The two goddesses sipped their tea while the Captain looked on with anxiety written all over his face. Lia, on the other hand, was more curious.

“Is that her name? Lunabelle?” she asked.

“Indeed, A good name my sister came up with wouldn’t you say.”

When Selene had shown them all the strange human child she had found after she had been educated by Selene on the proper method of caring for a baby(She hadn't known what to tell her little sister what a mother was supposed to do to feed a newborn, so she ended up just letting Selene feed her whatever she wanted). They all couldn’t but say “Awww” and “So cute!” over the little bundle of cloth in her arms.

“We have a job for you. If you so decide to accept. Although refusal would mean we will demand compensation for the events that have transpired. And I cannot promise that we will not take measures to prevent an incident like this from happening again. Starting with that little coalition of yours.”

As she said these words, she scrutinized the pair. They could not leave their celestial bodies without endangering them to hostile takeovers by other celestials. Thus, they needed someone else to keep an eye on Lunabelle and keep her out of trouble. They didn’t expect Lunabelle to cause any trouble, but she was not someone who would underestimate the greed of mortal men. If one of them were to try to hurt her...

“I happen to be in need of a few people to watch over my child while she visits your little planet. I think employing you would be a fine way to repay us for all the troubles you have caused. You would have to watch her all the time, make sure she is well fed and all her needs met amongst other things.”

The whole trip served 2 purposes. To help increase the follower unit of all three goddesses and save them from oblivion. And to help Lunabelle grow without the interference from the goddesses.

Of course, Astenna had her own apprehensions even if she was calm on the outside. She too didn’t want to let Lunabelle go, but it was for her own good as much as theirs. Lunabelle had been distracting them too much and they were suffering the consequences of it. She was the goddess of the higher learning and a patron of wisdom. If she saw the problem and did nothing, she would be as much a goddess of wisdom as a dragon was a mouse.

Having Lunabelle learn and experience the little planet was a daunting and somewhat horrifying decision to make. What if she got badly hurt? Or worse, grew up and forgot and never came back! Wouldn’t it just be better to keep her here? For 3 days, these thoughts had tortured her, making her hesitate. That was when she remembered the words her mother had said to her in private before she left to go and create her own celestial body.

“You are my daughter. One day you will outgrow my lap, as all must, but you will never outgrow my heart.”

Astenna realized she had been foolish. If Lunabelle really loved them all, she would never outgrow them or forget. Even if she hated them, they all would still love her. Because she was their daughter, and they were her mother's.

The captain was shaking. He was trapped between a rock and a hard place after all. The way the two in front of him casually went about summoning plots of land to fly through the sky and building fantastic structures in seconds left no doubt in his mind that the two were indeed goddesses and not just powerful magicians.

They way they talked about the demise of the coalition, which had been built upon the trust and friendship of millions, indifferent to the struggles of those below them...It was the true defining trait of a transcendent entity. There wasn’t any other choice. Either work for them or die and let the all that hard work go down the drain, and end in death and destruction.

“We will cooperate, but in exchange-” he said downcast.

“Excellent. Then there is the matter of apologizing to Selene. She is not present for obvious reasons, so it will be up to you to explain yourselves and mend matters. If you fail, then we will just have to collect upon that debt in some other way you can imagine. I hope you understand.”

Selene was now the only obstacle stopping them from continuing with the plan. If only she had agreed in the first place, they wouldn’t need to go along with this charade.

“Wait a moment! Are you saying we have to convince a goddess that we can babysit a little girl on our world, and then do so! That's ridiculous! All we did was trespass on your land unknowingly! And you want us to drop our lives and take care of a child without expecting something in return.” Lia Interrupted the scholar.

They were all busy with their lives. The goddesses didn’t even say how long they would have to do it!

The goddess narrowed her eyes at them. A tiny bit of the scary aura from before leaked out from her.

“Yes in fact. Vote if you want on which one of you will do it if you must. In exchange, I will promise you that all of you may go back to the little planet as well, unharmed. But one of you will be held accountable for her, and I and my sisters will be checking in frequently so I do hope you treat this seriously for your own sake. For if she is harmed in anyway whatsoever, it is not you only who will pay the price, but your entire race.”

Lia was frustrated at her own powerlessness. She could only wonder what she had meant when she threatened a decline in prosperity, but it didn’t sound good. This wasn’t negotiations, this was dominance! None of their requests would even be acknowledged! But unfortunately, she couldn’t just walk away from the table or demand better treatment because they held no leverage in this situation. All they could do was sit silent and lower their heads.

