So, it's… become a family trait?
Let me explain.
Prima had come back with meat. Lots of meat, actually. Of course there was fire meat for both Lily and I to eat. Berry, bless her sweet self, fuckin' loved chomping down on a piece of fresh bloody meat. So, Lily wins out when it comes to who's plate I'm most likely going to share from. Prima and Jewel are both firmly in the bloody meat faction, Vera seems to be in the is Husband feeding me~♥? faction, in which she will only eat fire-meat if that is the case. But as for Orchid and Lilac? When Berry tried to feed them a piece of freshly hunted bloody-as-can-be raw meat, they instead went for the cooked meat that I was feeding Lily.
Yep. We've got civilized goblins up in here!
It's adorable to watch them eat. You'd think being only a few hours old, all they'd be able to do is cry and shit. But nope, they are born with teeth sharp enough to tear meat from bone and it's like watching a puppy gnaw on a chew toy. Well, maybe land-piranha is more visually accurate a description. Lily had expressed a single reasonable concern about having two strong ones to feed now, and that involved hunting enough rabbits to feed them both.
Lily was a runt, and therefore could survive on a single rabbit a day with hardly an issue. But if these little ones were going to be as hungry as Diana, it might become a problem for her. She might be mama number two, but hunting anything bigger than a rabbit would be a problem for her. And since I am confined to the cave, I can't even help her out.
Goblins are semi-obligate carnivores, thankfully. Meat has to be in their diet, but it doesn't have to be the only thing in their diet. They can supplement a bit with fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, fish, leaves, tree bark, whatever's handy. But they get most of their main nutritional intake from raw meat. This is now a divergent thing because Lily, Orchid, and Lilac have the disposition to enjoy cooked meat.
Lily still had to be taken care of and cleaned up a little. Yes, she wasn't exactly able to hobble to the shit-pit, so as a responsible Husband I cleaned up after her when she couldn't help but go. She's a good girl, there's no shame in that happening after giving birth to something that quite literally crawled out of her. She gets a pass until she can walk properly again, which according to Berry is about a day and maybe a half away.
Yes, the little ones also needed some cleaning up, too, so thankfully I was able to use a spare tattered cloth Lily had laying around as a clean up nappy. Jewel put it on Vera to return the ruby when everything was done here, and left. I didn't know it until Prima said something, but apparently all three of them had gone hunting together and Vera had been fairly useful for a change. She was aware of the runes necessary to shift land, so she made a few pretty powerful magic circles that allowed her to activate pitfalls. That led to Prima and Jewel herding a few beasts to the right spot where Vera lay nearby in waiting to spring the trap.
She's a precious prodigy of mine for sure. I guess Prima has accepted the fact that her little sister can use magic now. I hope this won't force Vera to have to go hunting alone now because of this revelation.
Vera wasn't a very strong goblin though, so Prima and Jewel still had to do the heavy lifting to transport them back. I guess I should start teaching Vera how to levitate things with wind rune formulations. Honestly, I'm only an entry-into-intermediate level student of the formulaic magic discipline, so she's going to have to work hard to learn the stuff I don't really know all that well. If I had an emerald focus orb, it would be a cinch for me, but I'm also not allowed into the forest. I have to stay five steps from the surrounding tree line whenever I'm allowed out for sun every few days.
It's tough being under house arrest.
Berry had taken a small portion of raw meat for her and Diana to have as some kind of goblin gratuity. It's a new concept to them, so I don't really know how to explain it all that well. Think of it being a pay-it-forward-so-you-can-pay-it-back-later kind of thing? It sounds like a trade, but it's more of a planned future reciprocation. Whatever, it was a nice thing to do as far as I saw it.
Berry departed for a little while to take care of her own affairs. Prima said we would talk later about a few things, to which I got the hint that her discovery of Vera's sudden use of magic was going to be the main topic. I was absolved of choosing tonight as promised due to circumstances, and Vera was left in my care while Prima ducked out. She was going to tell the Old One that things were fine here, and now I was finally (mostly) alone with Lily.
The raised bed I made in Lily's bedroom being elliptical was a fantastic move on my part, since Lily could sprawl out and our two daughters had plenty of room to do the same on either side of her. I had stayed close to her side, just showering her with as much affection as I could, and aside from it being a cycle of sleep, feeding the babies, and a short talk before she went back to sleep because she was tired, I was just happy to be a part of it. I missed out on Berry's actual birth, coming in later, so this was important for me. Plus, I did like Lily quite a bit. She was playful and mischievous and that was her charm.
Of course, I wasn't going to sell Vera out by ignoring her, so she was allowed to sit on my lap while we just hung out. During Lily's downtime, or when I wasn't trying to amuse one of my goblin daughters who thought it was fun to stare at me for some reason, I was teaching Vera some more basic formula magic spells and letting her experiment a little with them.
I think she was more fascinated by the newborn goblins.