#he found another baby ancient godling!

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 71

Klarion is delighted, excited, impatient, and so very happy. He’s found a friend, not the justice league baby-crew who don’t know how to make friends properly or the order-magician who doesn’t play right, but another realm-being his age! They’re even around the same death-date, his is just a couple years earlier! But to beings who aren’t adults until they’re well into the hundreds that’s practically nothing!

His new friend even has a familiar too- even if he has to explain what a familiar is- and, and even shares his two other friends with him! 

He’s been in this world for what feels like so long trying to make friends and he’s made three in just a month! And they even know how to properly play and wrestle without targeting Teekl like a certain order lord who he doesn’t like. 

Oh! Hey it’s the justice league kiddy-crew! Were they feeling neglected or something?

[chipper-smol]

Hollow Knight Telephone Round Two: Babysitter SL

Prompt: Shade (lord) is in the midst of final exams and they’re more stressed and tired than usual while babysitting. They accidentally fall asleep in the middle of a calm spell and the god babies become worried. The next time Shade comes over, all of the god babies present a gift they all made together!

By @minnesotamidian-blog​

Shade barely noticed their surroundings as they entered the nursery playroom. Plastic clattered and they sighed as Radiance yelled at the top of her lungs. At least she wasn't screaming. Yet. The scene was set: Unn was still in a crib and chewing on a bar, Root was climbing slowly onto a chair. Radiance was knocking over plastic blocks as Grimm cackled away. For once, Wyrm was playing peacefully with a kick toy, batting at it with his tail. Root got onto the chair and squealed, raising her arms. "Big Root now!" The little blue-eyed godling squeaked out.

Shade picked her up, hugged her to their chest before holding her out. "Now you're a flying Root."

She screamed laughter as Shade tiredly walked her around the room before setting her down near some of her favorite toys. They made sure nobody else had claimed the chair and took a seat, bending over to pick up the fussy moth. "Ancient enemy!" Of course she bit their hand.

Shade winced and just ran a hand over her fluff. "Are you hungry for something that isn't void?" They spoke tiredly.

"Oranges!" She yelled out.

The teen sighed as he went to the mini-fridge with snacks and found some miracle of miracles! pre-peeled oranges. Shade pulled them out and put her in a high chair with one at a time so she wouldn't be tempted to throw the extras at them.

Finals were here and they were really taking it out of the gangly god. Why did they have to know stuff about inorganic chemistry? Why did they have to know about history nobody cared about? There were some fun subjects, but the finals seemed to even suck the fun out of those classes, going over notes and studying everything just in case. They'd been pulling long nights and the night before had been an all-night cram session-and they still had to come to work, they couldn't afford not to. They'd underlined all the stuff the teacher had said was important to remember and had written down stuff from the last finals about each teacher's usual tests.

It made narrowing down what to study from impossible to I'm totally toast. They groaned as they set down a calmer Radiance the opposite side of the room from Wyrm. She found toys that interested her, at least. Root wandered over to Wyrm, who was really into knocking at the kick toy and purring. Root settled nearby and burbled as she hugged and gnawed a plushie.

The teen couldn't help it. The kids were calm for once; their head started to tilt forward, eyes heavy. They were exhausted. Shade's eyes closed and their breathing deepened. At first, their toys were too interesting to notice their babysitter's state; but it didn't take long for Grimm to get bored enough to fly over and notice. "...Shade? Shade's eyes are closed." They landed and the four children not in a crib headed for the batlike godling.

"Is Shade dead?" Wyrm sounded worried.

"Don't be stupid, they're having a nap!" Radiance huffed.

Root looked up and swayed before patting Shade's leg. "Grown-ups don't have nap times." She was tearing up.

"Nuh-uh, they're having bad dreams and it's tasty!" Grimm clamored onto their lap.

The others joined, Radiance grabbing Unn to join them on the sleeping teen. Grimm rested between Shade's horns, Unn was on one shoulder, Radiance on the other, with Root and Wyrm curled up together on Shade's lap, Wyrm purring for once.

