That was a little cub, stumbling and tumbling as he flew toward you.
In the instant Amos rose to his feet, the little one collided straight into his embrace.
The little fellow lifted his small head in delight, gazing up at Amos, calling out incoherently, “Baba—Baba—”
“He can say ‘Baba’ now.”
Desmond stood up as well, slightly taken aback for a moment.
He turned to glance at Clansis.
Clansis had also risen, a calm gaze cast in the little one’s direction.
He seemed to be looking forward to hearing a ‘Grandpa.’
Though the little one was indeed growing fast, he was not yet at the stage where he could speak clearly.
“Yiya—Baba!”
Little Chu Zao called out gleefully.
“He was playing by himself just a moment ago, then suddenly started looking for you,” Frey explained.
“Though even then, his voice was still quite indistinct.”
Now, though, he was beginning to get the hang of it.
Amos answered softly and looked at the little one in his arms.
Faced with such a tiny, vulnerable cub, it was almost impossible to keep your heart unmoved.
“What’s wrong? Weren’t you going to play by yourself?”
Amos tapped Chu Zao’s nose and asked gently.
The child tipped his head to the side, gazing back at Amos. He blinked several times, stretched out a little hand to touch his own nose, and puffed his cheeks ever so slightly.
“Baba—”
He wanted his Baba.
Even among other Crown Clan cubs of this age, none had ever been this clingy.
Clansis stared for a good while, his lips twitching as though he wanted to say something—but judging by Crown Clan standards, the child at this moment was altogether too spoiled and affectionate.
Clansis wasn’t even sure if this was a good thing.
Yet, protected by the entire Crown Clan and under the guardianship of the Holy Cas Empire, no matter what temperament this little one grew into, it could never truly be a bad thing.
Then he saw the little one finish nuzzling up to Amos, turn to look at Clansis, tilt his head, and give a light, merry whoop, his tiny wings fluttering again—
“Yeh—Yeh!”
Clansis: …
He—he called me Grandpa!
In that instant, the normally stern and distant Crown Clan elder seemed to glow—the effect was no illusion; his coronet actually appeared upon the little one’s call, and indeed, it was shining.
Clansis reached out to catch the little cub who flitted over to share his affection.
Desmond had been thinking that even if the little one learned quickly, it couldn’t possibly be *that* fast, that he would need to grow a bit more—and then, out of nowhere, he heard the babyish ‘Yeh yeh’ from the child.
Desmond froze, instinctively looking at the little cub.
Held in Clansis’s arms, the little one straightened himself as if to say—no one is left out here, no one is left out at all!
His small wings fluttered again as he dove straight for Desmond’s chest.
With the little cub firmly in his arms at last, Desmond lowered his gaze to look at him, narrowing his eyes.
“What about me?”
Why had the little fellow skipped over him?
The little one didn’t understand, tilting his head in confusion—Zao Zao had already distributed enough affection, turning again, wings fluttering, searching for his Baba.
But Desmond, unwilling to let go, held the little one fast.
“Zao Zao, what about your great-grandpa?”
Now Desmond was filled with regret.
He never should have assumed that a newborn cub would need more time to begin understanding, to begin mimicking what he heard in speech or in action.
He used to mock the idea of a group of people crowding around a newborn, each vying for the baby to call them by their respective names.
Now, he bitterly regretted it.
If Heaven could give him one more chance, he would whisper ‘great-grandpa’ into Zao Zao’s ear every day for a week!
The cub was handed back to Amos.
Amos looked at Desmond, whose expression had fallen, and who could barely bring himself to look at Clansis’s beaming face.
As the very first to be called by the child, Amos contentedly held the little one in his arms, returned to his seat, and decided to handle his official documents with the child cradled before him.
“Speaking of which, it really is about time.”
Clansis looked at Amos—wasn’t it about time to return to the Holy Cas capital and the royal court, where everything was more convenient?
Ever since the founding of the Holy Cas Empire, the Crown Clan mostly resided on their native planet, but to guard against strangers arriving there, nowadays most of them no longer lived on the home world.
For convenience, the well-resourced Holy Cas royal court was by far the best location.
And over the past few days, little Chu Zao had clearly grown much sturdier, eating and sleeping in healthy turns—eating until full, sleeping until rested, and his little body sprouting like a weed. He was even beginning to babble today.
His flying skills, however, still left much to be desired, and his wings had barely grown.
It would be fine to bring him back now to the Holy Cas royal court.
“Mm, Mother has already gone back to make arrangements.”
