I stood in the living room of my hotel room, looking through the void towards my old home.
Elaria walked up to the door and knocked; Nyla was laying on the roof. The roof was only slanted a little in the middle of it, and it was easy enough to lay on. I'd even set a chair on it before to watch fireworks.
The door opened, and a woman appeared. It was easy to recognize my mom even though she'd aged quite a bit.
She immediately saw Zari in Elaria's arms, "Oh my god, this can't be happening." She burst into tears, reaching out and wrapping her arms around Zari, crying next to her head while Elaria held Zari.
Elaria shifted how she held Zari so she only needed one arm, suddenly apologized, and whacked her on the head, getting her attention, "Ma'am, she's perfectly fine; she just fell asleep. Where is her bedroom? I'll take her there."
She straightened up and wiped tears from her eyes, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Come this way."
Elaria followed her up the stairs and into a room where she pulled back the sheets and gently placed her on the bed. Mom pulled the sheets up and fussed with them for a few seconds, making sure she was tucked in comfortably.
She turned to Elaria and started interrogating her, "Who are you? What happened? Why did you bring my daughter to my house? Why is she sleeping so hard?"
"Elaria Windstone. Someone tried to hurt her, and she passed out; my Master saw and sent me to deliver her and make sure she's ok when she wakes up."
Mom spoke again with a flood of questions, "Are you sure she's not injured? You said she passed out; what if she hit her head when she fell? Maybe I should take her to the hospital? When will she wake up?"
"I know she is physically fine. The Master caught her before she hit anything. She should wake up in the morning."
"How can you be sure she's not injured, though?"
"A good servant should know how to tell these things easily. Especially the head servant."
Magic makes it pretty easy to tell if a person has any physical injury. Also, its just a minor sleep spell cast on a mortal.
Seething anger appeared in her eyes, "Who could hurt her?"
"Pete something."
Her arms moved in a pounding motion, "Pete Diggel? How dare he hurt my little girl!"
Elaria made a small humming sound, "Well, I really doubt he'll have the ability to again."
It took her a few seconds to realize what Elaria meant, "No, no, he can't be harmed! His family is influential in the state, and his father is friends with the governor."
"Thank you for the concern, but it won't matter even if his father were the president."
"They'll do everything in their power to hunt down whoever hurts their son."
Elaria shrugged nonchalantly, "It doesn't matter. If the Master wants someone dead, they'll die. If they offend the Master to the extent this guy did, they won't simply die."
Mom held her face in her hands and sighed, seeing she couldn't convince her, "You keep saying The Master and seem to be convinced of his influence. I'll pray he'll be fine since he must be a good person to have helped my little girl."
Elaria started smiling like some weird fanatic, "He's really nice. Even when I destroyed the countertop in the penthouse at the Grand States Hotel, he didn't get mad and replaced it himself. He punished the people who killed everyone in my village and helped me get stronger. He helped several people find their place in the world. But if you harm his people, then your death won't be easy."
Elaria must know I'm watching; it's embarrassing to hear her speak.
Mom started holding Zari's hand while she sat on the edge of the bed looking away from Elaria with a bit of a funny look, "Umm, well, he sounds very nice. Do you need to go back?"
"No, Ma'am, I've been instructed to stay until Miss Zari awakes and ensure she is alright."
"You don't have to; I'm sure he needs your help."
"No, Ma'am, my subordinates will handle everything."
It was silent for a few minutes, and Elaria took a few steps back so she was in the corner of the room.
A few more minutes went by until mom thought of something else, "Do you want something to drink?"
"No, Ma'am."
Mom stood up, biting her fingernails, "I'm getting coffee for myself. I can't sit here. Are you sure you don't want something? And please stop calling me Ma'am."
"May I please watch how you make coffee? It is something I recently learned and can't seem to get right."
"Sure... but I can't really tell you much."
They walked into the kitchen, and I took a quick look around the house. There wasn't a single picture without me in it; there used to be many individual pictures, but now they were family photos. As Elaria passed by, and a sweet smile spread across her lips.
They reached the kitchen, and Elaria stood on the edge; mom turned on the water kettle and poured some grounds into a filter in the top half of a glass hourglass-looking thing.
"I'll make pour-over coffee since you're here."
Soon the water was finished, and she slowly poured it into the grounds. It seeped through the filter, and I could hear it dripping into the bottom of the bowl.
Soon she finished and poured two cups of it, handing one to Elaria, "I know you said you didn't want anything, but here is one if you decide you do."
"Thank you."
Elaria took a sip, "It's different than mine; I'll try making it like that and see if the Master thinks it's better."
