Eighteen-year-old Nicholas Hammerstein is at the cusp of finishing high school in his hometown of Los Alamos, NM. He has a seemingly ideal life and is blessed with loving parents, a cute baby sister, and great friends. Nicholas is a gifted student and martial artist who has dreams of leaving for college at the end of his senior year. But, living in a world of Emergent humans, he will soon find his life turned upside down as his life and the fate of a kingdom hang in the balance. His future and theirs will be determined by how he navigates the drastic changes in his body and the magical and superpowered Mergent population he joins.

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The Legal Stuff: Emerald Princess © 2016-2023 By Sofia Hammerstein
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016-2023 By Sofia Hammerstein. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.
 
 
Chapter 19: Proposals

USUALLY, WHEN I napped, I didn’t go to Caireen’s castle, but today I was there just as soon as I closed my eyes. “Oh, look at the little baby princess all awake!” Caireen cooed at me.

I looked up at her and was ready to tell her to buzz off, I felt stupid enough already, but I noticed some other people in the room with her. She picked me up from my crib and carried me straight over to the couch.

“Pardon me. She always needs to be fed when she wakes up!” She apologized to a husband and wife who were elegantly dressed. I had just noticed a boy about seventeen sitting beside his dad before she unceremoniously popped her breast out and pushed my head towards it. I couldn’t see anyone now, so I listened carefully for clues on what was going on.

“So, King Camulus, what do we owe the pleasure of your visit today?”

“I’m here because of your daughter. She seems like she would be an excellent mate for my son here, and I would like to arrange for their marriage.”

I stopped suckling and tried to pop my head away from her breast, only to have her hold me there. “I’m sorry, but as much as I like Maponus, I will not arrange Sofia’s marriage. Especially not as long as she remains a baby and the man is old enough to be her father.”

“I could help fix that,” the woman said.

“Yes, Damara, I’m sure you could. I’m sure you could also have her carrying our grandson within a week if that was what you desired and if I let you. However, for at least the foreseeable future, I believe it is in Sofia’s best interest to just be my baby girl.”

“You don’t want to have me unhappy with you, Caireen,” the man said.

“On the contrary, I don’t care. You don’t want to mess with a mother and her baby. I would not hesitate to destroy you and your lands.”

“You hold nothing on me! I’m...!”

“I know who you are. I also know you have outstayed your welcome.” I heard the bell ring while I continued to nurse a now-empty breast. “Please see our noble guests from the castle.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Once I heard the footsteps walk away, I pulled my head away from Caireen’s breast. She stroked my hair gently. “What just happened?”

“What just happened is the biggest reason for you to stay a baby. So you don’t have to worry about me being forced to arrange your marriage.”

“How could I even be married here?”

Caireen sighed, “Sofia, you don’t realize this yet, but you are part of a world much grander than you can imagine. There has always been violence in your world; sadly, plenty of it has been on children. But it seems like it has grown much worse in the recent past. By staying a baby, you can make a difference! The real problem in this world is that if you grew up, you would be honor bound to take one of those marriage offers.”

“But then I would have to have kids?”

“Yes. And, be a dutiful queen to a husband who would claim our lands by his right of marriage.”

I shuddered.

“Sofia, I think you’re beginning to see that there has to be another side to you. You are a baby, at least part of the time. And that has to come out in the real world. You played with your baby sister when you were at home and never even realized you were getting baby time each day. Now that you’re here at Bechtel, you’ll still have to get some in.”

“But how can I go to school?”

Caireen shushed me and patted my back, “Easy, you accept that at times you’re going to be able to be your normal teenage self. At others, you’re going to randomly break down into tears and tantrums appropriate to a baby.”

“But I don’t…?”

“It’s not like anyone will think that odd, sweetie. In fact, it’s more disconcerting to people when you constantly pretend to be the same age as Hannah.”

I thought about that as she bounced me softly in her arms. Then, after a while, she sat me down in a cradle and gently rocked the cradle with magic while she sang a soothing lullaby.

 

“COME ON, SLEEPYHEAD,” Hannah said gently while picking me up from my crib.

I looked at her and felt really embarrassed.

“What’s wrong, Sofia?”

“What’s not…?”

“Well, I can’t know what’s bugging you until you tell me?”

I sighed. “I’m a baby.”

“Duh!” She said and tickled my side as she lay me down on the changing table.

“You don’t get it!” I said around the pacifier that I realized was in my mouth. I pulled it from my mouth and would have thrown it across the room if it wasn’t clipped to my romper. “I’m never going to grow up,” I said with tears streaming down my cheeks. “Even if I could, it would cause problems!”

“Shh…” Hannah told me as she unbuttoned the buttons down the middle of the crotch of my romper. “I’m never going to stop needing to feed babies…” she reminded me, “so what’s so bad about being a baby to help me out with that?”

