Nebbie woke up from his slumber finding he was no longer with his mother and had been moved to what looked to be a dungeon, complete with a single bared up window near the top center of the room that just barely managed to let in the dusty echoes of morning sunlight.
He had been given what was by all means a fairly nice crib to sleep in. The source of his waking up was shown to him as a Maid spoke to the doctor by the door.
"Just make sure to drink one vial every other week," The Doctor informed the maid as she handed off what looked to be a blue cooler for holding drinks. "He's completely healthy and has no birth defects, as of now his hair and eyes are the only things noticeably wrong with him so keep an eye on him, if anything starts going weird with his body tell me at once," The Maid wished the Doctor a good night and, once the door was shut she set the cooler down on a counter and opened it.
Nebbie left her to do whatever it was she was doing and looked around the room. A poor excuse for a bed had been set up next to his crib, and past that the Room had one bookshelf with four or five books, a wooden rocking chair, and a small counter with two cabinets underneath it.
"Swanky," Nebbie noted as the Maid drank a Vial and approached Nebbie's crib
"Good Morning my lord," The Maid greeted, Nebbie was filled with fear that the maid was about to try and 'feed' him as she picked him up, but instead of doing what he thought she was going to do she pulled out a bottle of scarlet red looking liquid and placed it to Nebbie's lips.
Nebbie did what any baby would do with a bottle and drank from it, finding the liquid delicious he was still concerned about what it might be.
"I thought it might get weird if I feed you directly," The Maid informed Nebbie, "So your mother was kind enough to use a pump, the potion to keep it fresh also cause the milk to turn blood red but I felt as a Demon you might enjoy the look of blood in your drink, thought I apologize if that presumption is racist, I have never meet a Demon before,"
"I'm not a Demon," Nebbie mentally complained "But I thank you for not feeding me directly, that would have made this a million times more awkward," The Maid took a seat in the rocking chair and watched as Nebbie drank his fill.
"I suppose I should introduce myself, I am Mary, I come from a long lineage of Maids and Butlers, forgive the lack of a last name, as you are a Demon you may already be aware of this but only people with lady or lord tiles and above are allowed the honor of a surname,"
"That's stupid," Nebbie noted.
"As I am not entirely sure as to how my lady got her hands on the spell that allowed her to conceive you and the others without having to be intimate or Lord James, I am taking what little I have overheard and assuming you are the one who crafted the spell, as a way to reincarnate into this world using the promise of impregnating an infertile woman, although as my lady was able to have children it seems your spell caused more than just you to be born,"
"I didn't do anything," Nebbie shot back "not that you can hear me, and I doubt you'd believe me if you could, probably just pass it off as, oh that's just what a demon would say, or something," With his bottle emptied Nebbie let out a sigh.
"Do you need more?" Mary asked "I don't think the potion will take effect for another few hours, and the only other bottle I have prepared for you is lunch," Nebbie babbled incoherently at her as she pulled the bottle away and set him back into his crib. Placing his head on the crib's single large Pillow before tucking him into the thin blanket the crib had.
"I apologize if your cold, it was a lengthy fight between your mother and lord James, had he gotten his way you wouldn't even have the clothes on your back, but since he will do anything within his power to keep up appearances it was pointed out to him that treating you like a monster will reflect poorly on him from a personal and political viewpoint,"
Mary held up her index finger and it began glowing golden as she drew a circle on the head of Nebbies crib.
"I shall be out attending to my daily duties as the Head maid of the household, should you require anything, simply cry and I shall drop everything to tend to your needs," Mary gave Nebbie a bow before departing from the room without another word.
Nebbie looked around the dingy room that was to be his and, despite his best efforts couldn't quit pin point if this was the good or the bad path.
"I'm a Nobel," Nebbie noted "But I've been put in the basement from the looks of things, but I also have a personal Maid. My Father wants to get rid of me, but my Mother loves me," Nebbie gave up the fight, there were too many things that pointed one way or the other only to have something else bump it back to neutrality.
