Kuravaan watched the band finish their latest song, the fifth one completed since they had received advice from the real experts. He glanced up, briefly scanned the balcony for the third time in as many minutes, then looked back down at the band.
One of the players was looking intently at something in the nearby crowd. After a moment, she looked away and, poorly suppressing a smile, nodded to the rest of the band. She leaned towards her microphone and spoke in a calm, soothing tone. “Alright everyone, I hope you’ve had a decent night so far. This next song is a very special request, ‘What You Gotta Say’, by our very own Ometicitemo. Not that you asked or anything. Three, two, one–”
As the band started up smooth, quiet tune, Kuravaan heard someone sidle up next to him. He turned to see Omet standing beside him, cardigan buttoned up and pulled close. “Right, you. Any more noises to stammer out?”
“Y– Well, I, um…”
“Knew it.”
Omet took a deep breath before continuing. “So, uh, I know we’re still obligated to host your family fo–”
“Domain.”
“–for another half-hour or so, but since you’ve kind of already made a decision and done everything else you need to do here, I was just wondering if there was some kind of agreement we could come to that would get you to leave early? Like, I assume it’s too much hassle to just pack up and leave the second that time runs out?”
Kuravaan snickered and shook his head. “As if you Primoi have the backbone to actually kick us out. Look, kid, your Domain is too fun for us to mess with for us to just leave. Look at how much fun we’re having!” He pointed to an Aztec near the buffet, just in time to watch them get tripped by an Indian who promptly poured a cup of what looked like clam chowder onto the back of their prone head. A quiet ‘Whoops’ carried across the room.
“Yeah,” continued Kuravaan, “this is too good of an opportunity to pass up. There are less and less dunces to take advantage of every day. We might leave in a day, maybe two, however long it takes for us to feel satisfied enough by your service.”
Omet turned to the band, who instantly cut off their performance. They turned back to Kuravaan, a grin plastered across their face and malice infesting their purple eyes. “Hey, Quet… What did he just say?”
Quet popped out of the crowd, hands innocently tucked behind her back. “Dunno, Omet.” When she continued, she seemed to be singing. “What they had to say?”
“Sadly, no.” Omet waited for the band to start back up with a completely different tune to what they had been playing before, then mimicked Quet’s musical tone and took slow, small steps towards Kuravaan. “He said that they’ve got no plans to all go away.”
Kuravaan looked dumbfounded. “What are you doing?”
“I want to hear pain,” sang Omet. “To hear we’re insane… To hear you say, ‘We will never come here again’!”
A patch of the floor near one Indian flared briefly with light, followed by a loud bang echoing through the foyer. The Indian shrieked with surprise and jumped away from where the light had been, stumbling and collapsing onto the floor.
Quet cackled and produced a single stone from her sleeve, displaying it in her hand. “To hear a few screams…” She tapped the stone and another explosion went off between the feet of another Indian, sending them toppling into the arms of another. Quet smirked. “Would satisfy me.” She pressed her stone over and over, detonating another half-dozen hidden stones on the floor. “To hear that you’ve de-ci-ded to leave-us-all-be!”
“None of you here…” Omet sneered at a baffled Kuravaan. “Would deserve a cheer.”
Quet and Omet stood next to each other and continued in unison. “Now that we’re making you all pay, you know what to say!”
-
Lamius watched Horan open up his second tub of homemade ice cream. “I assume they have some fancy machine to make this stuff in a few minutes, but I’m telling you, any recipe is at its best when made by hand… So, maybe once you’ve had a bit of that one, you can tell me what made you come back down here? Er, alone?”
Horan, curled up on one of the couches in Lamius’ greenhouse, paused with the spoon in his mouth. “…Oh, this probably took you hours to make, huh? I’m so sorry, this whole time, it’s just been nothing but–”
“’Scuse me!” Omet ran into the greenhouse, their heavy breathing filling the silence for a moment as they leaned against the doorframe. “Horan, can you just…? Hang on a second...” They doubled over and rested their hands on their knees. “I shouldn’t have started running right after coming down here…”
Horan set the ice cream to the side. “Wha– Omet? How’d you find me he… Wait, where’s purple-you?”
Omet took a deep breath and stood up straight. “Uh, no time to explain but I’ll show you soon but first can you come back up with me please now do it yes?”
“…Is something happening?”
“Uh, sure, something like that, can we please go right now?”
Horan glanced back at Lamius, who nodded enthusiastically at him. “Okay, uh…” He shrugged and vaulted over the back of the couch, floating over to Omet. “Let’s go, can you explain on the way?”
“’Fraid not.” Omet took Horan’s hand and pulled him towards the portal room. “Hurry-hurry-hurry!”