When Shade woke up, they were surprised by the weight on their body and forced themself to look down and around before moving. "Uh oh, I fell asleep… sheesh, I'm glad this place isn't a fiery disaster." They picked the godlings up. "You're not dead!" Wyrm exclaimed.

Root burst into tears and even Grimm joined in on the crying spat. Shade sighed and spent the rest of the time comforting them until meal time and settled them down. Time to go home for them all!

But the worry didn't leave the heads of the little godlings. "We should make something for Shade. If they're having nightmares, they might be sad." Radiance sighed. "But that doesn't mean I feel bad for my ancient enemy!" "What do we make?" Root twirled around, slowly turning in place until she fell onto pillows in her dizziness.

"Something of clay! I can burn it dry!" Grimm hopped around.

"But there's no clay." Unn spoke slowly, thoughtfully. "But there's crayons and paper."

"Oooh. We can make a pretty picture for Shade!" Wyrm waved his head happily. The group went for papers and each started to draw on the paper. "You're taking up too much paper!" Wyrm whined.
Radiance complained in turn, pointing at the color he was using. "I want that color!"

Wyrm growled and argued back. "I had it first!"

They started rolling around over their drawings, biting and clawing. Grimm gave a solid scream that startled the two. "You ruined Shade's pretty pictures!" He yelled.

The two looked at each other and hung their heads. "...sorry." Radiance muttered.
"-'m sorry." Wyrm looked away from the moth, skulking. "Start again? You can have the crayon, Radiance…"

Radiance took the crayon and they all picked up the last piece of paper. "I think this is better." Root spoke cheerfully.

It was three days later, once Shade had a solid night's sleep and finals completed that they'd returned to work. A large construction sheet of paper in grey covered in scribbles and rough names and messages was waiting for them.

Feel better soon Shade

Love you

Best babysitter

Tastiest nightmare!

Not the worst anciant ancient enemy.Shade could only feel warmth and laugh, hugging the drawing to themself. There were some days the job felt like the best thing in the world.  ------------------------------- By @tomatotimes

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By @loud-whistling-yes

"No."

The kids protested louder. Shade lifted the TV remote higher up, now above their head.

"Screentime's over, I said no."

Wyrm attempted to crawl up their leg in what was a rather pathetic attempt at stealing the remote, but was promptly shaken off. Grimm tried next, flying overhead to snatch the controller. Shade ducked and grabbed him by the tail before he could send himself flying straight towards the ceiling fan for the third time that day.

"Find something else to do," Shade said as they stuffed the remote deep into their pocket, much to everyone else's dismay. "Look, as much as I'd love to shut you guys up for the whole day, you've all been staring at the TV for hours now and I don't want to get in trouble with your parents."

Louder complaints.

"No, no, no. I am not cracking this time." Shade announced as they pulled Radi, who was hissing like an angry cat, off their jeans and pulled their phone out. "You guys got me last week, never again. No more TV for you, we're doing something else before I lose my money for tonight. Google almighty, what is your suggestion."

activities to do with children

fun activities to do with children

activities to do with toddlers

what can I do with kids that isn't a major headache to deal with goddamnit

Go to the park? Shade took about half a second to consider the thought before wondering why they even thought it was possible anyways. Five kids from the deepest depths of hell, outdoors? No. No park.

Finger painting? A pain to clean up, but better than outdoors. Then they looked up from their phone and considered the idea with greater thought. Grimm's wings, Radi's legs, Unn and Wyrm's… er…. Body?.... Nevermind.

Play pretend? …. If they hear the name Hallownest one more time they might just go insane.

Hide and seek? No. No no no no no. No more hide and seek. Shade was utterly sick of hide and seek. If they had to spend another second stuffed inside the closet or trying to get Radi off the roof they'll probably quit the job right there and then.

Baking?

… That might work. Sure, cleaning up is gonna be absolute hell but it's the only thing Google suggested that they haven't tried yet without horrible results.

Shade stuffed their phone back into their pocket and made a getaway to the kitchen, everyone else following, probably still trying to get the remote back. Butter, eggs, flour, sugar, oh, even some chocolate chips…

"Well then," They declared, pulling every ingredient out of the cabinet and fridge. "We're making cookies! And no, no one is allowed to touch the oven when it's hot. If you guys behave we'll have cookies in like, an hour or something like that."

