Chapter Text
Kai scowled at the kitchen. Every piece of equipment in it was getting the evil eye. The pot on the stove was about ten seconds from boiling over. He had both scorched meat and casserole had been smoking were now in the sink under the water. The burnt bread on the cooling racks. On top of that the simplest bit of dinner the salad was on the floor. Well, it was still mostly in its bowl thankfully, but Ishtar was picking up great fist full of veggies to shove in her mouth.
“I would complain about you ruining your dinner but it is salad,” Kai sighed.
He crossed the kitchen and brandish his spoon like a sword and he was fencing. He attacked the pot beating down the boil and then threw the spoon across the kitchen.
“Kai, calm down,” Pitch ordered as he strolled into the room.
“I am Calm!”
Pitch glared at Kai putting every inch of his Beta strength behind his shadows and glared. Ishtar added her displeasure by grizzling from the floor. She obviously did not like the hitch in Kai’s voice at all. Kai sighed moving away from the stove. He picked up Ishtar and the salad bowl. He placed the bowl on the eat-in kitchen table and sat dejectedly cuddling their thirteen-month-old girl.
“Why is it always you?” Pitch teased. He opened to cooler to get some fresh supplies.
“It wasn’t actually me this time. I swear I was just …”
“Did you or did you not start this?”
“Loki started it. He left me specific instructions which I followed to the letter, Pitch.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure … it was either an accident or …” Kia suddenly remembered Tanith had been scuttling about the kitchen the whole time but was now conveniently absent. He was not about to accuse their seventeen-year-old daughter of sabotage without proof.
“Or what Kai?”
“Never mind it was an accident. You know me child rearing extraordinaire as long as I don’t have to feed them.”
“Kai we have been over this a dozen times. Loki is Head Pareya because he is four decades on you …”
“Thirty-eight years.”
“Petty, Kai. Your cooking is improving.”
“And yet we still throw out one in four meals that I have a hand in.”
There was the clearing of a throat from the doorway and Kai blushed seeing Loki leaning against the doorframe. He is cobalt skin was still damp and his Black locks fell in dripping cascades down around his fluted ears. He and their other Merrow mates had taken a quick unplanned trek down river to the Glacien colony to settle a dispute between the Glacien Gheyos and the border patrol. They hand not expected any of them back before nightfall so this was a surprise.
Loki’s wrist was around the squirming forearm of his daughter Tanith. Tanith had Loki’s Merrow looks but all of her sire’s fire. Quite literally. She was threatening her bearer with a fireball to get him to let her go.
Loki did not flinch daring her to do it. “Apologize for ruining all the work Kai put into dinner, Tanith.”
Tanith continued to channel her Sire in bull headedness and obstinance until she did dare using her flame. She cut a mark across Loki’s wrist. He let her go but Pitch was not going to stand for that.
“Tanith! When I catch you, I am going to make you run up to the top of waterfall and back down until your water side is back in balance and you are ready to apologize.”
Loki summoned water from the sink to cool the burn but it was minor. “Hurricane Tanith strikes again.”
Kai smiled weakly as Loki started to repair the meal Pitch had abandoned. “I swear, I did it right this time, Loki.”
“You did. You have been doing it right more then you know. I caught Enki berating her. Apparently, she has been intentionally sabotaging you for a while now.”
Kai hissed and Loki ignored the rush of wind. “I knew it! I know I am not the best, but I can’t be having this many total meltdowns in the kitchen after twenty-six years of lessons from you. I am not that hopeless.”
Loki brought Ishtar an orange slice and bent down kissing Kai. “No love, you are only a minor hazard in the kitchen.”
“Oi!” Kai complained as he focused on their youngest child. Loki smiled at him cleaned up the kitchen mess once again.