Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I’m Stuck as Their Baby!

Bulldozing through a successful evening with Velka Nightthorn is more difficult than, oh say, teaching a cat how to waltz or coaxing my mothers to choose curtain fabric with each other. But as I snuck through the half-restored palace at dawn, clutching a pilfered recipe scroll and my last three copper pieces, I was resolute. Velka had dragged me out of the darkness, put her neck out for my siblings, and nearly bled to death twice for my family. Surely, after all that, I could make her smile even laugh. Once. And not at my own expense.

Besides, hope required action. The sort of hope that stayed alive after a siege and a kidnapping and an entire city discovering that even a princess had limits. The sort that baked bread instead of breaking things. That was the hope I'd have to trust now.

First, supplies. If Velka were going to be swept off her feet, she would have to get through a bakery, a rose garden, and short of luck a flock of magical songbirds notorious for dive-bombing new couples with magical petals. I'd already lost a shoe and part of my pride to the last "date night" Riven'd attempted to plan (he'd called it "The Doughnut Fiasco"; I still had flour in my hair a week later). This time, I'd be cautious. Methodical. The kind of princess who didn't trip over her own feet.

The kitchen, thankfully, was vacant except for Mara, who looked at me over a mound of rising dough.

"Seducing or sabotaging?" she inquired, kneading with her elbows. "Uh-huh, you're suspicious-looking."

"I need to use the kitchen for an hour," I hissed. "And your honey-lavender scone recipe. Just don't ask.".

Mara smiled shark-bright. "Say no more. Use the good honey the cheap stuff's for riots. Just don't burn the joint down. Or if you do, warn me so I can watch."

"I'll try," I promised, snatching the recipe and hugging a wall of flour sacks.

I'd baked only twice before in my life: once with Aeris and Arion, where the flatbread would have made a satisfactory discus, and once in a disastrous home economics lesson where the system had recommended substituting sugar with "wildly optimistic expectations." (The cake never set, but my fellow students voted it the most inspiring dessert ever presented.)

Today, I was determined to do better. For Velka.

Eggs, honey, flour. I whisked, folded, cursed under my breath when batter spattered onto my arm. The system, ever obstreperous, piped up with [Precision is the key. So is not confusing ground dragon scale for baking powder. You're welcome.]

"Ha ha very funny," I growled. "Some magical support, please?"

[Null fields still active. Elbow grease and existential fear are your best bet.]

I spat, nearly dropping the bowl. Maybe that was all I had to lose.

The scones, in a miraculous miracle, rose golden, fragrant, slightly lopsided. Mara tasted one, pronounced it "almost edible" with a wink, and pulled out a jar of smuggled imported jam as an offering.

"Go get her, princess," she whispered. "And if you're nervous, just remember Velka's seen you at your absolute worst. There's nowhere to go but up.".

Sticky fingers (and bolded), I gathered my meager offerings. Basket of scones, white rose from the garden (taken at sword point away from gnomish destruction), and lastly a letter, written in the dim illumination of my bedroom, where I tried to express the enormity of her place in my life. Not poetry. Not proclamations. Just truth.

And now the hardest: the invitation.

I found Velka in the library, sitting on the windowsill, feet supported on it, a book of battle tactics lying open on her lap and an expression that dared anyone to interrupt her. The light emphasized the silver threads in her hair, and the fading purple marks on her jaw. She looked up as I entered, lips curling in amusement.

"Another rebellion in the making, Your Highness?"

"Only if you won't go for a walk with me," I replied, thudding heart. "I will you come with me? I need your opinion on something. And maybe your hunger."

She raised an eyebrow. "If this is a trap, you should have at least three types of pastry."

I held up the basket. "Four, if you count the burnt ones."

That coaxed a real smile. "Lead the way, then. But if there are any more rebels in the rose garden, I'm eating them first."

We slipped out together, the spring air chilly and bitter. I escorted her through the gardens past the gnomes (courteous and now carefully so after yesterday's treaty), through the maze of roses, to the worn stone bench overlooking the city. The view was battered but beautiful. Banners still streamed on distant towers. Smoke curled in languid twists, the city being rebuilt brick by brick.

I spread the cloth out and offered her the scone, a sudden awkwardness descending upon me. "I wanted to thank you. For. everything. For not giving up on my family, or me, or my miserable pastry techniques."

Velka bit into the scone, pretending to swoon. "You're lucky I have a robust constitution. But it's good. It's. genuine. Not flawless. That's better."

We dined in companionable silence. A pair of songbirds whizzed past, dropping petals. Velka picked one up and pressed it behind my ear, the gesture goofy and heartbreakingly sweet.

At last, I handed her the letter. She read it slowly, furrowing her brow and then set it in her lap, folding the paper carefully so it wouldn't wrinkle.

"I don't handle this," she said to me, her voice soft. "But I'd rather be here, with you, than anywhere else. Even if the pastries are awful."

I grinned, tension fading. "Would you… do you want to do this again? I mean, not necessarily the pastry, but "

She bent to brush a crumb from my cheek. "Ask me on a hundred dates, Elyzara. Just don't stop."

My heart skipped a beat. The system hummed in accord, nearly satisfied. [Sometimes you don't need magic to make something right. Just the courage to try.]

The rest of the morning went in the odd, glacial brightness of something healing. We shared stories hers full of shadow and metal, mine full of fumbling hope and stubborn dreams. Velka tried to teach me to throw knives at one point. I refused. She tried to teach me to glare properly instead; I messed that up too, laughing into fits every opportunity she attempted to squint.

When the bell in the city square struck noon, I gathered up the remains and took her hand. We rode back to the palace no longer bodyguard and princess, or savior and shadow, but two girls who'd seen the worst of the world and still wanted more.

That, I knew, was the perfect date.

No miracles. No magic. Just trust daring and ordinary and as sweet as spring after a long winter.