She was going to make a terrible mistake and sending her conscience back from the pagoda played an important role in keeping her alive."

Ares gave a wry, half-smile as he could sort of understand what Cotton was referring to. He knew what Candy's situation had been like but he was just glad it was all ok now. Seeing these two in the flesh, unharmed and safe and sound, was reassuring that he still had plenty of time left to come find them for real. "I see. I won't ask for the specifics right now because that's not a conversation we really need to have. The general gist of it all I already get so let's talk about more pleasant things! For instance, I've just gotta know... How old is your mother exactly? She gave me a number once, 13,877 years old, but I believe she was being generous."

"ARES!" Candy leapt on Ares and nibbled his neck which was a sight that caused Cotton to let out a barely audible, as she tried to hold it in, giggle.

"I'm kidding! I'm kidding!" Ares grabbed onto Candy and swung her around in a small circle like they were dancing and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek to calm her down. "If I can't know that, as a consolation prize, can I at least know the age of our precious little daughter?"

Ares let Candy down and she took a seat on the floor while patting her lap, signifying that Cotton could come sit on it, to which the fox child plopped herself down in a nice and cosy spot atop her mother. Ares took a seat opposite and listened to Candy explain a few things regarding Cotton. "Cotton turned seven a short while just before I returned from the pagoda. She's still in her formative years but she's a really clever tyke and very good with just about anything you can throw at her. Basic literacy and numeracy tests were a breeze for her and she's already onto more complicated stuff that would be expected of someone over two times her age. Plus she's as good with magic as I am so definitely a talented kid!"

"Oh? Brains and brawn? I'm jealous! I only have one of those two... Anyway... I feel I need to ask this just in case but... Who's the biological father and what's going on with that side of things?" Ares, although he knew it was selfish, was hoping the biological father wasn't in the picture. Again, very selfish, but just the way he viewed things. So, when Candy explained things clearly, he was quite happy to know sole custody was his and that the situation was more tame than he'd been expecting. It was sort of like asexual reproduction crossed with lab experimentation, as far as Ares understood it, which meant that Cotton here was potentially carrying a lot of identical genes to Candy. Apparently Sevorus had wanted to create an exact clone of the mother, so he almost entirely removed his DNA as much as possible, but had not been able to manage it as this was the first time he'd ever attempted such a thing. It was still upwards of ninety to ninety-five percent Candy genes though which was why this child looked very similar to her mother. Sevorus would no doubt be currently experimenting with that sort of procedure to try and perfect it, as he seemed to care a lot about DNA for whatever reason, but Ares didn't much care about what he was doing now as long as it didn't involve these two.

It was ironic that Ares, the real one, was about to go exploring in Sevorus' lab right about now but pagoda Ares had no idea and made no comment about it. Anyway, all this meant was that Ares would have to shower these two with real love because it was evident they'd never received it other than from each other. There'd be plenty to go around and not just from Ares himself as the family would already be quite extensive by the time Candy was in the picture. If the ordering of Yulo's prediction was accurate then there were still a few other wives who would show up first... Actually, now that Ares thought about it, wasn't Candy supposed to be 'obsession'? She was obviously excited to see him but no more than he was to see her... Perhaps something would change in the coming years or perhaps there just hadn't been enough time apart for any real sense of longing to be born inside her... Although Ares would also long for her too, and longing wasn't obsession either unless it got really out of hand, so he honestly couldn't figure out where that would come into play. He was just going to have to wait and see. It might not be impossible for her to visit more often, actually, so maybe he'd witness her change in real time? He didn't know but he wasn't going to ask because that was an extremely weird question! 'Why aren't you obsessed with me?' Yeah, no, Ares could have an ego but that was way too much. Plus he was just in a good mood to even see her again so soon after last time anyway so it was just a side tangent he had in his brain about the prophecy.

While Ares was deliberating over this mostly meaningless, as far as he knew anyway, thought, Candy was covering Cotton's ears and talking about how she wanted Ares to hurry up and put a second child in her but this time the real way... Candy wasn't Enyo, and she was only probably half serious, but she was definitely going to be on the more active side if that look in her eye was any indication. 'I'm kidding but also not really' was the implication and it wasn't too unsurprising as half-animal, half-human races tended to have that insatiable quality in them. Even if they could control themselves a majority of such races had a kind of innate mating season and would go into heat here and there. Maybe that had something to do with 'obsession'? She'd go through a lot of those seasons while waiting on Ares but there was really nothing he could do about it so she'd just have to endure. She was in a funny position as giving birth without having ever had physical intimacy with another person was incredibly odd so she was probably just going off what she'd heard about the deed or read here and there.

