Candace pursed her lips and thought about the entire situation for a few minutes.
Something was not right about how the twins were thinking about all of this, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it, at least not yet.
"You said that the Emperor would reject your mother if Ariana morphed into a mermaid instead of a bat. Why would your mother stay with a man like that?"
"Because he is the Emperor. For us to be considered Princes and for Ariana to be considered a Princess is important to her. It is our birthright after all."
"But a birthright should remain a birthright no matter how a person matures and ages." She reasoned.
"The natural growth and development of a child should not be the reason for a birthright to be taken away." She scratched her head in frustration.
"That's not a birthright. That's not a right at all. It's like saying, 'you're my child but only until I decide on a whim that you're not.'"
Candace shook her head, her voice rising with annoyance. "That's just stupid! You don't have to live under that dark cloud any longer!"
She sat up and reached out for both of them, gripping their necks in a tight embrace.
"You two are now Co-Emperors alongside your brothers. That will never change for as long as you live, no matter what shape you transform into." Her eyes were fierce.
"Furthermore, your sister will also forever be a Princess, irregardless of whether she becomes a bat or a mermaid!"
The twins looked at each other as sudden understanding dawned on them.
"You're right." Jason suddenly laughed. "Once we become Co-Emperors with our brothers, this no longer even matters."
Jared's eyes began shining. "We've just been hiding this for so long, it's become second nature."
Candace scowled. "You should NEVER have to hide your true selves away!!!"
She pressed a hard kiss on each of their foreheads.
"You inherited both sides of your parents' lineage. There's nothing wrong with that. It's how genetics work!"
"In fact, your mother's mer side is just as valuable and precious as your father's blood bat side. The combination of bat and mer is what makes you both so unique."
Her eyes glittered with unshed tears.
"I treasure that, and I want you to embrace everything that makes each of you rare and precious. Do you understand???"
They both reached out and crushed her into their bodies, unable to say anything. With just a few words, she had made them feel worthy and precious.
They stayed together in that mutual embrace for a few minutes until Candace raised her head. Something else was nagging at her.
"So I have another question. Our children…will they be able to transform into mer people also or will they just be bats?"
Jared and Jason looked at each other.
"We—don't know. We've never had a wife or child, so we have no idea, but…what if…" their eyes mirrored the worry that they had carried all this time.
If the babies they bore with her did not breed true, would she reject the children? Would society look down upon them?
Candace raised an eyebrow.
"Are you asking me what if the child that I carried inside my body and cherished for months and months, and then bore with great pain, could change into merfolk as well as a bat?"
Her eyes began shining. "I can hardly wait to see what they can do!"
Candace gave them with a huge grin. "We could build a huge ocean vessel and live on it part of the year, when it's warm."
She clapped her hands in delight. "You and the kids could swim around all you wish as merfolk. Even Lucas would have a blast. He loves the ocean so much!"
The twins began to laugh. Candace was the Empress who chose her Emperors after all. Who would dare demean or look down upon the very children that she carried and gave birth to?
"You know what I would do?" Her eyes gleamed as she continued to think about the possibilities.
"On the cruise ships away from natural waters, I would build huge swimming pools for everyone so you two can continue to swim as mermen!"
Suddenly, Jason and Jared felt a huge burden lift from their very souls. No matter how inferior their genetics was, she would never think less of them.
More importantly, she would be able to protect her babies with the kind of fierce love that truly powerful women would be able to provide.
"How hard is it to transform into mermen?" Candace suddenly asked.
Jason laughed. "Do you want to see?"
Candace bit her lip. "Only if you want to show me. I don't want to make you both feel—"
"Oh stop it." Jared shushed her lips with his own. "You're our wife. If you can't see this, then something is wrong with us for not being able to trust you enough to show you what is essentially part of our true self."
"Do you need to be in the water to transform?"
They nodded their heads. "We just took showers, but we can run a warm bath and just get our bottoms wet for a bit to show you. Come!" They pulled her off the bed and back into the bathroom.
Within ten minutes, the bathtub was filled with lukewarm water and they both sat on the edge of the tub with their legs submerged to their knees.
"Don't you have to be completely in the water to transform into mermen?" Candace gave them a dubious look.
"Haha. No. We just need to get a little wet is all. It helps with the transformation."
They grinned at each other and then looked at her.
"Ready?"
Candace nodded.
Just as they merely shrugged into their bat wings when they transformed into bats, the twins did not have to do any strange mumbo jumbo to turn into mermen. They simply transformed.
One moment, they were simply naked men sitting on the tub's edge and the next, they had slipped into the tub and were resting their human elbows on the tub's edge as their fish tails splashed in the tub water.
Candace gasped with wonder as she reached out towards their silver-green scaled fish tails.
"Can I touch?"
"Go ahead."
"It's so smooth and cool." Candace murmured, touching the smooth skin on their bodies.
"Do you have…you know…"
"A penis?" Jason laughed. "Right here Darling." He pulled a flap apart and his member popped out from a slit near the pelvic area of his tail.
We're like dolphins and whales in that we do have normal sex, as opposed to, you know…spraying our semen all over some eggs on the sea floor." Jared laughed.
"When it's not in use, we keep it in this little pouch inside this slit right here, you see?" Jason pulled her hand towards his body and allowed her to touch his partially erect penis.
"Does it work the same as when you're human?"
Jason doubled over laughing. "Of course, Love. Would you like to try?"
Candace shook her head. "We don't have time."
Jared laughed. "That's a shame. Maybe in the future, you can try it, see if you like us better as mermen, batmen, or humans."
Candace stood there with her arms akimbo.
"I like you two in any form as long as you are still the same two people that I know and love. Don't try to change and don't try to hide what you are, or you two are in big trouble with me, you hear???" She warned with intensity.