Help! My Moms Are Overpowered Tyrants, and I’m Stuck as Their Baby!

POV: Aeris & Arion

Morning arrived at the palace not with the grace of gentle sunbeams, but with a loud splat as a mango hit the courtyard wall with alarming precision.

Aeris stood proudly beneath it, hands on her hips, her little face scrunched with the intensity of a general issuing orders. Beside her, Arion was adjusting the straps of a wooden sword that was far too large for his small back. Smaug, still in miniature form and radiating the air of a disapproving feline, sat nearby on a bench, licking mango off his claw like this was beneath him but also mildly entertaining.

"Phase one: distraction," Aeris declared, turning dramatically to her brother.

Arion nodded. "Phase two: infiltration. Through the laundry chutes."

Aeris winced. "We still haven't figured out how to land properly."

"That's what pillows are for," Arion replied sagely, patting the two he'd strapped to his rear like a very confused knight.

Aeris unrolled the latest version of their Official Elyzara Rescue Blueprint, complete with dramatic arrows, glitter stickers, and a dragon drawn suspiciously to resemble Smaug—with sparkles and a monocle.

"Ely's probably being tortured with broccoli," she whispered dramatically.

Arion gasped. "Those monsters!"

Smaug snorted smoke.

"Don't worry," Aeris said, placing a firm hand over her heart. "We're going to save her. Before Mother gives her more speeches."

"That's worse than broccoli," Arion whispered.

They had it all planned. Arion would sneak into the war room and use their father's magic quill to draw a fake map leading the guards on a wild goose chase. Aeris would charm the kitchen staff for snacks and backup sweets. Smaug, as the distraction, would pretend to eat an important noble's wig. Everyone knew he had a taste for vanity.

They just hadn't accounted for Grandmother Sylvithra.

"Where," came her silken voice from behind them, "do you think you're going, dressed like flammable cupcakes?"

Aeris spun around. "Reconnaissance!"

Sylvithra stared down at her grandchildren—one dressed like a pillow samurai, the other holding a map glittered within an inch of its life—and blinked.

"I see," she said. "And what precisely are you planning to recon?"

"Elyzara!" Arion exclaimed. "She's missing!"

"She's at school," Sylvithra replied dryly. "Where she is supposed to be."

"We don't believe that," Aeris declared with a dramatic hair flip. "That's what they want us to think."

Sylvithra sighed the sigh of a woman who had once slain monsters, commanded empires, and was now negotiating with sugar-high children convinced they were at war with reality.

"Come," she said. "I'll make tea. And you can tell me your entire plan—slowly—so I can dismantle it properly."

"Is this a trap?" Arion whispered.

"I don't think she can fit in the laundry chute," Aeris whispered back.

Smaug rolled his eyes and trotted after Sylvithra like a small, judgmental dog.

The twins followed, defeated but not disarmed. In the drawing room, Sylvithra poured tea like a queen preparing for battle. She even offered pastries. This was suspicious.

"So," she said, sipping elegantly, "you think your sister's in danger because…?"

"She's always in danger," Aeris said. "She breathes chaos."

"She got cursed by a heart," Arion added.

"Possibly married in a past life," Aeris noted. "To a vampire."

Sylvithra did not choke on her tea, but the twitch in her eye was noticeable.

"You've been eavesdropping," she said, tone perfectly neutral.

"We've been investigating," Arion corrected.

"Smaug told us," Aeris added, earning a surprised snort from the dragon.

Sylvithra steepled her fingers and stared at them. "You're not wrong."

Both twins blinked.

"What?"

Sylvithra stood, crossing to the window and gazing out across the gardens. "Something is happening. Something old. And you're not the only ones who feel it. The court is uneasy. The wards have pulsed. The mirror showed more than it should."

Aeris climbed into a chair beside her. "Then let us help."

Sylvithra turned, her violet eyes softening. "You already do. Every day, by being ridiculous and brave and reminding us what we fight for."

Arion beamed. "So we're heroes?"

"Tiny, reckless heroes. With dangerous ideas and frosting on your swords."

He looked down at his weapon. "That's from breakfast."

She kissed the tops of their heads. "Now promise me you'll not go launching yourselves from windows again."

"No windows," they chorused solemnly.

"Or chutes."

"…We'll try."

As the twins were eventually ushered off to their midday lessons (which they planned to escape from by mid-afternoon), Sylvithra lingered in the drawing room, thoughts clouded.

She glanced at Smaug.

"Watch them," she murmured. "And… try not to let them ride you like a pony this time."

Smaug gave her a very offended look and promptly climbed into the fireplace, curling up in the ashes like a dramatic cat.

Outside, the sun had reached its peak, casting golden light across the palace.

And in a quiet corner, under a window half-open to the spring breeze, lay a new crayon drawing.

