image [https://imgur.com/38GV8cg.jpg]
The fight between Mella and Indena concluded when the witch gave in. At that point, both of them were completely exhausted from magically slugging at each other so much, not to mention how we were all still recovering from the dream reality fiasco.
Instead of working their way back here to us, they both fell onto the grass and just laid still, gazing up into the darkening sky as the sounds of crickets filled the air around them.
“I hate you,” Indena fumed.
“The feeling is mutual,” Mella responded.
If I didn’t know any better, they almost looked like peaceful stargazing friends over there. That's probably what the dispersing crowd thought.
Meanwhile as they stewed in their shared loathing fit, things calmed enough for Yamin’s anxiety to lift. She turned to me, also noticing Miss Lauri’s presence. Disbelief and confusion played tricks on her mind, as if she hadn’t expected her own mother to be here. But as it faded, she quickly ran up and hugged her tightly.
“Mom!” Yamin shouted. “I thought you were going to Esma for work. Why are you here?”
“Maybe you can tell me, my precious little baby!” Miss Lauri squeezed Yamin tightly. “I heard you were in danger. I knew I shouldn’t have left! Not only that, but the world too! What sort of trouble did you get yourself in?”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Yamin spoke up. “Do you remember before you left for the north, everyone in town was acting weird? Well, a demon came here. He was looking for me.”
Miss Lauri pushed away from her daughter’s embrace, her expression growing fearful.
“Oh, dear…” She turned to me. “I still can’t quite comprehend how you met up with Yalda. What a small world.”
She sounded like she was more informed then she led on. Uncle mentioned that we were waiting for someone, so Miss Lauri was probably the person. If he’d gotten in touch with her, I had no doubt he filled her in on some of the details of our journey.
Speaking of Uncle, he came walking up with his hand out for Miss Lauri to shake.
“Been a while, Lauri. How have you been?”
Instead of shaking his hand, she threw aside the concept of personal space and tackled Uncle for a hug. He couldn’t evade in time, and she almost toppled him over. What strength!
“Mel! It’s been years!” she pulled away from him and dusted his jacket off. “When was the last time you cleaned this thing? Here, let me take it to the dry cleaners…” She was wrestling him to get his jacket off.
Were the dry cleaners even open right now? Even if we didn’t just have a demonic takeover crisis, it was getting pretty late.
“L-look…” Uncle brushed her aside. “I’ll take care of it later.”
“Tisk tisk.” Miss Lauri shook her finger at him. “You and your brother are so alike. Neither of you care about keeping up your appearance.”
I hardly ever saw Uncle’s expression change a whole ton, but Miss Lauri’s scolding had him looking a bit embarrassed.
“At least set a good example for this little young lady here, would you?” she said, walking up behind me and putting her hands nicely over my shoulders. “I bet she hasn’t had any proper female influences in her life.”
She was kinda’ right. I hardly ever left the house, so Uncle and daddy were the only people who’ve parented me. Everything I know about women came from TV otherwise. I guess I’m lucky I didn’t become a diva from that or something.
Miss Lauri was definitely a mom. I could also see how a lot of her nurturing side rubbed off on Yamin. The time she forced me to take a bath in the valley came to mind. It was funny though, because these two didn’t look a thing alike.
“Miss Lauri, are you really related to Yamin?” I asked.
She just started laughing. Yamin subtly joined in for a few chuckles.
“I’m adopted,” Yamin replied.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
There weren’t many Kanai people around here, besides Indena, so that made a lot more sense to me.
“Anyways…” Uncle cleared his throat. “Did you get the information I asked for?”
“Of course, but you might not like all of it,” she sighed, reaching into her bag and pulling out a small orb. She squeezed the orb in her grip and light scattered across the surface, forming into shapes that looked like continents. It lifted up and began to spin on a tilted axis.
“What is this thing?” I poked the hologram, watching the light bend around my finger.
“This is a cartographer’s sphere,” Miss Lauri said. “It’s like a little map of the world you can carry around in your pocket.” She pointed to a part of Esma that was practically on the other side of the globe hologram from where we were. “The city you're looking for, Okitoshi, is right here.”
Okitoshi was the place Indena was from, and supposedly the last place anyone saw daddy at. It seemed like getting to it was a straight shot if we took a plane over the North Pole.
