Fia was mildly concerned as she went about their daily work. Things were going well. Too well. And that kept her on edge.
The last few days had been filled with back and forth pranks, and not just from Cruz and Elise. After the whole fiasco at dinner with the laxative, it felt like suddenly everyone was getting in on the pranking action.
Of course, the vast majority of things were silly and no one had taken it nearly to the level of a laxative. To be fair, if someone did, they’d probably actually get in trouble with their mothers and suddenly find themselves mucking the entire barn all alone. And no one wanted that privilege.
The threat didn’t stop the innocuous pranks though. A few of the younger kids had taken to knocking on doors and running away or hiding. Fia could admit it was funny at first, but it grew more and more annoying as she was the one always checking the door. The whole thing would get way less funny when someone decides not to check the door and Mom or Momri were the ones knocking.
Wulf, Cruz, Marche, and Quinn had teamed up a few days prior to cause a little chaos with some fake bugs. They had used some combination of dried fruit and Qi techniques to make pretty convincing fake bugs and sprinkled them in a bunch of beds throughout the basin. There was a lot of screaming that night as they all found them.
And then two days ago, someone had messed with several of the water Arrays around the basin. They sprayed out thin jets of water at random angles before functioning normally. Fia had gotten sprayed in the face, too. A bunch of people had gotten sprayed by the end of the day when Talya was asked to help fix things. Fia wasn’t convinced that Talya was entirely innocent in that prank, though, given she was the most talented Array maker they had around.
But yesterday, things seemed to finally calm down. Fia had been waiting all day for another prank to happen, but there was nothing.
Of course, there was potentially the dress that Momri had put Mom in while parading her around, but that didn’t feel like a prank so much as a harmless gag. And seeing Mom blushing and looking embarrassed was a rare sight. Fia really hoped that whenever she had a relationship it was as happy as her mothers’.
And now, as she sat outside the back side main house washing laundry, Fia was absolutely convinced that there would be hell to pay. She didn’t trust any of the other teenagers in the family as far as she could throw them - which was admittedly pretty far - and was waiting for the other shoe to drop after the relative quiet yesterday.
But still, this morning was completely quiet. Everyone had gone about their chores normally. Fia, Lia, and Jak were on laundry duty, and were slowly making their way through all the dirty clothes that their family produced. There was a ton of it. Not that it was really surprising, given their numbers.
She looked over to check on Kal, as she did periodically, just to make sure the little four year old wasn’t getting into any trouble. Thankfully, he was still hanging out on a blanket playing with some toys. The little spitfire could be very active and mischievous, often running off to find trouble.
And that he was sitting quietly playing with some dominoes was setting Fia even further on edge.
Lia, who was nearby and also scrubbing out stains was watching her older sister, and kept asking if she was alright. Apparently her current level of anxiety was making her twitch.
But that was fine! She was getting her work done just as well. Maybe even faster than normal, as she scrubbed with abandon. At this rate, they may even finish the laundry before breakfast. Then, if they could take care of feeding the animals and checking the farms for weeds before lunch, they’d be free for most of the day.
She knew she liked getting up early to get everything done. It was absolutely worth the fight with Lia and Jak every morning to get up so they could have the afternoons free. She was also glad that Kal was basically a ‘get the others out of bed’ card she could play every morning. That kid was loud and more than happy to get up early.
And no matter what they said, Lia and Jak would still get up, help with the chores, and enjoy the fact that they were done early.
Except when they had cooking duty, anyway. That was always an all day affair for whoever had the assignment. It was everyone’s favorite though, too. It got you out of practice and meditation for the day, and there were worse ways to spend a day than cooking for your family.
“Hey Fia?” Jak asked, suddenly breaking the relative quiet. Fia turned to look at him, prompting him to continue. “Do you think we need to be worried about the whole attack on the city thing?” He asked nervously. Then added, “It’s been going around in my head for a while and now I can’t stop thinking about it. Especially after the older group was brought in for special lessons.”
Fia smiled at him reassuringly. “I don’t think you need to worry.” She said calmly. Her younger brother appearing nervous actually had a calming effect on her; this was something she could deal with. “Mom was pretty adamant about beating it into us that we shouldn’t fight with a higher Realm Cultivator, and that if one shows up here we should run and hide.”
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“But she was also reassuring us that she doesn’t believe it will come to that. Better safe than sorry, you know?” Fia smiled at Jak and reiterated, “I don’t think we need to be that worried out here. And we definitely don’t need to be worried while Mom, Momri, and Uncle Vale are all here.”
“So we should worry if they get called away to help the city?” He said, half panicked.