Either Candy was just really horny after however many years of not mating, as she was already an older lady and had been through a few of those cycles already, or she actually really just wanted to wash away the self-declared 'embarrassment' of somehow being a virgin mother. If it was the former then so be it, Ares understood and empathised even if he'd never experienced something similar. He didn't go into heat, although Enyo honestly probably did at this point, so he'd never felt a barely controllable urge to hump the nearest pillow. Even still he was missing Enyo's embrace already so to think that it could be way worse, and happen for however many hundreds or potentially even thousands of years, was definitely pitiable. If it was the latter however, then Ares wasn't sure if doing the deed would really solve and overcome that mental hurdle. It might, it wasn't impossible, it just didn't feel like the right way to tackle such a problem. Ares didn't exactly know what the correct answer here would be were that actually the case but there really wasn't anything to be ashamed about. Yes the procedure must have been humiliating but so were a lot of other surgical procedures and this was hardly different. This Sevorus guy sounded like a real science fanatic so he probably didn't even remember anything other than the result anyway and it's not like it was some kind of spectacle. With the aid of magic Candy had been able to undergo the procedure fully clothed, she just had ot lie on an operating table and inhale copious amounts of spatial mana to teleport the necessary equipment into the correct positions. It was strange, sure, but not worth feeling rushed to have sex over. 

Candy could see the myriad thoughts swirling round inside Ares' brain as his eyes had seemingly clouded over in deep thought. It didn't take her long to figure out what he was considering, regarding what she'd just said, so she clarified something that, actually, Ares could understand and appreciate. As it turned out, it was neither of his two speculations so his conjecture on the matter was completely pointless! It was neither plain horniness, although that could be a part of it even still, nor was it shame. "I just want to know that the real deal is better than that crap!"

Ares scoffed as he couldn't even begin to describe how inferior whatever she had done to her was compared to the real thing. "It's honestly insulting you would even compare the two. Do you really think a woman like Enyo, the very embodiment of holiness and justice, could fall so low after a single taste and become maniacal in that department if it weren't incredibly pleasurable? Sure she's got the whole Goddess of pleasure thing going on but I don't think that was all it took to get her riled up. Trust me on this, it's good."

"What's good?" Apparently Candy's hands had slipped off Cotton's ears at some point but, thankfully, it wasn't too early into the conversation otherwise there would be a lot of explaining to do...

Ares reached over and pet Cotton on the head and watched her head bob down with each light tap. "You'll know when you're older." Though Cotton didn't show any facial expression in response, she did give off a very 'pouting' air via her body language and a sigh that spoke volumes. Ares was treating her like a child! She was one but had maturity way above her age and could handle whatever he was talking about! Although it was a bit odd because she'd only ever needed 'maturity' to cope with bad things before and yet he'd just said that, whatever he was referring to, was a 'good' thing? She didn't understand this dichotomy, as love making was not in her vocabulary at all, between maturity and good things because she'd seen the world of adults through a very tinted lens. To her it just all looked miserable. Death, pain, betrayal, blackmail, etc...

"Mhm." Candy nodded vigorously. "You'll know when you're older. And, then, maybe one day you can teach it to you're younger brother or sister!" This sly fox... Setting expectations already! Honestly, if Ares was really here in her presence, and as strong as he was in the pagoda currently so that he could protect everyone with ease, he'd damn well put a child in her right now! He'd send Cotton outside to wait a bit and feast upon this fox who was way in over her head. Alas, he could not so he just deployed a smug grin instead as only he really knew how things would go. Candy could be confident for now but she didn't what was going to hit her later on down the road. She resembled a fox in terms of nimbleness but when pinned down with nowhere to go that was when she'd learn a very hard lesson about being the prey for once... Ah but that wasn't even applicable as this version of Ares was just a part of his conscience so he would probably never get to enjoy such a thing unless the real Ares could share memories with him. They were the same person so it's not like this counted as seeing another guy! It was more like Ares was in two places at once so it wasn't twice the idiocy, it was twice the affected range he could cover!

"And this is another thing you can learn about when you're older!" Ares wasn't entirely sure what Candy was up to but she did pull out something he recognised! It was the alcohol he'd been experimenting with way back when he first met her. He gave her something small to remember him by and it seemed she still had some left in the tank! "Here's the last of the stuff so let's enjoy it together!" Or not! This mad woman had seriously chugged through every other damn bit of alcohol!?

