—

“…you forgot that you would be the one bearing the child?” These days when Mai started laughing, she really couldn’t stop. But this situation would make anyone burst out laughing.

“Please stop laughing at me.” Yue was beyond embarrassed but he couldn’t even fault her, it was pretty stupid of him.

“You…ha…You thought Vik would?” Mai tried her best to catch her breath and not laugh anymore.

“No, I just…didn’t really think it through. I really have no clue how I’m going to pull this one off.”  Yue rubbed his forehead in frustration.

Mai took a deep breath and a quick sip of her tea before speaking to try and calm down.

“Can’t you ask another incarnation?”  Mai asked.

“…I doubt any of them have birthed a child,”  Yue murmured, the most helpful incarnations were Yi and Wu and he highly doubted they had given birth…He remembered that during his transformation in the island realm, he saw all of the incarnation's lives flash through his mind and he saw two children but he doubted they were children born from the incarnation themself.

‘San has.’ Yi’s voice rang out in Yue’s head.

“He has?!” Yue exclaimed, surprised.

“…welp there’s your help.” Mai giggled.

—

“Hehe never thought you’d need my help did ya?” San giggled as he showed himself to Yue through his cultivation.

“…I…didn’t think any of you would’ve given birth before…” Yue murmured. He didn’t really know much about San…or any other incarnation besides Wu really. And Yi…well he didn’t know too much about him either.

“We’re quite romantic by nature you know. Out of the four, the azure dragon incarnations have had the most lovers. The current White Tiger and Black tortoise are the only ones of their lineage to have lovers and only the first of the vermillion bird incarnations had a lover besides the current one.” San explained and laughed.

Yue was already aware of this when he first met him but he noticed it more this time…San talks… a lot.

“For us, Yi had a lover, I had a lover, Wu had a lover, Liu had a lover…and You have a lover! It’s pretty shocking that there’s only one child of Azure dragon running around out there.” San chuckled.

Yue was quite intrigued by this. He wanted to ask about their lives more but he wasn’t quite sure he wanted San to talk his ear off.

“It’s funny, the numbered name system really only became a thing because of the other incarnations. Since our lovers are also in the scale, the four of us didn’t forget our names at all. Er and Si definitely have though.”  San explained.

“Oh. Interesting. So how did you have a child?” Yue asked, trying to cut this conversation short.

“Oh, it’s pretty simple really.”

San then started to very graphically explain the act of intercourse. Yue was going to cut him off but he got to the point rather quickly.

“And then you make a pearl! It won’t be as big as our pearl in the temple but it’ll grow over the course of the typical 9 months.” San explained the rest pretty simply.

“That’s it? No human pregnancy stuff?” Yue asked a little confused about how simple it all was.

“Not really, you just have to be near it often with your lover. It’s easy because you can just shrink it down and keep it with you as you do things. Don’t keep it shrunk for too long though. It’ll stall its growth and take longer to hatch.” San explained.

“…it feels too simple,” Yue murmured, he decided to trust San though, and thanked him for his help before stopping his cultivation.

—-

“And then, he asked me if there were any like normal pregnancy effects so I just said no but to—“  San was comfortably laying his body on a man’s chest, recounting his conversation with Yue.

“Huh? You said no? Why did you say no?” The man, his lover, looked confused and shocked.

“Because there weren’t any? I didn’t get cravings, or feel any kind of pain or anything.” San said, thinking back to his experience.

“…his poor husband.” His lover sighed.

“Hmm? Why?” San asked, confused.

“You don’t remember?…you were a little monster every full moon for those 9 months…” 

“Eh? I don’t remember that at all!” San had a hint of playfulness to his voice…he remembered.

—-

“This is really our baby?” Viktor asked, looking at the tiny pearl in Yue’s hand as they lay in bed in the azure dragon temple.

“Apparently…” Yue observed the pearl in his hand.