Elaria led the way back to Zari's room, looking at the pictures on the wall and started smiling again. I don't know why she likes those pictures; I look so ugly in them. Stop looking; it's embarrassing!
Mom saw she was looking at all the pictures as she walked up the stairs and said sounding very sad, "That's Max and Zari. Max is no longer with us."
"I'm sorry."
"He's in a better place."
Well, she's not technically wrong on that one; if she wasn't meaning I was dead.
Elaria took up her corner again, and mom sat on the bed, holding Zari's hand on one of hers, sipping her coffee in the other.
Back where I was standing, Luna called out softly from behind me, "Max, do you want a chair? I brought one from the dining room."
She placed it behind me, and I sat down, continuing to watch, "Thanks."
Luna went off to the bedroom where Lila was, and they started talking.
After a while, they were both finished with their coffee, and Elaria folded her hands in front of her, standing like a statue.
"Would you like a chair?"
"No thank you."
A little while later, mom lay down on the edge of the bed facing Zari, still clutching her hand, and started stroking her hair as she slept.
She started talking to Zari, "You scared me so much. You cant die too. I thought the last thing we ever said to each other would be a long argument last night. Just be safe, ok? We'll keep them like you want; you don't have to worry."
Maybe that's why she was tired today, stressed out about something.
A couple of hours later, mom fell asleep, and I began looking around Zari's room.
The walls were empty except for five pictures of the two of us hung over her desk. There was a short bookshelf with some textbooks and a few books she must have stolen from my room; I looked on my shelf, and they were still there, so she must have bought copies for some reason.
Under her bed were one set of the guns I dropped off, and I looked around for the others. I found one in my room under the bed in the same arrangement as hers, and the other still in the box next to the door.
I started looking through Zari's room more and looked in the closet. Where did all her ridiculous t-shirts go? She used to have a bunch with all kinds of sayings; now there are some dark-colored t-shirts and hoodies, along with jeans. I looked everywhere but didn't find any; even if she grew out of them, she should have gotten more.
I found two of the four desk drawers were almost full of letters, but I didn't look through them. Why ever she has so many letters had nothing to do with me, especially if they were love letters. Then I'd have a list of people to kill; that's too much trouble if they don't do it again.
Another five hours passed, and mom woke; she sat up and looked in surprise at Elaria who still hadn't moved.
"Elaria, are you sure you don't want to sit down? Do you want something to eat?"
"No thank you."
"I'm going to get something; tell me if you change your mind."
She went out of the room and put some toast in the toaster, coming right back up. The toaster bell rang, and she went back down to put it on a plate, and came up.
A few minutes later, Zari rolled over and covered her head with the blanket.
Mom set the plate down on the dresser with a bang and pulled the blankets off her head looking at her face and shaking her, "Zari! Are you ok?"
Zari groaned, "What?"
Then she sat bolt upright, seeming to remember the events of yesterday; tears came to her eyes, "Mom I -" Her voice choked, and she rolled all the way to the other side of the bed, hiding under the blankets. The blankets shook as crying came from underneath.
Elaria knew what she was thinking, "Nothing happened to Miss Zari. Master came by."
Mom gently touched her through the blanket, "Zari, nothing happened. Someone else came by, and you passed out; they had someone bring you home."
The crying faded and changed bit but didn't stop, "I still can't go back. He'll be furious he was stopped and it will happen again."
I started looking up something on my phone and sent a news article to Elaria.
Elaria picked up her phone when it beeped, and I saw she had me saved under 'Master,' followed by several heart emojis.
She clicked on the article and read it. It was about Pete being found when his parents came out of the house to go to work this morning. It didn't give very much detail other than he was found encased in epoxy and was now in the hospital, never expected to move again and was unable ti give a statement to police.
It went on to speculations about there being a serial-killer who is starting in the city and would set his victims up like art. First, this is the first guy I've done something to that couldn't be a natural event, and second, he wasn't dead. I guess it was the normal fill people with fear and nonsense and they'll subscribe thing.
She handed it to Mom, and she started reading it to Zari.
Halfway through, Zari poked her head out from under the blanket, "Someone did this for me? Do they know his family and they still did it?"
Elaria replied, "I suppose you can say it was for you, and his family is only a little ant compared to the Master."
She looked over at Elaria, "What's his name?"
"Alexander Cyrus."
Zari nodded, "Please thank him for me. I don't know what would happen if he wasn't there." Her voice changed almost to a whisper, "Well, I do know."
Elaria nodded, "Sure, you seem fine, so I will take my leave now."