# 009

Jen's cheeks flame crimson the next time I see her, letting me know right away that she's been in Mom's books.

"You want to head into town with me?" I ask, not really in the mood to tease her.

"Alright, but what's up?" My mood must be leaking through. "You don't look happy, and what do you need in town?"

"I'm not happy." I grumble and head for the stables with Jen in tow. "Mom's giving idiot girl my room; at least, until we get a bed so she can stay in the one set aside for the baby. But, that's not all, Mom wants to commission some proper servants quarters to be built."

"No!" Jen sounds nearly as shocked as I was. "She can't. That's not fair."

"No, it isn't." I agree. "But, you know Mom, especially when she's pregnant. Apparently, the fool wouldn't accept Mom's advance and was even more broke than she let on. So, now, I have to go order a bed and buy whatever other crap she might need. You'd think, as a tamer, that Mom would know better than to bring home strays. Help me with the straps here, my arm is still not back to full yet."

"I can't believe this." Jen shoos me away from the wagon and takes care of it herself.

"Me either, but it should just be for a few days until a bed can be built." I sigh. "And, luckily, the earth mage who built everything else lives in town. All he has to do is copy my place, so that shouldn't take too long, either."

"Katie was right, you should have let the wargs eat her." Jen huffs.

"Hey! None of that shit." I rebuke her outburst. "I'm pissed, but I'm not that pissed. I'm mostly just annoyed that I'll have to sleep on the couch until the bed is ready. Still, I think I'm going to buy the ugliest maid outfit I can find for her."

"Snerk!" She snorts. "You can stay in my room if you want."

"You're not going to cling to my arm all night, are you?" I tease.

...

She did. I wake up the next morning sandwiched in between my sisters, both of them clinging to me in their sleep.

"Jenny, Katie." They grumble when I say their names. "Time to wake up, girls. I need you to let me go or I'm going to wet the bed. Alright then, you brought this on yourselves. Queenie, tickle."

""Ahh!"" They both jump when the slime attacks their feet and I take my chance to escape from their clutches.

"I should leave her there." I grouse at the two of them. "I almost wet myself because you two wouldn't wake up." Grabbing my clothes, I head off to the privy.

...

"Eek!" Idiot girl squeaks when I walk into the kitchen a few minutes later. Mom is trying to teach her how to cook and it looks like she's about as good at that as she was adventuring.

"Morning." I kiss Mom on the cheek and rub her belly before getting myself a mug of tea. "Good thing I still have some rations in my pack."

"Hush! She's doing great for her first time." Mom bops me on the head with a wooden spoon. "And why are your sisters glaring at you?"

"No reason." I say as innocently as I can. "Certainly not because I sicced Queenie on them when they wouldn't wake up to let me go to the privy."

"Hah!" She snorts. "Well, I guess it's alright then, as long as you didn't do that."

"So..." I draw the word out, know that she isn't going to like what I have to say next. "My arm is feeling well enough that I should get back to work today. I have Queenie, so I'll be able to take it easy, but I really don't want to sit around the house again all day."

"Let me see." She orders, so I unwrap my arm to reveal tender pink skin rather than the raw red it once was. "Nnh... Take your sister just in case, and I want you to start wearing your swords again."

"Jen doesn't want to follow me out into the woods." I already know she won't budge on the swords, so I don't even bother with that tack. I have been slacking off with them anyway, I haven't even touched them since before the move.

"I'll go with him instead." Katie offers, hoping to get away from the twins.

"It's alright." Jen cuts in. "I don't mind, and I need the practice too."

"That's settled then." Mom says with a curt nod. "Now... let's eat." She may have gotten a little distracted by our conversation and let Madison mess up breakfast even worse.

"You know, I should probably run through a few practice drills with the swords." I stand back up. "Bad idea to do that on a full stomach, I'll just munch on some jerky later."

"Sit. your. butts. back. down." I wasn't the only one to attempt to flee when presented with the food. Jen and Kaitlyn both tried to sneak away while I was talking. The twins don't seem to care though and are scarfing it down happily, but they'll eat anything.

"I'm so sorry." Idiot girl hangs her head. "My brother always did the cooking. It's about all he is good for."

"You'll get there, dear." Mom pats her on the shoulder. "You just need some more practice." 'Please, gods, no!' I cry in my head when she says that.

Getting a bright idea, I send her a mental command to Queenie and have her extend a tendril up on the table next to my plate where Mom can't see it. Jenny glares at me when she spots how I'm spilling 'food' for the slime to eat with every forkful, so I have Queenie do the same for her.

"Hey, Jen, can you help wrap my arm back up." The two of us are the first to finish 'eating'. Mom knows something must be up, but she too busy trying to comfort Madison. "I really don't want to brush up against a tree like this. And, don't worry about your cooking too much, Madison; at least, it wasn't as bad as our dads." Not even the twins will eat that.

"R-really." She raises her head to look at me with a sniff.

"Now there's the truth." Mom laughs. "And, look, Cole and Jen liked it so much they already cleared their plates. I'm sure they'll be happy to have you practice your cooking for them."

'Damn you, woman!' I shout at her in my head, and poor Jen looks like she's about to cry.

"Uh, sure." With the way Mom is staring at me, I have no choice but to agree. "Is it alright if I go and get some stuff out of the room?"

"O-of course." This stupid, useless thing just went from sad, to happy, and back to sad again in the space of a breath. "I'm so sorry for putting you out. I tried to tell your Mom that it wasn't necessary, but..."

"Yeah, she can be like that sometimes." I say and escape before Mom can react to my comment.

...

"This is all your fault." Jen growls at me right after her stomach growls at her. "You thought you were being so clever, and now we're going to starve to death. Or worse, be forced to eat more of that-that... I can't even call it cooking."

