novelraw Chapter 243 – Expectancy
Chapter 243 – Expectancy
Vivienne was restless.
Not her usual kind of restless—the kind that could be tamed with a hunt, or a little violence, or a lover's cry echoing through her halls—but a gnawing, skin-crawling agitation she couldn’t place. Her claws twitched against the stone of the parapet as she gazed out over Serkoth, her eyes drinking in the moonlight, her breath tight in her chest.
She needed action. She needed blood. She needed to see something scream.
Aegis had stolen so much. And she wanted to answer that theft with carnage.
But something was wrong. Something had been wrong.
The strange bloat in her belly, which she’d first brushed off as some quirk of digestion, had gotten worse. Not painful—just... present. A heavy pressure that hadn’t eased, no matter how much she ate, shifted, or slept. Her chubby stomach had grown fuller, rounder. It didn’t ache. But it insisted.
Tonight, as she prepared to leap into the night and transform into her hunt-shape, Vivienne snarled under her breath.
And nothing happened.
Her muscles didn’t stretch. Her bones didn’t shift. Her mass didn’t swell or snap into place with the comforting crunch of change.
“What the fuck,” she breathed, low and dangerous.
She tried again—smaller, this time. Her claws. Her hand. A paw. Nothing. She tried to make herself look human, just for the game of it—still nothing. Not even a ripple of resistance. It was as though that entire part of her being had been... muted.
That wasn’t fear curling in her chest. She didn’t get afraid.
But it was close.
With a snarl, she vaulted off the city walls, the cool air whipping against her skin as she fell into the plains beyond. She needed something to kill. Something to rip apart.
Aetherbeasts answered her fury. Slavering, twisted creatures of raw instinct and malformed flesh. She slaughtered them. She tore through their ranks, fangs and claws and her bare strength alone. It was messier than usual—no claws the size of scythes, no maw that could swallow a horse whole. Just her base body, furious and tireless.
She ate more than she normally would.
She always ate well, when the mood struck her, but the hunger came harder now. Faster. Desperate. Demanding. Her jaws ached from how wide she opened them, how fiercely she fed. The bloody satisfaction she usually felt never came—only a temporary lull before her stomach twisted in protest, still not full.
When the first rays of dawn began to stretch across the sky, she turned back. Her skin and lips were slick with blood, gore stuck in her claws, dark smears on her thighs and belly where she hadn’t bothered to clean mid-feast.
She stalked into her manor just as the commonfolk began to stir. Sleepy eyes watched from open windows. Doors creaked and shut as they saw her.
She didn’t care.
Blood tracked behind her, smearing the floors in thick lines of red and black. She didn’t have the energy—or the composure—to care about that either.
No form would come. Not her larger forms. Not her human form. Not even her default one, the body she’d considered her baseline since waking in this world.
That frustrated her, in a quiet, suffocating way.
Back in her chambers, she poured cold water into a bucket and scrubbed herself with practiced indifference. Her hands moved with rote precision. Her tail twitched, agitated.
Clean, but not soothed, she dragged herself to her lounge and reclined on the velvet couch, letting the thick upholstery swallow her body.
One hand cradled her stomach.
It was still bloated. Still tight.
Maybe even more than before the hunt.
The door creaked open, and the dim morning light caught the silhouette of her giant lover.
All the tension in Vivienne's body eased just slightly. Her five eyes shimmered faintly as she looked up.
“Hello, dear,” she purred, voice soft and genuine in a way it rarely was. The sight of Rava always brought it out—some quiet, impossible piece of peace she hadn’t known she could still feel.
Rava ducked her head slightly as she stepped inside, shoulders almost brushing the frame. She said nothing at first, only offered one of her trademark nods before walking over to the two-seater opposite the couch where Vivienne lounged, her every movement heavy with restrained strength.
“Hello,” Rava muttered at last as she eased down onto the smaller couch, her large frame making the furniture creak in protest.
Vivienne frowned.
“Nope,” she said flatly, pushing herself up with a grunt. She swung her legs around and stood, pointing imperiously to the space beside her. “Get over here.”
Rava blinked once.
A heartbeat passed.
Then she grunted again, but made no protest. She never argued with Vivienne. Not seriously. Not about things like this.
The large woman stood, her movements slow and deliberate, and crossed the space between them. The couch groaned again as she sat down. It was barely wide enough for her frame and Vivienne’s—but they’d made it work before, and they’d do it again.