“...How long…”

“It would be until she is of an age where she can take care of herself so maybe 1000 years or so. Although it is subject to change.”

Lia felt lightheaded. 1000 years! High elves like her only lived 500, 700 absolute maximum, and they were the 2nd race with the longest lifespan only losing to dragons who could live 1000 years or more! And did the little girl even live that long! Was she some sort of dragon in disguise? Her cells had been so strange and weird that she wasn’t even sure if she aged like normal organic life.

“1000 years is too much! We wouldn’t even…”

“Live that long? Oh, no worries. The responsibility will be carried along to the next of kin or family in the event you died of age or other causes. There is no escaping if even if you.”

As the captain thought before, there was no real choice. Lia didn’t know what refusing or failing entailed, but if they accepted at least they would all get back home alive, albeit one would have to give up the lives of their family and whatever kin they have. One thing was for certain, though, Terra had to know what really was floating above their heads.

“We Accept.”

______________________

“They're taking a long time…”

Ariel was worried about her sister and captain. What if they had all fallen prey to some sort of trap, or were being tortured for information.

“Relax. Cap may be a pain, but he’s tough as bolts. He’ll be fine.”

The dwarf was happily chugging down his third bowl of drink. He had been the first to try the strange drink and found it to be some sort of strong beer, except 100 times stronger and more alcoholic. He had gotten the biggest thing he could find that could hold liquid, which was a large fruit bowl the size of a wagon wheel, and started chugging down bowl after bowl, getting severely drunk in the process.

“Good stuff. Wish I could bring this back and show it to the guys in the forge,” he said falling drunk.

For dwarves, good beer, sake, and wine was like a drug. And over the centuries, much to the panic of the dwarves, they had developed a resistance to alcohol far surpassing any other race. Nowadays, the saying “A dwarves drink” was meant to indicate that the alcohol content of a drink was something that was poisonous to anyone but a dwarf.

To put it into perspective, 30 standard shots of whiskey, which would be enough to kill a normal man twice over from before the moon fall or make an elf from the current era dead drunk, wouldn’t even make a dwarf tipsy. And as expected, dwarves also had the ability to hold their alcohol better than almost everyone else.

“Still, it’s been over an hour and they still haven’t checked in.”

She poked her fork at the Gugu salad in front of her, anxious for their return.

“Maybe we should go check up on them? Corporal?”

The beastman was ripping into his 2nd Chu Gu bird, steak knife and fork flashing as he went. Considering the thing was bigger than a large buckler shield, it was impressive and wondrous how he managed to fit it all in his average figure.

He put down his knife and fork for a second and wiped his mouth.

“Firstly, make no mistake, we are still prisoners. I will not pretend to know what they might be talking about, but I know that the longer we go along with whatever those two deities are planning, the longer we are more likely to live.”

He immediately went back to crunching on the bones of the giant bird, ignoring the stares of his compatriots.

“What do you mean we're still prisoner? We could literally run to the ship at this distance.” she stopped.

He sawed off a portion of the bird he was snacking on and tossed it behind him through the opening. A pair of ghostly white jaws formed milliseconds later and snapped up the meat and devoured it in the time it took the crew to blink and realize what just happened.

“ My professional opinion as the team bodyguard is not to engage an enemy we cannot hope to defeat while potential negotiations are going on. I would also strongly recommend not attempting to attack or leave the pavilion as such attempts would almost certainly be met with hostile force. That is all.”

He was right, they couldn’t beat the wolves the first time around, the 2nd time wouldn’t be much different. Furthermore, he had a point about the talks going on. So far, their position had apparently elevated from prisoners of war to guests with guards. The new level of treatment aside, there must have been a reason that the goddesses had brought them here to talk. One the captain and Lia were most likely talking about right now.

“See! There they are! Right on time for my 5th shot!~ Hey! Cap’n! You gotta taste this stuff!”

The two were walking back over the hill they had gone, an argument going on between them.

“The fact still remains, You shouldn't have just accepted their offer like that!”

“And you think we should have done otherwise!”

They were being escorted by a pair of red mist wolves that trailed behind them a few steps, silently watching in solid form, no sign of the goddesses. As soon as they entered the gazebo, Ariel ran up to the two and started talking.

“How was the meeting sir?”