The kids watched in confusion as Shade ran around the kitchen, pulling out bowls and spoons and a bunch of other utensils while typing furiously on their phone.

Cookies recipe

Cookies recipe easy

Cookies recipe for beginners

Cookies recipe for kids

"What do you guys think about chocolate chip cookies?"

Multiple chitters of approval. "Chocolate chip cookies it is then."

Step one: sieve the flour. Oh wyrm, first step and it's already gonna go to shit.

"Okay, you guys can watch this but for the love of the holy wyrm, do not touch it." Shade measured the correct amount of flour before scooping Wrym and Unn off the floor onto the table so they could see while Radi pulled herself onto the chair. The Lady had already clinged herself onto their sweater and Grimm was doing just fine flying nearby.

“You guys get one chocolate chip each if you guys behave and don’t get flour everywhere.” Shade added. “Now, Lady, hold still and don’t move, I gotta keep my hands steady for this…”

************

"Okay, chocolate chip time." Shade popped open the jar of chocolate as the kids cheered. "Actually, we’re not supposed to be eating this plain, cause it's going into the cookies. But no one actually does that so you guys get five chips each for not setting the kitchen on fire so far."

"The recipe says a cup of chocolate chips but we all know that's a lie." They added while shoving their phone back in their pocket and grabbing a handful of chips before mixing the batter together. "I'm probably not someone you should take life lessons from, but here's one thing I can guarantee you should take to heart: never follow the recipe when it comes to chocolate chips, you count that with your soul."

Final step: oven time. The oven was preheated earlier, and the only thing left was to get the cookies into the tray and into the oven. "Now, who wants to make heart-shaped cookies?"

****************

Three deformed stars, five mutated trees, two malformed cats, several irregular hearts, a couple handfuls of chocolate eaten straight from the jar, and one (1) perfectly round cookie later, the cookies were on the tray, in the oven, and in a surprising turn of events, no one burned themselves… yet. Shade grabbed everyone and made sure no one was in a five-meter radius within the oven before picking up all the dirty bowls and utensils. “Cookies will have to sit in there for about 15 minutes, we’ll be cleaning up in the meantime.”

“Don’t look at me like that, and no whining, if you want cookies you gotta deal with the mess afterwards. That's the payoff, unless you're a wizard who has a passion for baking. Then that's fair, I guess." They dumped all the used utensils they could find and turned on the sink. The sief, three bowls, tablespoons and teaspoons.. Oh wait.

"Radi, the big wooden spoon, please?" Shade called, sponge in their hand and bowls being thoroughly rinsed.

Radi, of course, was not willing to help, because she's basically a feral house cat that just so happened to grow more legs than the average feline. Shade sighed and moved on to finding the next helper they could find.

"Grimm, I know you're touching the oven, stop it. I'm pretty sure you're immune to fire but not everyone else and you're setting a bad example for them. Get me the spoon please."

“Lady, here’s a cloth, help me dry the bowls up. Wyrm, … i have no idea how you can help, no limbs and all but uh, could you go get Unn? I have no idea where she went. Thanks.” The last sentence was to Grimm, who flew over with the mixing spoon and dropped it into the sink while Wyrm scurried away to find Unn, wherever she’s napping at.

"Radi? Radi, I know you're right behind me, stop pretending that you can't hear me. Lady has an extra cloth with her, you're on table wiping duty."

*********

“See? That wasn't so bad,” Shade sent the last of the bowls back into the cupboards and closed it shut. “And the cookies are pretty much done.”

“Also, no. You may not eat the cookies the moment I pull them out of the oven. These rules also apply to Grimm because it's unfair to everyone else.. Don’t look at me like that Grimm, I know you’ll eat them all before they cool and leave us nothing.”

The cookies smelt delicious, and were left on the dining table to cool. “Now that it's cooling down, it's naptime.”

A chorus of groans and wailing.

“It’ll be ready when you guys get up. Up up up, sleep time.”

