Dawn's pale, inquisitive fingers pried at the sanctum's windows. The first to stir was Aunt Luci. Her brilliant white eyes opened, immediately softening at the weight of the twins using her as a pillow. A slow, deeply affectionate smile touched her lips. She did not move. She began to hum, a low, resonant note that was a gentle, pervasive vibration of waking.

It was this vibration that pulled the others from sleep. The twins were the last, dragged up by the return of their bodies' complaints. A deep, throbbing ache bloomed in Kuro's eye socket, a persistent, gnawing presence. A hot, itching fire reignited along Shiro's stitches.

Kuro's good eye opened. He tried to shift, but Luci's arm was an iron bar.

"And so the Storm Baby awakens," Luci murmured, her voice a sleep roughened purr. "I can feel the clouds gathering. Is it a thunderous sulk for breakfast, my tempest? Or just a light drizzle of indignation?"

"I am assessing… my physical state," Kuro grumbled, his voice thick with sleep and pain.

"He's assessing," Luci announced to the room with theatrical wonder. "A truly fearsome declaration from a young man who currently resembles a disgruntled, swaddled potato."

Shiro groaned as the itching became a frantic crawling under his skin. He instinctively brought his hand up, only to have his wrist caught in a gentle but unbreakable grip by Statera.

"Ah, ah, my Rain Baby," Statera chided, her voice a silken trap. "We do not scratch the artwork. The X is a masterpiece of bastardry, and we must let it heal. Unless you'd like me to sing a lullaby to distract you? A little song about a very brave boy who didn't scratch his face?"

"Don't you dare," Shiro hissed, his face already flushing.

"Too late," Nyxara said, propping her head up to smirk at Kuro. "The song is already written. It's called 'The Ballad of the Itchy Star and the Grumpy Storm Cloud'. Lyra composed three verses already while you were drooling on Luci."

"I was not drooling!" Shiro snapped, the flush rising up his neck like a tide.

"A little drool," Luci confirmed, patting his head. "It's perfectly normal for infants. It signifies a healthy salivary response. Now, who's ready for their morning bath?"

The word 'bath' landed like a declaration of war.

"You are not bathing us again!" Kuro exploded, trying to push himself upright. A wave of dizziness from his eye socket made him sway, and Nyxara's hand was instantly on his chest, pressing him back down with effortless strength.

"Oh, but we are," Nyxara crooned. "You're covered in the sweat of fear and the dust of bad dreams. We can't have our little stars getting all grimy. What would the court think?"

"I don't give a damn what the court thinks!" Shiro shouted, his own anger flaring. He tried to stand, his legs trembling violently. "We can bathe ourselves! We're not invalids!"

His brave attempt at defiance lasted precisely two seconds before his legs buckled. He would have crumpled to the floor if Statera and Luci hadn't caught him under each arm, holding him aloft like a wobbly, furious scarecrow.

"Oh, look," Luci cooed. "The Rain Baby thinks he can walk. It's attempting its first steps! How precious! And how utterly, completely failed."

"Let go of me!" Shiro thrashed, but their grips were like granite.

"Unhand us this instant!" Kuro demanded, trying to pry Nyxara's hand from his own arm, his fingers slipping uselessly against her immovable hold.

"Such fire! Such spirit!" Lyra applauded, gliding ahead of them towards the bathing chamber. "The mighty Twin Stars, reduced to sputtering, crimson faced cherubs being carried to their wash! This is a symphony! The tempo of their protests is allegro furioso!"

"This is only Day One," Statera reminded them cheerfully as she and Luci began to half carry, half drag a violently protesting Shiro towards the archway. "Just think, Storm Baby," she called over her shoulder to Kuro, who was being effortlessly steered by Nyxara. "This time tomorrow, you'll be twice as embarrassed! It's something to strive for!"

The walk to the bathing chamber was a brutal, shameful procession. The twins' defences were fierce, but utterly useless.

"I will have you exiled for this!" Kuro snarled, his feet scrambling for purchase on the smooth stone.

"Aww, he wants to send his Mommy to her room," Nyxara mocked, her voice dripping with fake sympathy. "Such a big, strong, strategic prince. Can you even spell 'exile' with your brain all fuzzy from your nap?"

"I am going to… to…" Shiro stammered, his mind blank with rage and humiliation.

"You're going to have a nice, warm bath and then maybe a little nap," Luci finished for him, her tone suggesting he was a toddler on the verge of a tantrum. "Because that's what good infants do."

They reached the bathing chamber, the air thick with steam and the scent of minerals. The grand, natural pool steamed invitingly, a stark contrast to the twins' mortification.