"I was only born yesterday," He decided as he looked up at the window by the ceiling, it was far too dirty to give him anything past dusty light and the metal bars certainly didn't help that fact. "I suppose I'll just have to play the waiting game and see how my life plays out," Nebbie rolled onto his side so that his face was facing away from the window and let sleep consume him.
A few weeks had passed since his birth and Nebbie was fairly impressed at the rate of growth he and his siblings had gone through compared to babies from his past life, They had already grown to the point that the Maids where lurking around with devices he felt where close enough in purpose and shape to call cameras in an attempt to snap a pic of he and his siblings first steps.
Despite his fathers dislike of him, he had left within a few days and wasn't expected to return home for another few weeks at the earliest. With his father away none of the staff seemed to particularly mind that Nebbie was a Demon Lord waiting to blossom, in fact most seemed to find the entire ordeal exciting beyond belief.
"Just imagine," One of the Maids whispered as Mary Carried Nebbie through the garden for his first playdate with his siblings "One day we might be serving a Demon lord, I bet his castle will be so big it'll take an entire army just to clean the first floor, and we'll probably just have to clean his bedchambers or something," as the Maids kept going on their debate of what Nebbie would require them to do once he became a Demon Lord Mary looked down at Nebbie.
"It's going to rain tonight," Mary noted calmly "Once I've taken you to your mother and siblings I'll take the next hour to make sure Mordecai gives your window a once over, make sure no water leaks into the room," Nebbie stared back at her, doing his best to keep up his outward appearance as some sort of frightening demon, if only to keep the dream in his mothers servants hearts alive that they would some day work for some big shot demon lord.
Mary handed Nebbie off to the Nursery Maid, who took Nebbie to his brother and two sisters, despite his best efforts he couldn't tell Molly and Hanna apart so he wasn't sure who was having the time of their life violently shaking a rattle and who was sleeping atop of a teddy bear, Eric was discovering the wonders that was colored rings as he shook two different sized rings of varying colors in each hand, babbling as he looked at all the other rings and tried to piece together how to hold more than two.
Before being placed in the play pin with his siblings the nursing Maid brough Nebbie to his mother.
"Lady Zoey," The Maid passed Nebbie to his Mother and, once again, he failed to keep his face straight as he mother looked him in the eye and he once again laughed at her as he tried to grab at her face, unable to keep himself from the childish urge to hold onto her and never let her go.
"Hello sweetie," She held Nebbie up and let him put his arms around her neck as she gently held him, she rocked him up and down for a few moments before giving him a kiss on the cheek, earning another cheerful laugh from Nebbie as she handed him back to the Nursery Maid, Nebbie instantly regain his composure and went back to staring blankly as he was set in the play pin and the Nursing maid joined a few others who had been tasked with making sure nothing got out of hand in the play pin, Eric and his sleeping sister paid him no mind.
His sister with the rattle dropped it and clumsily crawled over to inspect her new playmate.
"Hello," Nebbie waved at her and in doing so his hand became a million times more interesting than the rest of him as his sister reached out to grab at it, being midway through crawling forward this resulted in her other hand failing to keep her body up and she fell flat on her face.
She began crying almost instantly, feeling to blame for the incident Nebbie did the only thing he could think to do and leaned forward, catching himself in order to crawl forward, his plan backfired when his long white mane of hair flopped into his face and he tumbled to the ground.
After a moment of swearing at himself he got himself back up and hap-hazardly waddled to his desired location, retrieving his tool he slowly returned to his sister, who had picked herself up and was now crying out as she tried to get the nursery maids attention, all of them were standing quietly, simply watching for some reason.
Nebbie made it back to his sister, sat next to her, and held out the rattle before shaking it to get her attention, his sister's cries slowly faded and she took the rattle. For a brief second Nebbie thought he had solved the problem without issue and was good to laze about. This was proven false when his sister cheered, and swung the ratte into his face, knocking him over and officially becoming the second person to make Nebbie do something other than stare blankly.
