Yiria looked around. She was still carrying Riku, and the young girl she wanted to adopt was following along. The girl was now awake and her conditioning broken. It seemed that there wasn’t much of a bond between her and the two randoms she was playing daughter for. Yiria wasn’t entirely surprised, given that she was meant to be a false daughter who would leave them soon for some other household. It wasn’t right. Especially in light of her past, she needed a proper loving family.

One that she was more than willing to provide, but first she had a conversation to get out of the way. It was something she was dreading, but it would have to be done. There was no helping that. She had really wronged Riku, she could see that now. Idly she hugged Miku tightly, she didn’t want to give her up either. Yiria just didn’t know what to do now. What if Riku didn’t want her around, or worse, didn’t let her even see Miku? Riku had every reason to be mad at her, especially given everything she had done to her.

Nearby she noticed several Neku and Iniri milling about. A few were even talking. The city was waking back up. Changed, she knew, but for the better. Yiria was certain about that, especially given what she had seen. If this False Daughter’s program was any indication, there must have been a far darker side to the way things were, and that left her worried.

Rather than focus on those worries she crossed the road and made her way up the path to Riku’s new home. She was just reaching the door when it opened to reveal Riku. She smiled, “Yiria! Glad you are here!”

Yiria blinked, “You’re not mad?”

She knew Megumi had undone her conditioning. So why was she so happy to see her? Yiria was certain she was happy, not only was she smiling, her tail was wagging. Nothing about her body language said displeased or angry. “Why would I be mad?”

“I uh... practically stole Miku from you.”

Riku giggled, “I guess you did, but you are still here. Why don’t you come in and we can talk?”

Yiria let out a breath, nodded and then signaled for her young charge to follow. While shifting her grasp on young Miku. For a moment her stomach flipped. This was it, the conversation that would either sink her or leave her afloat. Yiria headed inside, even as she felt teeth silently closing in on her.

Somewhere in the Erisay Collective:

Lexi’s core was vibrating. At this moment she was watching the labs eagerly. The first batch had been started only moments ago. It would be days before they were ready, but that meant little. She had been waiting for centuries. A few more days meant nothing to her. Already she and the other cores were envisioning the future. Hundreds of little girls running around playing games, and learning to fly.

Her mind pulled from her archives to create an image of what they would look like. They were mostly humanoid in build with cute fluffy ears, large vibrant eyes, the fluffiest wings, lovely little tufts of wool. Cute little breasts, and sturdy legs. Typically their breasts and pussies would be uncovered by wool. They often had some on their lower arms, with a cute tuft on either side of the belly, a bit around their tail, and hips. Their thighs were often bare, but like their arms their lower legs were quite covered. Almost like fluffy socks, to go with the fluffy sleeves they were wearing on their arms. Couldn’t call them glove-like since they didn’t cover the hands.

One of the pods was Lexi’s own, she had chosen to start with raising only one daughter. Where others had picked more. No one had gone for a son. That might be a problem later, but then she recalled what Mistress Ticari always said. Maybe it would be better not to create any boys? She shrugged, it wasn’t worth debating right now. They had time to decide.

Instead she let herself dream of her own little girl. She was going to be so cute with lovely black and grey wool. Lexi had spent a lot of time working out her full growth curve. Ticari had always said that kids grew up too fast and many others always seemed to be wishing they could be a kid again. So she and the others had done a lot of research. Even buying information on dragon biology and childrearing from the Nekari. Very useful, and they had studied other long lived species from that region of the galaxy. Trying to figure out the ideal childhood length and the best way to raise them. Lexi had come to the conclusion of eight hundred years. However that was only after reaching the young child stage, equal to about five years with their original developmental pace. So they had tinkered with their growth rates. As a result the new kids would take about a year to reach the equivalent of five years old and then slow down to a crawl development-wise.

Lexi smiled at the dreams of watching her play. Before shaking them off, she unfortunately did have other things to do. With a virtual sigh, she started powering up her main drives. It was time to leave orbit, she had a meeting with the dragons soon. That was another thing of note, while the collective had never thought of the dragons as ship-eating monsters like the other races often did, they didn’t really interact with them. Dragons didn’t really communicate, until recently. It seemed that the dragons knew what they were doing, and about their recent deal with the Solean Battleship Constellation.