"Now," Nyxara said, her voice shifting to one of absolute, unyielding command. "The clothes. They come off."

"We can undress ourselves!" Kuro's voice cracked, his face a spectacular, uniform scarlet.

"Can you?" Luci asked, already working at the ties of Shiro's tunic with deft, merciless fingers. "Your fine motor skills seem to be protesting. It would take you until noon, and we have a very important schedule of cuddling and mockery to maintain."

The twins fought, but it was a pathetic, clumsy struggle. Their hands batted weakly at the four sets of hands that descended upon them, undressing them with a terrifying, efficient tenderness. They were exposed, not just physically, but in their utter helplessness. The horrific brand, the black smeared socket, the tapestry of bruises, all were laid bare under the steam shrouded light.

The hot, mineral rich water of the pool should have been a solace, a balm to their screaming muscles and frayed nerves. But for Shiro and Kuro, it felt like a prison of steam and shame. They sat submerged to their chins, the four guardians arrayed around the edge like benevolent, smirking gargoyles. The silence was worse than the teasing; it was a waiting, a patient anticipation of their next inevitable failure.

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It was Kuro who broke first. The constant, throbbing agony in his eye socket, combined with the utterly demeaning situation, forged a single, reckless thought: attack. If he could create a distraction, a moment of surprise, perhaps Shiro could get away. It was a terrible, desperate strategy, born of a prince who had never been so utterly stripped of control.

His good eye locked with Shiro's across the misty water. A flicker of understanding passed between them. A barely perceptible nod.

"You know," Nyxara was saying, her voice a syrupy mockery of consolation, "the water will help soften the skin for when we have to rub in the next round of salve. It's a very special one, made from the rendered fat of celestial grubs. Very nourishing for infant complexions."

That was the final straw.

With a guttural roar that was pure, undiluted fury, Kuro launched himself forward. His target was not escape, but sabotage. He lunged through the water, not for the steps, but for his mother, aiming to wrap his arms around her legs and unbalance her, to send the mighty Queen of Nyxarion splashing into the water in a tangle of royal indignity.

It was a pathetic, clumsy lunge. Nyxara saw it coming from a mile away. She didn't even move from her kneeling position. As Kuro's hands brushed her gown, she simply reached down, caught his forearms with an effortless, unbreakable grip, and using his own momentum, guided him face first into the water next to her with a mighty splash.

He came up sputtering, water streaming from his hair, his single eye wide with shock and impotent rage.

Simultaneously, Shiro made his move. Seeing Kuro's diversion, he scrambled for the opposite steps, his heart hammering against his ribs. "RUN!" Kuro gasped, spitting out water.

But Shiro's legs, weakened by trauma and betrayal, were like over cooked noodles. He managed two stumbling steps on the submerged stone before his foot slipped on a patch of slick algae. His arms windmilled wildly, a comical, desperate dance for a balance that was already lost. He didn't just fall; he catapulted backwards, landing flat on his back in the water with a concussive SLAP that echoed through the cavernous chamber. The impact drove the air from his lungs in a pained, wet gasp.

For a heartbeat, there was only the sound of dripping water and Shiro's choked, wheezing attempts to breathe.

Then, the laughter began.

It wasn't cruel laughter. It was something far, far worse. It was the sound of pure, unadulterated, maternal delight. It was the sound of four women watching the most hilarious, pathetic spectacle they had ever seen.

"Oh! Oh my!" Nyxara cried, tears of mirth streaming down her face as she held a drenched and seething Kuro in place. "Did you see that? The Rain Baby tried to fly! He attempted a tactical sprint and achieved a catastrophic back flop!"

"A magnificent, coordinated infantile rebellion!" Lucifera applauded, her hands clasped in joy. "The Storm Baby goes for the ankle bite manoeuvre while the Rain Baby executes a flawless… drowning technique! Truly, the strategic genius of the Twin Stars knows no bounds!"

Statera was already wading into the pool, her shoulders shaking with laughter. "My poor, brave Rain Baby! Did the big, scary water defeat you? Did it trip you up? There, there." She reached the gasping Shiro and, with infuriating gentleness, rolled him over and patted his back as he coughed up water.

Lyra was practically weeping with poetic ecstasy. "The Symphony of Catastrophic Failure! A new movement! The Scherzo of the Slippery Infant! I shall compose an ode to this moment! It will be my masterpiece!"

Kuro, still pinned by Nyxara, was trembling with a rage so absolute he could barely form words. "I… I will… I will END you all!" he screamed, his voice cracking into a humiliating squeak.