**********

If you’ve been anywhere near toddlers before, you’d know that getting them to nap in their bedrooms is a near-impossible situation. And Shade was not a person who deals with near-impossible situations well. So following the months old custom, Shade turned on the tv, remote miraculously not pickpocketed, collapsed onto the couch, and waited for everyone piling on them to fall asleep before moving them into their bedroom and pretending they managed to wrangle them all into bed.

And it all goes to plan, the Lady and Wyrm were sound asleep on their lap, Radi and Unn were dozing off on their shoulders, and they're pretty sure the snoring from the top of their head was coming from Grmm. Now, step 2: get everyone off them and onto the beds.

… Or maybe later. It's been a long day, and the couch is pretty comfy. Yeah, just five more minutes, nothing wrong with that…

And if the parents came home to see a cleaner-than-expected kitchen, a tray of chocolate chip cookies, and five kids snoring on top of their babysitter, also sound asleep, then that’s nobody’s business.

And if the originally completely full jar of chocolate chips was pretty much empty, then that’s no one’s business as well.

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By @astronomicartz​

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By @hollow-kin​

Shade lord wanted to take a nap. They are sooo tired, but they are babysitting 5 baby gods for 5$/H. Grimm is a brat, Radiance his sister is also a brat. Unn was ether eating or seeping, same with grub1. Lady was, well sweet and cuddly. they needed to find a distraction for the kids, what would work?

Would tv work, would cartoons work? They had dinner already. Tv had to work or grub and radiance would destroy the house. They needed to take a nap. Now what to watch was a different question, they would have to ask the kids. “so, what do guys want to watch? “Movie!” well they were all in agreement, what was good. “What kind of movie do you guys want to watch?” “Fire!” “dath” “animal” “tree” “ok. No, we are NOT watching fire.” “awww” “i do not know what dath means so no. So nature show it is then.” they go over to the tv and turn it on, then select the world around us. Lady was quick to fall asleep, on their lap. Shade lord slowly fell asleep, and grub nested between grub and shade lord. Grimm climed up to shade lord's head. 

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By @hawaiianbabidoll

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By @neoliberalsatan

A gentle darkness surrounded the shade lord. He finally felt at ease. "finally", he thought, "rest." it didn't take long after that before the darkness started to take shape and a whole new world created out of shadows sheathed him.

But the happiness of the shadows didn't last long. A new and a new sound drowned out their world and all the animals and plants took to hiding back in his head. The shade lord felt the distressed creations stir inside his mind and woke up to the sound of his phone ringing. He rubbed his lowest eyes and accepted the call

"Hello, with shade lord. How can i help you?" "Oh sorry dear, i know it's terribly late but we got an unexpected call and need to leave. Since you've babysat Unn multiple times we assumed she would like to stay with you. Is it okay for you? Can we bring her to your place?" The shade lord thought for a moment and decided he could use the money. "Yea it's fine, she's always such a pleasure to babysit." The voice on the other side sounded relieved. "Thank you. You're a life saver. We will make sure you're compensated accordingly."

Feeling a bit more awake after the phone call he started to prepare for having baby Unn over. After a while her parents arrived and after some greetings he was home alone with the baby. He walked with her in his arms towards the living room and placed her gently inside the crib. She opened her eyes for a moment after losing the feeling of someone holding her, but then closed them again and fell back asleep.

The shade lord decided he couldn't sleep anymore and made some popcorn and decided to put on a movie. It didn't even take 20 minutes before he got called again.

"Hello, with shade lord. How can i help you?" "Oh yes finally someone who answers. Sorry but you're our last hope. We were going somewhere tonight but our babysitter called off. Do you think you could babysit our lovely Radiance? She's very good behaved and won't cause you trouble." "yea, no problem. You'll just need to bring her to my place if it's no trouble"

Not even 5 minutes later the parents showed up and dropped of their larva. Shade lord looked at it a bit confused but didn't get the time to say anything because the parents left as soon as they handed her over. He closed his front door and gave the larva a good look. She was white and had a fluffy appearance. She had 5 pairs of legs and yellow-orange eyes. She started to writhe a little bit and shade lord made sure to hurry to the living room. He took a pillow and placed it on the couch and softly laid her on it. She seemed at ease and rested on the pillow all stretched out

Shade lord continued his movie, which was finally starting to get interesting, but as usual the commercial break hit. He was in the kitchen making more popcorn when he got another call.

