Steel knocks on the door as both Marcilene and I sit on the bed.
He opens the door and sees Marcilene listening to me intently, before we both turn to look at him.
"I'm guessing you both made up?"
Steel asks, as he stands up straight no longer peeking through the door slit that he opened slightly.
Marcilene looks at me and I look at Marcilene, then we both look towards Steel and nod.
"We did, and I promised Marcilene that I'll be way more safe, next time."
Marcilene nods.
"He said that, and I gave him permission to continue training."
I shrug my shoulders:
"Not that I needed them from her or anything."
Marcilene gives me a sour look:
"You were the one that said you would stop training to be with me more…"
Steel continues in and stands before us.
"Stop with the banter you two."
He says in a scary tone, making both Marcilene and I stop for a second, staring at each other looking surprised, before Steel breaks it with a laugh that cuts the stiff air in the room.
He puts his hand on both our heads and begins to ruffle our hair.
"You are both amazing kids, one will undoubtedly become a warrior, and the other will undoubtedly be the one to scare that warrior."
We turn to each other and try to understand which one is which.
"But for now, you are both my children and since you are we will celebrate your achievements."
He says and I squint my eyes trying to understand what he means by celebrating our achievements.
Steel takes his hand off of our heads and looks me in the face.
"Lazuli, you have literally been accepted by a mentor that is damn near impossible to even talk to, not only that, but you killed a Soul Bear."
Steel says, his voice filled with every ounce of joy in his heart he could muster.
Marcilene then looks at me with a giant smile on her face.
"Oh, Yeah! I forgot you said that!"
Marcilene says with the biggest smile on her face.
"We have to celebrate that!"
She yells out as I look to her.
"No, we don't."
I say in the most nonchalant tone I can muster, sounding unserious, but deadass.
"Why not?"
Steel asks as he looks at me, eyes wide with confusion:
"Even I wasn't able to achieve that at your age... well, never mind."
He almost starts another sentence but ends it, not moving too deep into the new sentence.
"But still Lazi... We need to celebrate this, it's a major mile stone, that more than half of the village alone can't even complete, especially by themselves..."
Steel says that like it was such a hard thing.
"But I didn't do it alone...?"
I say:
"Apatite and Prag helped me."
Steel tilts his head side to side.
"Well I mean sure, they did, but it was you that did the killing blow..."
Steel says, defending my part.
"That's true, but without Prag, I probably wouldn't have made it out of that forest today."
Steel blows air through his teeth.
"Yeah, you're right."
His words sounding, annoyed yet, understanding.
"But we should still celebrate it, I mean... when is the last time you heard of a little boy, kill a Soul Bear, better yet, my little brother."
Marcilene says as she puts her hand on my head and messes my hair up even more.
"That's cool, but I don't want to celebrate being able to do something like that."
Marcilene looks at me wide eyed, and sarcastically drawing tears:
"Why?"
I look away from her and don't pay any attention to her, but her face follows my face and with no strength to resist her after the settled argument, I give in to her.
"Okay, We can celebrate it."
Tali and Flock now enter.
"Good because we planned to leave tomorrow and wanted nothing more than to have a little going away party."
Tali says as Flock's brown body looms over her.
"Yup!"
Flock says as Tali finishes her sentence.
My eye becomes lidded, showing faked annoyance.
"Well, now we are for sure celebrating something, whether it be Tali and Flcoks going away, or Lazuli killing a Soul Bear."
Tali and Flock both look at me with pure awe:
"WHAT?!"
They both say in complete unison.
"You killed a Soul Bear?"
Flock asks, surprised at those words.
I nod, confirming his question.
"What the heck?!"
Flock looks around the room:
"Many noble families can't even hope to achieve that level of strength, and you're telling me, little Lazuli has down that?"
Flock says his tone so very surprised.
Steel nod, with the biggest smile on his face.
"That's my boy."
Steel says with a cocky smile on his face.
Tali walks over to me and crouches down to my height, holding out her hand for me to high five it.
"Good job Lazuli."
Her voice filled with nothing else besides happiness and joy for my achievement.
I high fire her hand and smile at her:
"Thank you."
"Now we HAVE to celebrate you, never mind us leaving, that'll just be a side thing for us to do."