"Aww," Nyxara cooed, pulling him closer so his wet head was trapped against her shoulder in a crushing, damp hug. "Is the widdle storm cloud having a temper tantrum? Is he all angry and wet and defeated? It's okay, Mommy has you."

On the other side of the pool, Shiro was being cradled in Statera's arms, his body limp with defeat and shame. "Just let me sink," he mumbled into her neck, his entire being radiating a heat of embarrassment so profound it felt like a star going supernova. The blush that consumed his face and neck was a violent, uniform crimson, a visual scream of humiliation.

"Don't be silly, my love," Statera whispered, her voice vibrating with suppressed laughter. "We can't let our precious infant sink. We have to get you all clean for your naptime. And then we have to powder you up. Head to toe. Every single inch."

The twins' defences weren't just broken; they were atomized. Their attempts at rebellion had been so spectacularly, publicly, and hilariously crushed that all that remained was the raw, sputtering helplessness of infants in the aftermath of a failed tantrum. Their faces were twin suns of crimson shame, their bodies limp with surrender.

"This," Lucifera declared, her voice the pinnacle of auntly triumph, "is what we call a total systemic collapse of defiance. Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. And to think," she added, her eyes gleaming, "this is only the first hour of Day One. Just imagine the depths of humiliation we will plumb by lunchtime."

As the four women descended into the pool to properly, and now completely unresisted, wash their defeated sons, the twins could only sit there, being soaped and scrubbed, their dreams of dignity dissolving in the steam, replaced by the terrifying, inescapable certainty that the worst was yet to come.

The steaming water of the pool was no longer a sanctuary but a liquid tomb for their dignity. The twins sat in stunned, crimson faced silence as the four women descended upon them with a terrifying, cheerful efficiency. The attempted rebellion had not just failed; it had been converted into fuel for their tormentors, a story that would be told and retold for what felt like eternity.

"Now, where were we before the grand infant uprising was so thoroughly quashed?" Nyxara mused, lathering a cake of pine scented soap into a rich foam. "Ah, yes. Scrubbing."

There was no escape. Four sets of hands worked with relentless, affectionate precision. Nyxara took Kuro's hair, massaging the scalp around his bandaged eye with a firmness that brooked no argument, her touch both healing and utterly demeaning. Statera attended to Shiro, her fingers working the soap into his back, tracing the map of bruises left by Aella's boots as if she were reading a tragic story written on his skin.

"You have to get right into the crevices," Lucifera instructed, scrubbing behind Kuro's ear with a vigour usually reserved for scorching battlefields clean. "Infants are notoriously bad at spotting hidden dirt. It's why they need such thorough supervision."

"The folds of the soul collect the grime of despair," Lyra intoned, wringing out a cloth over Shiro's head with poetic grace. "We must wash it all away. Every last speck of rebellious grit."

The twins endured it, their bodies rigid with tension. The heat of the water was nothing compared to the furnace of their humiliation. Every pass of the soapy cloth, every rinse of clean water, felt like a layer of their hard won adulthood was being scoured away, leaving only the raw, pink vulnerability of a newborn.

It was during this meticulous, humiliating scouring that a second, even more desperate plan sparked between them. The first failure was a fresh, bleeding wound on their pride. They couldn't just accept this. They had to try again. This time, they wouldn't coordinate. They would break in opposite directions, a spontaneous, chaotic burst that might, by sheer statistical improbability, allow one of them to reach the steps.

The moment came as Statera turned to re soap her cloth. It was a fraction of a second, a sliver of inattention.

With a shared, silent understanding that was more desperation than strategy, they moved.

Shiro, driven by a raw, panicked energy, tried to scramble over the side of the pool directly behind him. It was a graceless, frantic clawing at the smooth stone, his body half out of the water, water streaming from his limbs. He didn't even make it to his knees.

Lucifera, without even dropping the soap, simply reached out a long arm. Her hand didn't grab him; it pinned him. Her fingers closed around the back of his neck, not hard enough to hurt, but with an absolute, immovable pressure, halting his flight as easily as one might stop a crawling insect. He hung there, trapped, his lower body still in the water, his upper body splayed over the ledge, utterly defeated.

Simultaneously, Kuro, seeing Shiro's capture, tried a different tactic. He dove underwater, intending to swim beneath the surface to the far steps. It was a better plan, in theory. In practice, the moment he submerged, Lyra, with the preternatural grace of her clan, simply extended a slender foot into his path.

Kuro, blind and disoriented, swam directly into it. It wasn't a kick, but a gentle, unyielding barrier. His head connected with her ankle, and he surfaced right in front of her, sputtering and gasping, his single eye wide with shock.

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