Pairs of Pumpkins, Episode 11:
The Teleporting Tours of a Top-Heavy Teenager
by Jess Faulks
Chapter 1
Silverware clattered against fine porcelain plates in a contest of who could disrupt the oppressive silence the least. The long dinner table in a spartan dining room had space for twenty but seats for only six and tonight for the first time in what must have been years, they were all filled. Three guests dined there for the first time, familiar in appearance but complete strangers.
Eldest daughter Evangeline sat at the far end of the table and paid them no mind, no curiosity nor conversation for these sisters she had never before met. The vixen's icey glare was unrelenting toward their older patron, seated opposite her.
Zarron the Life Wizard. Head of the household. Twisted father figure. Estranged fiancé. Seller of children.
Early that afternoon, he unexpectedly appeared in the house after what must have been months away, arriving by the usual means of magical teleportation. The steward of the house, younger brother Duayne excitedly announced his arrival and Evangeline rushed in to find him.
Usually he would be with his stallion bodyguard but this time he brought three visitors instead: all teenage vixens. Their similar appearances and their impractically-abundant bosoms confirmed they were sisters of Evangeline and products of Zarron's two decade long operation of selling Portia Vasiljev's vitro children.
"Nice to see you Eva. You look well." Zarron greeted her coldly. "Meet Branka, Zentalia and Tabitha. They are family."
Family was a word seldom said in the house. Every resident outside the wizard and his bodyguard were related by blood as were the countless foxes sold off as products for profit over the years. Some shared the same donor for a father but the dinner gathering was just another reminder that blood alone did not make for a family.
The few like Evangeline who had grown up with Zarron had in common that they were outliers. The rest of their legion of biological sisters and brothers existed at the whims of wealthy customers, ordered as designer children for high end adoptions or other property and bred and altered for fates like service and slavery.
Those he kept in his home had their roles too: security and maintenance for the boys. Two houseboys and twelve identical, half-wolf brothers for security. The two eldest daughters were the closest to what might resemble a family. Sisters who grew up in one another's company, both with destinies to stand beside and behind Zarron as grown women: second daughter Anastasia was made to be his magical apprentice while Evangeline's upon adulthood, was to be his wife.
In all of their cases, raising was handled by nannies and training came from hired tutors. Only Anastasia was tutored by Zarron himself and she'd gotten the most of his time over the years, perhaps to the neglect of the rest of them.
"We'll all be eating here tonight so cook us something nice."
Eva stood dumbfounded. "You had the best chefs in the land to train me. I don't know how to make anything that isn't 'nice.'"
"Something extra special then," he patted her shoulder and led the three visiting sisters to his laboratory.
"No tour?" one of the young vixen asked while looking around the room, an oddly-pink furred vixen.
"No time," Zarron replied. "We need to get to work."
Now at the shared dinner table, Evangeline had dressed for the occasion in an elegant gown she made herself, that covered her shoulders to her knees in a slender, flattering form. She was as skilled a seamstress as a cook, though the roasted game hen with a side of potatoes and rare broccolini on her plate remained untouched.
Zarron eventually broke the tense silence, finally acknowledging Evangeline's glare.
"This is very good. Thank you, Evangeline."
Of course it was good. Eva had spent hours in the kitchen, making a mess cursing their patron as she made his favorite meal.
She said nothing in return but averted her eyes to the small, weighty corpse of the bird on her plate. Her knuckles tensed around her knife as her attention returned to him.
The robed raccoon appeared more worn-down than a year ago. His fur was older and drier, and the flesh beneath it betrayed further neglect. Previously unkempt, now it was saggy and fat. His age exceeded his appearance as long as any of the rest of them had been alive but now, his body looked to have caught up ten years in the past one.
To Evangeline's left sat Duayne, a brother made for the sole purpose of cleaning and maintaining the house. The rest of the seats were occupied by the new vixen arrivals. Two of them looked to be wizards from the fanciful, silk robes they wore, just like Anastasia had.
All three wore towel-sized napkins tied around their collars, the same as the sisters had been made to eat since developing as teenagers. The tremendous size of their chests were burdensome to civilized eating, filling the gap to the dinner table where normal-proportioned people might be able to lean in. Zarron insisted the plates and bowls stayed set down as a matter of manners, which meant the napkins rarely remained clean by the end of a meal.
After the racoon barely introduced them when they first arrived, Duayne suggested they look them up in his ledger. Zarron logged every child he ever bred and sold including to whom and for what purpose, so they would be in the records.
The pink-furred vixen sat the closest in the raccoon's orbit. Near Evangeline's age, her name was Branka. She was noisy with her silverware as she ate, unaware or uncaring of the tension in the room. A half-red fox, her fur was bright and unusually pink, with sharp, blue eyes and thick, wavy and wild, auburn hair to her waist. The brilliant purple robe on her matched what Anastasia often wore, almost exactly. It could have been one of hers except it fit her and nothing tailored for Ana would fit anyone else properly.
It was not all she had in common with her. From the ledger, Eva and Duayne learned Branka was commissioned by a married couple of Evoker Wizards, a boar and an otter in the eastern country of Sternfallreich. They requested a child with remarkable intelligence to be their apprentice and had almost certainly raised her as a wizard as well.
Branka was the least bothered of the three to be there, not shy at all and even flirtatious with the much older raccoon. She had the boldness and charisma of someone raised outside isolation which made her all the more of a threat, although Zarron remained cold in his responses to her. Did he bother to tell her he was engaged to Evangeline? Were they still engaged?
Eva glared at the pink vixen but if she noticed, she didn't acknowledge.
The second robed sister was named Zentalia, a bit younger than the other two. Aloof and not particularly interested in any of them, she showed a few flashes of irritation with Zarron herself.
The ledger confirmed she was born and bred to be a Life Wizard, not a commission but one of Zarron's own projects, just like Eva and Duayne. She'd been sent off as an infant and raised at the Magic Academy in the Central Islands, with her school of specialty assigned at birth.
She was in the middle of a block of siblings with similar entries and fated to specialize in one school of magic. Most of them, including Zentalia shared "Donor Number One: Anonymous Arctic Fox" as a biological father just like Anastasia and Evangeline, making them full sisters.
The third vixen hadn't said a word at all, keeping her head and eyes low. Tabitha was crossbred with a rabbit and her sleek, vulpine face was capped with lapine ears that hung back along her thick, walnut hair. Her clothes were plain, a skirt and an ill-fitted blouse that struggled to contain a chest even larger than the already obscene family average.
The other two bore over endowed chests like Evangeline and their mother did but Tabitha could almost fill out one of Anastasia's robes. She carried her breasts awkwardly and they filled her lap as she sat upright and crushed against the table.
The ledger entry for Tabitha was similar to Zentalia's, with no buyer but Zarron.