It showed Elyzara, standing tall with fire in one hand and Velka beside her, both smiling. Above them floated a banner:

"Team Elyzaka Forever – No Broccoli Allowed."

Underneath, in shaky but determined handwriting:

"We'll protect you too."

The words were scrawled in waxy crayon strokes, beneath two stick figures holding hands in front of a castle suspiciously shaped like a cupcake. One had Elyzara's signature mismatched eyes. The other wore fangs and had a very dramatic cape that Aeris insisted made Velka look "cooler, but still suspicious."

The drawing sat proudly on the windowsill of the playroom, fluttering slightly in the breeze. It had been Arion's idea to leave it where "the magic winds could carry it to Ely," though Aeris suspected it would just end up as dragon nest insulation.

Still, it was the thought that counted.

Currently, the twins were in the garden, which they had declared a "classified training ground." Aeris was balanced atop a low stone wall, brandishing a tree branch like a sword. Arion, meanwhile, was wearing a colander on his head and had fashioned a shield from a silver serving tray he'd "borrowed" from the breakfast table.

Smaug supervised from the shade of a rosebush, occasionally incinerating rogue insects and judging everyone in sight.

"Okay," Aeris called, balancing with the grace of a tiny empress. "The enemy approaches from the east!"

"That's the direction of the bakery," Arion noted, squinting. "Coincidence? I think not."

"I bet it's the broccoli king again."

"Bring it, broccoli coward!"

They launched into battle, swatting at imaginary enemies with theatrical flair. Arion spun, narrowly avoiding tripping on his shoelaces. Aeris let out a war cry that startled a passing maid into dropping a tray of linens.

"Victory!" she shouted, leaping from the wall with a triumphant pose.

"Pastries for all!" Arion declared, raising his tray-shield overhead.

Their celebration was short-lived. Smaug growled, a low rumble that made them freeze.

"What is it?" Aeris asked, eyes scanning the garden.

"Maybe it's an adult," Arion whispered, ducking behind a hedge.

It was worse.

It was Sylvithra.

She approached with a gait that managed to be both elegant and vaguely threatening. Her hair was perfectly braided, her gown the color of mourning velvet, and her expression screamed I have no patience left and the day has barely started.

"Explain," she said, in that soft tone that promised dire consequences.

"Training," Aeris said brightly. "Against vegetable tyranny."

Sylvithra raised a single, immaculately shaped brow.

"They're everywhere," Arion added. "You can't trust spinach. It lies."

Sylvithra pinched the bridge of her nose, a rare sign of vulnerability. "Children of fire and noble blood," she muttered, "and somehow I'm babysitting theatrical goats."

"Goats?" Aeris looked offended. "We're wolves!"

"Wolves with glitter swords," Sylvithra replied.

"I enchanted mine," Arion whispered proudly. "It sings."

"Of course it does."

Still, she sat with them on the low stone bench, long fingers resting on the handle of her cane, more for menace than necessity. The rosebush beside her seemed to wilt slightly under her presence. Even the breeze paused.

"Your sister," she said at last, "is walking toward a future she cannot yet see. And your hearts are loyal. Foolish. But loyal."

"We'll help her," Aeris said.

"When we're big," Arion promised. "Big like Smaug. Or Uncle Raveth."

Smaug snorted. The implication that Raveth was bigger than him was clearly offensive.

Sylvithra looked at them for a long moment. "Then you must grow into your teeth."

"What?"

"Your fangs. Your claws. Your wit. You must learn when to play the fool, and when to bite."

Aeris grinned. "Can I bite nobles?"

"Only the rude ones," Sylvithra said without missing a beat. "But always with grace."

Arion saluted her with his colander. "We won't let you down."

"I'm quite sure you will," she said, standing. "But it will be entertaining."

She left them to their "training," and by training, they meant more pastry-based war games and the occasional discussion of battle strategies stolen from bedtime stories.

"Do you think Ely will like the picture?" Arion asked later, lying in the grass and watching clouds pass like lazy airships.

Aeris turned her crayon-stained fingers skyward. "She'll love it. Even if she doesn't show it."

"She's not good at showing things."

"Except explosions," Aeris said wisely. "She's great at those."

They both giggled.

Then Arion frowned, rolling onto his stomach. "Do you think she's scared?"

Aeris was quiet for a beat. "I think… everyone gets scared sometimes. Even if they have fire in their blood."

"Even grown-ups?"

"Especially grown-ups."

They sat in silence, the kind that only children can create filled with imagination and questions too big for words.

Back at the palace, the sun began to dip toward the horizon, casting long shadows across the garden. The breeze picked up, lifting the crayon drawing gently off the sill. It fluttered through the air, twirling like a leaf in autumn.

Smaug watched it go, tail flicking lazily.

And somewhere, far across the distance between palaces and schools, between past lives and present chaos, between enchanted mirrors and fire-marked hands…

A little piece of love drifted toward Elyzara.