As his sister laughed and played with the Rattle, Nebbie crawled away, got back into a sitting position, and stared at his sister with an irritable look on his face before looking to the nursing Maids and found out why they hadn't interfered.
"He was trying to help," One of the Maids cooed.
"That's so cute," as the Maids went on a tirade on how adorable it was for Nebbie to try and cheer up his sister, he managed to get her name and watched as Molly seemingly remember what she had been doing in the first place and once again lost interest in the rattle, crawling over to Nebbie once again, Nebbie didn't wave this time around to avoid a repeat as his sister crawled up to him and put her hands on his face and pulled on his hair.
Nebbie chose to just keep staring at her irritably in the hope she'd lose interest, his reward for being patient was Molly making a weird noise before sneezing in his face.
"I hate this," he decided as Molly laughed and pushed him flat onto the ground, flopping on top of him and continuing to play with his hair. After a while she stopped and he thought she might leave to go play, before hearing the soft noises she was making and realizing she had fallen asleep on top of him, Nebbie held out his right hand and began smacking the floor in the hope the maids might rescue him.
"They're so cute,"
"Mary," Nebbie cried out " Mary Come back, Come back and save me!" Due to his current babyness Nebbie was unable to free himself from Molly and was forced to spend the entire two hours that was his playdate beneath her, lucky his babyness also allowed him to swiftly pass the time with the same power Molly had used, the power of falling asleep. Nebbie was awoken with a start when his hair was violently pulled at with a symphony of screaming.
Molly had apparently been awoken by the nurse entering the play area and upon trying to be picked up had grabbed Nebbie's hair and seemed to be trying to bring it up with her, he screaming being from outrage at trying to be moved from her new bed. Molly was put back down and she firmly held onto Nebbie's hair with all of her might, thankfully her will was easily defeated when their mother entered the play area and brushed out some of her hair, Molly quickly lost interest in her brother and Zoey picked her up, Molly babbled out incoherently as she played with her mothers hair.
With Molly no longer pulling at him Nebbie patted his head with a huff as Mary arrived on the scene and picked him up.
"Are you alright my lord?" She asked, Nebbie let out an agitated huff but past that didn't seem too angry about the incident.
"She's a baby" Nebbie consoled himself "Give it a day an she'll lose all interest in hair and become astounded by her own feet or something," As Nebbie comforted himself on the hope that this kind of thing would never happen again Molly started crying as She was handed off to her nursing maid, who's hair was to short for Molly to grab onto, a few rocking motions was all that was needed to get the baby to slip back to sleep. Mary wished her mistress a good day and left with Nebbie still in her arms.
"Pardon me a moment my lord," Mary request of Nebbie "But Mordecai needs some time to properly deal with the windows, apparently he was unaware it existed and despite the time restraints upon your playdate insisted he just needed an extra hour to properly repair and clean it,"
"If he's the gardener and the repair man I can't really fault him for missing one window in a freaking mansion, especially one that probably can't be properly seen from the outside," As his room was currently occupied by a mountainous man trying to fix a window located at ceiling level Mary instead took Nebbie with her as she checked on preparations for Zoey's Lunch.
The Kitchen was large, with around thirty men and woman running around, some taking the lunch orders of other members of the staff and others working on preparing food, some were cleaning, at the center of the bustling kitchen stood a large half circle counter that Two women were working at, Every other member of the staff was giving the area a large breach of space.
"How many times do I have to tell you idiots," One of the Woman at the Half circle counter yellowed out, her voice thick with an accent that Nebbie wanted to call vaguely irish, She had long spiky blond hair and her right hand was missing, a wooden Mallet was currently in its place, held on by a metallic ring that covered her wrist. "A pinch of salt isn't a fucking measurements! Use your dam cups and follow the fucking recipes, Yes you think I can't see your dumbass just cause I'm not hoverin' behind your shoulders but I can!" The woman let out a irritated huff and turned to the woman at her side "If you had told me seven years ago that all the staff on hand suffered from Dyscalculia I'd have found a different nobel to work for,"
"Miss Madeline no one here has that disorder, Doctor Green told me you made her check every employee before hiring,"
"Really? Well then why can't one fucker here follow even the most basic fucking recipe without being walked through it twenty fucking times?"