“I’m assuming getting to it won’t be easy?” Uncle asked.
“By land or air, it would be impossible.” Miss Lauri said. “There’s a massive storm surrounding it. It’s likely why hardly anyone knew it existed.”
“Woah, how do you know about all this stuff?” I asked.
“I was part of the research team sent to study the storm,” Miss Lauri said.
“I told you my mom was a scientist,” Yamin reaffirmed. “Mom, if Indena left that city before, is it possible that there’s a way in and out?”
Yamin was on the money, and her mother claimed to have a way to get us there too. But the thing was, we’d need support from the government in order to do it, which is why she’d be joining us tomorrow for the meeting with the queen. I felt really hopeful that we may have just found our ticket to daddy.
“Okitoshi is on the other side of the world.” Miss Lauri confirmed. A bright line drew just under the surface of the hologram and traced all the way to where our destination was. “In order to get there, we’ll need to use the Nalnara network and pass through several countries.”
Oh, so she knew about the portals?
Uncle had to shut down the main Nalnara network in order to prevent it from going haywire, but this particular stream she was talking about was outside of our jurisdiction. If we could link up to it, then getting to daddy would be a cinch.
“Well what are we waiting for?” I threw out my arms. “Let’s go now!”
As I began walking in a random direction, Uncle grabbed my ponytail and held me steady.
“Hey? Stop doing that!”
“Before you get all gung ho, the portal network she’s referring to goes through the territory of nations that are hostile to this country,” Uncle said. “If we use the wild streams right now, it’ll disrupt the flow of energy that they undoubtedly use to power their civilization.”
“Dang it…” I knew what he was getting at. If we disrupted their power, even for a good reason like this, they’d probably think that Erdareich was trying to start a war with them or something. We'd need to make sure they were okay with us going through first.
“There’s also a second problem,” Miss Lauri spoke up. “Seeing as there probably isn’t a Nalnara gate connected to this wild mana stream, we’d have to find an entrance into the network.”
“That’s not impossible, but it’d probably take a little time,” Uncle said. “Worse comes to worst, we can make one. We’ll get a Nalnara gate set up one way or another.”
Mella and Indena finally came over to our group. At this point, the crowd that had gathered to watch them had scattered.
“Is everything good?” Uncle asked the girls.
“Yeah, she gave up like the pussy-cat she is,” Indena laughed.
There was a series of strange glares people handed off to each other after that. Indena looked upon Miss Lauri with a confused expression, as if she recognized something about her. While Miss Lauri and Mella had equally serious looks.
“Is something the matter?” Mella spoke up. “Have you never seen a talking cat before?”
Miss Lauri stepped up and pushed Yamin behind her.
“Tell me, how valiantly does Indena fight to protect my daughter from you, witch?” Miss Lauri asked.
There was a silence between them, only drowned out by the chirps of hundreds of excited little crickets and the forceful wind.
Mella was the first to speak in this silent standoff. “Are you blind? Clearly she was victorious today,” Mella smirked. “Although, at my full strength, she'd be hardly a much of a threat.”
“I see,” Miss Lauri turned to Indena. “I’ve heard you’ve been protecting Yamin from this witch. Should I be worried about what she just said?”
“Uh…” Indena was rarely intimidated by anyone, but she was on the backfoot when Miss Lauri pressed her question. “D-do I know you?”
“Do you?” her head tilted slightly in a hollow way. “It seems quite a few people have recognized me today.”
She looked so cold and commanding, kinda like a stern teacher. She wasn’t just a fun mom, but a serious one too.
“I… Uh…” Indena folded her arms and looked Miss Lauri in the eyes. “Yeah. I mean, no! I’ll kick that dumb witch’s ass any day!”
The responsibility Indena had taken up was already a heavy yoke on her shoulders. Having the mother of the girl she was supposed to protect charging her to continue carrying that torch was a clear reignition of her resolve. All of us could see the fire burning in her eyes to keep Yamin safe against witches, or otherwise. And where Indena fell short, she could count on me to pick up the slack, especially when it came to demons.
But I couldn’t say Indena was acting according to character, because she was more timid than usual in the face of this mothering woman. It made me curious why she was so intimidated by her. Miss Lauri was kinda scary if she could keep Indena in line.
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