Well, at least I'm not the only one who thinks he HAS to be Keaton's child. Or, you know, Keaton herself ripped from her female body and implanted into a young boy by Daryil because Daryil.

Still, I do prefer the Keaton child excuse. We have never seen Nick's mother, so it's too much teasing at this point to be a red herring. The question is was this a punishment by Daryil to live as a being for a hundred years just to mellow her out? (Which honestly would be the stupidest idea ever. Even if she didn't fall in love and mother a child, she'd still have to deal with the memory dysmorphia of having lived a sizable chuck of her thousand year lifespan as another person. Assuming she didn't go as lony as her sister right on the spot, I'd imagine she'd curse Daryil's name and call him worse than [insert name of angle who tortured her here].)

...wow that was a long side note. So yeah, either Daryil... or by the prison system itself in some twisted attempt at extreme prisoner rehabilitation. Or, you know, I wonder if Nick's father is a prison warden? Could make for an interesting abuse of power. Or maybe jail bird romance, but that is on the unlikely end since under those circumstances they would have told Nick the truth when he started asking questions. It's either the father being unaware, of the father keeping secrets from the mother as well as his son. No parent conspiracy.

Keaton will enter the picture eventually, but unfortunately not for another 12 chapters.

So we won't see her til Chapter 24?

That's correct, unless I do some rearranging of the story to bring it forward. I don't like doing that because it can introduce problems. Alternatively, I am considering some kind of backstory for her in the meantime, if I can get a script together before Daxxon's backstory finishes.

EDIT: Looking at it, that can't happen before chapter 22 anyway, there are a number of plot arcs which have to be resolved first.

>>Old habits tie hard

I see what you did there. Anyway, I look forward to seeing how well Nick and the Prof get on.

By the way, nice to see that the Cartwright Chronicles are continuing.

Yes. Keetah did say that if there's another project after this it might be better to draw them all first. That would certainly help in terms of buffering, but on the other hand it would also kill the "got to get it done on time" motivation.