The captain looked worriedly at Lia and she just stared back with a look on her face that said, “Just tell them!”.

“We have some stuff to talk about. Get the others. We may have a new mission directive.”

____________________

The two goddesses watch as the two left, escorted out by a pair of Shimmering Crimson Wolves that Mora so loved.

“And you're quite certain they will cooperate?”

“They will choose the most obvious choice, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they look for a way out of it. They are only mortal after all.”

“Hmm...indeed. Although I was quite surprised. Cutting off their communications to their superiors, threatening them and their families, you are full of surprises dear sister.”

Such fierce and aggressive actions was not like Astenna at all, who was usually a calculating and passive character. Selene was the more aggressive of them all but Astenna's show of force could probably match it.

“I am her mother. Of course, I will scrutinize whoever it is to take care of my child. I just worry that they may think themselves clever enough to try something.”

“So just cement the consequences of betrayal in their mind. Easy fix.”

“I’m afraid not so sister. If they get it in their mind to betray us while on the little planet then will gain the upper hand as we possess considerably less influence over Terra’s matters. If they turn on us, we will have to deal with the situation ourselves, which could, in turn, cause a multitude of other problems for us, endangering Lunabelle even further.”

They were putting the lives of their daughter in the hands of complete strangers. It wouldn’t be strange if they decided to use Lunabelle as a hostage against them or worse. Any mother would be anxious.

“Should we add rewards? Maybe artifacts or power?” said Mora hefting her spear.

Astenna thought for a moment.

“Perhaps. But not until they decide who it will be the one to do it. We must show them we will kill them if they go against us, but we can also reward them greatly for being loyal to us. And to those that refused, will receive nothing.

“Then we wait?” asked the battle goddess.

“Yes, we wait.”

_________________

“And I’m saying it’s a bad idea!”

The captain argued back and forth with Lia, raising their voices.

After the captain and Lia had gotten back, they both explained what had happened and gave their versions of the story.

Agreeing to work with a pair of unknown immortals was dangerous. For all they knew, they could be fallen gods, looking for easy prey. And when considering the use of illusions and threats, it wasn’t impossible, or so the captain argued.

Lia’s argument was more based on what she definitely knew. And she knew that the goddesses wanted a babysitter for a lifetime, and if they accepted, all 5 of them will be able to go back to Terra and report on what happened, they needed to know of the deities that inhabited the moons above and the threat they could pose! Their fate was uncertain if they refused, so the only logical choice was to accept and proceed from there.

“Sir with all due respect, I believe I made the right choice. This way we may all return alive and well, although one of us will be held responsible for the alien girls stay on Terra.”

“For a thousand years no less! It’s insanity! And we don’t know what could happen during that time. As I said, you should not have accepted the job! And how will we decide who is selected!”

The others watched from the sidelines, watching the exchange. Both had points and neither option was great. According to Lia, if the girl died at any time during her 1000 year stay, then the prosperity of the race would decline, whatever that meant. Thoughts of large races such as the Dwarven Empire or the Beast country falling prey to monster tides or famine swirled in the minds of all. However, opinions on who was correct were divided, with James taking the captain's side, and Ariel taking her sister's side. Ronnie had remained neutral, mostly because he was chugging down another bowl of spirits.

*BURP*

He fell back in his chair satisfied.

“Ay! Eres a great idea! You'll love this! *Burp* Right get a pen, write this down, write this down...hehehe...”

He started drunkenly rocking back and forth in his chair, nearly tipping because of how intoxicated he was.

“If ye want to live... agree! If ye don’t...don’t agree! Hehehe...Mazing innit, what happens when you use ye brain.”

He went for his 8th bowl, his tone getting cooler. Lia and the other surging up in protest only to be silenced by the drunken dwarf slamming the bowl back down on the table, a web of cracks spreading out from its obsidian surface.

“If you ever feel the need to kill ye self, go right ahead and offend those goddesses, but don’t drag everyone else steamin down into the grave with ya. Besides, Lia can just take care of the little squirt. Was er idea in the first place anyway. *Hick*.”

He held up a hand for silence as he threw back another round.

“Ye know, they say that super powerful beings like dem goddesses are unpredictable, but if you go back in there and tell em you refuse, you can count on two things! You won’t have to decide who's watching the brat, and only 1 of us is going back to Terra alive!!! And if anything, not of their own volition it sounds like.”

No one replied after that.