Vivienne didn’t hesitate. She climbed onto the couch again, then stretched out sideways, draping herself across Rava’s lap like a languid cat. Her tail flicked lazily off the edge. Her weight settled onto Rava’s thighs with a contented little hum.
“There,” Vivienne sighed, resting the side of her head just under Rava’s chest. One hand absently stroked her own bloated stomach. “Much better.”
Rava didn’t say anything, but her hand lifted and came to rest gently on Vivienne’s side. Her palm was large, calloused, warm. She wasn’t graceful, not like Vivienne, but she was careful.
Vivienne closed her eyes.
Everything was wrong in her body right now. Her skin felt tight. Her hunger wouldn’t calm. Her magic—her shape—was still locked. She didn’t understand it.
But Rava’s presence helped.
She always helped.
Even if Vivienne would never say it out loud. Not directly.
“You feel weird,” Rava said after a moment, her fingers gently tracing circles on Vivienne’s side.
Vivienne gave a tired chuckle. “I feel weird? Sweetheart, I am weird.”
Rava grunted in vague agreement, then added, “You smell different, too.”
Vivienne’s five eyes opened slowly, the motion languid but sharp with alertness now. She didn’t move from her place on Rava’s lap, but her entire body stilled. “Do I? How?”
Rava tilted her head slightly, her bright blue eyes narrowing as she leaned in, sniffing the air with slow, deliberate care. Her nose twitched. She wasn’t graceful about it—Rava never was—but there was a certainty to the way she followed scent, an instinct honed over years.
“Less fertile,” she said at last, as if that explained everything.
Vivienne blinked.
Her lips parted. “I’m sorry, what?”
Rava straightened a little, her brows furrowing in a way that almost looked like concern. “We… have child?” she asked, the words clumsy on her tongue, more question than statement.
Vivienne’s breath caught.
The air suddenly felt too thin, the lounge too quiet.
“No.” Her voice was sharp. Clipped. “That’s—no. That’s not possible.”
Her mind raced. It’s not possible. It’s not supposed to be possible. She had imitated a humanoid form, yes. She’d designed herself after it. She could bleed, eat, sweat. But she wasn’t made to conceive. Not naturally. Her body was sculpted from magic, pulled through the veil of worlds. She wasn’t born of flesh.
She wanted it, in her past life. Artificial womb implants cost twice as much as a house. Basically unattainable.
“I’m a monster,” she whispered, half to herself. “Made of dreams and crystal and aether and teeth. My body isn’t built for this.”
Her hand moved to her stomach, palm pressing in slightly. The swell there was firm. Heavier than it should be. Bloated, yes—but it wasn’t painful. It never had been. Just… present. Consistent. Growing.
Her voice cracked as she spoke again, so softly she almost didn’t hear it.
“Is my body… locking itself? To protect it?” Her fingers curled slightly against her skin. “Is that why I can’t change?”
Her claws twitched.
“No,” she whispered again. “No, no, no—”
The implications unraveled faster than she could stop them. The hunger. The sudden bloat. The inability to shapeshift. The exhaustion. The instincts.
Rava didn’t interrupt. She simply watched her, calm and unreadable, one hand still resting on Vivienne’s hip. Steady. Solid.
Vivienne’s five eyes flicked to her.
“This… shouldn’t be possible,” she growled, more desperate than angry now.
“Magic,” Rava said simply.
Vivienne hated how matter-of-fact it sounded. How calm.
“Yes. Thank you, Sweetheart. That solves everything,” she snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut. But her claws were trembling slightly now.
Not from fear.
From something else.
From awe.
From confusion.
From the faintest, smallest seed of something she wasn’t ready to name.
Perhaps—just perhaps—beneath the haze of confusion and the panic twisting in her chest… there was an undercurrent of joy.
A quiet, blooming warmth that she hadn’t expected.
Why was she even scared?
She already had a daughter. Liora. A girl born of her own essence, torn from her being in an act of desperate, monstrous creation. Vivienne had not carried her in the traditional sense. No womb, no birth, no scream or blood—just the splitting of soul and body in a strange kind of binary fission. Yet Liora was hers. Completely.
And Vivienne loved her more fiercely than she had ever loved anything.
So what was another child to her, but something to celebrate?
Her eyes—five of them, wide and dark and uncertain—lowered to her own middle. Her hand moved over the subtle swell again, this time not with dread, but with cautious curiosity. Her claws didn’t dig. They cradled.
What would they look like?
Would they inherit her eyes? Her claws? Her tail?
Or Rava’s fur? Her strength? Her steady, brutal calm?
