The sound of thunder shook the sky as a Man in a beige suit ran through the rain. His hat long lost to the wind and his own determination to not be late. The Man's name was James Mistmire, A high ranking Noble of the Kingdom of Bellmuze, He had been the second son of the Last King with his older brother taking the reins when their father had died in the middle of a war a few years back.
At the time this hadn't seemed like too big of a problem to James, who was far from interested in the burden that came with being king, but soon another burden had become his. While his brother, the current king had won the war and sent the invaders packing, He had taken a serious injury, and while he had recovered with time, he had been left incapable of siring children due to the placement of the injury.
As the only other child of royal descent it had become James duty to make sure the kingdom had a future king. This had come with its own problems, while James and his Wife had been happily married for over a decade, it had been with the mutual understanding that their marriage was purely political. In all honesty they found no physical interest in each other but had built a business-like relationship instead of a spiteful life of pretend love.
In order to give the kingdom a heir they had resorted to some somewhat fickle magic to avoid having to be touch one another. At first everything seemed to be going well, but when his wife had been predicted to have not one child but four, the fear that the spell might have done more than it was promised to do was all but confirmed.
"She wasn't supposed to be due for another two weeks," James swore, having been in a completely different part of the country when he had gotten the news his wife had gone into labor, "It's like it was waiting until I couldn't be around to stop anything going wrong," With everything going wrong and every tiny thing becoming a roadblock James had given up on using any kind of magic to get around after managing to get to the city after a few hours of delay and was now rushing to the Mansion on the outskirts of the Kingdoms capital, He could just see his home and a few of his hired help.
"Master James," Mordecai, his gardener who was built like a small giant, called out, "You must hurry, the first child has already been born," James didn't acknowledge the mountain of a man and rushed into the house. Madeline, His head Chef, a woman with long spiky blond hair and only one hand, called after him.
"You can teleport you twat," She informed him, he ignored her and rushed to his wife's room, where their head maid Mary stood waiting for him, opening the door without a word and closing it once he ran inside. His Wife had the estate's private doctor at her side with several maids in the corner.
"Are…are the…" James tried and failed to speak as his adrenaline failed him and he lost all of his wind.
"It's a boy," Doctor Green announced as she held up the forth and final child for James to see.
"Don't show him," his wife Zoey complained, "Show me first," Doctor Green let them both see their youngest son, a boy with Blue eyes like his mother and red peachy fuzz atop his head that promised to turn the same shade of red as his fathers hair.
"He's alive," James noted, "what about the others?"
"Two Girls and Two Boys in total," Doctor Green informed him, "But…you should know that something isn't quite right with-"
"Cut to the chase," James barked at the Doctor. "You know what we did and how we did it, did any of them come out wrong?"
"Yes," Doctor Green informed him, "The first born son is…off,"
"Let me see," James demanded as he made his way to the where the Maids who were doing their best to act as nurses were caring for the other three children.
The Two Girls looked to be identical twins and had short fuzzy black peach fuzz like their mother, the maids informed him they had their fathers Green eyes.
The final child however looked completely out of place, he had hair as white as snow that, despite having only just been born, was already long enough to be at his waist, with purple eyes that looked venomous, while the two girls were sleeping, the boy was staring directly at him, no laughing, no crying, no curiosity, just blankly staring at him.
"We need to get rid of it," James decided without hesitation, "It's been possessed by a demon no doubt,"
"Like. Hell," Zoey said from the bed as the maids took the final child from Doctor Green and the doc went to work making sure Zoey was in a stable state, "We took a risk, and we're living with it,"
"Living with it?" James laughed at the notion, "Zoey that's just why this demon did this, It's not our child, just a corpse with a monster hiding inside, you think it's an accident it was the first born?"
"I've given all of the staff instructions," Zoey replied calmly, "that if you try to do anything to any of my children or try to silence me, they will all tell the King what we did to conceive the children,"
"You'll go down with me," James hissed, "And destroy the other three's lives in the process,"
"Try me," Zoey shot back as Doctor Green left Zoey's side and went to the four cribs the children had been set up in.
