Light floods into the trunk of the car when someone from the outside opens it. Roan covers his eyes with his free hand and squints.
When his eyes adjust to the sudden change in light intensity, the silhouette morphs into Atari Dean. "Good, you are awake." He lets Roan climb out before closing the trunk with a light thud.
Roan spins around, looking at his new surroundings. The trees are recognizable as such, but Roan has never seen this type of tree before.
The trunk of the trees are thick and tall and the leaves grow vertically instead of growing outwards. Roan sees stone fox statues looking at him and jumps away when one moves its head. "What, what are they?"
"Alpine Kitsune, they are very elegant and intelligent creatures." Amelia tells him, smiling over the roof of the car when the Alpine Kitsune runs off into the shadows of the woods.
Roan expertly doges an aerial attack from a green blob in the sky. When he takes a closer look, there is a green creature with six small arms, blue oval eyes, a pair of small opaque green pixie wings, whiskers, and two large ears like a fennec fox, sitting on a nearby branch. "And what is that demon?"
Atari Dean chuckles. "That is Ralph."
"Ralph is a Teromyin. An exceedingly rare creature in the wild. There are few of them left which is a shame." When Ralph lands on her shoulder, Amelia smiles and scratches his stomach. "They are sweet creatures but also tricksters, you have to keep both eyes on them." Dean chuckles when Ralph climbs on her head and covers her eyes with two of his small paws.
"My wife and I own a creature sanctuary. We have all sorts of creatures from different worlds here." Dean tells Roan who side eyes Ralph. "Some of them better behaved than others, lets just say."
"I knew things would be different in different but this place is truly..." Roan's eyes land on the Pack house. "...magical."
The structure is made of tanned wood and from what Roan can tell, there are a lot of rooms inside. He looks through the glass windows and see that they have amber lamps inside like the ones hanging outside.
"Let's go inside, everyone should be eating right about now." Atari Dean leads the way, opening the front door and taking Roan to the kitchen.
Roan starts feeling anxious as the loud voices coming from that direction get louder. When they enter the room, the people in the room stop talking and look at them, making Roan feel even more self-conscious. There are four boys that look about Roan's age and a younger girl sitting on the table.
The closest boy to Roan growls at him, he is fairly intimidating with his green looking eyes, dark brows and loosely curled black hair. Amelia appears behind Roan and shakes her head. "Aiden, what have I told you about growling at people?"
"Don't."
"Exactly. He is our guest, make him feel welcome." Amelia gives Aiden something the others call "the Look". You do not want to challenge your luck with the look, chances are you will find yourself elbows deep in the faeces of some type of animal if you try it.
Aidan mumbles an incoherent response before turning around and grunting underneath his breath.
"Kids, make some room." Dean sits in his throne like seat at the head of the table, gesturing for his eldest son, Mason, and his youngest son, Zayn, to move their chairs. When they do, Amelia places a spare chair they have laying around down at the table for Roan to sit down on.
Amelia pats the head of the chair. "Here, you can sit right here." Roan sits down slowly, looking at both boys sitting next to him in the corner of his eyes. Mason has light brown eyes and a curly bundle of hair on his head. He sits up taller than Roan does, his head a foot or two higher, but he seems like a nice person, smiling kindly down at Roan before looking back at his plate.
Zayn does not pay any attention to Roan whatsoever. Just like the previous two, he has thick eyebrows, his hair a shade of dark mahogany, less curly than Mason's hair but still curly and has dark hazel eyes. Roan also notices the two small earrings on his lobes.
The girl across the table pushes her plate away and folds her arms. "We saw you all over the news." Her hazel eyes are closer to her fathers than the others, sharing the same orange specks around her pupils. She has large ears that stick out a little and has a long mane of curly hair that hangs halfway down her arm.
Roan clenches his jaw, expecting to have to defend his actions. "I am sorry that happened to you. We are all sorry...about the elf thing and the...other thing."
"Oh." Roan feels his shoulders relax, letting go of the sword wrapped in the thin layer of a cream cloth he found. "Okay."
"I thought you were a total badass when you jumped off the edge." she smiles, leaning in closer.
Roan shakes his head, attempting to brush off her complement. "It was nothing-"
"Nothing! No, that was legendary, that was epic, that was...everything I wish I could do."
"Nery." When Nery looks at her father, he raises a brow.
"What, it was." Nery turns back to Roan, blatantly ignoring the social que given to her. "Is that a sword? Can I see it? Can you teach me how to fight with it? My dad won't let me because he thinks I'm delicate or something, but I could take down these four morons easily."
Aiden growls again. "If you want to fight, we can go right now."
Nery smile brightens. "Bet." When Nery jumps up so does Aiden, their iris glowing amber like the nectar of the gods.
One of them must have bumped the table because a drink spills. "Aiden, Nery, sit down, both of you." Amelia sighs, shaking her head before taking a long sip of wine from her glass.
"I guess you're going to have to clean that up Josh." Aiden glares at the fourth boy on the table sitting next to Nery.
Roan can tell just by looking at him that he has no blood relation to the family. He is not tanned like the others, his complexion is fair and pale, with honey blonde, slick backed hair and rounder ears. He too has hazel eyes, the outside of his eyes are a blueish green but the orange specks around his pupil are pale and less vibrant than Nery's and Dean's.
Amelia glares at Aiden. "Aiden, one more word out of you. Try me. I dare you."
Roan watches Josh stands up and clean the spill with a paper towel before sitting back down. "What is that?" Roan points at the triangle thing on Nery's plate that has all sorts of weird plants and herbs glued to it with a weird yellow substance.
"You do not know what Pizza is?" she asks him.
Roan shakes his head. "Definitely not."
"He is from Varian Nery, of course he doesn't know what Pizza is." Mason retorts.
"We're in a different dimension from Earth and we still know what Pizza is." she counters.
"That is because the Borderlands and the rest of our Capital is an open policy Capital which means our world is not that different from Earth and the rest of the Capitals under the control of the Initials but Varian is Sovereign state, their world is alien in comparison." Zayn informs her.
"I have never had an elf friend before." Nery says, ignoring her brothers and refocusing on Roan. "Mostly because I have not met any elves before since I'm not allowed out of this prison!"
"Sovereign state." Zayn repeats.
"And you won't with that attitude." Atari Dean warns her, sipping from his own glass before explaining himself to Roan. "There are elves all over Elvgiader whose ancestors didn't choose to live in Varian when they closed their borders all those years ago."
"Do you want something to eat?" Amelia asks Roan, already on her feet again. "We have Pizza, but I can make you something else."
Roan does not have to think hard about what he wants. "Pancakes."
Amelia holds her breath. "Pancakes?"
Roan nods his head. "I heard from a friend that you make the best."
"Pancakes." Amelia repeats, smiling, her eyes glossing over when she looks at her husband. "Pancakes, coming right up."