Amos, holding the little one, who was babbling cheerful nonsense and waving a pen about, continued, “And Feiman has already found Feeney. He’s discovered a new resource planet and marked it. The next step is to send a team for exploration. He, Anya, and the rest will be back tonight. This afternoon, I plan to bring Zao Zao back.”
“And as for Zao Zao’s existence, we need to properly prepare for the public announcement.”
Desmond finally came to himself. It was clear he still resented not having received a ‘great-grandpa,’ but he straightened nonetheless, leaning comfortably in his chair, and waved his hand.
“The entire star system must be made aware that our Dwight family now has a precious little cub.”
“What about on his one-month birthday?” Clansis suggested.
“That should be about right—then we can announce it to everyone. Although there’s no pressing need to keep it secret now—”
Only empires still threatened by hidden dangers would so carefully conceal and protect their heirs.
But for the Crown Clan, their little ones were meant to be given the full glory of their lineage from the moment of birth—the radiance of the Crown Clan’s long history shining upon every child from the start.
“We’ll have to draw up a guest list—the Soul Clan must be invited, the Holy Chalice Clan, Spirit Eye Race—”
Desmond tallied it off absently, then waved his hand with a wry smile.
“But we’ll let you decide all that when the time comes.”
After all, no one understood every detail as well as Amos.
All of Holy Cas was firmly under Amos’s control.
Amos only answered softly.
He was considering things with practiced nonchalance, when a faint chill suddenly brushed his cheek.
Amos looked down, only to see his eldest son had somehow already removed the pen cap—though there was no real danger of injury.
In the palace of the home world, it was customary to dwell there only after a cub’s birth, and many of the preparations included special protections for the very young.
The pen tip wasn’t even sharp, just blunt and harmless.
Not to mention, even a cub like this a few days old had a body as sturdy as most would-be soldiers.
There was simply no way he could be harmed by such things.
Yet at that very moment, his precious son let out a delighted cry, lifted the pen, and drew a line across his father’s face.
Amos remained silent, simply snatching the pen away from the little hand.
Across the room, Desmond and Clansis exchanged a look and couldn’t help but curve their lips in quiet amusement.
Well, well—it was the first time anyone had dared draw on Amos’s face, and Amos wasn’t the least bit angry.
Truly a father’s own child.
Amos saw his own reflection and wiped away the streak, watching the little one, who was entirely engrossed in his play—pure, adorable, yet with that little hint of mischief. He reached out again, still hoping for the pen.
And all the while, he was eyeing Amos’s face, obviously hoping for another chance at his ‘artistic creation.’
Amos: …Truly, my precious child.
After a long silence, Amos decided he wouldn’t indulge him to the point of letting the little brat scrawl all over his face in front of his elders.
“…Here, play with this.”
Amos handed him another toy.
Fortunately, the child’s interest passed as quickly as it came. He took the notebook Amos gave him and flipped rapidly through the pages, setting them fluttering in a loud rustle.
Most of the time, they used virtual screens, but there were always some paper records on hand for particular needs.
The little one flipped through them with great delight—such was a child’s attention span, fleeting and always shifting, yet capable of latching on with fierce and sudden focus when something caught his curiosity.
“Frey.”
Amos turned to Frey, who could not take his eyes off the child.
“Get ready. We’re leaving for the capital.”
“All right.”
Frey nodded and was about to turn away—
When the sound of tiny wings was heard again behind him.
He looked up to see the little one landing, ever so wobbly, on his head.
“Yah, yiya—bo—bobo—”
With the notebook gripped in hand, hearing his uncle speak of leaving, Zao Zao tried to bestow his affection on Frey as well.
He even managed a muddled version of ‘Uncle.’
He clung to his uncle’s hair, looking back toward Amos—as if to say, what work could compete with time spent together?
Zao Zao simply wanted his family by his side.
He tugged on his uncle’s hair, and glanced at his father, clearly wishing for them all to go together.
In the end, Amos set his work aside and stood, giving in at last.
He reached out his hand.
“Get down from your uncle’s head.”
Everything else was fine, but the little one insisted on flying all over the place.
The cub gave a delighted warble, flapped his wings to fly to Amos—this time overshooting, turning about in confusion as he overshot Baba—and was instantly caught by Amos by the back of his little shirt.
Amos carried the little one ahead while glancing back toward Clansis and Desmond.
“Father, Grandfather, we’re heading back now.”
There would be time enough in the Holy Cas royal court to discuss what needed discussing.
Even as Amos left, child in arms, Clansis gave a soft click of his tongue—he still could hardly believe Amos had this kind of side to him.
He cast a sidelong glance at Desmond and hesitated at the look on the older man’s face.
“Father?”
Clansis called softly.
Desmond stalked out, black-faced.
