The journey back to Riverhold went on without issue for the remainder of the trip. There were a few times when I could sense some wolves following us during the day, or Elder Spidders approaching our camp during the night, but the wolves seemed afraid to get close, and Conner was able to easily scare off the Elder Spidders when they came.
No one expected our arrival in town, and we didn't come from a direction where there were paths, so we ended up arriving from behind Mr. Smith's old workshop, which had been maintained by the guard captain while he was gone.
"Everyone," I heard a voice shout from the town, "Diana and some of the others are back!"
After that, a large portion of the town showed up. It was just a few people at first, but it soon became a few hundred as word of our arrival quickly spread.
I saw Conner getting greeted by the guard captain, who soon asked about his son, "How's Bravo doing Conner? I put a large responsibility on him, how's he handling it?"
"He's taken to the role very well," Conner said, "He's leading Liam and I very well, and organized patrols and shifts with only the two of us that cover the entire settlement."
I heard Maddies' dad come up to greet her, "Madeline!"
"Daddy!" Maddie shouted as she all but dove into her father's arms. They hugged for a while before catching leaving the crowd, presumably to go home and catch up.
I couldn't see by mother in the crowd, but I could sense that she was running over, so I decided to run through the crowd to her, and we both stopped once we saw each other.
"Prestin."
"Mom."
"You grew out your hair."
"Yeah."
"How've you been?"
"Good, a lot has happened."
"Okay."
"Mom, let's go home and have Grandpa cook something."
"That sounds good."
I walked up and hugged my mother, and we stood there for minutes like that, as tears streamed down both our faces. I didn't realize until now how much I missed her.
We walked back home and I hugged Grandpa whe I saw him.
"How'd the hell your hair grow so much since you left? I used to have hair like that, and let me tell you, it took years to get it that long. How'd you do that in just a few weeks?"
'What's a week?' I thought before replying. "Let me start from the beginning."
I told them about the drakes we found and about the existence of Spirits and what the Dryad me about the Gods and Royal Spidders and the connection between them and the amber that allowed me to grow plants.
They sat dumbfounded when I finished, I glanced out the window, and it had become dark out, so I had been talking for about three or four hours.
I got up to get a bowl of water, drank it, sat back down , and then Grandpa finally said something, "Prestin, did all that adventuring rot your brain?"
"Itsuki! Prestin may be imaginative, but he wouldn't tell this grand story as an explanation. Besides, you were there when Pyaira opened a portal to this world. Why wouldn't it also have other gods and dragons?"
"Go easy on me, Sarah. I'm an old man. I'm just messin' with the boy. Everyone in town, including me, saw the dragon lookin' things flying around the sky the last week or so. At this point, I'd believe it if I was told magical fairies would come into your houses while we sleep and take our teeth."
'Where did he get that from? Fairies taking your teeth? Terrifying.' "Grandpa, what do you mean you saw dragons flying overhead? And what's a week?"
"Sarah, why don't you explain to 'im? I gotta go help the lad with the evening crowd and free up Keith from the kitchen." Grandpa said.
My mother nodded and then turned to me to explain what's been going on with the restaurant and the town.
"Let's see, where should I begin," my mother said to herself, "about five weeks, three and a half decems, ago, the Voyagers who grew up with a different grouping of days requested that we stop using decems and start using weeks, which group days into seven, and have specific names to make it easier to keep track of them: Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. After a few days of debate with the mayor, everyone decided to use the week as there will still be an even number of weeks in a year. While they did that, they also made the season deadlines more accurate, as they rounded earlier to make it easier to use."
So what that means is that the calendar now has 50 weeks per year, with Spring being 76 days, almost 11 weeks, Straat being 71 days, about 10 weeks, Jown having 54 days, exactly 9 weeks, Harvest being 74 days and Winter being 75 days, both being a bit over 10 weeks.
"I'm glad I don't have to change my birthday because of this." I said, "I just made the cutoff. But what about the dragons?"
"Well, about a week ago, there were dozens of dragon-like creatures flying overhead at night. For a moment I thought it was a bunch of bats, but they were farther away than I thought, and its wingbeats were very loud. Someone said they saw one grab a deer outside of town and take it with them."
'Could it be...' my thoughts trailed off, "Who saw it? I want to know more about what they saw."
"I'm not completely sure, but it may have been Kytte, the member of the guard who often patrols that part of town. I heard about it from Paul, so its a possibility."
"Okay, thanks." 'I'll have to ask Bravo to get me to meet with them soon. If that was a harpy migration, then maybe things could make sense about why it attacked.' "And who is Keith?"
"Oh Keith is one of Kyles friends who would come into the restaurant, distracting Kyle from his work. One day he claimed that he could 'cook food better than this' so Itsuki picked him up by his collar and put him to work in the kitchen. Now he works here as a assistant chef and waiter."
'Yeah that's something Grandpa would do.' "Well I'm gonna jump back to work before calling it a night. It'd be nice to see the usual crowds again."
"Shouldn't you rest? You've been traveling all day."
"No, I'm fine. I still have plenty of energy, don't worry."