A knock comes from the front door, downstairs.
All of us, including myself looking around the room, wondering who it could be.
Flock hops in front of us, to stop the looks:
"Those are my employees, I told them about it, and about Marcilene as well, saying that she's an elf and hasn't even..."
He looks around the room, by himself, tilting his head side to side.
"...you know."
Flock finishes.
'What do we know?'
I think as everyone looks at Flock.
Steel looks to Marcilene.
"What do you think Marci? Is that okay?"
She lets out a puff of air, then sucks it in through her teeth.
"It's okay... I want many people to celebrate, Lazuli."
She says, but her voice slightly trembling, she's probably still scared of people finding out about her.
"When we get back to Virvanum, you will be sleeping on the couch, for a month."
Tali says with disbelief in her voice, before turning to comfort Marcilene:
"You don't have to say yes, just because it's Flock, I'll make sure he still makes you pretty clothes."
Flock looks down at the floor with sadness in his eyes, I can practically see the tears falling when he hears sleeping on the couch.
Marcilene nods again.
"It's okay, Tali, I still want Lazuli to have many friends. So I think we'll be able to talk with them along with having them play with us."
Marcilene says, putting on the most brave front that she can, making me smile.
'She is a very caring sister.'
Steel asks once more:
"Are you sure that you're okay with these guys coming over tonight?"
Marcilene nods.
"I'm ninety percent certain that I'll be fine for them to come over tonight afterall they were still people that helped make the dresses that are pretty."
Talk and Steel look at each other before exchanging a nod between themselves and we all, in a single file line, head downstairs.
Tali last and Flock first, since he will be the one to answer the door.
As we all get there standing in front of the door, Flock grips the handle and opens the door to see that the maid dressing people are no longer wearing the maid dresses, but different style of clothing from their maid dresses.
Gia wearing a emo-punk outfit with eye shadow and her nose, ears and lower lip pierced with a single piercing.
India, wearing a calm Sunday best clothing, with the same insignia on the corner of her dress near the bottom, her hair put in a tight bun.
Tig wearing a simple white shirt and long pants.
The one that's surprising most of all is Tran, who is wearing a beautiful dress that looks like the sun is radiating the color off of its light blue exterior., while their hair is put down, calmly covering the nape of their neck.
Tran comes in first holding a whole chicken, or something bigger. Since the body is huge, maybe more than enough to feed the whole family.
Tig, holding many desserts and snacks, Gia, with what looks like mash potatoes, and India having brought two bottles of liquor.
"These are the same little ones that survived those treacherous slavers?"
Tran says putting on their best smile, their hulking muscle and hair doing its best to make it impossible to tell their gender.
"Yup."
I say as she stands before us.
Marcilene still looks a tad bit afraid to be in front of her, so I reach for her hand and hold it, she's little and she's my sister.
'Protecting her means to make her feel safe, that means even mentally not just physically.'
I think to myself as Tali and Steel watch, giving their best, Awwww, looks to us.
Gia and India come in after and they both have the best smile they put on their face.
Tig comes in after them and her tiger face is scary but amazingly beautiful in a sort of way.
"Is there a place we can put the foods?"
Gia asks, her usual maid tone gone, but her kindness still there.
Tali guides them all toward the kitchen as India stay behind to look at Steel, as if trying to understand who that is.
"You seem so familiar."
India tell to Steel.
Steel smiles at her.
"Well I am one of the most attractive men in the village. You've maybe thought of me when you looked around."
Steel says in a flirting fashion.
Flock walks in front of them and introduces them to each other.
"Sorry, I forgot to introduce the last person here. India, this is Steel. Steel this is India."
One more second India squints at Steel before she opens her mouth to an O.
"You're Steel!"
Her voice high pitched and in a admiring tone.
"The War Hero: Steel Regulus."
Gia, Tig and Tran all put the food on the table, as they turn to understand what India is even talking about.
Steel nods softly.
"Guess some information will slip even if I tell people not to tell things about me."
India nods.
"Yes, omg, I never thought I'd see you in a ringy dingy village. Like Squea."
She says as she exclaims, Flock taking both bottles of liquor from her as she talks about many things that he has accomplished during the Centennial War.
Tig goes over to them to get involved with their conversation.