“Where are you going?”
Desmond didn’t look back, just waving his hand.
“I’m going to spend the next hundred times whispering ‘great-grandpa’ in Zao Zao’s ear.”
Baba, yeh yeh, bobo—they’d all been called.
But what about great-grandpa, little one?
The problem is not inequality of affection, but uneven distribution!
And so, in the end, neither Desmond nor Clansis returned with their own fleets—they trailed along, following behind Amos.
Leaving behind a group of equally eager Crown Clan members jumping with impatience, wanting to see the child.
The homeworld and the Holy Cas capital were not far apart.
By the time they arrived, it wasn’t even mealtime yet.
The little one had just awoken from his nap, hair rumpled, eyes dazed, staring blankly as his great-grandpa solemnly repeated the words ‘great-grandpa’ before him.
Like a malfunctioning audio player, repeating again and again.
The young cub blinked, looking from his great-grandpa’s face—
Then reached out a worried hand and touched Desmond’s cheek.
Oh dear, great-grandpa’s broken down!
Why was he stuck on the same sound?
“Yiya—”
What should Zao Zao do?
Though he was only a few days old, this little one was already learning to worry.
His big, round eyes rolled in thought.
Then he got up and tugged at one of great-grandpa’s hairs—earlier, while sleeping, he’d accidentally torn off a hair and had only felt a faint jolt when it snapped.
This clever cub now put that lesson to use—
Zao Zao to the rescue! Great-grandpa!
Just as Amos was preparing to speak, having noticed their arrival, he saw little Chu Zao ‘pluck a tiger’s tooth,’ grabbing one of Desmond’s hairs and yanking with all his might.
Desmond felt his scalp scream: …
He stared at the strand of hair now in Zao Zao’s hand.
Amos: …
Zao Zao, still full of concern, looked up at him.
Are you all better now, great-grandpa?
He wobbled to his feet and, with a babyish chirp, “Yeh—yiya—yeh—”
He clearly still couldn’t manage the ‘great’ sound.
Still just ‘yeh yeh.’
But with Clansis absent, it was obvious the ‘yeh yeh’ was meant for him.
Desmond cheered up at once.
He regarded the little one, for a moment visibly torn.
“Does he have to pull a hair for each address?”
Did Crown Clan hair grow fast? Or was it just the feathers?
Desmond considered it seriously.
Zao Zao: ?
“Yiya?”
What?
At last, Amos couldn’t take it anymore; he walked over and scooped up the little one.
Clearly, Zao Zao had no such intention.
Don’t, after getting your ‘Grandpa’ and relaxing completely, start filling your head with such strange connections.
Amos couldn’t help but wonder—was it inevitable that as Crown Clan aged, they slowly became a little… ‘ridiculous’?
He fixed Desmond with his most emotionless look.
“Grandfather, we’ve arrived—and let’s let your hair, and Zao Zao, both have a break.”
Given the Crown Clan’s physical constitution, for Zao Zao to have ripped out a single hair, he must have used all his considerable infant strength.
If you started interpreting every title as needing a hair to go with it—who knew which of you would end up suffering more?
“Yawu—”
The little one didn’t understand, chirping as he hugged his father’s neck and squinted up at him with a happy smile.
After a few days together, the cub had proved himself lively, adorable, and ever-smiling.
Desmond had received his ‘yeh yeh’—not ‘great-grandpa,’ perhaps, but it was enough to clear his head.
He coughed lightly, straightened himself, and followed Amos.
As the ship settled, he glanced out the window.
In the distance, he could see other battleships returning.
But as they were landing directly within the Holy Cas royal court, while the military ships had to use specially designated armories and ports, this angle gave Desmond no way to make out from which unit they hailed.
But it hardly mattered—at this hour, it would likely be Feeney, Feiman, and Anya returning.
Desmond moved on, and midway he was steered by Ebinino toward the office to deal with unfinished work. He hadn’t had a chance to ‘show off’ before a thought struck him—
Now that he remembered, with Amos keeping things so well under wraps, did Feeney, Feiman, and Anya know about the little one?
Had they any inkling?
Desmond tilted his head in thought—a sudden return like this might give them quite a shock.
But so be it.
Desmond simply mused, then did nothing more. Surely Amos had planned everything out.
Not just Desmond—Frey, Clansis, Ebinino, and Solan, even Hel and Morlo who hadn’t yet returned, or the other Crown Clan members back home—none of them remotely suspected that Amos, for all his calm appearance, was inwardly bursting with happiness.
Completely possible he’d just forgotten about all this.
After all, Amos was reliable to a fault.
So even if there were any oversights, it was assumed to be intentional.