"Hello, with shade lord. How can i help you?" "Hello, is this the babysitter?" "Yes, that's the one you're speaking with." "Great, a family member had an accident and i need to be there for them so do you think you could babysit for me?" "Yep, totally." "Thank you, can we bring him to you?" "Oh yea, no problem."

A few minutes later his doorbell rang and he hurried towards it. The father carried his toddler in what could only be described as wing-esque appendages. The shade lord extended his arms for the man to put his toddler in and felt a gentle brush of the leathery membrane. He shivered lightly before feeling a sudden warmth light up in his face, like someone has started a fire. When he looked back up the man was gone and he closed the door. The creature he was holding in his arms was unlike anything he had ever seen. 2 horns sprouted from its black head. The face was as bleak as white linen on a summer day. It seems she likes make-up because she had already 2 black lines running from her cheeks towards her eyes, eventually fading into the darkness of her head. She had the same membranes as her father and no limbs besides it.

He wasn’t even in the living room before he heard his front door being was under siege. He put the weird creature down and opened the front door. Immediately he was assaulted by Hollow, a very energetic child. He was wearing a green cloak today and it finally seemed he was starting to grow bigger than a hand. His horns has also branched into the inside. Immediately after Hollow jumped on his he could hear Pale complain about his unprofessional work attitude. Although he was bigger than most it seems he wouldn’t grow much anymore. His tiny stature didn’t discourage him from being bossy. Finally White entered. By far the biggest of the bunch, she was also the most introverted. Her roots slid elegantly over towards him and even managed to stop Pale from talking for a moment.

He took them inside the living room only to find that somehow the larva and the winged creature had somehow gotten into a fight and now both were in hiding in opposite sides of the room. Normally he wouldn’t make such a big deal out of this if somehow his couch wasn’t full of tiny needles and a chair was on fire. He rushed to the tap to fill a bowl of water to extinguish the little fire. With the attention being diverted Hollow managed to slip from the watch of Pale and could now be found in the corner Radiance was hiding. The larva figured out quickly he liked to play games and had soon enough set up a plan to make him betray Pale.

In the meantime White had climbed the couch and started pulling out the needles while Shade lord had figured out what the membrane between the appendages from the weird creature were for. Namely, for flight. And now she was attacking his horns and he couldn’t reach her. As if her flying was not good enough alone, whenever he raised his arms she would back off and launch a little fireball  All this commotion woke up baby Unn who slowly started to slither away from her crib to find food.

The shade lord finally had enough of the little fire hazard and rushed towards the pantry to get a kettle. Once he had found it he peeked around the corner only to find that fire hazard eating his popcorn! All caution was thrown aside and he grabbed her by the guts and put her inside the kettle. She tried to heat it but he added some water to it. While it evaporated quickly it was apparently enough to bring over the message. Now he could focus his attention back on the larva again, only she could’ve produced those needles, which White was making great progress with removing them as a quick glance told him.

Now back to Pale and Radiance who were apparently having a fight (Darkness, that larva really has a talent to provoke others). They were arguing near the coffee table, because apparently they wanted a fight so bad they just ran to each other and met in the middle. Hollow was climbing one of the legs of the table, but wasn’t noticed by the shade lord because he was too occupied with the other 2. He tried to separate the arguing pair but they were at each other’s throats. They even had summoned a needle and a tiny dagger to fight each other. The shade lord obviously didn’t count on this tiny factor and had soon enough one in each hand. He screamed, trying not to curse, barely not failing miserably, and Pale managed to escape. In any other situation this wouldn’t pose a problem, but Hollow, after eating some popcorn, found himself at the right edge of the coffee table and pulled out his tiny wooden sword he got from Pale. The larva, Darkness curse her, used this to her advantage and made the sign to Hollow to betray Pale. The act of betraying Pale involved jumping off of the coffee table and hitting Pale as hard on the head as possible. Naturally, all of this went according to plan and even brought some extra spectacle. After Hollow had hit Pale on the head he wasn’t prepared for the recoil of the wood and ended up hitting himself in the face.