“I can definitely see that it’s got a mix of our mana. It’s just a little shocking that it’s so small.” Viktor murmured, when he looked at it with his insight he could see that it was made up of their magic.

“ Do you wanna hold it?” Yue asked, holding the pearl toward Viktor.

“…I shouldn’t,” Viktor murmured.

“Huh? Why? It needs both of us around to fully grow.” Yue murmured, confused by Viktor’s hesitance.

“…It’s too weak right now, I might unknowingly absorb its mana, and…that wouldn’t be good,” Viktor murmured.

Yue had almost forgotten about Viktor’s mana constitution. At his current level, the amount of mana Viktor unknowingly consumes doesn’t affect him at all but he could feel that it had become much more noticeable now that he merged with Vikentiy.

“Oh…” 

“It’s okay! Once it gets a little stronger I will be able to. Or once I get a bit stronger and can control my mana constitution more…” Viktor murmured.

Yue sighed and kissed Viktor’s cheek. He was fine with that but he kind of was reminded that not everything was perfect yet. Viktor still had a lot on his plate and not everything was fixed now that they were married.

–

“Why are you here?” Viktor asked Natasha, confused by her formal outfit and just generally her presence outside Andrei’s office.

“I have an announcement to make. Why are you here?” Natasha asked with an eager grin.

Viktor stared at her for a second and the gears began to turn for both of them. They both slammed the doors to the office open. Elena and Andrei were both in the office, having tea together pretty casually.

“I’m having a second child!”

“Yue and I are having a child!”

They both said it at the same time and Elena just squealed. “Both!”

“Both?!” Andrei said the same word but his tone was very different. Ever the worrywart, he took this to mean he had to worry about two pregnancies at once and that he had to prepare for 2 formal announcements at once.

“Wait how are you having a child?” Natasha asked, a little confused.

“Dragon… magic… biology I guess?” Viktor chuckled.

“I’m so excited!” Elena squealed and hugged both of her children.

“We have to celebrate! We need a banquet!” Elena quickly turned to Andrei.

“...Just...Just for family.” Andrei was stressed already.

“...Is something wrong?” Viktor asked, normally he would’ve been immediately upset by Andrei’s attitude but now he was calm…things were certainly different.

“I’m worried. About all of you... There will be a lot going on once this is announced and there will be a lot of dangers involved…This isn’t like when Nikolai was born…” Andrei sighed.

“We’re all grown up now y’know? We can handle it. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve dealt with assassins while pregnant.” Natasha chuckled.

“I know but–”

“There's definitely no need for you to worry about me and Yue either. We’re more than capable of dealing with assassins.” Viktor said and smiled.

“Yep! Just be happy you’re getting more grandchildren!” Natasha said and wrapped her arm around Viktor’s shoulder.

Elena nodded and once again went to hug her children.

—

“It’s been a while.” Yue smiled and greeted Mai and their former classmates. While Viktor was giving the good news to his parents, Yue had been invited to have tea with the girls.

“...Well well Princess Yue, do you have any announcements to make too?” Ava asked with a laugh.

Yue shot a glance at Mai, wondering if she had already spilled the beans about him having a child. Mai shook her head a little though.

“No,” He planned to announce it to them later on when Andrei and Elena decided the nobles of Belarus should know, “why do you ask?”

“Well…Anika had planned to announce that she was getting married soon…but…it seems Mai and Marianne had announcements of their own.” Ava chuckled and gestured to Anika who was giggling and then to Mai and Marianne who looked a little embarrassed. They were both pregnant.

“So I was wondering if her royal highness was expecting too,” Ava said and smirked.

“Sorry to disappoint but not yet. As far as I know.” Yue chuckled, playing a bit coy. He was really aching to tell everyone but he knew that wouldn’t be very wise. 

He was carrying the pearl in a small purse that he hid inside the folds of his hanfu. He tried to release a lot of mana to it throughout the day to make up for Viktor not being able to touch it.

“‘Yet’ and ‘as far as I know’ she says!” Ava laughed.