"Ma'am," The Woman repeated, Madeline looked over to the girl, who pointed out Mary.
"Hey it's the pretty one," Madeline cheered "And you brought the little demonic ankle bitter to,"
"I've come to check on Mistress Zoey's lunch,"
"Hey," Madeline called out "The Head Honcho's hungry, the hell's her lunch, should have been finished and ready for sending out already," a small selection of the cooks suddenly started moving at top speed and Madeline put her hand to her face before angrily hit the table with the mallet "Now I have to wash my fucking hand again, Penny lend me one," Madeline's assistant, who Nebbie now knew to be Penny, opened one of the drawers in the counter and pulled out a sponge on a handle as Madeline held out her mallet hand, Penny easily unscrewed the mallet and put the Sponge in its place.
Madeline went to a section of small sinks with a few black signs indicating they were only for handwashing and Penny held the Mallet hand, ready to replace the sponge upon Madeline's return.
"Are you enjoying the job so far?" Mary questioned Penny, who jumped a little at being talked to directly.
"Oh yes, Me and Maddy…I mean Miss Madeline and I use to work together in the Alpine Heights before she came here to be Head Chef, She always told me I was welcome to work as her personal assistant should things go south in the Heights, and…well I'm happy that her offer didn't have an expiration date,"
"Course it did," Madeline called back as she held out the wet sponge, Penny swapped the hands and began murmuring a spell to properly dry the sponge before putting it back into the drawer where Nebbie figured Madeline kept other spare hand replacements. "Just so happens you hit me up a few days before it hit, So wha's it like having a demon suckin' at your teat?"
"I use a pump and bottle to feed him," Mary replied curtly.
"Dam," Madeline chuckled "I bet that was the part it was most excited for when it made the spell,"
"Oh hell no," Nebbie thought back instantly "just feels gross thinking about it,"
"Well regardless, since the common senses is he is probably fully intelligent I find it would make things awkward going forward if I did so directly, so I will keep on going how I have been goin,"
"Yeah, suppose I can see how it might get weird," Madeline chuckled before waving to Nebbie. "But hey, if you are a sentient little monster don't go forgeting we took care of ya when you get all big and strong, just between you and me your father's a bitch and a half, Zoey's all right though, least she dosen't expect me to pull a fucking lobster out of my ass with a half hour notice,"
"Is it…ok to swear around a baby?" Penny asked with minor concern.
"He's a demon, and if he aint then he won't remember this, so fuck I did say, and fuck I will continue to say," Madeline finished her declaration just as a server handed off Zoey's Lunch to Penny. "Thanks Mark," Madeline added "Go smack Jimmy for me and tell him to have her lunch ready on time tomorrow or he's in charge of figuring out where I'm supposed to get a steady supply of lobster," Penny wished Mary and Nebbie both a pleasant evening before leaving to deliver Zoey's lunch, a platter of something that looked like steamed vegetables, Mashed potatoes mixed with Macaroni and Cheese, a sandwich that might have been a Reuben, and a almost comically large glass of either tea or some kind of soda like substance.
"Looks purple," Nebbie decided before the cup was too far for him to properly look at it.
"Have a-" Mary attempted to bid farewell to Madeline, but was stopped by the head chef with a wave of her hand.
"All jokes aside, are you doing alright?" She looked to Mary, then down to Nebbie "I heard word that James might have hit you before he left,"
"He accidentally slapped me," Mary confirmed, earning a look from both Madeline and Nebbie before she elaborated.