“…Nice to see you again, Omet!” called Lamius as the two ran off.
-
Kuravaan wiped ice-cold clam chowder off of his face and stood up, being careful not to step on any of the shards of broken glass littering the floor. “You two… Aztecs… are the most vile, uncouth, repugnantly horrid creatures I have ever entered the lair of! You have no right to treat guests like this!”
“Neat.” Omet nudged Quet, who was busy nudging globs of gelatin on the floor away from herself with the tip of her shoe. “Hey, you know what would really get these losers to say what they need to?”
Quet giggled and grinned, to the visible dismay of the Indians watching them from a distance. “I dunno, Omet, what?”
“About thirty more us-es!” Omet cupped their hands around their mouth. “C’mon out, everyone!”
One by one, the other Aztecs emerged from every conceivable place they could be staying in. Some exited their rooms and slid down the railing of the spiral staircase. Three emerged from a trapdoor hidden in the floor, startling another cluster of Indians. One came out of the pantry, mouth and hands stuffed with shredded cheese.
Omet planted their feet wide and put their hands on their hips. “Sounds to me like some of you haven’t properly introduced yourselves. Why don’t you give our honored guests a belated greeting or fifty?”
While the Aztecs jeered and mocked the distressed Indians, Mark took a seat next to Saralai, who watched the scene from the corner of the foyer. “So, do you have any idea of what they’re… doing?”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Saralai watched a clump of thrown shredded cheese smack an Indian in the face, which prompted a mockingly jubilant toot from the saxophonist onstage. “Family bonding.”
“Oh, got it.”
As an Indian tried to back away from a throng of Aztecs, another snuck behind him and stuck a leg out, tripping him. Quet tossed a stone to the Aztec, who squeezed it and held it over the Indian’s face. A stream of viscous scampi emerged from the stone, covering the Indian’s mortified visage in shrimp, broth and garlic.
The Aztec leaned over the Indian innocently. “Whoops.”
Quet threw her hands in in the air. “Whoo! I do not regret making that many food storage matrices!”
Mark brought a hand up to his chin. “I actually didn’t think Quet would be this good at performing, I didn’t think she was even fully functional in crowds.”
Quet waved at Mark as she rolled past. She appeared to be wearing shoes with wheels built into the soles. “That’s because I need to act like a normal person every day of my life!”
“Touché,” said Mark.
-
Omet wheezed desperately as they tried to maintain a fast pace down the hall. “Okay… I know… it looks… bad… but I… I swear… Oh man… It’s gonna… Work ou– whoof… Out.”
Horan nervously folded his arms while he floated alongside Omet. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have made you portal up and down in such a short time. So… This doesn’t have anything to do with what happened on stage, right?”
“See…” Omet stumbled to the ground and pointed weakly towards the balcony twenty feet ahead that offered a view of the foyer. “Yourself… Down… Song…”
Horan approached the balcony, looked down, and froze in shock when he realized what the Aztecs were doing.
The Aztecs had formed a cordon between the Indians and the stage, around which the Greeks congregated while the band played their hearts out. Every few seconds, the Aztecs took a collective step forward, with two or three lunging forward each time and acting as if they were about to grab at a nearby Indian’s sleeve or hair.
Kuravaan recoiled from a grasping Aztec, eyes reminiscent of those of a horse that had smelled blood. “Get… Get away, you savages!”
“I think you’re the one who ought to get away,” jeered Omet, “before we’re done playing with our food!”
“Yeah!” called out an Aztec. “We’re menaces to society!”
Most of the Domain roared their assent.
“Too spineless to throw a punch until one of us does?” Omet snorted. “Pretty nice ‘rules’ of yours now, huh?!”
“We are not ‘spineless’!” protested Kuravaan. “We will not stoop to your level, this is childish!”
“Childish, you say?” Omet grinned. “Hey everyone, it sounds to me like our cherished guests are being a bit dismissive! Let’s see you dismiss this!” They stomped on the floor. “Release the snake!”
From the same trapdoor that some of the Aztecs had emerged from earlier, an enormous animatronic snake sprung into being, its black-and-white segmented body extending upwards like an accordion. The snake’s eyes lit up with internal lights as it jerkily bent over to seemingly examine the crowd of Indians before it as a static-y roar emerged from its innards.
Without warning, its mouth unhinged and a smaller snake-head poked out from between its teeth. The second head cackled like a witch, opened its own mouth, and belched foul-smelling fog over the crowd, the larger snake moving back and forth like it was putting out a fire.
Omet took in the disgusted shrieks of the unwanted guests, breathed in the acrid cloud and sighed. “I love theater.”