“Okay okay enough about that— more about you!” Mai turned the tables on Ava.

“You were at the royal wedding….with Alejandro! Dancing!”

Ava went quiet after that.

“Ooh, when did that happen?” Marianne giggled.

“It’s not like that…” Ava murmured, her face red.

“Oh? Are you just friends? In the way, Yue and Viktor were just friends?” Mai teased.

Yue laughed quietly and just stayed out of it. He was glad they could still meet occasionally and laugh like this. He was worried things would get stuffy after the wedding with the whole royalty thing.

—

“Hmm? Next week? That’s pretty early…” Dorofey murmured as he sat at the Ivanov family banquet.

The Main Ivanov family, Elena’s parents, Dorofey, The Chernyshevsky’s, and the Orlov’s were the only people at the banquet. Andrei wanted to keep it small as it was really just a political strategy meeting to see how they could announce this without causing much of a scene.

“I agree, the wedding was not that long ago… we should let things calm down a little,” Alexander murmured.

“Yes but the Lord competition starts the week after and will last a month…if we wait till that is over then people will be suspicious of why we’re hiding it and rumors will spread,” Alexei explained.

“…why don’t we just use the rumors? Yue can come to a noble engagement with me. A woman refusing a drink at a party is practically a pregnancy announcement these days.” Natasha suggested.

“Or we announce them separately. Yue is not showing at all yet while Tasha will probably be showing soon so we can just publically announce her first. Everyone will take their eyes off Yue and Viktor for a while like that.”  Elena suggested.

Yue kind of felt like his head was spinning, there were so many things to take into account.

“This competition is poorly timed…” Arseny sighed.

“Yes, the inauguration of the new United 4 Beasts temple also falls in the middle.” Erik, Arseny’s father, agreed.

Everyone agreed with that statement but it was pretty necessary.

“15 different candidates applied… we were only expecting 2— Leonid and Arseny. I don’t even know what brought this all on… They all meet the requirements too so it’s not like we can just reject them with no reason… And we can’t accept them with no reason either.” Alexius explained.

“Senya is obviously our preferred person to win but if we just appoint him without it people will clearly complain,” Alexei added.

“I agree with Mother’s suggestion. We can announce Natasha’s pregnancy next week and wait until later on for Yue’s.” Viktor said and turned to Andrei to hear his opinion.

“Yes. That would work…You can still join Natasha for the party if you wish, Yue. The rumors might be good for driving out the bad rumors others are spreading.” Andrei said and turned to nod at Yue.

“Alright…that’s fine with me,” Yue replied, he honestly didn’t care about any rumors that might be spread about him but he figured it’d be better to make the announcement sooner rather than later.

“Forgive me for asking…But how will succession work in this situation?” Alexei’s father broke the silence on the topic of succession. It was a complex thing as the Ivanovs did not follow societal norms often.

Natasha was most involved with Belarus, she was essentially the queen regent when Andrei and Elena weren’t in Belarus. She was also the eldest child. However, in most royal families only the oldest SON had a claim to the throne. 

Everyone kind of assumed that either Natasha would be queen when Andrei and Elena got tired of it, or that Viktor would rule for a while and eventually just pass it down to Nikolai since he liked men and would never have an heir…. Now this was not the case anymore.

“Well…that is up to them,” Andrei said and looked at Natasha and Viktor.

“...If your kids want to be king you can be king,” Natasha said, trying to push off the conversation for another time.

“Same to you, so…Kolya? Do you want to be king of Belarus?” Viktor, on the other hand, pushed forward and asked Nikolai.

Nikolai was deliberating it a bit as everyone stared at him. 

It wasn’t that Natasha hated the thought of being queen… she just really didn’t want to deal with it right now. Not only because she was pregnant but because Belarus needed A LOT of work. Politically and just generally. 

“...I don’t know?” Nikolai shrugged and went back to eating his food.

“well…I guess that’s a question for another time.” Elena laughed.