Chapter 794: Katerina Is Growing Up

Back at the Manor, a welcome home feast was prepared for Alexis and the guards, with the expectation that they would be in a good mood now that they had finally gotten back to their usual rhythm.

They were right. The Royal Guards were in an amazing mood by the time that they returned to the Manor, freshly restocked with loot from their outing, and no longer suffering the side effects of too much waiting around in the Manor.

The effect was almost like lighting an extra bulb in every room. The slight edge that the guards had been missing lately, that enthusiasm that kept them going, had returned. Now, they were ready to face nearly anything, while Alexis could finally stop worrying that she would never get back to her old routine after becoming a mother.

That really wasn’t a danger, as far as Dominic could tell. The Paladin had quickly recovered to nearly peak form, and if anything, motherhood had actually caused her body to become more toned.

There was none of the soft and motherly changes that many would have expected after the first child.

Her breasts were still larger than they had been. Though she was no longer lactating, they hadn’t returned to their original size, much to her annoyance. Not because she objected to them on some principle, but because all her old dresses and her armour had needed to be adjusted to fit properly again.

The next morning brought the traditional torture of having the maids open the curtains to wake Dominic, who had Alexis firmly shielded with his wings as he slept.

She had plans for the morning, to go out and update some of the tactical training with the guardsmen.

They just had to wake up the dragon.

"Dammit. Get up, or I’m bringing in the baby."

Dominic cracked one eye open and the maid laughed as she saw the glowing draconic gold. Clearly, bringing him the baby would not encourage him to get out of bed, he would just accept the gift and tuck her in with them.

The wet nurse turned nanny knew just how to handle the situation. She brought Katerina in, but didn’t bring her close enough to grab without getting out of bed.

Five seconds later, Dominic sighed, and his wings retracted.

"Fine, I’m getting out of bed. What do you have for me in the report stack this morning?"

"Nothing unusual. We’re in a slow week right, now so it’s just the usual morning updates and then nothing much to do."

"Oh, thank the gods."

The maids laughed, and Dominic collected Katerina from her nanny. The little one stared deeply into his and smiled, then pointed at the bed. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

"Oh, are we going that way?"

Katerina nodded. "Mamamamama."

Alexis’ eyes shot wide open. "She spoke."

Katerina waved her hands happily now that her mother was moving.

"MAMAMA!"

The nanny chuckled as Katerina was grabbed out of Dominic’s arms and spun around in happy circles. They were never going to have a silent moment again.

Not a single one.

The nanny was not far from wrong.

By the end of the summer, Katerina was walking, and she still hadn’t stopped talking.

In fact, the more that she learned, the more that she talked. Eventually, it got bad enough that even Alexis started bringing Dave with her when she went on walks with her daughter so that the Troll could answer the never-ending stream of questions that she had about everything.

Only a troll could possibly have the patience for a dragonkin toddler who had questions about everything, even things that didn’t really need questions.

Alexis tried to humour her most of the time, but today she had needed a detailed answer as to why it was always five toes, and not four or six. "That’s how it is" was not sufficient for her, so Alexis had turned the questions toward Dave, who was happy to have a deep conversation about the possible upsides and downsides of changing the number of digits on each limb.

Dave would talk about that with her for hours, and that kept her somewhat contained.

Only somewhat because Dave still hadn’t learned that there were times that the requests of a toddler were not reasonable, and he would try to do his best to help her.

Even if she asked for a third snack in an hour.

Dominic laughed as the little one came running his way.

"Dad! Why don’t I have brothers yet? If I had brothers, I wouldn’t have to ask Dave all the time."

Dominic smiled. "That’s because you got here first. You see, there is an invisible timer between children, and none of us know how long it is. So, you got her first, and now we have to wait for the cooldown before you can have a brother or sister.

You don’t get to pick, it’s random."

Katerina nodded. That made sense to her.

Alexis stared at Dominic as he gave an absolute nonsense answer to the question and actually had it accepted as a proper solution to her dilemma.

"How many brothers is enough? I think that nine would be good."

Dominic nodded. "And how many sisters?"

"No sisters. I am the dragon princess, we don’t need another."

"That’s wise thinking. But little sisters are cute, and they can be dragon princesses for someone else when they grow up. Don’t you think more boys would like to have a dragon princess?"

Katerina thought about it for a long time.

"I will just take all the men who want a dragon princess."

Dominic laughed and winked at Alexis. Their daughter had things all worked out. Though, apparently, it involved a massive harem. She would have to talk her out of that later, before she got the notion that she could just collect men like trinkets.

If that single-minded girl got it into her head, they would have to hear about it for ages.

If there was one thing that nobody would ever doubt, it was Princess Katerina’s memory.