34) Staff Meeting

When I got home earlier tonight, my sister's staff was floating in front of her bedroom door. Which worked as her sock on the doorknob to let me know that she and her girlfriend didn’t want to be disturbed.

Which is fine, I would have to finish the three leftover double chocolate chip cookies I had snagged that Neal’s mom had sent to the meeting all on my own.

Really, the sound dampening spell and the ward Alzara had put on their door were enough to keep me from bothering them, the real reason the staff was hanging around, or hovering around, was that they kicked it out when they had their private time.

I never knew why, in fact, I never even asked what was going on with the staff. Ever, and I had never even thought about the fact that I had never thought about it.

Which now annoys me to no end, I thought I had a pretty good resistance to mind magic, but then had never dealt with an Archmage before.

Even a dead one.

Heading back into my room with three cookies and a mug of fat free milk, I noted the transparent man sitting in my computer chair holding the staff in his hand, but I’ve gotten so used to weirdness that all I thought was, “Hey, I was going to sit there.”

Then it slowly dawned on me that a transparent man sitting in my computer chair and holding my sister's big ass metal staff was something I was going to have to acknowledge as something I had to deal with instead of getting online while I had my snack.

The see through man had the golden skin and eyes that Imogene only had a touch of, the oversized double pointed ears that must have ended up looking like Vulcan or elf ears for her, and pale blueish gray hair hanging in a braid down to his waist.

Besides being what I was guessing was whatever Imo's dad's race was, and transparent, the guy was old.

And a little guilty looking.

“Ahsi Robiat. Brother to my daughter once removed. We should talk.”

I juggled the three cookies into the same hand as my mug of milk in order to push the clean clothes off of the old chair next to my closet where Alzara put them and hand a seat.

She had wanted to contribute, so I let her do the laundry, which she used the machine for, as well as the ironing and mending, which she used magic for, but I refused to let her put my stuff away in my room.

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I had stuff in some of those drawers not meant for anyone’s eyes except for my own.

Yes, some porn, but also my attempt at poetry and writing songs that have never gotten shown to anyone else, not even the girls who had inspired some of it, and never tossed out either.

Since my sister does read this. No Imo, they aren't still there, stay out of my room if you want me to stay out of yours.

So I dunked a cookie into the milk, took a bite, chewed, and swallowed before chasing it with a sip of the thin watery drink of sadness that is skim milk.

“Go ahead.”

The man nodded and looked away for a moment before lifting his head to stare me in the eyes.

"I am an imprint of the Archmage who brought your mother to a place in which she gained the power to cure the sickness that was killing her."

“Doing so was not his goal, only a healer of her ability could save the life of his son and heir, he took her for that purpose only. Without any thoughts of returning her, or foreknowledge that taking her would save her life as well.”

I stared at the imprint and then dunked another cookie.

It waited patiently until I finished it. "Other than dragging her off to another world without consent, did he mistreat her?"

It shook its head. "To the contrary, he ordered that his people were to give her everything she wanted or could use… Wealth, training, protection. Even before she took to keeping him alive after the damage he did to himself in bringing her across worlds. The damage that in the end, combined with his age, killed him.”

I ate the last cookie.

“How did he treat Imogene.”

The imprint smiled. “She was his every delight. Even to the point of hastening his own death in order to create me to guide and protect her after he was gone.”

The old man looked a the staff in his hand. “She has not forgiven him yet, or by extension, me.”

Swirling the last of the milk around in my mug, I was pleased to see a few cookie encrusted chocolate chips on the bottom that I caught up in the last gulp of milk as I finished it up.

"Could he have done more?"

The virtual grandfather looked aside, "I beloved he called in what favors he could to get her into the shadow guard long before she came of age. She grew up so much faster than… as a child of two worlds. Her father would have blocked it if she could."

He glanced up at me. "He could have raised his son, Imogene's father, to have been a better man, a worthy father. In that, he failed her. He had words with his son shortly before he died, and they did not meet again.”

I set my mug on my dresser, fully intending to return it to the kitchen before the milk that was always leftover collected and dried up in the bottom. It clinked up against the last mug I had intended to do that with.

“Why now?” Then I stared at it.

It figured out the implied question. Why reveal himself to me now? Why not before? What had changed?

It leaned forward in my chair and then tapped the side of its nose.

"We Imprints don't last forever. There are some things I can teach you before I fade, and some stories about your sister that the Archmage and her mother would have wanted her brother to hear. "

“Stories she would never share, for the sheer embarrassment. Stories she would never think to mention for being those of her childhood.”

It sighed. “Stories that her mother never told her, but would want you to know.”

The first thing we talked about, it how much it might impact our girl when the last remnant of the family she grew up with, the imprint, went away.

After that, we talked long into the night.

The first of what could be many late nights ahead of me.

Nights my sister would be spending with her teenage snake girl while I had to settle for the ghosts of grandfather's past.

At Least I was getting plenty of blackmail information out of it.