"Good morning!" I yanked the curtains to the side as I let some morning sunlight into our bedroom.
"Uwah... What's got you so excited?" Cecily rubbed her Eyes.
"I can finally breathe in my own house again!" I reminded her, "No more having Sigmund walk in on me while I'm taking a shower, no more Eleanor hogging the couch in the living room, no more having to awkwardly stand to the side as Ed's wide shouldered ass walks through the same hallway, and Camilla...! Well, she was alright. But still, you get the point! We finally got the house to ourselves again!"
"Not exactly." Cecily's Eyes wandered to the door, "Aru's still here, the one person I didn't want to continue her stay."
"When are you gonna stop acting like she's bad news?" I asked honestly, "Actually, she's been a real help with taking care of Cene, not to mention her Goddess powers are making planning the wedding a breeze. I'd say we're pretty damn blessed to have a literal Goddess live under our roof."
"And you'd be both smart and right to say that, Lune Grimheart!" Aru's voice shouted from the other side of the door before she loudly kicked it wide open, "Rejoice, for this Goddess plans to help out as much as she can for as long as you continue to treat me with your hospitality! With someone as great and majestic as myself, you will never face a single hardship again! ...Mostly."
"See? Even she can't help but admit we're in danger with her around." Cecily pointed with her hands.
"Well, life is full of ups and downs, isn't it?" I reasoned, "The future will always be uncertain, and you can't really guarantee your safety no matter what you do, so I think she was mostly talking about that."
"Humu, sometimes I wonder if you yourself are omniscient as well to understand my words so easily, Lune Grimheart, but then I use my own omniscience to remind myself that you aren't!" Aru praised me, "Oh, that reminds me - That clingy king is gonna make a surprise visit in about twenty minutes, so I wanted to warn you ahead of time to tidy the place up a bit."
"That damned asshole... Fine, I'll admit you come in handy at times." Cecily admitted, "But let me make one thing clear - You came here to look for the Sun God, and you said your best chance at finding him is to follow Issei and Othelia when they leave."
"Yeah yeah, I getcha." Aru continued for her, "When they leave, I leave. That way everyone gets what they want and you folks can go back to your regular old lives."
"Except I'm not!" Cene suddenly popped his head in from the side of the doorframe, "If Awoo's going, then I'm going too!"
"Cene, when did y-" Cecily wanted to say something, but I felt I had a better retort.
"Sure." I all too easily accepted his offer.
"Huh!?" Cecily fwipped her head back to me, "What the hell do you mean Sure!?"
"Well, he'll have Aru, Issei and Othelia with him, so I'm sure they'll take good care of him." I shrugged, "It's a bit earlier than when I left, but I think sending your kid out to see the world is a good idea."
"Just FYI, you're SO not gonna like how the story pans out if you have him accompany us." Aru warned.
"Wow, way to spoil it..." I clicked my tongue with a sour expression, "Still, I trust my son to make it back home in one piece. Ain't that right, boy?"
"Yeah!" Cene looked psyched, "I'm gonna go with Awoo and pwotect hew fwom dangew! I'll slay dwagons with my swowd! Whapoosh!"
"Hey." Cecily leaned in to whisper something into my ear, "You're joking, right? This is another one of your pranks, isn't it?"
"Yeah, Cecily! I too think Cene is gonna breeze through whatever the world throws at him!" I lied about what she said loud enough for Cene to hear, "Oh, but damn, I just remembered! He doesn't know how to read or write yet though, so he's gonna have a tough time filling out all the paperwork when it comes to leaving the country."
"What's that?" Cene still smiled at me obliviously.
"Oh, you didn't know?" I chuckled deviously, knowing full well I had him right where I wanted him, "Kids your age can't travel from country to country as freely as the adults can, so you'd need to prove you're eligible to go on your own."
"Eligi...?" Cene twisted his tongue in all sorts of ways even just trying to pronounce the word.
"See? Adults just love using those grown-up words to throw kids for a loop." I warned him, "Even your uncle Ed and I could only leave Trivis Numerica because we knew how to read and write."
"Mn..." Cene looked troubled.
"I'm afraid Aru just can't take you with her as you are now." I teased him a bit to get him motivated, "Maybe if you knew how to read, write, tell the time on a clock, do basic math, use a map..."
Naming off all the practical skills an adventurer needed in order to travel outside of his country's confines, I think I could literally see his face go from anxious to downright overwhelmed. Obviously I wasn't gonna send a four year old out into the world, I'm not an idiot. No, I just wanted to hear this one single declaration come directly out of his own mouth...
"Fine, I get it!" Cene finally had enough, shouting at me like never before, "You think I'm dumb, huh!? I'll show you, I'm gonna learn how to wead, wwite, use a clock and tell the map! All that and mowe, so just you wait, shithead!"
"Oh." We all looked at him with our Eyes wide open as he stormed off, "Damn, his first cuss word was pretty hardcore..."
"He definitely learned that one from Ed..." I chuckled.
"Awoo, teach me how to wead!" Cene angrily ordered the Goddess of Water to do his bidding.
"I think you should first learn your R's, kid..." She chuckled a bit as she went downstairs as well.
"Was this all just an act to get Cene to wanna learn?" Cecily looked dizzy from all this commotion first thing in the morning.
