We quickly arrived back at the mansion…that seem shared by my mother and Ms.Azalea, I mean Ms. Myri.

I admittedly know little about relationships, having never been any, as well as the lack of exposure to serious ones during my time at the orphanage...and consequently ignoring any other ones… but even I could tell there was something going on there…maybe.

It would make sense from what I was told about the kingdom’s stance on sexuality…which is the same as the one Ms. Myri drilled into my head as a child. Especially with my mom’s position as Queen, or Ms. Myri’s standing as Queen Consort…or possibly the other way around, pushing ‘open-mindedness’ as the precedent would totally be possible.

To put a cherry on an already overflowing sundae, I’m about seventy-five percent sure that one of the children that were taken in after the conflict between the Asterians and the Aurelians were Mayari and her sister.

According to the starfish girl herself, she was soulfully adopted by her mother, replacing the soulia of one of her original biological parents, and she said her other mom did the same for her sister.

So if two plus two equals five…that would make those two my sisters? And Ms.Myri my second mom? And for that matter, Master would be my…aunt?

Maybe? 

 I can't help but doubt my deductions, simply because they didn’t tell me…

I’ll have to ask at some point, but I’ll be patient for now.

Whoops. Got thrown off topic there. 

After getting back to the mansion, we resumed our conversation over some food in what seemed to be a dining room.

Thankfully, the food was without poison so I could enjoy it to my heart’s content.

I squealed as I took a bite of one of my favorite recipes in my mother’s repertoire: fried cod and quiche.I closed my eyes to fully immerse myself in the flavor.

The cod was exactly how I remembered it, but the quiche had a more…exotic flavor than I recalled.

Swallowing the mouthful, I open my eyes and was greeted by three faces looking at me warmly.

“Hehe!” Mama giggled. “You noticed the difference in the quiche, didn’t you? It’s seaweed, not spinach.”

‘Well, that would explain it.’

“Yeah, yeah,” Master replied, turning to stare pointedly at me. “Enough about the quiche or keesh or whatever! I got some serious questions for little miss Maua here. Namely, how she figured out how to do magic, after the weeks of failures we’ve had up to this point.”

“Well, it will probably make more sense if I start from the beginning again…”

What followed was me explaining what exactly went on during my latest kidnapping, sparing no details. Including the girls that had been abused by the traffickers as well as the spell, I had used that made them vanish.

The three women latched onto several things that I had unknowingly pushed to the back of my mind and set aside. 

Namely, the voice inside my head, the lovely Cute Ex Machina. 

Having had her within my noggin since almost the beginning of my life on this planet, and the constant hiding of her existence honestly made me forget that I truly knew nothing about her, other than her advice always worked. She was really weird.

And from what the three musketeers said, my viewpoint was true even here on Fanalaau. It wasn’t normal to have another consciousness within oneself.

The discussion branched out to theories on the voice’s existence in the first place. 

A couple of interesting ones stuck out to me.

One being that she was a spiritoid of some sort that was haunting me.

Another being that she was a remnant or concentration of the consciousness of the old tree before it died. 

Eventually, the idea stream dwindled.

Master was the first to get, muttering something under her breath as she left the room after saying a brief good night to the rest of us.

Ms. Myri soon followed after, but not before brushing my bangs to the side and giving me a peck on the forehead.

The motion had me praying to…probably myself(?) that my guess were correct and that she and my mother were truly together. Having her as a second mother as well as a partner to my mom would be an absolute dream.

My mother got up shortly after that, taking my hand and leading me down the hall towards the room I woke up in hours before.

Planting a kiss on my cheek, which I reciprocated, she said goodnight and softly shut the door.

I threw myself unto the bed, mind full of questions from the discussion.

It shocked me how little I truly knew about my mind roommate among a number of other things.

Shell, I couldn’t even remember what Cute Ex Machina really sounded like, other than her voice being extremely cute.

Despite the inquires churning in my dome, the fatigue from the admittedly long night struck, sending me to slumber land.

I awoke in the morning to the smell of breakfast being prepared. I quickly got ready and made my way back to the dining area we ate in the night before.

On the table was an delightful feast of breakfast dishes.

I ate the little that my stomach would let me.

After the meal, Master had me try to transform back into my other form, the cute tree girl.

But to both of our distraught, I couldn’t. 

I had switched to this form by thinking about Cute Ex Machina, but I wasn’t sure how to do the reverse.

I raked my brain, trying every which way in an attempt to figure it out.

Attempt after attempt lead to failure, and before I noticed it was night yet again.

“Hah. Well, you certainly tried your best. Not much we can do about it,” Master said with a sigh. “Come on, let's go.”

This time instead of going to the room to sleep, I was led outside by my golden instructor to a carriage that seemed to be pulled by two giant groupers instead of horses. 

I recalled seeing something similar in the merchant’s guild area.

‘I feel like not using seahorses is such a missed opportunity. Unless they don’t have the horsepower. Actually, if I remember correctly, that’s probably it…seahorses are kind of pathetic and generally useless.’

Seahorse hate aside, I took note of the two familiar people standing next to the carriage.

They wrap both me and Master in an embrace, saying their farewells.

After a second, I realized that we were going back to the guild, while the two of them prepared for the journey to Hell.

I almost forgot the plan that we had amidst the commotion yesterday.

Reciprocating goodbyes, I boarded the carriage after donning a black cloak with a hood given to me by Ms. Myri.

The trip itself was rather uneventful. Other than the look of discomfort on the dragon lady sitting in front of me, seeming like she had something to say but didn’t really know how to go about it, nothing of note happened. I consequently dozed off several times.

—⁕🎕⁕—

The days that passed in the guild were…uninteresting to put it tamely.

In other words, it was completely boring. Master had me holed up in the room that I had shared with Mayari.

My meals were brought to the room, and I was only allowed to leave the room for training. Even then, I had to wear the cloak and had an escort, either Ms. Knave or Master herself, to and back to the room.

When I asked about the sudden secrecy, the answer I was given was something about another possible plan that would be explained when it was safe to do so.

Taking her word for it I endured, waiting pretty patiently.

A week and some change passed and I awoke to a knocking at my door. Having grown accustomed to the new situation, I quickly got ready and threw the dark mantle on.

As we walked down the hallways, I couldn’t stop a smile from blooming across my face as I realized.

We weren’t going to the training area…

‘It's time!’

Lulla

Hiya! Still alive here. School, life, yadda yadda yadda. Hope you all have been well! We're about to dip into some (hopefully) interesting content now. Next chapter will happen soonish? I'm attempting to build a bit of backlog, but I generally cant help but post when I'm done. But I'll actually be writing the next one as I post this one...so feel free to leave a comment or something...I'll leave a tab open so I can see the notifications pop up...and get back to replying to the ones I missed while I was gone. But otherwise, thanks for reading!!!