"Seriously… Why does everyone have to be related to someone?"

There was a short beat hanging in the air at the dinner table, and after Judy finished swallowing, she nonchalantly answered, "It's a trope."

"I know that, but it's still so contrived!" I continued to grumble as I helped myself to another portion.

"But it's dramatic," Elly pointed out, and following her unsubtle gesturing, I also picked one of the side-dishes she made before letting out a sigh.

"I don't appreciate it when it's at my expense. At this rate, I should start worrying about who I am secretly related to."

"To me!" Penny declared from the other end of the table.

"I'm not secretly related to you, kiddo, so it doesn't count."

She grinned at me in lieu of an answer, and the short break in the conversation allowed a certain outsider to speak up.

"What… are they talking about?" Tajana whispered to Snowy on her right, and my Abyssal sister slowly shook her head, telling her not to get involved. Unsatisfied yet obedient, the young spymaster let out a disgruntled sound and returned to her plate.

As far as evenings were concerned, I certainly had worse ones. After I ferried the childhood friend couple to the workshop and back for their daily check-up, I returned home to a hearty dinner prepared by my girlfriends. Or rather, two of them. Hence the reason why Tajana was allowed to sit at the table with us, and even then, there was a good chance we'd have leftovers.

Anyhow, this latest development with Moose or Raz or whatever still annoyed me to no end. After our first meeting, I instructed Mike to arrange a hotel room for him in Lorci. That's where he lived, so that way they would have an easier way of cooperating, and to be honest, Timaeus was getting way too crowded as of late, anyway.

"Doesn't it make sense in a… what was the word again?" Elly addressed me as if reading my mind (or just following up on the previous conversation). "Watsonian?"

"Yes," Judy commented between bites of her sirloin steak. "The other is Doylist."

"Right, those things!" Elly exclaimed with a fork pointed my way. "The first one is the in-universe explanation, right?"

"Correct."

Meanwhile, Tajana was giving us a sideways look again, and this time, it was my knightly sister who shook her head.

"Don't even try to figure it out. I gave up a while ago."

Ignoring that side of the table, I turned to the princess and prompted her to speak her mind.

"You said you have a Watsonian explanation?"

"It's pretty obvious, really," she responded, sounding a little guarded all of a sudden. "I mean, you probably already figured this out."

"I'd like to hear it all the same."

Nodding, my draconic girlfriend reached for the glass of soda on her right, and after wetting her throat, she took a deep breath.

"Okay. So, let me see if I remember this right, but the single-winged Celestials are called the Malekith, right?"

"Malakim," Judy corrected her, and she shrugged it off with a soft 'Close enough,' before turning to me again.

"So, those people all get turned into serfs in the Elysium, right?"

"What?" Tajana muttered on the side, but nobody seemed to pay her much attention anymore.

"And these single-winged Celestials can be born even from the double- and triple-winged ones, right?"

"That's what I've heard, yes."

When I confirmed that, the princess let out a content hum and declared, "If so, then it all makes perfect sense. You said that the Celestial leaders send their kids to the outside as spies so that they wouldn't be demoted into serfdom. Logically, it means that every Celestial living in the outside world is, by definition, have to be the offspring of someone high in the Celestial hierarchy."

"There are also second and third-generation Celestials," Judy pointed out. "Like Angie's adoptive parents."

"Wait, they are Celestials?"

Elly sounded altogether too surprised by that, so I figured I either never properly explained this to her, or she wasn't paying attention at the time.

"By a loose definition of the word," I told her and put my utensils aside for the moment. "Celestial powers are recessive or something, so after a few generations of intermarrying with humans, they tend to go away. Angie's parents are both like that."

"Oooh? I learn something new every day!" the princess exclaimed, and Penny seemed to share her sentiment, as she was listening just as closely. As for the two Abyssals at the table, they seemed to be already aware of this fact, though Tajana still looked downright mortified by how casually we were discussing the topic.

"Elly makes a good point," my dear assistant spoke up again, sounding almost impressed. "MoroseMoose's position heavily implied that he was a first-generation Malakim. Him being related to someone in the Directorate is not far-fetched."

"But why did it have to be that guy of all people!?" After finally letting my indignation burst out, I reined it back by forcefully exhaling a long sigh. "I mean, I talked a bunch with the guy, and from what I understand, there's no love lost between him and his brother, but it's such an annoying 'coincidence'."

"Um… Leo?"

Hearing Snowy speak up during times like this was a rare occasion, so I automatically gave her the green light.

"Yes, sis? What's on your mind?"

"I'm not sure I completely understand what you were discussing, but… full-fledged Celestials on the surface aren't just simple agents that move out of Elysium, but the children of powerful Celestials. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"And Angie is a full-fledged Celestial."

