119

119
Astella's POV

“He looks beautiful,” I say speaking of my new born son, tears welling up in happiness in my brown eyes as I nestle him in my chest. Draco is early- born months too soon- but he is perfect in every way, healthy, alert, his small green eyes so like his father's already displaying a wisdom that seems much older than the minutes he has been alive. "Look at him, Thane. Our love and then our fruit.

However, as I carry our child, I start to see some things that seem to be more than the main sense of postpartum amazement. It is as if Draco vibrates within the fiber of existence. Beneath where his small fingers run across my flesh, I can see right through to others – versions of us in parallel, other choices we may have enacted, hills we might have climbed.

It is not long afterward that I'm struck by the shocking realization: "Whoa, this isn't just our kid," and start picking up these indefinable energetic frequencies as my shamanic senses kick in. "He is both a unique human and an infinite possibility all at once.”

By us, the twins' glance loved on their beautiful faces. The female twin spoke softly, holding her brother's hand still and waiting. "He has chosen his form. A Child of Infinite Possibility. And he settled into a dream of himself, could have stayed in the perfect realm of becoming for all eternity if he pleased: He chose to come to be; born into an exact hour and homeland and family. That makes him a lord of probability.”

“What does that translate to?” Thane questions, deep baritone radiating protective worry while tentatively pressing his finger into our son's palm. They touch, and I sense a spasm of energy in our pack bond, originating deep within it that buzzes all the way out to every part of our network.

“What kind of life will he lead? What challenges would he encounter?”

The male twin describes with tender honesty, "He will meet the trial that migrates upon all creatures who stride between states of being. It is impossible for him to know how to be unique with the collective, or mortal but divine, and exist in dimensions where all possibilities exist in every moment. It will be tough, but you are not going to handle it alone.”

I sense Thane's emotions in the complex eddies and whorls of our mate bond -- love almost enough to batter down my defenses, protectiveness combined with lethal capacity, an irony considering that for a time my own vulnerabilities lay stripped open for the world to see, tempered by quiet pride at our newfound flyboy savior status as much as the tightly contained sparks anger at what might lie ahead. The Alpha King in him wants to protect Draco from every perceived danger, but we both know our kids have destinies that will take them places no one has ever gone.

Yvonne, however, gestures in amazement before whispering "Look" and pointing to an area where reality is beginning to be affected by Draco's presence. Near him, the very air is shimmering. It's as though he's this embodied gateway into what is and what might be.

And I understand as well, my shaman powers adapting to the new energies he snaps into existence, "that's what he is. Not only does he have the ability to control nature but he is the change. Every decision he takes will open a world of new opportunities, not just for him but also to those related to him."

The High Priestess Morgana comes up to him, the old woman glancing at our child with haunted eyes made wise by a life that spanned states. “His Aura, The Hypnotherapist; She amazed me. And this isn't just beyond his physical form — it goes to other versions of his own aura in different realities. At the same time, he is both a single one and several billions.”

“Pack bonds,” Lord Valerian muses, his pale features glowing with awe as he studies the results of Draco's insemination in our system. “They are not just more resilient since his arrival to the world — they adapt better, they adjust. He is, in some mysterious way, making our connections even more tailored to the individual yet stronger as a whole.”

Yet as we bask in the glory of our unprecedented son, I sense the cosmic scales around us tipping, tilting. These slow moving void entities we have invited into our network are figuring out life faster than expected at lightning speed in a concord like way but the integration is proving more difficult to handle, as before it was looking from outside.

Even through the interconnected "network" of awareness I share with these void entities, this recognition largely maintains its human-like character according to my current cognitive senses: some of them are having an identity crisis, it dawns on me. They have been nothing for so long that just being is tough. The combination makes them prone to if not actual clinical levels of what we might call existential anxiety — where they long for connection to a group, but are also terrified about the threat of losing themselves in the process.

"Can we help them?" That's Thane, and his Alpha instincts take an expanded pack view on all of us — even the ones who were our enemies not that long ago.

“Draco can” I decide then with sudden determination, peering down at our sleepy infant whose very presence feels like a calm resignation. He is both particular, and infinite at the same time. There, he can teach them how not to lose the essence of who they are while they become something else.

In a gesture that appears to be in response to my words, the small shape of our son is gently bathed with light from afar and pulls at the alien entities wrestling inside the void. The result is instant, and their anxiety somewhat fades away as slowly makes peace with the idea of living to see a new chapter in this unending story of theirs without completely losing what they define themselves by.

“Mmm…” Queen Titania hums, regarding the exchange with crystal-studded awe accentuating her celestial beauty. “He is not pushing them to change, or pressuring them to become what he wants them to become. He is just teaching them that growth and identity can coexist, that being more does not mean becoming someone else."

Even as we celebrate these little miracles, I do get that shaman-sense tingle though — something big's coming up over the horizon. But behind the familiar alien presences I detect beyond the dimensional barriers for the first time in what feels like at least an eternity, something altogether more unusual but distinctively human.

The sky shimmers, the dimensional gateway opens and through steps beings we have never seen! They have a humanoid appearance but not with any version of humanity we know, more as though they are made up of crystalline starlight and their presence suggests both ancient wisdom and true curiosity.

"Hello, We are the Observers—the Witnesses of the grand convergence which you have realized. We have been brought to entertain the impossible — an orderly unity of being and non-being, a voluntary collaboration of creatures from two separate dimensions.”

"Who are you?" In the corner of the room, Thane demanded – there is some hint of his Alpha King authority wound with diplomaticness. "What do you want with us?"

“We are royal scribes for the universe. We document the instant reality changes and adapt to new rules, we record the moments when fundamental principles of existence shift to include more. And in creating this moment you have demonstrated that choice and connection can conquer all – even the most primal, ancient, impenetrable inevitability.”

The focus of the Observer shifts to our baby boy, and I feel a tingle of familiar awareness extending across planes. The voiceover notes, in nearly reverent tones: "And this child... a symbol of the future, one who carries the lesson that existence is not limited by what is now possible, but can rise to meet what is chosen."

Naturally, the question arises “What does that say about Draco's future?” Maternal protectiveness makes my voice sharp, despite the clear benevolence of the Observer.

The Observer assures me with quiet resolve, "It means he walks his path without walking it alone. Your network, your connections, the love you have chosen — these will grow with him, change with him become a sanctuary as he walks through all the infinite possibilities of his nature."

When the Observer gives voice to such insomuch promise, I feel my small son's grip upon my hand and sense with all that is in him —more than mere boy indeed— that he must already know something of the bright fate which lies ahead of him.