"Lord Pops!" Jody exclaimed with a childish giggle, sending ripples of laughter around the room.
His innocent speech was so simple that it felt like he wasn't aware of the subtlety of grammar at all. He would often chop up words or say something they had never heard before. All their tense posturing seemed invisible when he opened his mouth.
Lord Osiris slapped his head with his palm but suddenly couldn't help but return to his usual smile as he spoke again.
"What is it, my boy?"
"I had a dream," replied Jody in his most puerile voice.
He had learned this trick from his second sister, Kamila. Milly always told him stories of dreams, and he had gotten in the habit of copying her, mainly due to boredom and to keep up appearances. Jody was not about to reinvent a famous speech to save himself or anything like that. However, he had noticed that the atmosphere was off. He had to do something, and quick.
Without carefully thinking about it, he realized that all this should have something to do with the inferno of magic fire he had somehow and inadvertently slept through burning inside. He even slept from beginning to end. Not to mention the miraculous changes that occurred to his body in the process. That being the case, he knew that these people were on guard against him for some unknown reason related to that event. Perhaps the reason was the unknown itself?
Thinking, Jody came up with several possible ways to approach this issue. The best solution? Since they fear a monster, he would just be a child. Reciprocating the hostility isn't something that a toddler who had rarely been outside his own courtyard would do. Likely, a three-year-old child wouldn't even sense hidden hostility. Even if they did, Jody knew he couldn't perfectly imitate the fear of the innocent.
Since that was so, why show fear at all? It was better to play ignorant.
Sure enough, when the boy mentioned a dream, Lord Osiris and a few of the elders suddenly became interested and less guarded. Even though some of them were displeased, those were the minority.
"We do not have time for the ramblings of a child," interrupted Monte, who embodied the minor concept.
He had been mostly quiet.
But now, he frowned intensely as he turned and spoke to the lord, "Osiris, I hope you do not intend for us to…"
But Monte didn't finish his words. He abruptly felt his heart stop as if it was afraid of beating. He felt a soul-wrenching killing intent that made him feel like a tiny rabbit in front of a vicious pack of wolves that had him cornered.
"Lord Monte Trillwolf. Forgive me…but did you just disrespect our young lord?" said the same beautiful exalted disciple on the left of Elder Mercer and the Lord Osiris. She spoke in a voice that would be pleasant to the ears if it wasn't as sharp and merciless as a blade covered in blood.
This woman wore a blood-red suit that perfectly hugged her hourglass-shaped body under her loose black robes. She had long black hair, skin that looked smooth and beautiful like jade, green eyes, and the appearance of a twenty-year-old woman. Jody inwardly thought that this chick was a total bombshell! However, those green eyes of hers were cold and emotionless. In Jody's opinion, she was a murderer. Jody was confident that this woman was the most insane of killers. She was someone who would end someone's life on a whim.
This hot lady had the demeanor of a hitwoman but the face of a doll. This was the Hell's Daughter Charlotte Slaughter, an Exalted Disciple of House Trillwolf and a Five Element Wolf Pack member. Her official title was Hell's Daughter, while Charlotte Slaughter was her actual name. Although she appeared young and sexy, she was actually a bit over three hundred years old. She represented the Slaughter Faction, a woman-dominated faction founded by Honored Elder Aya Slaughter.
"Elder Charlotte, you misunderstand. Please forgive me, little lord, my lady," Monte Trillwolf chose to retreat in the face of such killing intent. However, he did not apologize to the lord, only to the lady and her son.
He would avoid offending these madwomen if he could, but he wouldn't bow his head to Osiris even if someone killed him. But damn, this was the hardest part about getting rid of Osiris! This mighty Five Element Wolf Pack accompanied him everywhere he went. They would simply never be too far away from the House Lord. They even had a higher status than normal elders! Monte could only withdraw.
"Come on up here, Josiah," said Lord Osiris, patting his lap.
"Lord Pops, it's okay. You can still say Jody, okay?" Jody responded cutely after running under everyone's chair and climbing onto his father's lap.