Madeline's line of sight temporarily switched to Nebbie upon seeing his face scrunch up before going back to Mary. "He tried to put…something into Nebbies pre prepared milk on the first night, Doctor Green and I caught him and there was a minor altercation, Doctor Green attempted to take the object from him, and in the end he ended up losing and accidently smacked me across the mouth when he lost his footing, he did also punch a wooden cabinet so he didn't escape unharmed himself, I agreed not to put in a formal complaint as long as he agreed to keep away from Nebbie,"
"Hmm," Madeline grumbled "I get he's freaking out, but we still have no real proof that Nebbie is a demon, for all we know he might be a conduit or just cursed, even factoring in the Demon Lord Seed the fact that it ain't blossomed means at the very least that even if his soul is another's from a past life, they never killed someone who was innocent, still a lot of wiggle room for argument but also a lot of wiggle room to say he's just as likely a pawn as he is the one playing the game,"
"I agree," Nebbie was bounced a little as Mary held onto him "Before he was born Lady Zoey mentioned she shared similar feelings, regardless of if a demon was born or not, so long as it is her child it will be given every chance to prove it self as anything other than a creature born of evil,"
"The good path," Nebbie almost cried out "There is no way this is anything other than the good path, I'm sorry Gas station lady, I hope your doing well,"
"Well I won't keep you any longer," Madeline noted as she looked out at her staff "I can see you all slacking over there," As soon as she spoke the kitchen became slightly louder "I'll keep you getting smacked to myself then, since you're using it as leverage and what not," Madeline and Mary both wished one another a good evening before Madeline went to go make sure none of her staff was slacking and Mary left the kitchen.
Seeing how his room was still having some work done, Mary instead chose to walk around with Nebbie, giving him a good look at the manor that was his home for the foreseeable future. The Kitchen lay in the southern most parts of the manor and was mostly its own separate building, not actually connected to the main house by anything other than a colonnade. Taking the same path they had taken to the kitchen, Nebbie enjoyed the sun shining upon him, knowing it may be a while before he could feel its embrace again due to the subterranean nature of his room.
The Manor seemed to have a massive yard, both back and front, far in the distant Nebbie could just barely catch sight of a small building, judging from its size and distance he figured it was probably a shed, or perhaps Mordecai's personal home., seeing as his job was entirely outdoor care and maintenance it was entirely possible he was only allowed inside the Manor for repairs. The Grass was evenly cut for as far as the eye could see.
A large gazebo in the back part of the yard, with a fair few picnic tables inside and around it, was bustling with an assortment of staff members in the middle of eating the lunches the kitchen was busily providing.
With nothing else to catch his eye on the southern side of his home Nebbie looked at his home and managed to count three or four floors in total before Mary reached the door and let herself back in.
The first room they entered was a much smaller kitchen built into the house, still big but it was nothing compared to Madeline's kitchen. From the looks of it this kitchen was almost entirely used for storage and nothing else, fancy looking dishes where all neatly put away in glass cabinets, a very nicely designed stove that looked to have never been used.
All in all this Kitchen seemed more for decor than for actual use.
Next up was the Lord and Lady's Dining room. In it was a single Long Table, a group of three butlers could be seen trying to figure out exactly how far apart the four children should be seated from their parents.
"The Lord asked that his son be next to him and his two daughters be next to their mother,"
"Oh let me guess, we should just feed the second son in his room," The Butler rolled his eyes at the notion, as though he was already sick of James treatment of the potential demon, "Regardless, the Lady of the house request all her children be close to her, since the Lord is rarely home these days and she doubts that will change come the time when the children are of proper age to eat at the table,"
"Why not space them all apart evenly?" The third questioned "that way they can all pick their seating, I see no reason why the children must be assigned a seat," Mary ignored the three men as they discussed issues that would not see resolution for several more years at the least.
The dining room itself was elegant, the walls were white with golden designs, a chandelier with twelve unlit candles dangled above the exact center of the table, and one large Window was on most Eastern and Western most walls, directly behind the lord and lady.