As a result, an Elder dragon and three of her daughters had come to their worlds to speak. Something she had no doubt would be interesting. Lexi wasn’t expecting any hostilities here, so she proceeded to make herself appear less threatening. Shuttering her drone ports and shutting down her laser cannons. They were normally kept at standby readiness, to speed up response times. Even offline, she could warm them up fairly quickly. Just not as quick as she would if they were in standby to begin with. Thankfully the lasers were her secondary weapons, and she could fire the drones very quickly when needed. The shutters weren’t going to take more than a few milliseconds to open.

With her weapon systems offline, and after a quick check of all other systems. Lexi initiated her jump sequence. Moments later, she reappeared in a new system. Several other ships were already present, along with the four dragons she was expecting. Almost instantly she was linked in with the group call.

“Ah, welcome, Lexi is it? That’s a nice name. My name is Wyveria. I’ve heard that you and your fellow sisters are making their first foray into motherhood. Congratulations! I found it quite rewarding myself.”

“Um, thank you?”

The dragon giggled, “Oh no need to be so shy. Normally we would not involve ourselves with others like this, but it seems my daughter Uliera has broken that. I don’t blame her, actually I blame Wexi and her carelessness.”

Lexi’s core blinked, “Wexi? Carelessness? What are you on about with that?”

The dragon sighed, “My daughter Uliera has agreed to a stewardship over the Neku and the Iniri. Since the Iniri are originally our creation, it’s honestly our fault they did as much damage as they did to the Neku Imperium and its people. Of course the dragon specifically responsible is Wexi. She created them to enlighten the younger races, but was forced to shelve her project when our political leadership decided it best not to interact with the younger races.” she paused, “Unfortunately she didn’t properly shelve the project, and some fools decided to finish and weaponize the Iniri when they found it. What Megumi has recently done was to bring them more in line with our original plan for them.”

“I um see. You wouldn’t happen...”

“To know who unleashed them upon the galaxy? Sadly yes, but you won’t have to worry about it. We are taking care of it.”

Yiria shifted in her seat. Not sure how to feel. “Um, can you say that again?”

“I said that I was willing to let you stay with Miku. You really seem to like her and I can’t say I don’t like you either. I was hoping we could get to know each other on more equal terms.”

There was something about that. Yiria blinked and noticed her body language. The way she was moving her boobs, the way her tail was moving. Riku was hitting on her! Why!? “Um, what? What about your...”

“Former husband? What about him? We are already separated and I don’t exactly love him.”

Her mind reeled, “What! Megumi reversed all our conditioning, didn’t she?”

Riku giggled, “I feel like me. He was always fun, but I can’t say it was perfect. I’m free now, I want to branch out and um, something tells me I’m not alone. Traditional relationships aren’t going to work that well anyway.”

Riku turned on the monitor and brought something up. Yiria shrank into her seat as she listened to the video. A news report with a very naked reporter she remembered watching give birth on the screen. That had been interesting and now that same reporter was making a report while nursing her kid.

After a moment, she said, “Um sorry?”

Riku replied, “I already forgave you and I’d like to get to know you properly. How about dinner later and if it goes well we can have some fun after?”

A flushed Yiria, nodded. She wasn’t sure it would be a good idea to turn her down, but it seemed that maybe she would not have to give up Miku. She turned back to the report. The reporter was talking about a program called Girls without Mothers. The program was being revised and families were being urged to contact program officials so that they may connect with any children they might have in the program. Yiria felt somewhat appalled when the reporter mentioned how many girls were in it. Far too many.

Then the reporter spoke, “Alright, that covers the Girls without Mothers program. We are going on a short break after this and when we come back the Dragon Uliera will be making her address to the populace. For those not yet aware, she has been appointed as Stewardess of the Imperium and will be taking guardianship of Crown Princess Ekiria until she comes of age.”

Yiria shifted. Her mind thinking back. She recalled that Ekiria was the official voice of the Imperium. At least she had been. The girl was rather young for the job but the other royals had quietly disappeared over the years. Now that she knew about these other programs, she was starting to wonder. What had been going on with the royals?”

Before she could think about it, she suddenly felt wet lips pressing into her own. They broke and Riku gave her a playful wink. “See you later! I have a few things to do!”

Yiria started to nod dumby, when something occurred to her, “Oh! Right your accounts. I need to fix those.”

Riku shrugged, “We can do that later. What was with the whole black box thing anyway?”

Yiria raised her shoulders, “Outside the obvious?”

“Yeah, um forget I asked,” said Riku as she pulled Yiria up. “Now out you go!”

Before she could even blink, she was being ushered out the door. As she turned, and watched the door close behind her, her charge asked, “Can we eat lunch?”