Kuravaan grimaced, his nose turning up at the smell of the fog. “Everyone, door. We’ll see.”
The laughter and mockery only grew louder as the Indians turned and went for the door. Several Aztecs pelted the Indians in the back with plastic cups, only hastening the retreat. The animatronic snake gave one last canned chuckle before retreating back into the trapdoor.
Quet followed closely behind the Indians, and when the last of them had passed through the door, she produced a plastic bag filled with stones. “One last parting gift. If you guys are so fancy with your instant-teleportation, how’s about you try to figure out my chicken scratch and get off our lawn?!” She hurled the bag into the arms of one of the Indians.
Omet strode towards the double doors and grinned smugly at Kuravaan’s look of disgust. “Well folks, it’s been horrible getting to know you, you have all managed to effectively ruin the day of everyone present, and I hope you somehow manage to choke to death on the lovingly hand-made matrix that Quet is gifting you.” They slammed the doors shut. “And don’t come back!”
They turned to address the waiting crowd of Aztecs around them. “Yes, we made them say…!”
The crowd erupted into ecstatic motion, leaping into the air and hugging each other. A collective “Yes we did!” rippled through them.
“What they had to say!” responded Omet.
“Yes they did!”
Omet looked up at a stunned Horan staring at them from the balcony above. They grinned with relief at the fact that he had gotten a good view. “They said that–”
The yellow-eyed Omet accompanying Horan wrapped one arm around his shoulder, to his visible surprise. “–there are no more buzzkills left to–”
“–ruin our day!” finished the crowd of Aztecs beneath Horan.
Yellow Omet pushed Horan down the stairs leading to the ground floor. “Thanks to each stone…”
“Of contempt that we’ve thrown…” continued the crowd below.
“I would say…” Omet carefully led Horan down the spiral stairs, making sure to keep an eye trained on their family. “Those losers will leave us all alone!”
They smirked and glanced at Horan. “That’s honestly fair.”
“That’s honestly fair, dude,” echoed the crowd.
“But please don’t despair,” continued Omet.
“But please don’t despair, dude!”
“We can get through this round, so…” Omet brought Horan to the bottom of the stairs and pulled him into the crowd, who surrounded the two of them with jubilant cries of “Who needs those squares?”
“They made me appalled,” said Omet, resting their hands on Horan’s shoulders. “But now you know…”
Omet pulled Horan into a tight hug, burying their face in his neck and squeezing him tightly.
“All of us care!” sang the crowd around them.
Omet released Horan and retreated into the crowd, which parted to give them space to walk backwards while they kept their gaze trained on Horan. Their voice joined a choir of dozens as they sang, “But that isn’t something we must say…”
The second Omet emerged from the crowd and held hands with their yellow-eyed counterpart while both of them continued in perfect synchronicity. “It’s what we wanna say!”
The two Omets merged back into one and the crowd around them erupted into chaos, embracing each other and pumping the air with built-up energy.
Omet, breathing heavily, approached Horan. They had to raise their voice to speak over the sound of celebration around them. “Don’t… You don’t need to say anything, not right now. I’m not asking you to. I just wanted you to know that we have each other’s back out here, no matter what. Take all the time you want, and once you’re ready, we can all start with– Huh?”
Several Aztecs lifted Omet onto their shoulders and paraded them around the room, while Omet tried to maintain balance with a flustered grin plastered across their face. They gave Horan a quick wave before passing out of sight.
Mark sidled up to Horan and tapped him on the shoulder. “You know what? You were right to get us to settle down here. These people are awesome.”
“Yeah, it’s…” Horan covered his mouth. “They’re great. They don’t… Excuse me.”
Mark nodded curtly as Horan turned and went back up the stairs. “You’re excused.”
Across the room, Omet was set down on the floor, three Aztecs reaching out at once to ruffle their hair. Omet chuckled. “Okay, guys, I get it, it’s not a big deal!”
Quet punched Omet in the arm. “It was a huge deal! That was the lamest thing I’ve ever seen, it was awesome!”
“That it was.” Omet looked over the heads of their siblings and saw Horan looking down at them while he climbed back up the stairs. They smiled and gave a pleasant wave, which was sheepishly returned in kind.
Omet sighed. “It was the dumbest thing I’ll ever conceive of. You guys think the Indians left anything behind for us to finders-keepers?”
-
Waia lay curled up on her bed, doodling Kuravaan as a tuxedo-wearing vampire, when Horan quietly opened the door to her bedroom and walked inside.
Waia looked up from her sketchpad. “I heard singing noises downstairs. How’d the Indians get treated?”
“We’re doing the contingency,” said Horan. “Now.”
Waia sighed and tossed her sketchpad to the floor. “Took you long enough.”