"This... This isn't really the LAST of it, is it?..." Candy did not respond. She simply closed her eyes, wagged her tail, and kept 'looking' in Ares' general direction as she pushed a cup of alcohol into his hands... She'd seriously run out! Ares told her to take it easy! Also, she was just one person. How much did she drink exactly?! Was Ares going to have to contact some kind of alcohol support group for this fox?! For better or for worse, Ares figured out exactly how the drink disappeared so quickly because the next thing he knew, Candy was giving Cotton a cup! "Hey! The hell is this!? What happened to learning about it when she was older?!" Surely this couldn't be right!... Though apparently Cotton was some kind of genius so maybe it was secretly a brilliant strategy?... NO! This couldn't possibly be good parenting!

"Hehehehe." Candy simply laughed a devilish laugh and watched Cotton sip on the drink while her face immediately got flushed. "Don't worry, hers is pretty diluted!" 

"That's not the problem!" Ares slapped his forehead and let out a long groan. He seemingly wasn't going to win this conversation and the damage had already been long since done. Thankfully cultivators weren't really affected by alcohol too much so Cotton could just begin her cultivation journey and this would all mean nothing health wise. It still felt wrong, though! "Ah whatever... Just don't get her started on anything else she shouldn't be getting used to! No smoking! No shady body tempering resources! No cursed pills!" Ares was being serious here!.. And yet Candy just snickered to herself... She'd started drinking at some point and already gone through a crap ton of the stuff while Ares was bickering with thin air. She was swaying side to side with Cotton in her lap and there was a tail extravaganza as Candy's nine had burst out during her drunken stupor and were dancing happily behind her. Cotton's was also waving back and forth after splitting into two and this was confirmation that the little one would also have nine, or maybe even more, tails after she grew up. It was arguably not the greatest way to figure it out, getting the SEVEN YEAR OLD DRUNK... But it was still information about his new daughter and there was no such thing as too much of that! Ares wanted to know everything so, while taking part in the various drinking games, he asked all sorts of questions directly to Cotton. What kind of food she liked, so he could cook it for her, what kind of games she liked to play, what her favourite colour was, etc... There were a lot of questions, some of which got rather silly! 'On a scale of one to infinite, how would you rate your own fluffiness?' As it turned out, Ares was an annoying drunk!... Though he was also an annoying sober... Still, it was all fun and games for a good while and the mood of everyone was net positive by a landslide... Until Ares opened his big damn mouth and said something that didn't sit right with Candy's offspring.

"... And you'll have plen~ty of mothers too!" Ares had been in the middle of talking about his family... He'd mentioned his own parents, one of whom would be overjoyed to see another grandchild, as well as his brothers and sisters... Then he moved onto the other wives and was going to wrap it up by mentioning Appa, who would be Cotton's sister, but he was halted in place by a small frown on the mini fox.

"What do you mean?" There was bite in Cotton's voice and the tone was venomous to say the least! This fox could be really moody, it seemed... Ares was a little stunned by the change because, although nothing had changed regarding her expressions, everything about her just seemed more glum in comparison. It had been sunshine and rainbows not even two seconds ago! Plus, why was Ares being interrogated by a seven year old!? Even still, despite not having any obligation to answer that, and just leave the problem to real Ares to sort out, he dived head first into the conundrum. Maybe if he wasn't drunk, to the point of constantly pestering Candy and Cotton for hugs twenty-four seven, he would have seen the dangers in answering this question and steered the conversation somewhere else! Cotton was not well versed in matters of the heart and she was only familiar with one to one relationships. Anything else was adultery and so this was going to get real awkward because she didn't understand the concept of cultivation legends, those with immense financial power, and sometimes even more regular people, having multiple partners. It wasn't a concept Ares had been too entwined until recently either so he could understand the apprehension. He wasn't much different after all. It was slightly different in his case, though, because he'd heard about such a thing early on by reading books in the library.

Strong cultivators wanted to pass down their talents and so had a lot of children with a lot of women. Powerful cultivators, in any other sense, would want to create a legacy and a large family to stabilise their status in the world. It was typically something along the lines of 'one wife because she was a friend from the start, a second one because of circumstances turning the situation awkward, a third for the looks and little else, a fourth for the genes, and a fifth because why not at that point?' It was quite a similar philosophy to Dominus' whack a mole marriage theory actually so it was probably accurate enough. Sometimes it was more than five wives or husbands, sometimes it was less, but the point was that there were a multitude of reasons it could happen. If a strong cultivator wanted to pass on their bloodline too then finding multiple partners to 'create' the perfect offspring wasn't unusual at all in the higher domains as well. Ares wasn't a part of that latter category, specifically, as he wouldn't marry anyone he didn't actually love and their strengths didn't play into that at all... But that didn't mean he didn't have multiple wives... Blame Enyo! Not that it changed the fact that he now to explain to a seven year old why he was going to regularly, openly, without repercussion, 'cheat' on her mother... Watching Ares make Candy happy was blissful for Cotton who saw a light at the end of the tunnel of this generally awful life she'd lived... But the thought of Candy sitting on the side while Ares played around with another woman, dancing with her instead and making her happier than Candy in that moment, was upsetting!