All of this lead to 3 crying children (1 of them from laughing, the others from pain) and 1 very angry young adult. He put the larva on the couch and took care of the others while White held a close eye on the damned 10 legged thing. After Pale and Hollow weren’t crying anymore he took the little fire hazard out of the kettle and continued his movie, which was getting to an end.

After the film ended a documentary started and had all the kids hooked. He went to check on Unn only to find an empty crib. He could however see a slimy trail lead up his wall and onto the ceiling. It went through the door into the pantry where he kept his food and toys for the toddlers. He looked up on the ceiling only to find a sleepy Unn with a letter block in her mouth. Suddenly Unn started to make a very weird noise and fell from the ceiling onto his face. He swiped her off of his face onto his shoulder and then washed it.

He returned back to the tv to watch the documentary that was still playing and plopped down on the couch. Not long after he was asleep with White on his left shoulder, Unn on his right shoulder, the little fire hazard on the same arm and Pale curled up in his lap. Radiance and hollow were still awake but occupied with the documentary instead of causing trouble. After the documentary ended they crawled up against his sides and fell asleep.

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By @constantlost 

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By @bugbeee

Exhaustion seeped into Shadelord’s body, limbs weighed down by a heaviness they hadn’t experienced in a while. The smatter of godlings that lay around them on the couch, or on them in Radi’s case, was enough to convince them that they had died and that this was the Eternal Void that was created to punish them for cheating on that test in the 8th grade. In their defence, it had been on rock sedimentation.

Wyrm continued his grumbling from the corner of the couch, still infuriated by the attack on his person only moments before. Root, the aggressor, looked remarkably pleased with herself. Shade knew they should probably punish her further in some way but... well, to be perfectly honest, they simply were not paid enough to do so.

They really should have charged more. Fifteen dollars at least per tiny demon they had to look after rather than the whole bunch. Fifteen dollars was not enough to encourage discipline. It was enough for them to make sure none of the godlings killed the other. And they had thought they had come up with an ingenious plan to secure some peace and quiet.

After much wrangling, they had finally managed to set up two separate playpens, each far enough away that the godlings wouldn’t start screaming if one of them saw their rival. Wyrm and Root in one pen, Grimm, Radi and Unn in another. It was a gamble, but one that thankfully seemed to have paid off. Radi was still exhausted from the tussle she had just had with Wyrm, and Grimm seemed content to chew off the heads of the plastic Garbies they had found. Unn continued to watch, and occasionally helped Grimm execute a Garbie in a spectacular manner. It was both reassuring, and beyond disturbing. Root and Wyrm meanwhile were cheerfully ignoring each other as they both played with their own toys.

It should have been foolproof.

Unfortunately for Shade however, they were dealing with infants instead of fools.

For some damned reason, Root had decided that now was the perfect time to act up, instead of being the sweet little darling she had been so far. Her target, much to their dismay, had been Wyrm. In all fairness, the godling had probably deserved it in some way; most likely he had tried to worm too close in order to steal some of the grubpaste and mushroom sticks Shade had left out as a snack. Root had seen this theft as a cardinal sin, and had subsequently decided that Wyrm deserved nothing less than absolute annihilation.

The momentary doze Shade had managed to fall into was abruptly interrupted by loud shrieking and wailing, resulting in them vaulting over the couch to hurriedly find out which one of the godlings was being tortured.

The scene that greeted them was... well, it wasn’t any less ridiculous than some of the other stuff the little goblins had pulled before.

Using her flexible tendrils, Root had seen fit to wrap them around Wyrm, and aggressively dunk him into the bowl of grubpaste he had attempted to steal from. His shrieks and hisses had woken up Radi and drawn the attention of the other children, who were now cheering on Root’s attack on Wyrm’s person.

“Enough,” Shade declared, shooting a glare behind them, “Root, let him go.” Root looked up innocently.