"Yes…" I echoed myself, only to blink and glance at Judy. She was ahead of me and was already taking notes.

"I'll look into it, but I don't think the resources on the Hub will be useful. You should ask someone on the inside."

"Got it. Next time I'm in the Elysium, I put Kane on the case."

In fact, ever since I had the idea to use Moose to start a kind of grass-roots Celestial organization that could pick up the pieces, on the off-chance that the Directorate made the wrong call and forced my hand, I was planning to get Kane involved in the recruiting efforts, so it would kill two birds with one stone.

Nodding, I turned back to Snowy and gave her a thumbs-up.

"Good catch, sis."

She let out a delighted chuckle that was music to my ears, and with the topic mostly finished, we all returned to the food on the table. In conclusion, Elly was probably right about the familial connections, and she was also correct about me already being aware of this and factoring it into my plans. While it wasn't readily apparent, the sentiment of 'We are disenfranchised,' was one I had seen floating around on the Celestial Hub's forums every once in a while.

Generally speaking, the average Celestial asset was more like Angie than they were like Mike, at least in the sense that they didn't have a direct connection with their birth parents and they had a rosy, idealistic image of the Elysium in their heads. While on the surface, everyone was doing their best to play their role in the Celestial Intelligence Network, in practice, there was a lot of deep-seated discontent hidden away, only occasionally bubbling to the surface during heated online discussions, when they could hide behind their usernames and a semblance of anonymity.

That kind of thing could be harnessed, but it would take time and effort that I couldn't devote to it, considering I already had way too much on my plate. Consequently, I had planned to push it onto Moose… until I realized that he was related to Director Mensah. Nevertheless, he had been my trusty right-hand man on the Celestial Hub until now, so I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. In time. For now, since I had a mark on him, I was planning to keep him under close watch for a few days, and if there was no funny business, then I would take him into my inner circle.

All of that was for later though, as the moment today's dinner came to an end, Penny practically jumped up from her seat.

"All right! I'll get the games!"

"We should clean the table first," Snowy pointed out, and my knightly sister flushed red.

"Y-Yes! I meant after that! Obviously!"

In the same vein, my girlfriends took care of the leftovers, while I picked up all the empty plates and piled them up so that I would only have to take one trip to the sink. Meanwhile, Tajana looked rather stumped.

"Games?"

"Leo gave Penny the allowance he missed while he was in Elysium," Snowy explained as she dutifully collected the napkins and the salt and pepper shakers from the table. "Penny bought a video game console, and it came with a free party game called Super Mareo Party. It says on the box that it's a very popular game everyone can play together."

"It was on a discount!" my other sister exclaimed defensively. "A-And I didn't buy it for myself! I bought it for the family!"

"It should be fun," Snowy added with a sweet smile directed at Tajana, and needless to say, it was all part of her overarching plan to butter her up. Unfortunately, someone else in the room wasn't in on the plan.

"I said 'for the family'," Penny emphasized with a huff. "Freeloaders aren't included."

"I'm not a freeloader! I'm a guest! A guest!" the young spymaster insisted with a glare, and for a moment, I could practically see the sparks flying between them. By the looks of it, the relationship between these two was still far from harmonious.

"Don't be like that," Snowy cut in between the two and gently squeezed Penny's shoulder. "The more people we have, the more fun it should be."

"That's right!" Tajana followed her up with a triumphant huff.

"And while she isn't related to me, I always thought of Tajana as a big sister," Snowy continued to lay it thick.

I rationally understood what she was doing; trying to lovebomb the hapless spymaster and make her attached to us, so that she could be convinced to switch sides, but the way she was doing it was just a bit too blatant to my ears. I worried if she would pick up on it, but to my slight confusion, Tajana took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.

"M-My Lady! Me too! I always thought of you as the little sister I never had!"

That threw me on a loop, and I couldn't help but frown. Was she gullible, genuinely starved for affection, or trying to play my sister the same way she was trying to play her, I wondered. Whatever the case was, after a while, she noticed the sideways look I was giving her and turned to face me with a stiff expression.

"W-What? Did I say something wrong?"

I let a long beat linger in the air, and then hefted all the plates in my hands and simply stated, "I'm not adopting you," before I headed into the kitchen.

"Who asked you to do that?!" she yelled after me, finding her courage once I was no longer in the same room with her, and I couldn't help but shake my head. My home was certainly livelier than it used to be, but at the same time, I couldn't help but feel worried about how it was becoming more like the set of a sitcom with each passing day.

Oh well. It was certainly one of the better worries to have, I supposed.