"Jerky?" She snatches it out of my hands before I can even finish saying the word.

"And, I'm still mad at you for tickling me this morning." She adds after tearing a big hunk of the meat off with her teeth. "You know I hate being tickled."

"Yeah, well, I hate peeing the bed." I counter. "You two had me pinned down and I was about to burst."

"Whatever." She huffs around a mouthful of dried meat. "Queenie, copy." This is a new game she thought up.

Since my visualization skills were a bottleneck for training Queenie's transformations, Jen thought to remove me from the equation. Now, the slime is given something to copy, in this case, a tree branch, and will do her best to duplicate its appearance.

"Good, girl. Good, Queenie." I praise the slime verbally and through the bond when she extrudes a mostly perfect copy of the branch from her top. "Who's the best slime ever? You are. Yes, you are."

"She really is." Jen agrees. "She's doing so much better too. We should try having you close your eyes though, just to make sure that you aren't influencing her. And, if that works, we can try working her way up to larger and more complex shapes."

"Sounds good." I see a promising branch just up ahead, so I draw a sword in my left hand and cut it down with a single slice. "Okay, my eyes are closed."

"Ugh, idiot brother." She says under her voice, but loud enough for me to hear. "Ideally it would be something that you haven't seen before. But, I suppose this is as a good a start as any. Queenie, copy."

"How is it?" I ask after giving her enough time to copy the branch.

"Hard to say." I open my eyes to see that Queenie copied the branch well enough, but she didn't give it any rigidity, meaning that it just flopped down on the ground. "You must be subconsciously sending her the concept of stiffness. Well, as stiff as she normally gets."

"Good try, Queenie." I crouch down to pet the 'branch' she grew. "You got the shape just right, but you need to mimic its behavior too." I pick up the real branch and hers while sending her thoughts of how hers should act the same way it does.

"Close your eyes, and we'll try again." Jen orders while holding something behind her back. "Queenie, copy. That's better, good girl." I open my eyes to see her holding a piece of deadwood and Queenie extruding a somewhat floppy duplicate.

"That was so much better." I coo at my genius pet. "You are so good at this, Queenie."

"She really eats up the attention, doesn't she?" Jen laughs.

...

"I know it was Mom's idea, but thanks for coming out with me today." I give Jen a side-hug when we get back home. "I wouldn't be able to train Queenie half this well without you."

"Get off." She pushes me away and then peels her sweaty outfit away from her skin. "And, you're welcome. But, I just remembered why I spend all my time reading and not wandering in the forest. I need a bath."

"Heh. Keep it warm for me when you get out." I ruffle her hair. "I wasn't lying about needing to practice my swords, and I'll be almost as sweaty as you afterward."

"I hate you." She grumps and heads for the bathhouse.

"Love you too, Jen." I blow a raspberry at her retreating form.

Shrugging out of my bag, I move to the center of the courtyard and draw my swords. My right arm still stings a bit, and it really has been a while since I practiced. So, I run through all of the forms at half speed for the first round.

I notice that Madison is watching me around the time I finish my first set, but I just ignore her and focus on the weapons in my hands. Shifting up to full speed, any discomfort from my arm is long gone as I lose myself to the long since ingrained movements.

Full speed becomes time and a half and then double-time as I push my body to its peak and beyond. Normally I take the blades out for this little dance at least once a week, but between the rush to get enough stock before the move, the move itself, and then getting settled in here, it's been a whole month since I've touched them.

"Haah." Sweat flies from my body as I move from one stance to the next as fast as I can. "Haah!" The wind whistles constantly as my swords flow in a never-ending pattern. "HAAH!" I know that I've reached my limit, but I still push myself harder. To move that much faster, to strike that much harder. "HAAAAHHHHHH!!!"

The wind stops whistling and starts screaming as I cut through all resistance. But, try as I might, I can't hold this pace for more than a few seconds. Still, that's enough time for over a dozen strikes before I have to stop.

I run through the forms one last time at half speed to give my body time to cool down before sheathing my swords.

"You have to teach me how you do that." Katie says with the same look of awe on her face that she gets every time she watches me practice. It looks like everyone in the house came out to watch, and Mom has a smirk on her face for Madison who seems to be more out of breath than I am right now.

"You'll get there in time." I ruffle her hair on my way to the bathhouse.

...

"You are so good at this, Queenie." I praise the slime as she plays with my dick.

This is the first chance I've had in days to get myself off and I'm taking it. I'm supposed to be getting clean right now, but I need to cum. And, I've been dying to see what Queenie can do for me.

"That's it, Queenie, squeeze down on me." I breathe out as she does just that. It is so damned nice not to have to smush lefty and righty together anymore. "Yeah, girl. I'm so close. Oh yes, keep jiggling like that. Nnh, nnh!" I nut inside the slime with a soft grunt.

I hate having to be quiet again, having to cum as quickly as I can so no one discovers me. I hate that stupid idiot girl for stealing my fucking place. I didn't even have enough time to make Queenie look like a girl. That is obviously the real reason I've been so focused on training her shapeshifting abilities. But, no, I just needed to cum before anyone realized what I was doing. So, I just had her open up a hole and stuck my dick in it.

"Maybe I should have you sneak in and copy that idiot girl while she's sleeping." I pat the slime and watch as my white cum dissolves into her clear jelly. "Go ahead and clean the rest of me up too, girl." She shlorps all over me and just a few seconds later, I'm all clean.

Clean and finally relieved, I let myself sink into the hot bath and let my well-used muscles soak up the heat.

"Oh, I bet you'd be great for massages." I say and call the slime over to work on my shoulders. "Ohh, that's nice."

...