“Let’s give them some privacy, shall we?” said Prince Baiyu as he drew the window curtains shut. “It’s my sister’s first transformation.”
“Me! I helped!” said Eggy. “I showed her how to grow biiiiig.”
Lari, Kharli, Mo, Nanny, and I sat down for some tea while Eggy and his father had a thumb wrestling match. A few minutes later, we heard a roar from the courtyard.
“My dear, she’s asking me to join them. Shall I take our son, too?” Prince Baiyu asked.
I could see Eggy eagerly nodding his head, so I agreed.
“Mom, come!”
“What? Me?” I pretended to be terrified. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch!”
Eggy, of course, didn’t know about the Jabberwock, but he still smiled at me and pretended to scratch me with his claws even though he was still in human form. “No, beware the dragon.”
“Go with your father, and be good.”
“Come, follow me. Don’t approach the baby until I say so,” said Prince Baiyu.
This time, my husband parted the curtains to let me see what was going on before they went outside and turned into their other forms.
“What a charming scene,” I said to the others.
We were all watching their every move.
In the sunlit courtyard, three large white tigers, glossy-furred and sleekly-muscled, were softly growling at a tiny tiger cub while my child, in his dragon form, stood by his father’s side merrily cheeping away.
“Wow, the sounds are making me feel like I’m in a jungle,” I said.
The others just smiled, and we were mostly silent as we watched the drama unfold. The baby seemed scared of the strange dragon and shied away when her parents tried to push her towards Eggy and Prince Baiyu. Eventually, they coaxed her into standing at least a little bit closer to him, which satisfied her parents, who then groomed their child with their tongues. Eggy flew up to perch atop his father’s head and play with the white fur inside his ears.
I thought they would frolic together for a while, but just a few seconds later, the cub turned back into a baby, and the others all transformed back into their human forms.
“Aww,” I said. “That was too cute!”
They returned with the baby in the Lady’s arms, fast asleep and wrapped in a white cotton blanket.
Lord Yulin said, “She’s worn out from her first transformation.”
I showed them to the nursery, and they put her in Eggy’s old cradle. We returned to the dining room, where I served them snacks and tea.
Eggy tugged on my sleeve. “Mom, mom, mom, did you see? She likes me. She said she likes me like this.”
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He then made a series of meowing sounds, which made us all laugh.
“Yes, she likes you a lot,” said Lady Yuying.
We chatted about everyday things while keeping the door to the nursery open so we would know if the baby woke up, but my in-laws assured me she would sleep for at least an hour after her first time morphing into her clan’s shape.
I was pleased to see that my apprentices could now fluently and confidently converse in the courteous and elegant manner that was required of nobles of their rank in front of the Lady of the West and her consort. Scholar Wu’s efforts to increase their vocabulary and school them in the formal and informal polite forms of address in this world’s language had borne fruit.
Of course, we mostly talked about the baby.
“I can’t believe how cute she is. I used to have a little baby, too, but he grew too fast,” I said, grinning at my little boy. “I sometimes wish I still had a baby with tiny little fingers and toes.”
Eggy grinned back at me and said, “Bunny mommy is smaller than the tiger cub and has tiny baby paws!”
Lord Yulin raised an eyebrow. “Bunny mommy? What’s that?”
Eggy giggled. “You have never seen my mommy rabbit! She veeery small.”
“Teacher, you can turn into a rabbit?” Mo looked intrigued.
“No, Eggy’s just joking. I don’t turn into a rabbit. It’s an illusion,” I said.
“She won’t show it to me,” said Prince Baiyu to his parents.
Eggy held up his hand. “Stop. Bunnies are scared of tigers.”
“What? Me?” Prince Baiyu pretended to be shocked.
“Yes! You!” Eggy’s hand patted him on the shoulder. “If a poor little bunny rabbit gets too scared…”
He put a hand over his heart and mimed a death from a heart attack.
“But I would like to see this rabbit,” said Lord Yulin.
“And me,” said Lady Yuying. “If it’s just an illusion, she won’t die of fright.”
“But I don’t want mommy to be scared,” said Eggy.
“It’s okay since these tigers are family,” I said. “But I won’t turn into a rabbit for other people. It’s our secret, okay?”
I put a finger over Eggy’s lips, and he nodded.
“It’s a secret that Mom is a bunny.”
“No, I’m not a bunny; it’s an illusion.” I paused. “Do you remember the rules?”
He nodded again. “I can’t touch bunny.”
The illusion broke when the player was touched.
“Good.” I drank another sip of my tea. “I’ll show you guys after we finish our drinks and before the baby wakes up.”
Eggy excitedly ran around our table chanting, “Bunny, bunny, bunny!”
I used the [Megaphone] to send Eggy a message only he could hear. He stopped running and embraced me. “Yes! I love that!”
The two of us laughed together and exchanged a conspiratorial look. The others were in for a big surprise!
Leaving the nanny with the baby with the nursery window open, we went out into the courtyard. I placed a sturdy wooden table at one end of the open area, which Eggy and I stood on while the others watched.
The Cash Shop item I was going to use didn’t actually change my form. Instead, it made me invisible and let me control an illusory rabbit. I triggered it and watched as everyone gasped as I stepped back and disappeared, and a small white rabbit with pink eyes appeared in my place.
“I love Mommy bunny!” Eggy bent down to peer into the rabbit’s face. “Look, her nose is twitching.”
“Incredible. If I hadn’t been told this was an illusion, I would’ve thought this was real,” said Lord Yulin.
“She’s full of surprises,” said Prince Baiyu.
“Teacher is so adorable,” said Mo.
“I want to pick her up and hug her,” said Kharli. She was crouching down at the edge of the table at the rabbit’s eye level.
“Be careful. I bet this rabbit can cast an explosive spell that could kill us,” said Lari.
Using the System controls, I activated the first of the animations, [Eat Carrot].
“Bunny loves carrots,” Eggy said to the others.
The carrot was a big pink sparkly one, and they all wondered if it was magical, but they hadn’t seen anything yet. I activated [Chase Butterfly], which they all thought was charming, and they were surprised when the wooden table top turned into a flower meadow when I triggered [Pick Flowers]. Lastly, I used [Go to Sleep], which made the rabbit go into a darling little wooden cottage with a red roof and shut the door behind her. We could see from the window that she got into bed and went to sleep.
“Aw, is it over?” asked Mo.
It was not.
I used the System to turn the courtyard’s stone tiled floor into an illuminated disco dance floor with flashing neon lights. It was still daylight, so the floor wasn’t really that bright, but, of course, they were all surprised and took their eyes off the rabbit. As they were distracted, I put the rabbit back into neutral standby mode, making the house disappear. When they turned back to look, it was already too late.
A group of white, brown, black, and red rabbits appeared all around the dance floor. Prince Baiyu, Lady Yuying, Lord Yulin, and my three apprentices all looked shocked when an invisible force took hold of them and pushed them into their designated places on the dance floor equidistant from each other.
Then beads of light manifested and coalesced into the figure of an anthropomorphic rabbit, clearly a rip-off of Bugs Bunny. He was holding a microphone, and he said, “What's up, Doc?”
*****
Author's Note:
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