What?

She had to be lying, right? He was ready to believe he didn't come from an anonymous donor, but to think that ​​Nimue, of all people, mothered him was just absurd.

It couldn't be real.

The woman was staring at him from across the room with a straight face and dead eyes, curious to see what his reaction would be. Not that it mattered. He wasn't going to love her after this, so nothing really mattered at all.

"Uh... Nimue?" Tiro was sat up straight beside her, staring with equal parts confusion and disbelief. "But you said Digorn is his dad, which means-"

"Yes, Tiro." She cut him off in irritation, spitting out her words as if she hated the way they tasted. "I had a baby with him. Get over it."

Although she spoke like it was a memory she had long buried and didn't care about, the way she refused to meet his eyes and how her voice wobbled on the last few syllables made him think that she wasn't over it at all. What had happened between them exactly?

Felix walked over, Dot clinging to his leg like a barnacle so he was dragged along too. "Are you serious? If this is a joke, tell us now because it's not funny."

She glared at him, then looked softly at Dot, and back to Tiro. He hugged her close and held her, making her feel less alienated in what was turning out to be a very horrid situation.

"I'm not joking."

"How?"

"What do you mean how?" She narrowed her eyes and looked at him like he was stupid. "Or do you need me to explain to you how babies are made?" Her voice was laced with sarcasm and spite as she glared upwards through her eyelashes at him and kicked his shin. "Idiot man."

Felix rubbed where her foot had hit and sat down next to her, hiding Dot behind him. The kick hadn't hurt, she was just lashing out because she was upset. Even though he didn't like the woman, he liked Digorn's creepy attitude towards her even less and so just wanted to find out how. Or, more appropriately: why?

Tiro pulled her onto his lap so he could hug her more comfortably, so that she felt less awful about what was happening. She'd brought it upon herself, really, but still- that was no reason to make her face this alone.

"I'm not really asking how... more why."

"I wanted a hybrid and so did he. We figured adult conversion wasn't entirely possible so tried to use an embryo instead."

Everyone else in the room kept silent, eager to let her explain. Tiro rubbed her shoulders and kissed her neck softly once in a while, ensuring she felt loved even while telling a tale she wished wasn't hers to two people that hated her.

"It was my sister's idea. To try it on a few cells rather than a fully grown human. It should have been obvious, honestly, but she ended up having to point it out to us. She wasn't serious, Thia would never actually be serious about that sort of thing. It was more just a throwaway suggestion that Digorn happened to take seriously. I was going to use anonymous donors, but he had... other ideas."

Tiro squeezed her hand as she laid back into him. The silence in the room was heavy, broken only by Nimue's trembling voice.

"Thia did most of the work. She kept records, made ideas reality, and did most of the modification herself. She's always been smarter than me. I helped a little, of course- but without her, you wouldn't have been possible." Nimue gestured to Dot and looked at him with an expression of something that resembled love, but was too swarmed by shame and guilt to be completely recognisable.

"She's even the one that had the idea of using a form of genetic modification to insert the DNA. I barely did anything, except," she shrugged and stared down at the floor. "Except mothering him, I guess. Although I did a crap job of that too."

"I didn't really want to start the experiments. I thought they were cruel, and I was right- still am- but there was no way around it. The other option was to give you to Digorn, and I couldn't do that. Weird and... bat-shaped as you were, you were still my baby, and I love you." She refused to look at him as she said this, the ever growing guilt from what she did to him eating her up inside like an incurable infestation. "I wanted you to experience love, not be put in a tiny cage and stared at like a pet. Digorn probably would have put a leash on you, and walked you around the block like some weird dog. So I kept you."

"Then I started seeing myself become this person, this evil person I didn't want to be. But I didn't know how to stop, because if I stopped and remembered how precious you are, then I wouldn't have the heart to continue with the only way we knew to make money off of you. If we didn't have enough money to make your existence a profit, Digorn would have shut this place down and taken you back. But I was unnecessarily cruel to you, and I can't describe how sorry I am for that. I have no right to your forgiveness, I know. But please, just know that I am so, so sorry."

"Were you and Digorn together at the time?" Felix asked.

"No. When Dot was made, he was with my sister." She sounded less guilty about this than she had when she was talking about the trials and her own cruelty. "Thia knows about that and doesn't hold it against me. It would have been weird if she did hate me because of it, honestly."

"How would that have been weird? You slept with her boyfriend and got pregnant. If I had a girlfriend and my brother did the equivalent... I would be furious at both of them." Felix was playing with Dot's wing, running his thumb over the leathery material it was made of.

Nimue sighed and rested her head on her knees, leaning away from Tiro and playing with her toes. "I will tell you why later. But not now. It's too much to explain in one sitting, and I'm tired."

With that, she slumped back down onto Tiro's shoulder and covered her face with her arms, avoiding Dot's emotionless stare at all costs.