“No!” Fia said quickly with a laugh. “I just meant that right now there’s absolutely no reason to worry. If they do all get called away to help with the city’s defense, I still think we’re ultimately pretty safe up here.”
“Plus we have Aunt Talya to work on making us a big shield, right?” Lia chimed in. “I know it’s not actually done yet, but she’s working on it. The little portable one she showed us is pretty neat.”
“Yeah, I guess…” Jak said, unconvinced. “I’m just worried.”
“We all are, at least a little bit.” Lia said, then pointed at her older sister. “Look at Fia, she’s been shaking all morning!”
“I have not!” Fia called back on reflex. When she looked up and saw Lia staring at her as if to say ‘really?’, she sighed. “Fine, fine! I’ve been on edge.” She met Jak’s gaze squarely. “But not about whatever danger the city is supposedly in.”
As she continued, her hands started going faster again as her anxiety sped her up as she spoke about it. “With the ongoing prank war up here, I was worried something else might happen. Especially after how quiet it was yesterday.”
“Fia -”
“After having prank after prank every day for the last, what, two weeks? I was expecting something to go down. Even more so after Cruz found out that we helped Elise give him that laxative.”
“Fia.” Lia said again, trying to get her attention. But Fia continued right on, scrubbing the clothing in her hands.
“And after there was nothing of note yesterday at all? Yeah, I’m on edge. But can you really blame -”
“Fia!” Lia nearly shouted, and pointed at the large tub of water in front of Fia. The tub that she had been soaking all of the clothes in while she washed them.
The tub that was now clearly no longer the color of water and soap. She dropped the clothes she was scrubbing and pulled her hands back. They were the same color of purple as the water, though a slightly lighter shade.
Before going straight into panic mode, she moved a hand through the water and pulled up a piece of clothing. The previously plain white clothing that everyone wore while meditating was dyed a light shade of purple.
“Dye? When?” She muttered, confused.
Lia came over to check her sister’s tub. She ran a hand through the water, too. “Yeah, it looks like dye.” She confirmed, then rummaged through the last few bits of white meditation clothing. Her hand came back holding a small pouch. Four of them, in fact. “Yeah, it’s dye, alright.”
Fia quickly snatched one from her sister’s hand as Jak came over to see what was happening. Even Kal got up to see what all the fuss was about. Fia’s anxiety over being pranked was gone, replaced with indignant anger.
She yelled, “Cruz!” before she crushed the packet of dye in her hand. The purplish ink splattered out, dyeing her hand an even darker color. Then she grabbed the other packets of dye and flung them into the trees behind the main house.
By the time Lia managed to calm her down, Fia’s anger had subsided into burning coals. Alive, but not as hot.
“We really shouldn’t leave those dye packets out there.” Lia said, looking into the woods where Fia had thrown them. “If an animal eats it, it could be deadly.”
“No!” Kal whined, then declared, “No dead animals.”
“No room to argue with that one.” Fia said with a sigh, then ruffled Kal’s hair. “Let’s go find the packets. Kal, can you stay here? We’ll show you the packets when we get back so you know the animals are safe.”
The boy waited a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”
And then Fia, Lia, and Jak were wandering into the large copse of trees that were planted behind the main house, close to the elder wisteria.
It didn’t take too terribly long while looking before Lia popped up, holding a hand in the air victoriously. “Found ‘em! All three!”
“Umm…” When Fia and Jak were clearly staring right past her, their jaws slack, Lia whipped around.
And immediately met eyes with their mothers, who were apparently trying to secretly creep through the wooded portion of the basin back to the main house. Both of them looked like an absolute mess. What had been rather gorgeous dresses the previous night were still on them, but were a bit askew. Their hair was messy and sticking up in all different ways, and their makeup was smeared.
Emery was the first to recover, and she smiled. “Good morning, you three.” She tried to sound chipper, but was clearly not. “What are you doing back here?”
“Laundry.” Fia said, still dumbstruck. “Cruz put ink packets in with the meditation clothes and dyed them all purple. When I realized it, I threw the packets into the woods, but we didn’t want to let the animals eat them so we went to look for them.” She said dumbly.
“Oh, that’s…nice.” Avuri said, as Lia held up the dye packets. “We’ll talk to him later. Go finish up the laundry. And don’t worry about the dye, it’s fine. You’re not in trouble.”
“Thanks, Momri.” Lia said.
Both mothers nodded, then quickly dashed off into the trees toward the house. A moment passed before Jak asked, “What was that? What happened to them?”
Fia and Lia met gazes for just a moment, then Fia said, “If you don’t already know, we’ll explain when you’re older.”