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"What can I say? Using their idols as motivation to get them to learn worked like a charm for Nelly, so I just copied and pasted the method onto Cene." I smiled, "I'm just kinda sad neither one of them would've been this eager if it was for my sake..."
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"Surprise! I come bearing wonderful news!" Adam jumped in our faces as soon as we opened the front door before looking perplexed, "Hold on, you guys don't look all that surprised?"
"Psh, seriously Adam?" I smirked, "We're best men! Of course I knew you were gonna come."
"Wow, is that so?" He looked baffled, "That's incredible, Lune! I expect nothing less from the man, nay, the BEST man! Haha!"
"Come on, don't go spreading misinformation..." Cecily sighed before giving me away, "Aru told us you were coming, Adam. There's no way Lune could've known otherwise."
"Huh, that's kind of a letdown." Adam gave Cecily a disappointed gaze, "Lune, is your wife always this brutally honest? Has she ever let a man dream in his life?"
"There have been some occasions, don't worry." I replied.
"Just get your ass inside and say what you need to say, you damned royal sack of muscle!" Cecily hissed, "And you too, Lune!"
Eep, looks like I angered the lioness. My bad, I didn't mean to. After this short and sweet exchange at the front door, Adam politely wiped his shoes on the welcome mat before entering into our abode, just like he did countless times before. If I'm gonna be honest, though, I think he's the only guy that actually uses that thing. Well, him and Issei. That guy is surprisingly well-mannered, despite his foul mouth and perverted jokes.
"So." Cecily sat down after pouring him the tea she had premade in advance.
"So?" He tilted his head.
"The news!" She got fussy, "Don't go forgetting already! What did I clean the house for then?!"
"Ah, right!" He recalled, "It took a bit of time, but I finally found a tailor that's free."
"Oh, that IS good news." I smiled.
If you can recall the events that occurred in the chapter before this one, I had somehow managed to convince Adam to help us get a venue for the wedding. He delivered all that and more, helping to procure only the best of the best when it comes to the tents and seats. And while I don't have the fondest of memories of the churches here, Aru reassured us that the local church of Allucius located to the southwest of the town was just the perfect spot to hold the wedding. Seeing that and not wanting to get one-upped by the bastard on yet another occasion, I had angrily made it clear that I was going to be the one to get everything else done. However, things didn't quite pan out the way I had wanted them to, so I had to begrudgingly go to their mansion again and ask Adam for help regarding where to get our wedding attire.
"Here's her business card." Adam handed us a small card with the tailor's location and other helpful information, "She's just down the street near the Arthur's. It's pretty flashy, so I'm sure you'll have no problems finding it. I already talked it over with her and she agreed to free up some space in her schedule for this saturday."
"That's great! Thanks again, Adam." Cecily smiled, "Is this tailor an old friend of yours?"
"Yeah, actually." Adam smiled nostalgically, "She and I were childhood friends back in the day. Elaine and her would always bicker about all sorts of things, but as we all matured, they've since cooled off and become better friends than ever."
"Yet another childhood friend..." I joked, "I see you were popular even in your pre-yoked days."
"Don't say that around Elaine, she'll get really mad." He warned with a light chuckle, "But really, none of us were like that before. Even Elaine said that she only considered me as a love interest after I came back to that village to ask her out."
"Somehow, I doubt that." I replied, "I mean, if I was a single village girl, I'd surely be gunning for a prince. Isn't that like, the one and only dream a girl that age can have?"
"What are you saying?" Cecily pouted, "Not all girls care about being a princess."
"Hey now, no need to get jealous." I patted her on the head to reassure her, "Don't worry, if I was a girl, I'm sure I'd still end up with you, dear."
"You could certainly try, but I don't swing that way." She shattered my lesbian heart just like that.
"Mhm, of course you don't." I nodded, "But I'd like to see you say that after I'd slide under your bedsheets in the dead of night and..."
"Shit!" Cene's toddler voice loudly made its way into the living room.
"For the last time, it's S-H-E-E-T! Sheet! Like a sheet of paper!" Aru could be heard almost crying out in despair after him.
"A shit of paper!" Cene laughed and laughed as the flustered Aru kept trying and failing to correct him.
"That certainly startled me." Adam wiped some sweat off his brow, "Are you teaching him how to read?"
"Gotta start somewhere." We sighed, "Though it seems Edward's compulsive swearing left quite an impact on his vocabulary..."
"In that case, why not leave the matter to us?" Adam suggested.
"Are you crazy? You're already doing so much for us." I smiled before Aru popped her head out from the other room.
"Yeah, what he said!" She shouted at Adam, "I got this, so stay out of it!"
"Is that uncle musclehead?" Cene adorably asked her.
"Hell yeah it is! Captain Calf's sticking his nose where it don't belong again!" She shot back.
"I-I see... I apologize for being too overbearing..." Adam deflatedly got up out of his chair, sliding off of it due to the strength in his body leaving him from the harsh words.
"N-No, it's not like that!" Cecily and I ran to comfort him, "Aru's just got a foul mouth by default!"
"It's okay, Lune..." He dragged his feet on the ground as he left our house, "Captain Calf... knows his place in the world..."