Chapter 4189: Only the Paranoid (Part 2)

All things that the Guardian had just avoided with a few stern words.

Envy left Rena speechless, but only for one second.

"You fluffy bird-" A wave of Salaark’s hand Warped Rena away and cut her short.

***

Alas, that was far from the end of it.

During the following days, Lith was subjected to relentless pestering from every living and dead member of the family to craft unique pendants for everyone.

"You created the problem, you solve it." Senton shrugged. "Once you’re done with your own pendants, find a good design for mine. Aran was right about one thing. My family deserves its own identity."

Lith cursed as a truck driver stuck in a summer traffic jam with no working air conditioning, but it didn’t help him much.

He only found peace in the confines of his lab, and only because he had restricted access to anyone but Solus.

"That’s what they call suffering from success." She chuckled.

"It’s not funny Solus." Lith’s growl only made her laugh harder. "Also, since your mother wants a pendant as well, you’d better start to rack your brain for a good design."

"Me?" She went pale.

"Again, it’s your mother." Lith snorted. "You are the heir of the First Ruler of the Flames and an aspiring Ruler yourself. Ripha left you her Fury and prepared a design specifically suited for you.

"Isn’t this the perfect opportunity to return her favor and express how much *you* love her?"

"You have a point." Solus said, but her voice lacked enthusiasm and sounded like an admission of guilt.

"Then stop saying it like an admission of guilt and start thinking." Lith grunted. "There is no rush, but there is no way I’m doing this alone. You wanted to be part of the family, and this is the price for it."

"What about Kami?" Solus whined, hoping to deflect responsibility.

"Rest assured. As soon as Ral is born and she gets over her depression, I’ll be on her case as well." Lith replied. "Not a moment sooner, though. You know how bad she felt the last time."

***

"Sometimes you make me feel like I’ve wasted my life, child." Baba Yaga said as she practiced Zero and Cinder spells with Lith.

"You have no reason to." Lith shrugged. "If not for Elysia teaching me the basic runes of Mirror Magic, I would have never learned them. Besides, it was your idea to try to use Zero runes to conjure arrays."

"Not that, you obsessive runt!" She replied. "I was talking about your family. Your little ones are so cute, and your idea for the pendants was just lovely."

"Not you too, please!" Lith groaned. "I’m tired of hearing about that. This is my magic lab, so please let’s focus on doing some magic."

He froze her with a glare before she could babble about love being the true and most powerful magic or anything like that.

"Fine." Baba Yaga sighed. "The idea of working on Zero arrays is indeed mine. Too bad I can’t hear a single rune that might form the simplest magical formation. How did you do that in Amrok?"

"I didn’t do it on a conscious level." Lith replied. "It was similar to what Elysia did. I felt the undercurrent of Mogar’s consciousness in the world energy associated with Mirror Magic, I reached for it, and then I resonated with it.

"I would have never succeeded if, on top of chanting Jerak, I weren’t also out of my mind with rage and grief. It was the result of a combination of unpredictable circumstances."

"Interesting." Baba Yaga said. "It means that Mirror Magic is also a form of natural magic, after all. Based on what you felt, it must be the way Mogar expresses her most violent feelings."

"Why has no one ever witnessed them in nature, then?" Solus asked.

"Probably because they manifest at the epicenter of natural disasters like tornadoes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions." Malyshka pondered. "Where no sane person would go. Even if they did, they would be too busy saving their own skin."

"You know, I’ve learned to love magic, but compared to you guys, I must be an amateur." Kamila yawned. "I find magical research tremendously dull, whereas you guys can go on about it for hours."

"It’s the difference between being a mage because you want to and because you have to, Kami." Menadion sighed. "Your love for magic comes from your love for your children. You are studying for them, not because you are genuinely interested in it.

"I wish Threin shared your wisdom. I wish I did." Her eyes unfocused as she became lost in visions of the past.

"You are spot on, Ripha." Kamila rushed to drag her friend out of the tar pit of regrets she was letting herself drown. "Guardian protection or not, I want to be able to look after my kids. Most importantly, I need to be able to chase after them."

She chuckled, conjuring a hologram of Elysia and Valeron at different ages, showing that they flew faster and faster as they grew up.

"If you are bored, why don’t you leave?" Baba Yaga asked. "A Mirror Magic experiment lab is hardly a place for a pregnant woman."

"Because I’m not letting her out of my sight." Lith replied. "Ral should be born any day now, and with my luck, it would happen the moment Kami steps out to take a walk."

"Yes, he’s that paranoid." Kamila answered Baba Yaga’s silent question with a smile. "He knows I can’t get hurt, but he’s afraid I give birth before he arrives due to some ridiculous combination of circumstances only Lith can imagine."

"Back to work, ladies." Lith’s grunt put an end to the laughing at his expense. "Now, setting the arrays aside until we discover new runes, I was thinking. Can other Cursed Elements have different interactions with spells?

"If Zero freezes mana into place, what might Cinder do?"

"I’d say burn them, but that’s what all kinds of flames do." Solus pondered.

"I don’t know about the other elements, but you are missing the obvious." Menadion chimed in. "We already know what Cinder does. Think about-"

"Guys?" The pain in Kamila’s voice brought the discussion to a screeching halt. "I think Lith wasn’t being so paranoid, after all. My water just broke."

"I told you so!" Lith activated the alarm connected to the amulets of the members of his family. "And where would you have gone if I hadn’t asked you to stay?"

"Oh, shut up." She gritted her teeth in pain and annoyance. "I was going to visit Zinya when you kidnapped me."

"See?" Lith Warped everyone back to the Mansion. "All according to my predictions."

He handed her a thick folder of papers containing all the worst-case scenarios involving her pregnancy for which he had prepared contingency plans.

"Situation 15-D. Word by word."

"Okay, fine. You were right. Can we move on from that now?"

"How long did it take you to write all this stuff?" Baba Yaga flipped through the many pages of the document. "It’s no wonder you have no free time."

"That’s irrelevant." Lith replied. "Only the paranoid survive. Mom! Grandma!"

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