No, she seemed to say with her eyes, justice must prevail.

“Justice won’t get me my fifteen dollars,” they hissed out in return, and they could have sworn that Root shrugged, turning away from them to dunk Wyrm into the bowl yet again.

“No!” they cried out, quickly whipping down to grab the poor child before he could be further humiliated. After finally being saved from his vicious tormentor, Wyrm decided it was time to go into hysterics, lashing out with a sharp tail to fully show his displeasure. Root simply watched impassively as the rest of the children cheered.

Shade wondered if fifteen dollars was even worth it at this point.

“Alright, alright, enough! Root, you go in time out. We do not waterboard our fellow godlings in grubpaste. Wyrm, calm down, it’s just grubpaste- Settle down!” they yelped out, flinching as something heavy settled onto their head. The soft fluff revealed that Radi had decided to fly out of her pen and taunt Wyrm in person. Shade wanted to sob with frustration.

The door cracked open, and Ghost peered in, head tilted curiously.

Need help? they signed, and Shade wanted to collapse in relief.

“Please,” they begged, and their sibling nodded grimly, even as amusement danced in their eyes. Shucking off their school backpack, they quickly headed over to the other pen and signed to them, bobbing their head up and down in a soothing motion. Grimm and Unn were entranced. Radi less so. She remained seated on their head, but at least seemed to have finally stopped provoking Wyrm.

“I’m just going to clean him up,” Shade explained uselessly, watching as Ghost simply nodded and waved them off. 

With a tired gait, Shade wandered into the kitchen and turned on the tap, listening as Wyrm’s panicked yelps grew louder at the realisation of what was going to happen next. Radi snickered softly, before leaping off and gliding back into the living room.

Bath time, according to the godlings, was a fate worse than death, and something to be avoided at all cost.

Unfortunately for both Wyrm and Shade, it was a necessary evil. Wyrm disagreed. Loudly. And with claws.

He howled furiously as Shade slowly lowered him into the warm water, softly scrubbing at the now-dried grubpaste sticking to his skin. Despite his attempts, Wyrm failed to prevent them from continuing his bath. He turned to pathetic pleading instead, making soft mewling sounds as though he was nothing more than a poor innocent child who had done nothing wrong, ever.

Shade, who remembered the little bastard knocking a glass ornament onto their head, was not convinced. Ultimately there was no escape, and Wyrm reluctantly gave in to the soft scrubbing, though he made sure his rumbling complaints were known.

“Yes, yes,” Shade said quietly, “I truly am the worst. Close your eyes so I can rinse you.”

Wyrm, in a dumb act of defiance, did not close his eyes. The hysterics started again, and Shade contemplated drowning themself in the half-filled sink. Fifteen dollars, they repeated. Fifteen dollars.

Grabbing a tea towel, they quickly dried the godling off, carefully teasing out water droplets from soft scales. He child gnawed on their fingers in revenge. “I’m done,” they announced, wandering back into the living room with a now clean, and furious, Wyrm.

Ghost looked up from their position on the floor, back leaning against the couch as they played with Grimm. Radi immediately perked up at the sound of Shade’s voice, and quickly flew over, making herself at home on top of their head. Unn seemed to have decided to undertake the momentous task of scaling up the back of the couch, leaving a thick trail of slime behind. Root, still stuck in her pen as punishment, let out a wail, demanding to be let out.

Shade was all out of energy to fight back or deal with a tantrum.

“Alright, alright, out you go,” they muttered, depositing Wyrm on the couch before reaching down to lift out the petulant child from her terrible prison. She clung to them desperately until they finally collapsed on the sofa. She quickly wriggled out of their hold and instead plonked down beside them. Wyrm had hissed at the sight of her, and slunk to the other side of the couch to sulk.

Grimm let out a raspy cackle at the sight, before diving down to nip at Ghost’s fingers.

Unn finally made her way to the top of the couch and waved her eyestalks victoriously. All Shade could do was give her a tired pat.

They sank into the couch, the exhaustion creeping back in. It should have been foolproof.

Fifteen dollars.

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By @arandoskeleartist​