"Well, the good news is that she's coming back in three or four months. She and Luke bought a house up here, close to the tree line, so they could look for you easily." Serai felt as if Sasha could feel how shocked she was to hear that her mom moved so far away.
"Really! She's coming back soon? And with Luke?" Serai felt relieved that there was at least some good news.
"If you want, you can stay at my place till she comes back." Sasha offered.
"Oh, thank you, but I'll have to pass on your offer." Serai didn't want to admit that she really liked the last few days with Lunar, Rose, Birk, and Aster and she enjoyed spending time with them and helping with chores around the camp.
"Then where will you stay?" Sasha asked and Serai remembered that she hadn't told her that she had been staying with Lunar and his family.
"I've been staying with Lunar the past few days, so I'll just stay there till Mum's back" Serai explained. Sasha let out a sigh,
"Well, at least let me show you the house they bought so you know where to check for her." Sasha led them out to the tree line, close to the clearing that she used to meet up with Lunar, and a little bit farther, they stopped at a beautiful, two-story house, with a charming porch in the front, and huge, gorgeous windows covering one side of the bottom story, and a small creek right by the house leading to a well-sized pond a little ways off.
"This is the house they bought. It was their favorite one by the tree line." Sasha explained.
"How could mom afford this? It's huge!" Serai asked.
"Well, actually, my brother bought it. But your mom picked it out. Plus all the houses by the forest are pretty cheap cause nobody wants to live next to a "haunted forest", so they got it for a pretty good deal." Sasha explained.
"Wow" Serai couldn't help but be excited.
"I don't have the key right now, so we can't go in," Sasha stated
"That's fine," Serai responded
"Well, we should probably head back, thanks for showing me the house, and all the information you gave me. It helped a lot."
"No problem, I'm happy to help. You can come and visit at any time!" Sasha told Serai and she thanked her for everything. Then Serai and Lunar headed back to camp. By the time she and Lunar made it back to camp, it was a little past lunchtime. Thankfully Rose and the others had saved some food for them.
"So where did you guys go so early in the morning? We first thought you were part of the dawn patrol, but you weren't with them when they came back." Rose stated.
"We wanted to get a head start on looking for Serais mom," Lunar told them.
"Well did you find anything out?" Birk asked.
"Actually, yes we did! We found out that she had to move into the city with my father, and they bought a house here and there coming back in three or four months!" Serai announced with excitement.
"That's great!" Aster replied.
"Yea it is!" Rose agreed
"So are you gonna stay with us in the time she's not here?" Birk asked.
"Yea, she is," Lunar answered before she could. After Lunar and Serai ate, they all went to their shared tent that they combined the other day.
"So do you know what's happening with Serai and the meeting tonight?" Rose asked Lunar.
"Oh, actually I don't know, I completely forgot about the meeting," Lunar admitted.
"That's strange, your usually the one to remind everyone that forgot." Aster laughed a bit as he spoke.
"So what is this meeting your all talking about?" Serai asked, feeling left clueless to what was going on.
"Moon and Ive never told you?" Rose looked shocked.
"Uh, no they didn't," Serai replied.
"Well twice a season, all the Elve clans meet up and talk about possible threats or anything that happened that the other clans would be interested in," Lunar explained to Serai.
"It's also almost the only time the clans ever interact," Birk added.
"Oh" Serai felt a little less confused,
"Well, Moon told me that you could come if you wanted to, but you could also stay here," Aster stated.
"And there's gonna be one other time in about a month and a half that you will have the choice to come again," Rose stated.
"But isn't the next one gonna be in the spring?" Lunar asked, confused.
"No there's gonna be three this winter, I don't know why though" Rose replied.
"I think I'll come with you guys," just the thought of staying here without them made her feel weird.
"Ok, I'll go tell Moon and Ive then," Rose said, walking out of the tent.
"What are we gonna tell the other clans? Were not suppose to bring humans," Birk asked.
"I didn't think about that," Lunar replied.
"I'm sure Moon has a plan." By the time they all set out to go to the meeting, it was shortly before midnight, but Serai was full of energy. She couldn't wait to meet the other tribes! But she was also a little nervous. 'what if the other clans don't like me 'cause I'm a human? Or I get lost in the forest and one of the other tribes find me, and take me captive?' Serai cleared her mind. she was sure that Lunars tribe would take good care of her. Suddenly, something sidetracked her from her thoughts. Someone was looking at her, Serai had never seen him before, he had long pitch-black hair, longer than Lunars, and was taller than Lunar to, he had pale skin, and he had ice blue eyes and long canine teeth, longer than any other elf she had seen, he looked like a vampire. But it was obvious that he was part of Lunars tribe, cause he was walking with them. She tried to smile and wave at him, but as soon as he saw that serai knew that he was looking at her, he turned away and quickly shuffled off into the crowd. 'he's good looking' she thought, staring at the spot he was standing in.
"Serai," Serai was nocked out of her thought.
"Huh?"
"You were just staring, what were you looking at?" Lunar asked.
"Oh, nothing, let's go." Serai took one more glance at where she saw the elf. 'that was strange.' Serai thought. When they got to the meeting, Serai felt awkward, and out of place the whole time. And when someone would try to talk with her, she would just awkwardly smile and walk closer to Lunar and Rose. But strangely, she didn't see the guy that was looking at her before, not even once! She tried to find him, but it was almost like he disappeared. When serai heard that they were finally going back, she was extremely relieved. By the time they got back, it was just before dawn, but thankfully the ones who went to the meeting got to sleep when they got back to campus, instead of doing dawn patrols, or early morning hunting. So Serai instantly went to the tent that she shared with the others to relax. It was quite a far walk from campus to the meeting place, and they didn't stop once.
"So, how did you like your first meeting?" Birk asked her.
"Too many people." Serai tried to reply as short as she could.
"The first time is always hard," Rose admitted.
"So, did anything interesting happen?" Aster asked Lunar, cause he didn't go this time,
"well, they're gonna start doing meetings every month now, but that's all," Lunar replied.
"what do you mean that's all? that's big! Why do they want to do it every month now?" Birk asked
"I don't know, they just agreed on that for some reason," Lunar told Birk.
"Well, I'm gonna go to bed. I don't know how you guys can be so energetic." Serai told them, slipping into her sleeping mat.
"Well good night!" Lunar said. but Serai couldn't help but think about the guy she saw earlier, like why did she not see him at the meeting? Or why she never saw him at the camp? 'Maby he wasn't part of this tribe, Lunar had told her about Elves that just roam around, maybe he was one of them and not part of any clan.' She thought before falling into a deep sleep.