"Assassins would have a field day with those windows alone," Nebbie noted "maybe they have a magic fence or something who knows," While pretty to look at the room itself had a somewhat dull atmosphere to it with the butlers arguing, so Nebbie didn't miss it much when Mary took him out into the hall.
What felt like hundreds of doors lined the hall, each door with its own unique colors and markings on it, a light green Door with a red boar painted on it was open and Nebbie looked inside to see several maids cleaning a lavish bedroom, upon looking in it Mary muttered under her breath, Nebbie couldn't quite make out every word but he was able to grasp that Mary seemed to take it as a personal insult that Nebbie had been sent to the basement instead of being given a room befitting a lord.
As she had been directly assigned to Nebbie he wondered if he now outranked both his mother and father in her eyes, or if such feelings were only because she had to share a room with him and had been expecting to get better treatment through him.
He had no real way of knowing one way or the other, and seeing as she knew he was a demon lord he was confident that regardless of which was true she would treat him respectfully regardless, if only in the hopes of being treated better by him should he one day become the lord of demons.
"I suppose being considered a meal ticket is one way to get respect," Nebbie noted, not all too thrilled at the idea of having people bend over backwards at his command simply to use it for empathy from him later in life.
Doing his best to ignore the problems of the future Nebbie continued taking in his surroundings, as he took in the magnificent view he pondered about how things in this world worked.
He had already been alive for a while, and thus far hadn't felt the need to use the bathroom once, whether the food waste that bodies usually produced was the fuel for magic or if this was just a demon thing he wasn't entirely sure as of yet, and he felt he wouldn't be getting an answer to that question for a while.
In the end he supposed it wasn't all too concerning a topic but something like, no longer having to use the bathroom, could mean that other simple facts of life were no longer true in this new world.
Nebbie spotted Penny leaving a room with a large yellow rose painted on a lavender door and knew his mother was in the room enjoying her lunch.
"Good evening Mary," Penny clearly meant it as her way of saying goodbye but had unintentionally brought Mary to Zoey's attention.
"Mary may I have a word," The lady of the house called out, Penny moved to the side and let Mary in before closing the green rose door and presumably returning to the kitchen.
The yellow rose room was small, an impressive number of books lined the wall, and a white decorative table and chair along with what looked to be a softly padded rocking chair were its only furniture. Sitting at the table was Zoey, who was noticeably surprised to see Nebbie along with Mary for the ride.
"Pardon me Ma'am," Mary said at once "Mordecai is currently doing repairs on the window in our young lords room,"
"Ah yes, I suppose we haven't really used that old pantry since Madeline took over as head chef and renovated that old ball room into the new kitchen,"
"I have cleaned it up to the best of my abilities," Mary informed her Lady, "That said I dislike leaving the Young Lord in such a-" Mary bit her lip, visibly unable to say anything about the room that a proper maid would be heard saying to their lord or lady "-sad place,"
"And yet it's bigger than the entirety of my old apartment," Nebbie noted sadly as Mary was directed to sit in the rocking chair across the room. As soon as she began rocking Nebbie failed to keep his composure and let out a giggle.
"Seems he likes being around you," Mary noted "I suppose he's grateful you helped him return to the world of the living,"
"A mutual feeling," Zoey replied between sips of the dark purple liquid that was in her cup "He allowed me to become a mother of four, it's funny really, I never thought about having even one child, but in that one moment when I found out I would have four children, it was just one of those moments of never realizing how much I dreamed of having something until it was already mine,"
Zoey looked out the window as she spoke, Nebbie for his part did his best to take some sort of interest in Mary and pulled at her shoulder, she took it as a sign that he wanted to be upright instead of flat in her arms and he did feel a little better in the new position.
"If I could be blunt, may I ask why you called me into the room M'lady?"