"Come along then," Doctor Green said, "We must commence with the Naming ritual, as per custom the first born-"
"Yes," James cut in as he walked up to the son that had been delivered as he entered the room "This, our first born son, who will inherit the throne,"
"Sir I-" Doctor Green tried to cut in only for James to Grab her by the hem of her coat.
"If I go down you all fall with me, and I can not give my brother that Demon as an heir, if you want to keep the Demon we're listing it as the second born son,"
"Get off me," Doctor Green said irritably, "Go ahead, name your Children in the 'order' they were born,"
"Eric, Hanna, Molly, and Nebbie Mistmire,"
"Nebbie?" Zoey called out in defiance, "we agreed on-"
"We agreed to get rid of the Demon if there was one," James spat back "You want the child fine but It won't be receiving the name of one of my forefathers or foremothers, it'll be luck to get away with a life in poverty when I'm done with it," James turned to leave when a bright golden light filled the room.
"A Unique Skill," Doctor Green looked on in awe, James turned to the Demon child ready for anything, before realizing all four children had started glowing. After a moment the glowing stopped and Doctor Green used her Inquire skill to find out what skills the Children had been blessed with.
"The Hero's Seed," She whispered as she looked at Erik, "The Warrior's Seed," She added as she move on to Hanna, "The Mage's Seed," Molly yawned as she rolled over in her sleep and Doctor Green turned to Nebbie, who was still staring her down. "The Demon Lord's Seed," She finished in awe.
"My Children all have a Seed of power!?" James demanded as Zoey let out a sound of delight.
"Seems that Spell had a built in measure should a Demon be born with it," Doctor Green noted, "To grant the other siblings the power to stop it should the Demon be born,"
"This is perfect," James sighed with relief, "We just have to keep the Demon at arms length and make sure the other three know the destiny they must one day serve," James waved to his wife as he left the room, "Put the girls in the same room, put the elder son in the largest of the guest bedrooms, and put the Demon down in the cellar where the help live, we need to make sure it knows its place," James left a little too loudly and Molly started crying, this resulted in the other two quickly following suit as Nebbie continued staring at Doctor Green blankly.
As the three crying babies were each assigned one of the maids in the room to watch over them Zoey called out to the head maid. Mary entered the room and walked to Zoey's side before speaking.
"Would you like me to prepare one of the guest bedrooms for you ma'am?" Mary Questioned "Due to the early nature of the nights events none of the childrens rooms will be ready until at least tomorrow,"
"Doctor Green will be taking the Children for the first few hour," Zoey informed Mary "And as my bed is coated in Blood and other such thing I will be changing beds once the maids are free to help me clean myself up for the night,"
"What will be keeping me too busy to help ma'am?" Mary inquired calmly.
"You're being assigned maternal duty over Nebbie," Zoey pointed out Nebbie and Mary walked over to the child, who stared at her just as blandly as she stared at it.
"Ah yes, you mentioned this might happen," Mary offered Nebbie her hand, Nebbie looked at the hand and grabbed one of her fingers, but after his curiosity on what was near him was stated he lost interest and let go, simply staring Zoey in the eye.
"I accept this job," Mary decided as she pulled her hand back, "Doctor Green I presume you have the potion for breastfeeding already prepared?"
"I'll give it to you and the other three maternity maids once we get the children to the nursery ward,"
"I was unaware you had one,"
"I instructed Mordecai to set it up for me once Zoey went into labor, knowing him it was finished before Nebbie even started crowning," Doctor Green began directing Mary and the other maids on how they would be moving the babies after Zoey participated in the final step she was directly required for. Doctor Green picked up Nebbie and brought him to Zoey so they could meet eye to eye properly.
"Hello," Zoey greeted happily, "It's nice to meet you," Nebbie showed more interest in Zoey than he had shown in anyone else as he made his first noise and laughed at Zoey's touch. Zoey brought him up so he could touch her face and laughed back at him as she enjoyed a moment alone with him, after a minute Nebbie seemingly decided he'd had enough and curled up against his mother's chest, quickly dozing off before Doctor Green could take him back and give the other three children the same right of one on one contact with their mother.