Would they be something in between? Something neither, something new? Would they be monstrous? Beautiful? Would they sing, as Liora sometimes did in her sleep, her song echoing with the hum of magic?
Who would they become?
The thought of it sent a thrill through her chest. Not the terror of something unknown. But the awe of it. The miracle of it.
Something inside her, fragile and flickering like a candle, wanted this.
Even if it terrified her.
Even if she didn’t understand it.
Even if it changed everything.
Vivienne swallowed thickly and curled tighter against Rava’s lap, her voice barely above a whisper.
“…Sorry for snapping at you,” she said, her tone stripped of all the dramatic edge she normally wore like armor.
It was soft. Honest. A rare, raw thing.
Rava rumbled quietly, brushing her fingers along Vivienne’s shoulder. “You're scared.”
Vivienne chuckled weakly. “I’m never scared.”
“You’re scared,” Rava repeated with finality, her clawed thumb gently rubbing circles through the fabric of Vivienne’s dress.
There was no judgment in her voice.
Just certainty.
Vivienne exhaled and closed her eyes.
“…Maybe just a little,” she murmured.
A strange admission, considering everything she’d faced without so much as flinching.
She had stood toe-to-toe with a titan—the Dawn Titan no less—an ancient, primordial thing built from the very aether that opposed her own. She fought it with tooth and claw and voice, knowing full well that its nature could unravel her. And she hadn’t hesitated.
She had watched her loved ones march into battle, watched blood spill in the streets and fields of Serkoth. The prospect of losing them lingered, always present, but it never stirred fear in her heart. Sorrow, yes. Rage, always. But not fear.
Even the knowledge that certain gods were scheming behind the veil, moving against her in the realm of divine politics, left her unbothered. Let them plot.
No. The only thing that ever truly scared Vivienne… was herself.
What she was. What she could become. And what that meant for those closest to her.
She had been a parent for over a decade in her past life, and a mother again in this one—though only for a few months now. Liora had changed everything. Had softened her in ways she hadn’t expected. This child, if it was truly a child, if it was real… it would change her all over again.
“Do you think it’s yours?” she asked suddenly, quietly.
Rava didn’t look up. Her large clawed fingers continued to stroke along Vivienne’s side. “Did you mate with anyone else?”
Vivienne huffed out a laugh, low and amused. “I don’t ‘mate’ with food.”
Rava’s head tilted slightly, confused.
Vivienne waved it off, smiling softly. “No. Of course not. Only you.”
She could almost see the cogs turning in Rava’s skull, slow and deliberate.
“Then the child is ours.”
So simple. So certain.
“But how?” Vivienne whispered. “My birthing of Liora made sense. I’m… an aetherbeast. I split. Shed something, created something from myself. Somehow. It was instinct, not intention, but it made sense. This?” She placed a hand over her own belly, the swell warm beneath her palm. “This makes less
sense. I know I’m not flesh and blood. This form I wear—it emulates biology. It mimics function. It’s a performance. It’s not real. How could I get pregnant?”Rava’s hand—paw, really—rested gently over hers. Heavier. Larger. Warm.
The big lekine was quiet for a long time before she spoke.
“I still don’t remember everything,” she said at last, her voice low and distant. “Flashes. Pieces. Enough to know who I am. Enough to know that those who know me… do know me. But what happened before I woke up in Drakthar?” She shook her head. “It’s like looking into fog.”
Vivienne stayed quiet. She knew what memory loss did to a person. She lived the effects of broken identity.
“I am changed,” Rava said at last. “Not just grown. Not just healed. Changed.” Her voice dropped lower, more uncertain. “I’m the same… but different. My brother—Tarric—he told me something.”
Vivienne’s eyes narrowed.
Rava took a slow breath and said, “He told me… I’m an aetherbeast.”
There was a moment of stunned silence.
“…Ah,” said Vivienne.
“Mmm,” Rava murmured.
The pieces began sliding into place. Slowly. Reluctantly. As though the truth itself had weight.
Vivienne rubbed her belly again, staring down at it with five slow-blinking eyes. “That might explain… more than I want it to.”
“I think I need to speak with Tarric again,” she muttered.
“I’ll ask him,” Rava offered, gently, her thumb stroking over Vivienne’s knuckles.
Vivienne’s lips curled up faintly. “You’re sweet when you’re obedient.”
“Only for you.”
Vivienne smiled wider, just a little.
But beneath that smile, her mind whirled.
She was changing.
