Chapter Two: Home Sweet Home
“Kimi? Wake up, sweet buns!”
Kimi opened her eyes to another unfamiliar room, but a fancier one this time. The bed was equally comfortable. “Hi Karo…” she said, then yawned. “How long have you been here?”
“A while now. You, however, have been here all day! Do you get no sleep? You keep waking up exhausted.”
“Hey! Teleporting around takes a lot of energy! Also, like, half that energy is used to heal the gaping hole in the back of my head.”
“I get it, sweet buns. Her Highness said you cried earlier.”
Kimi blushed. “I-I-I… I did…”
“You feeling alright?”
“Not really… My Father’s never been the nicest guy, you know that. He hit my head on the wall repeatedly, and I was so… scared… terrified… I didn’t think he could- would do something like that!”
Karo pulled Kimi into a hug, and held onto her closely.
“You’ll be alright.”
Kimi’s eyes filled with tears. She shook and sobbed for what seemed like hours in Karo’s strong arms.
Kimi cried and cried, and eventually she cried herself to sleep. Karo walked downstairs and sat with everyone except the two kids.
“The poor girl. I could hear her crying from here,” Maxine said.
“She’s so sweet. She also cried through my shirt. It’s wet now. I’m gonna go change into a not-wet shirt,” Karo said.
“Alright dear,” Jemima said with a smile, turning to the others right after he left the room, “Her mother died the day she was born. Not even the same mother as her brothers, but their mother wasn’t kind to her either.”
“That’s awful!” Maxine exclaimed.
“Yeah… I guess being told she’s useless all the time isn't good for her self-esteem either. She doesn’t have her family’s magic, and her father wasn’t happy about that.”
“She has magic, that’s for sure.”
“What do you mean, Sophie?”
“Never seen someone teleport without using magic. It’s impossible.”
“Really!? I’ve never heard of teleportation, so I wouldn’t know.”
“There’s more than one kind of magic, my dear wife uses fire magic and Jackie does too!”
“The Weatherbanes are storm-benders. The weather on Ioski has been strictly under their control since… the start of time, I do suppose.”
“If our problems are magic-related, it would be beneficial to go seek out the monsters in their Gelpie territory. The Queen there is an old friend of ours, and she’d be happy to help us out,” Sophie spoke.
“Ulet! Yes, yes! Queen Ulet would help!”
“It’ll take two, three weeks to get there. One of us should stay.”
“I’ll stay, Soph.”
“No. I wanted to finish something. Plus, you’re always so happy to go.”
“It’s such a shame Kerro retired, he was so helpful in running things smoothly while we were away.”
“He was, but, as the Queen by birth, I will stay.”
“Thank you, honey.”
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