Lord Osiris laughed in his trademark boisterous manner, and his tension from before was finally easing. If nothing else, this was precisely the same little boy to whom he had already grown attached. Fallen One or not, he had already adored the brat. He could no longer bear to treat him indifferently, lest his boy's feelings got hurt for no reason. "Okay then, little Joe. Speak, but be quick. Hurry and tell Papa about your dream, kid."
Jody then recounted his experience in the black space while mixing in his experience with the shaman. He omitted the conversation between the two princes. He merely spoke of the sounds themselves, referring to them as indistinct. He only mentioned when a voice told him he was there too soon and then an explosion that condensed a wolf made of fire. He added in some aspects of his underworld visions to sweeten the taste. The lord, elders, and even Lady Isis were all shocked. They all took turns asking Jody what he was doing before passing out and how his body and mind felt.
Jody just told them he was meditating like his 'pops' would do at night. While holding the medicinal herb his father had given him, he felt some strange power seeping into him for the last few nights. He claimed that on that particular night, he felt like something cracked in his head before it ached so severely he passed out. Of course, Jody just led the conversation, allowing the elders to draw their own conclusions.
This was a mix of truth and lies. Jody was diabolical with such things, and he had far too much experience.
Lord Osiris had a contemplative look on his face as he held Jody's wrist, inspecting the state of the little guy's body with his Spiritual Sense. As he was scanning, he noticed that it almost seemed as if Jody looked curious and seemed to be following the flow of energy with his eyes. Osiris felt this to be a misconception before Jody spoke when the former's spiritual perception stopped next to the latter's heart.
"Pops, it tickles there, move it, quick, move it," Jody began to squirm and giggle in his father's embrace.
Lord Osiris was momentarily bewildered before withdrawing his spiritual sense.
He looks quizzically at his son, asking, "Jody, can you truly sense my spiritual probing?"
"It felt like worms crawling inside, but I can't see it," Jody made a face and shivered. "But it feels all slithery like snakes!"
Lord Osiris looked at the surrounding elders, who he found were also looking back at him. He then glanced at his Lady Isis, who was also stunned and speechless. Honestly, she had already noticed her son's spiritual perception was awakened, but she had too many things on her mind this morning. In a different life, her son awakening his perception around now wasn't so strange. However, he was indeed out of place here.
Meeting her husband's gaze, she sighed softly and sashayed her way over to pick up her son from the former's lap. Jody didn't resist and just let his mother grab him as he hugged her fragrant neck.
"Just us then, my dear. No one else," Lady Isis spoke to Lord Osiris very softly in relent.
"Leave us. My honored pack brothers and sister may, of course, remain." Lord Osiris commanded the surrounding elders, whose expressions all turned sour. They grumbled and complained as they all rose to depart. Moments later, only seven adults and one child were in the main chamber.
"My husband, will you explain what on Gaea is going on here?" As soon as the chamber doors closed again, Lady Isis had Jody in one hand and the other on her hip.
Lord Osiris sighed deeply before explaining, "My clan has contacted me."
Lady Isis turned pale.
"My father would like to be there during the assessments of my newborn children. He wants to respect my hegemonic position here and will instead raise the best of my offspring in the main branch. Unless another miracle happens, Josiah is definitely the best of my offspring."
"So, are we now a side branch of the Redoubt?" spat Lady Isis. There was obvious sarcasm in her tone. "Must I send my son away just because others had decided it?"
"My love, this is not something we should see as a disadvantage. You must consider that my clan looks down at us from a much higher view than the Anubis Dynasty," said Lord Osiris calmly. "My old man thought I died with my mother all those years ago…reconnecting in these last couple of years is a blessing."
"Dear, how exactly did they find you then?" asked Lady Isis, full of concern.
"This…" Lord Osiris hesitated before calling out to the friendly neighborhood butler, "Ke Si."
Ke Si suddenly appeared entirely out of nowhere behind Lord Osiris. With his arrival, Jody noticed that everything other than the space separating the three adults was now pitch black and silent. He couldn't even see the Five Element pack members.
"Force field!" his mother had mentioned force fields to him on the way over.
This was supposedly a Mage rank power, whatever that meant. This Ke Si was able to create a Shadow Force Field!