They all thought so.
Meanwhile, the Holy Cas royal court itself was equally stunned.
As mentioned, Amos’s situation had not been officially announced.
When Solan and the others came back to handle affairs, they barely had time to realize that a brand new little prince had joined the Crown Clan.
Now and then, someone glimpsed their great, formidable monarch holding a small child who bore no small resemblance to himself—a little Crown Clan cub so adorable he seemed to explode with cuteness.
An entire crowd was confounded.
Many wondered whether they ought to spread the word—after all, they hadn’t been told to keep it secret, though none had learned of it beforehand.
Those who’d caught a glimpse as they went about their duties—or even the guards and servants on their breaks—clutched their communicators, scouring the network for news.
They checked and re-checked, confirming it wasn’t ignorance on their part or some news they’d missed—this little one simply had not appeared anywhere in the news before being revealed in Amos’s arms. They stared dumbfounded at the ongoing discussion threads—
Currently, the hottest topic online was still the Crown Clan—
But all the talk concerned the adult Crown Clan; there’d been no mention of a young prince.
Beyond that, debate raged about the upcoming joint exercises for several military academies.
People argued heatedly over which school boasted the strongest students.
Until just a moment ago, they too had taken part in those arguments.
Yet now—
What was the point of such nonsense?
They wanted to shout—
Oh heavens, oh heavens!!!
The little prince!! A new prince of the Crown Clan!!!
And the child of His Majesty Amos!
What did that mean?
Surely—he was their future sovereign!!!
Holding this explosive news inside, not a soul dared utter it—left fidgeting and pent-up—so distracted that hardly anyone noticed the Crown Clan now on the verge of arriving at the Dwight Villa.
It was just then that Feeney, Feiman, and Anya returned.
“I’ve told you before, it’s called ‘strategic reconnaissance,’ not getting lost.”
“Sure, sure, not lost, I get it. Every time you get ‘strategically lost,’ that’s all.”
Feiman replied with a chilling tone.
On the other side, Anya laughed out loud.
“Third brother, just give up and accept it. Fourth sister’s already scheduled me in as your substitute in case you screw up—do you know the betting odds inside the Crown Clan for whether you’ll manage not to get lost? They’re spectacular.”
Feeney shot Anya a complicated look from behind his thick beard, gnashing his teeth quietly and snapping his fingers, making a light clicking sound—
Yes, his little brother was fine in every regard—except when it came to running his mouth.
Only at moments like this could Feeney sympathize with Amos for wanting to whack the fellow.
Yet ironically, plans made for trouble still ended in trouble.
“I’m not making excuses—I’m saying there was something going on in that direction, so we paused to observe—”
“And then wandered straight into it.”
Feiman’s voice was even colder.
“Enough, stop talking.”
“Third brother.”
Feiman rolled her eyes, not missing a beat. “Do you realize, ever since I became your backup, not once have I failed to be needed? Can’t you go just one time without getting lost?”
If only he could make a sudden breakthrough, what a delightful surprise that would be.
“But isn’t it odd—” Anya finished laughing, glancing at the Dwight Villa ahead. “It was so quiet all the way here.”
Indeed—
Normally, whether anyone greeted them or not, as Crown Clan returning, there ought to have been some sign, some recognition from those working in the royal court.
How, all this way, could there still have been no sign?
Suddenly, they realized just how odd it was.
Feeney felt something, turned as if to gesture—
Feiman and Anya instantly tensed—always on guard, even here in the Holy Cas royal court. But what danger could possibly await them here?
Then a familiar voice sounded at their ears, and their psionic energy was suddenly warned—absolutely forbidden to harm.
It was their brother’s voice, falling soft and—strangely—almost gentle in their ears.
Though Amos’s voice was still steady as always—“Feeney, don’t move—”
What?
Before Feeney could react—
A soft, wobbly object dropped from above, arms outstretched, latching onto his shoulder. A soft, childish face rubbed against his big beard, and Feeney heard a gentle babble by his ear—babyish and sweet.
Like a nestling in the first stages of flight, lively and adorable, showing off his skills but unable to control his landings—so Zao, errant flier, Zao met his ‘discipline.’
Clinging to Feeney’s shoulder, he was at first wary of this stranger—but then, as the bristles of Feeney’s beard jabbed his soft cheek, he paused, startled, and reached out to touch it. His little hand got pricked. At last, he whimpered, flapped his wings, and soared back toward his Baba—
“Wuhao—yiya—baba—za—za—”
Thus, a ‘shattered’ little cub, not yet able to articulate proper names, had learned, amidst sobs, to explain that Uncle Feeney’s beard was prickly.