And this child—their child—might be the first of something the world had never seen before.
“How is your memory?” Vivienne asked, her voice soft—gentler than usual, like she didn’t want the words to bruise something fragile.
Rava responded with a low huff, her expression tight. “Many patches gone. A few flashes from childhood. Mostly patches. Some a few years ago. Some a few months ago. Nothing solid. Nothing that explains… this.”
Vivienne reached up without thinking, her claws brushing against the side of Rava’s face as she cupped her cheek. The lekine leaned into the touch with surprising tenderness for someone so large and battle-worn. Her tail gave a slow, heavy thump against the couch.
“I still can’t believe you’re here,” Vivienne murmured, her voice cracking at the edges. “In one piece. Breathing. Speaking to me like nothing happened.”
Rava didn’t blink. “How did I die?”
Vivienne sucked in a breath so fast it whistled through her teeth. Her pupils narrowed into sharp slits.
“You… don’t remember?” she asked, even though she already knew the answer.
“No.”
Vivienne dropped her gaze, hand sliding down from Rava’s face to rest over her heart. The silence between them grew heavy. Then she spoke, slowly, like pulling each word from an old wound.
“You were killed. Sliced clean in half by Aegis’ new champion. I watched your body fall. Held it. You drew your last breath in my arms.” Her voice grew quiet. “I don’t remember what I did after that. I think I screamed. Or I didn’t. Maybe I tore something apart. Maybe I collapsed. I don’t remember much.”
Rava was still. Her expression unreadable. “Did you die too?”
Vivienne let out a laugh. Mirthless. Hollow. Like rust scraping against stone. “Something in me did. But not all of me. I was too valuable. They wanted me alive—for something. So they took me. Locked me away. Broke me open.”
She looked up, five black eyes full of darkness and memory.
“I woke up in one of their facilities. Alone. Covered in blood that wasn’t mine. I don’t know what they did to me. Not everything. But they didn’t kill me.”
Rava placed a hand on Vivienne’s, their fingers interlocking like puzzle pieces—jagged and imperfect, but fitting all the same.
“You remember nothing of that?” Vivienne asked quietly.
“I don’t,” Rava said. No hesitation. Just the flat truth. “I remember pain. I remember… you. That’s it.”
Vivienne’s throat bobbed. “That might be all that matters.”
There was a knock and Vivienne called for them to enter. The door creaked open once more, soft and deliberate, and in stepped Corven.
Vivienne didn’t need to look—she knew the rhythm of his gait, the precise weight of his steps. He was efficient, almost surgically so, and he never wasted motion. Just the way she liked him.
She let a slow smile curl across her lips. The air shifted subtly, thickening with the delicious tang of restrained unease. Corven always smelled faintly of ironed fabric, wood polish, and that undercurrent of fear he was so good at masking.
Ah, that flavor—anxiety dressed in calm. Like fine wine laced with adrenaline.
“Mistress,” he greeted with a courteous dip of the head.
“Corven,” Vivienne drawled without glancing away from Rava’s lap, where she lay sprawled like a spoiled cat.
“There is a pair waiting at the gates. A man and a woman. They claim they wish to speak with you. Shall I turn them away?”
Vivienne let her head loll back, eyes peering up at the ceiling. “Mmm… what do you think, love?” she murmured to Rava. “Shall I entertain strangers who know my name, or should I indulge my better instincts and ignore them entirely?”
Rava huffed through her nose, arms folded over Vivienne’s middle like a throne carved from warm muscle. “Do what you think is best,” she said, noncommittal but sincere.
Vivienne giggled—low, rich, and almost fond. “It’s funny,” she mused aloud, tapping Rava’s chin with a claw. “You were always the thinker, back then. Head in the clouds while I was neck-deep in blood. Look at us now.”
Rava grunted, clearly unsure if that was meant as a compliment or an insult. Probably both.
Vivienne waved a lazy hand toward Corven. “Send them in. Escort the pair here, if you please. I find myself tragically detained by the magnetic force of this most luxurious lap.”
“As you wish, Mistress,” Corven said, bowing with practiced grace. Not a single comment on the obvious bloodstains she hadn’t cleaned well, or the gouges in the floorboards she’d made dragging aetherbeast carcasses through the foyer earlier that morning. Corven never judged. Just filed the details away and adjusted accordingly.
Then, like a shadow in reverse, he turned and vanished back into the hall without a sound.
Vivienne exhaled slowly, her hand drifting to her belly. “Let’s see who wants to die for their curiosity today.”