Tran comes over to us and leans down to Marcilene.
"Wanna know who makes your favorite dresses?"
They say in the most inviting tone.
Marcilene almost like she lights up, lets go of my hand and then smiles brightly, with even her pointed ears sticking up to hear Tran.
"Me."
Tran says.
Making Marcilene jump in joy.
"Can you always make my dresses?"
Marcilene asks, and Tran nods, Marcilene continues to listen to Tran and Tran continues to speak to Marcilene, I slowly back away making Marcilene converse with Tran.
Tali, Gia and Flock all become involved with their own conversation.
They all laugh, talk and drink.
I go around to each person's trio or duo and listen to their conversations.
All the time it's stays the same. Gia talking to Tali and Flock, mostly Flock, about production and moneymaking, that's going pretty well.
Steel, Tig and India talking about Steel's achievements during the war, that seems to go on forever, like he was the best soldier in the war, he was even given a nickname: The Bastard Born for War.
'That's highkey tough.'
I think to myself, before going to Marcilene and Tran, them still talking about dresses.
Soon, the sun lowers just a tad bit more and everyone begins to mingle together in a bigger group, I sit down in the corner, before Flock comes along to me.
"You still never told me how you did it?"
He says.
I tilt my head, very slightly, with wonder on my face.
"How I did what?"
Looking to his brown face.
"How you killed a Soul Bear."
Two other people manage to catch those words leave Flocks mouth, the two being Steel and India.
India stops talk to Steel and looks at me.
"You did what?!"
Flock looks at her with enthusiasm.
"Yup, my little brother in law here, managed to not disable a Soul Bear, but instead Kill it."
India's outburst managed to get the attention of everyone in the house, making them all look at me with wonder and awe.
"You understand what that means..?"
India says:
"He really is the son of the great Steel."
Steel could almost be blushing with how he looks right now.
"Oh stop."
Steel says, like a happy school girl.
'Please do, it'll all go to his head.'
"Okay people come and eat!"
Tali tells everyone, as Marcilene is by her side setting the table with bowls, that are made of wood.
She smiles at everyone, finally getting comfortable with them.
I'm one of the firsts at the table hungry after not eating the day before, till now.
I don't waste a moment of digging in for my food, getting a huge glob of food, as everyone else sits down and begins to get their food as well.
Some even pouring themselves liquor, mainly India and Steel, Gia and Tig, pouring just half a cup.
India still watching me, I take a huge scoop of mashed potatoes into my mouth, and stab chicken in my fork to shove into my mouth.
"So, you going to tell us how you did it?"
Flock doesn't let off the throttle for my answer.
I nod with food in my mouth, and swallow with a huge gulp.
Slowly telling them the story, while taking scoops of food into my mouth and making sure to leave out the involvement of both Prag and Apatite.
While putting on front to make it sound like I was super cool.
~~~
Soon the sun goes low. Gia, with India in Tig in tow, both of them drank trying to keep up with India, just for them to lose, badly.
My head is very much dizzy not because of the smell of liquor, even though it's not very strong, but because of the fact that I've slept for about maybe only six hours after my eye almost popped out of my skull, or something like that.
Marcilene and Tali are already cleaning at the same time Flock and Tran also talk about something, but not very loud.
I head to the couch and lay down.
The moon bright, but the fire lights up the room better.
Flock started it as soon as the sun hit the horizon, making sure that we still had light for the rest of the night.
Marcilene and Tali finish cleaning not taking to long before Marcilene walks over to me. Steel right behind her after talking to India.
India smiling like she's just met him once again.
"Lazuli, if you're going to sleep, we should make you go to the bedroom."
Marcilene says.
"Yeah."
Steel nods and he picks me up in his arms, forgetting how light weight I am even after nearly a full year.
He goes around the wall, toward the stairs taking each step carefully, before turning into Marcilene's room and putting me down.
"Sleep good okay?"
He says, but my head is already tired and I fall asleep as soon as he drops me.
~~~
I wake up in the middle of the night a thumping sound, loud.
Marcilene beside me her arm wrapped around me and hugging me, my head stays still.
I look around left then right.
Then another thump.
My eyes close, going back to sleep not before hearing India's voice in the other room.
Moaning and yelling:
"Steel!"