"I wanted to talk to you about plans, in the event of an emergency," Nebbie felt the atmosphere change around him as Mary stopped rocking, once the rocking chair came to a halt Zoey clarified the type of emergency "In the event my husband decided to deal with Nebbie I would like you to take him to my family estate in the Crescent Valley, I've already informed my sister, I haven't told her everything of course, just that I wanted her to watch over my children in the event that things between Tsundral and Bellmuze get to heated,"
"Do you have a story prepared for me should I have to take Nebbie? I can't imagine your husband will back down if we try to take the other three as well,"
"You're to tell he our home was attacked by a rogue group trying to stir up trouble for unknown reasons, we're keeping it quit for the time so not to say anything, following that your to tell her my other three were taken to the capital and Nebbie was sent to her because he is sickly and we fear the cold mountain air of Ironfell could result in him catching his death of cold,"
"And what should I say in the event that Lord James attempts to come to your family estate and take Nebbie home in person,"
"Tell her I have reasons to believe James might have been behind the rouge group and that he should not be permitted to so much as enter the Crescent Valley much less her estate,"
"This is tedious as hell, could you repeat the first part I've already forgotten it," As Nebbie tried to remember any part of his mothers plan Mary simply nodded, as though she had memorized the entire plan the second she had heard it.
"Knowing Lady Sylvia she'll be absolutely delighted to have any family visit her for any reason,"
"It's a shame she never started her own family," Zoey noted "But she was never all that interested in any man or woman she was introduced to so it might be she's just as happy being an Aunt as I am being a Mother," as Zoey pondered the possibilities of how her sister was dealing with being an Aunt, Mary got to her feet after looking outside, Nebbie figured she had some sort of magic to accurately track time or was maybe just really good at guessing it.
"I'm sorry M'Lady but Mordecai should be finishing up soon and I really must make sure he hasn't gone overboard," Zoey waved Mary off to do her business without another word, Nebbie babbled at her mother in farwell and saw the corners of her mouth turn into a smile at his sounds before she was lost from view as Mary went out into the hall and hurried to Nebbie's subterranean room.
Nebbie was confident for a moment Mary had brought them to the wrong room, until he saw the Mountainous Figure he had been promised in the form of Mordecai, the Man was so big Nebbie refused to believe he was a human, maybe a very small giant, frankly he couldn't figure out how the man had squeezed into the room.
Speaking of the room everything about it looked different. While his crib was still in the same place, a llama themed mobile had been set up above it, the sad looking mattress atop a bed frame more akin to scrap had been removed and replaced with a fairly nice looking bed.
The Bars had been ripped from the Window and the Window itself had been completely cleaned on both sides to such an extent that it was possibly a new window entrily, and a tiny curtain was now on the little thing with a long drawstring so Mary didn't have to get a ladder to use it.
The gloomy prison-like walls had been masterly covered up with light blue wall paper that had little red fish dotted around it at random. Even the feeble bookshelf had been replaced with a far sturdier one that was filled with books.
"Oh Mary," Mordecai greeted in booming voice that was jolly in tone "Sorry if I took to long but this sad excuse of a room wasn't fit for a prisoner much less a lord," Mary almost broke a smile at the sentiment but managed to keep her neutral tone and expression.
"You've out done yourself Mordecai," She noted "Although you should know there's a near guarantee that Lord James will simply relocate us once he sees the state of his sons room,"
"Let him," Mordecai shot back "If he does tell me and I'll re-do that room to, eventually he'll either stop or he'll run out of dingy rooms," Mordecai winked "Lady Zoey's order," Mary actually did smile at that information as Mordecai walked up to the door and spoke a spell, "The Flow of Matter," As soon as he said the word Nebbie's eyes felt like they might pop out of his head as the massive man turned translucent and proceed to walk through the wall and the closed door. "Have a good night," he called back after a moment.
"That guys the Gardner?" Nebbie demanded "That man could be the most imposing ninja in the universe, and he chose gardening!?" As Nebbie began suspiciously question the power scaling of this world after the sight he had just witnessed Mary set him in his crib and, after a moment, returned to feed him a cold bottle of milk, Nebbie chose to focus hard on power scaling instead of thinking about the uncomfortable origins of his drink.