"Cotton it's... Complicated. I can't say I didn't end up choosing this sort of life, it was my decision to make even if my arm was twisted into it, but I think it's worth looking at from a perspective that isn't the one your accustomed to in order to evaluate this lifestyle properly. I'm not just saying this to con you into being satisfied with me having multiple wives, really. I had similar thoughts to you on this matter, even for a while after it started happening, but I quickly realised there are benefits to this. Let me be clear, I will never not love you or Candy. That's not what this entails... Heh, tails..." Ares was maybe actually making decent headway with his explanation, as Cotton had been listening intently to try and understand a thought she'd never interfaced with before, up until he made the dumb joke! His drunk ass had just ruined things spectacularly and he didn't even get to finish the somewhat reasonable explanation!

Cotton swivelled in her lap-seat to face Candy and narrowed her eyes at her mother while drunkenly swaying side to side. "I changed my mind. I don't like him. Pick a different one." There were a few hics in the middle of that brutal, heart-rending demand!

Ack

Ares could feel his heart splinter into thousands of pieces as he'd made a serious mistake here! How on earth was he going to convince this child this wasn't as bad as she thought it was!? She definitely wasn't going to listen to him anymore! His fluffy child was not pleased and was trying to pretend she wasn't in a good mood anymore! Ares could tell she did still like him but she was never going to admit it ever again because of this damn shoddily executed conversation! This could not stand so he tried to reach out to the fluffy fox but she nimbly darted around to her mother's back and leapt onto her shoulders while glaring at Ares... Kind of? She still had a plain expression, one she could seemingly rarely ever ditch, but it was clear to Ares he was receiving the stink eye right about now!

"Cotton..." Candy figured she was going to have to be the one to talk to her about this as Ares saying anything was no longer in the cards. Before she could, though, Cotton shook her head and denied any possibility of accepting this.

"Don't tolerate phi... Phlanders... Philandererers!" Drunken fox child alert! Very cute! Although perhaps laughing at her inability to communicate wasn't helping the situation. She was serious about this and yet it felt like Ares' giggling was mocking her! That wasn't the case! This misunderstanding only made it all worse so Cotton removed herself from Candy's back and walked away with a sway in her step to go look around this simulated environment. Ares was going to go after her but Candy simply shook her head.

"It's ok. She's a strong-willed child. She might not get what you're saying but she'll try and come up with the answer herself. She's very good at trying to understand other people... She had to understand me after all..." Candy was incredibly dejected and was reprimanding herself for the treatment of her daughter a while back. It wasn't something she'd ever forgive herself for so it was quite a sore spot. "Anyway, I mean that she might not come to the exact same answer you were going to give her but she'll find a reason to be accepting of this on her own. We might still have to talk to her more about this in the future but, for now, it's best to just let her think in peace. She is still a child so, although it shouldn't affect the outcome, she'll be more likely to think of the situation in a negative light if you go and check up on her and disturb her thoughts. She gets bothered easily when in the middle of deep concentration."

Candy sloppily fell over onto Ares' body and leaned her head against hist chest with a smile. She hadn't been particularly crazy today, and her wild side had been tempered quite a bit, but this side of her was nice too. It didn't feel like she was going to try and toy with Ares constantly today which could have been because she was just in a fantastic mood and didn't want to ruin this meeting or because she'd mellowed out a bit since everything that happened during their last meeting. She was a mother now so she had to be a good role mode sometimes at least! Not that her personality had changed even an iota, she was just showing off her human side more often than her gremlin 'set everything on fire and unleash chaos' mode. Once she became accustomed to having Ares around she would likely revert to her default, it's just that she was preoccupied with living in the moment and didn't have the spare effort to dedicate to trolling Ares constantly. Why waste time doing that now when she couldn't know how much of said time she would get to spend with him? Seemed like a massive waste to her so she quietly lay on his chest as he wrapped his arm around her and kept her close. This was important for her after all the dead-end years she spent worrying about a hopeless future before giving up and trying to end it all. From the lowest of lows to this, the highest of highs. This was real love and, even though Cotton was lost in thought, she could tell, from the corner she was peeking around, that Ares was the right man for his mother. Though she wouldn't say it, she was grateful enough for what he'd done for Candy that she was willing to ignore the other wives thing. She hadn't even touched on why it might be a good thing yet in her own deliberations but could overlook it regardless just to keep seeing that smile on Candy's face. It sort of looked liker her own smile as they had similar DNA, after all.