Chapter Text
"You have a kid?!"
"Yes, I do. "
"I-, wh..." the pirate captain sputtered. "When the hell did that happen?"
"Last week."
"Last week?!" Beidou cried, flinging her hands outward in a desperate attempt to make her confusion and concern as known to her friend as possible. "You're telling me that you got married and had a whole kid within two months?"
"Yes. Would you like to meet them?"
"I- yes, why would I not? This is your kid!"
"I shall send for him, then." With one swift movement, Ningguang waved a secretary over and whispered in her ear, who promptly nodded and sped out of the building. Beidou, meanwhile, was trying to suppress the mild nausea that washed over her mind. A pit opened up in her stomach as the pair sat in silence. A kid? How? This was Ningguang she was talking about. The prim, proper noble that had a chokehold on pretty much all of Liyue. Beidou couldn't imagine Ningguang being pregnant, let alone having sex. It was absolutely beyond her. So why have a kid all of a sudden?
A quaint knock on the Qixing office door interrupted Beidou's pained musings.
"Mom? You called?" asked a muffled voice.
Mom? Wait, he's fully grown? How? Huh??
"Yes, come in," came Ningguang's smooth voice.
The door opened to reveal a man of medium stature, clad in boots, a glowing white scarf, and a-
Wait a second.
Wait just a damn second.
"A... Aether?"
"Beidou, hi! It's been a while. How've you been?"
Frantic eyes flipped between the traveller and the Tianshuan. Beidou's few remaining neurons ran at a million kilometres an hour as her brain ceased to function during the attempt to process the unholy amount of information being thrown at her. After two minutes of opening and closing her mouth, Beidou finally responded.
"There isn't nearly enough alcohol on Teyvat for this crap.”
Sometime later, after Aether had left and Ningguang had explained to Beidou for the fifteenth time the situation, another knock on the door piqued Ningguang's attention.
"Come in."
"Thank you," a feminine voice said as she stepped through the door. It was Keqing, the Yuheng and one of Ningguang's coworkers. A young prodigy she was, and Beidou held immense respect for her, despite how little she knows of her.
"Ah, my wonderful daughter-in-law. What can I do for you?"
"The day I call you mom is the day I die," came Keqing's snappy response.
"Oh, what the fuck, dude," grunted Beidou angrily as she stood up from her chair to speed out the door. There was only so much bullshit one woman could handle in one day.