Interlude

Miriana woke up in the morning, her conversation with Roden fresh in her mind. She was worried about the boys, but had faith they could handle whatever the gremlins could throw at them.

Sleepily she walked out of her bedroom and into the kitchen of the villa, when she felt something squished under her foot. She looked down and found the offending squish was brought about by a soggy bag of tea.

Her brow furrowed, she knew she had thrown that away after she put her mug in the sink before bed. She had a real conundrum on her hands considering she was the only one–.

It was then she remembered her house guests. She looked around the kitchen and noticed other things were out of place. The loaf of bread that was on the counter the night before was nowhere to be found.

The pantry door was cracked open, when she knew she had closed it. Little things like a towel askew or cabinets left open irked her, so she would never leave things in such a state. She moved around the kitchen counter and saw the garbage can had been significantly bent and the lid, while still atop, had clearly been broken off and set there after the assailant was done with it.

She walked around the couch to find Grok lying sprawled on the floor of the sitting room various scraps of food and wrappers scattered around him. The garg had gotten hungry during the night and raided the kitchen.

Miriana surmised it couldn’t have been too long ago given the slight bulge of Grok’s belly indicating a recent meal. The garg was fast asleep, a tiny bit of drool had started soaking into the carpet from his agape mouth.

“Grok!”

The garg’s eyes snapped open with alarm. At the sight of Miriana he immediately went into a panic. His eyes glanced around to the evidence of his midnight raid, which he slowly started trying to hide underneath his wings.

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“Grok.” This time she dragged his name out in a way only a mother can to signal their child had been caught doing something they were not supposed to be.

Grok started to garble together some form of an explanation that amounted to a lot of shrugging, pointing, and grunting. If the garg wasn't mostly grown and the size of a man it might have been cute enough to temper Miriana’s anger. Unfortunately, those days of getting by on his cuteness were gone.

“Grok, I can’t believe I left you out here and you make such a mess!.”

The garg looked down in an obvious attempt to look abashed.

“Oh no, don’t play that with me Mister. I know, you know better.”

Grok grunted and pointed to the corner.

Miriana narrowed her eyes, “seriously? You are going to blame the plant?!”

Miriana flicked her eyes over to where she had left Branch’s pot and saw the pot was empty. Her eyes went wide as she noticed the spilled dirt around the pot.

“Grok, please tell me you didn’t eat Branch.” She said with a slight tremble in her voice.

Grok shook his head vigorously and flipped over so he could walk on his knuckles over to the kitchen. His behavior had peaked Miriana’s curiosity so she followed the garg, albeit with a bit of trepidation.

Grok had gone around to the ice box, lifted the lid, and gestured inside. Miriana couldn’t resist, she moved around and looked inside the ice box. Inside was Branch, except he was sitting in a pile of sticks that looked like a bird’s nest.

Branch slowly stretched and turned his head up to face her. They both blinked at each other for a moment before Miriana was able to get a grip on the situation.

“Branch, why the hell are you in the ice box?!”

The little twig just shrugged and reached a hand up to grab the lid.

Miriana’s eyes went wide with indignation, “no you are not sleeping in the ice box! Get out of there right now!”

Branch frowned and narrowed his eyes at her.

“Don’t you look at me like that young man. Grok help him out.”

Grok hopped to the task with the hope her ire would stay off of him as long as he helped.

That morning was spent chastising the two kitchen raiders and making them clean up the mess they had made of the villa’s sitting room and kitchen.

Grok for his part was trying extra hard to please Miriana, while Branch was less than enthusiastic about the whole process. That night before bed Miriana had Grok carry the nest Branch had made over to the spot on the carpet where Branch’s pot had been.

“You can sleep here little guy.” She said as if speaking to a small child.

Branch responded with a chorus of bird chirps and whistles before settling down and rolling on his side away from her.

Miriana huffed, “fine, but you better stay put tonight or there will be hell to pay when your dad gets home.”