I glared at her. “I’ll never be able to be on my own… or control my emotions!”

I started bawling again as she quickly took the wet diaper off me, wiped me gently, and put a new one on me. She proceeded to sit down in the rocking chair and presented me with her breast in an attempt to calm me down. Sadly, it apparently worked on me as well as an infant.

I was calm again when she had finished having me nurse on both breasts.

“I can’t believe I’m such a baby… I can’t even control myself!”

She smiled and said, “Okay, so you can’t. So what’s the big deal?”

“What?”

“You’re a baby. No one expects you to!”

“But…”

“Sofia, you wondered why Caireen won’t let you change your diapers with magic? She knows you’ll never be ready to move on past this until you accept that you are a baby and relax into that role.”

“I…”

“Don’t tell me you accept this; you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t have a problem in the world with having your pacifier in your mouth as we walk around campus.”

“Hann…”

“And you wouldn’t have a problem in the world with me feeding you dinner!”

“But…”

“But nothing! Sofia, you have more power magically than most Mergents. However, you need to accept that you have some tradeoffs with that power. We’re not going to make you play baby games all day, but you need to accept that your brain is rewired to where it is a lot like a normal baby’s!”

“I don’t want to, though…?”

She hugged me tight, “Sofia, I don’t want to have breasts that make it to where if I don’t have you nurse every couple of hours, I’m in pain. I didn’t want to change from being a normal girl who liked to babysit... to this… but it is what we have to deal with.”

I found myself nodding.

“Okay, you’ve had the first part of your dinner. Ready to get the solid part of it?”

I nodded and looked thoughtfully at the pacifier hanging on my chest. Finally, I sighed and placed it in my mouth.

“Good girl,” Hannah said with a smile as she stood up.

“Hi, Sofia!” A couple of girls cooed as we passed them. I sighed and waved at them.

“They don’t even notice me!” Hannah complained, sounding slightly annoyed.

I pulled my pacifier out of my mouth, “I’d be happy to let you wear the diapers and suck on the pacifier.”

She unceremoniously plopped it back into my mouth and said, “No thanks.”

When we got to the Friar Hall, she sat me down on the ground and told me, “Stay close, please. I’ll get you a tray going.”

Amidst the students meandering around, it didn’t take much for me to obey that order. I definitely was feeling my lack of height as a monstrous twelve-foot-tall dragon-like creature nearly trampled me. “Sorry about that,” said her husky female voice.

I found myself practically grabbing onto Hannah’s skirt, then! She smiled at me and handed me a tray before we walked down the lines to get our meal. I decided on some chicken alfredo pasta and a couple of pieces of pizza. Well, maybe it was more like six slices… Who was counting, though? As we approached the end of the line, the lady said, “Why aren’t you just the cutest little thing,” to me.

To Hannah, she asked, “Do you have a guest pass for her meal?”

“No, Ma’am, she doesn’t, but I have a temporary student ID,” I said with a smile and let the pacifier dangle from where it was clipped to my romper.

The lady’s eyes narrowed, but she motioned me to hand it to her. She swiped it and said, “you all emerge younger and younger all the time.”

I nodded. The worker didn’t know the half of it! Hannah’s card was swiped, too, and we began walking to the table we had sat at the past couple of meals. Camille was already there. Just as we reached the table, a girl came up to us.

“Why if it isn’t our very own Teen Mom and her bundle of joy?!?” The girl had unnaturally blonde hair. It had some shimmer that made me wonder what was up with her.

‘Watch yourself; she’s got a lot of magic built up.’ Caireen warned.

“Why if it isn’t yet another wannabe blonde bimbo Hannah?” I said to her. “I mean, obviously, if she thinks you’re my mommy, she’s hoping you can give her some tips on getting knocked up. Too bad you’re still a virgin and not my mommy.”

“I know Sofia,” she sighed, “Such a shame that some girls have to fake their hair color.”

The blonde girl looked at us both before saying, “Why don’t you go find a high chair for her?”

“I don’t need one right now, thanks,” I told her. “Now, why don’t you go away. I don’t really want us to get in trouble on our first day here.”

“You better watch yourself, you little snot!”

I thought for a moment and couldn’t help myself. I performed a spell and changed our antagonist’s panties into something more fitting her behavior. “Okay, you’re right. I don’t think you’re the teen mom type. I think you might want to go check your diaper, though.” I smirked at her.

“What?!?”

It was hysterical as she suddenly grasped that she no longer had panties under her short miniskirt. Typically I’m sure that she would never have flashed her underwear. She ran away as a near-blur at super-human speed! Still, everyone had already seen the abnormally large-sized pamper on her!

 
 

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