Message titled: Regarding promises

Dear miss Razandra Evelyn Hoppins, miss Alvara Sofia Guillerme, and young sir Faham Ib Abdul, I hope this message finds you in good health and spirits. 

I am Joram Joneel, the sworn servsman and friend of master Maroque M. Magogram. News of his fate have no doubt reached you and wrought you much anguish, to which I extend my most sincere sympathies.

Before his departure, Master Maroque made me aware of certain promises he made to you. As his servsman and friend, I intend to see them fulfilled to the best of my ability while he remains inconvenienced. For this reason, I would like to invite you to meet me at the Goldipurr Salong located in the section A of the Oo-point unstation tomorrow morning at ten. All expenses covered.

Warmest regards,

Joram Joneel

Message titled: Re: Regarding promises

Dear friends of master Maroque, I regret to inform you that master Maroque’s very recent disownment from M. Magogram has caused inconveniences regarding his former assets. I am forced to downgrade the meeting room to the section B café: Okay Coffee, with all expenses up to a total value of 20 val covered.

Apologetic regards,

Joram Joneel

Okay Coffee was all squeaky clean poison-green and creme-yellow surfaces, crisp cleaning spell smell, and plentiful flower arrangements that seemed to be frozen stiff. Two dimple-faced baristas shot anxious glances at Raz and gang when they entered, whispering to each other. 

“You must be master Maroque’s friends,” said a pleasantly light male voice, with only the slightest ‘weight’ of Nounsica to it. A chair scraped the floor. “Joram Joneel, pleasure to make your acquaintance. Apologies for the frazzled presentation.”

Beside an alcoved table in the far corner stood a man in a neat beige suit and wizard-styled long coat embellished with modest embroidery in gold and Maroque-red. Trimmed beard and styled brown hair framed his round and gentle face. His smile looked a little tired.

Joram hurried to speak when Raz and sibs approached, “Please, take a seat.”

She and Faham thanked him and they joined him at the table.

“I must admit unfamiliarity with exact Earth meeting etiquette. Would you prefer to peruse the menu and enjoy refreshments now, or after our meeting?”

“Now’s good,” said Allie.

Joram nodded, smiling politely. “I shall defer to your expertise.”

Allie assumed an aggressively comfy lounging position in the booth corner.

“It was twenty value total, right?” Faham asked, eyes scanning the menu, antennae wiggling excitedly. “Six point sixtysixtysixtysixseven each.”

“Twenty total is what I promised.” Joram nodded.

Allie whistled. “Damn.”

Raz had to agree. Looking at the prices, you could get a ton of cheaper treats for twenty val. After drooling at the images, she ended up going for maximum variety and ordering three different sweet sweet pastries and a pot of fancy sounding herbal tea. 

Soon, a large platter of hot and steaming treats arrived at the table. There was everything. The trio performed a tactical assault on the goods. The method was to begin with the least intense looking ones, follow up with the mystery ones, and leave sugar-sprinkled for last. However, Raz was blindsided by the baker’s treachery and bit straight into something stuffed with toffee-like mystery goop that was spicy, lip-puckeringly sweet, and far too good to not gobble down in one go.

She didn’t regret it, however. There was more than enough tea to quench her thirst.

By the end of the brief and very, very wonderful battle, Raz was leaning back, thoroughly satisfied. 

After allowing them a few moments to digest sugar, Joram cleared his voice. 

“To the matter at hand then.” He folded hands, rapping fingers against knuckles once. “Master Maroque promised he would adopt you three. This I intend to fulfill to the best of my ability, however, his current condition creates certain complications. Specifically, in regards to young mister Ib Abdul and miss Guillerme.”

“Like what?” Allie asked, still licking her fingers.

“You are not aware, I see.” Joram pursed his lips uncomfortably, shifting in his seat. “You see, ”Master Maroque, while suffering from recoil so debilitating as to be described as existence-defining, is not, legally speaking, a full wizard. Thus, he is barred from accepting responsibility over class-D and above ontologically divergent individuals, until such day that he recovers his wizard status. To make matters worse, M. Magogram, his family, has disowned him due to efforts to defame his recent actions as being in breach of wizardly duties. As such, I cannot procure a surrogate wizard to accept the legal responsibility of your adoption.”

Allie made a snarling face.

It took Raz a moment to digest what he’d said. Her gaze fell to the crumbs before her. After a moment, she put on a smile.

“What’s wrong? Sorry, I don’t think I understand,” said Faham.

Allie was about to talk, when Joram paused her with a raised palm.

“Allow me. I mean to say that, at this moment, I can only bring miss Hopkins with me to Oor.”

“And I’m not going.”

“Hold up.” Allie put a hand on her shoulder, eyes on Joram. “So, we’re never getting to Oor?”

“I thought it was temporary,” said Faham. “The recoil.”

“Oh absolutely,” Joram nodded enthusiastically. “I have full faith in master Maroque’s recovery. He is possessed of a singular strength of character and identity and will no doubt rejoin us shortly, within a few weeks or months at most. I only handle his affairs in the interim.”

“Aight, then she’s going.”

“What?” Raz gave Allie a baffled look. “No I’m not.”

Allie shrugged. “Hey, it’s only gonna be a couple weeks or whatever, so why not?”

“So I can be with you guys?” Raz snorted. “Like that’s a real question.”

Allie rolled her eyes, groaning. “Doing what?”

“Doing what?” Raz started counting with fingers. “Hanging out, exploring the station, checking arcnet, learning Nounsica…” She struggled for a moment. “And! And helping you and Faham with rehab, and we do therapy homework together, and we’re still learning birds sometimes. There’s lots of stuff.”

“Nah. Sounds like crap.”

“Allie!”

“Shad-dup,” Allie sighed lazily. “Ok, hanging is neat. But honest, you’re just fiddling your thumbs all day here, staring out the window, brooding.”

“I don’t brood.” She didn’t. “I’m using my imagination, thinking about stuff.”

“Same shit. Anywhoo, just go. Get stuff started for us.”

“Maybe you could look for schools for us?” Faham asked. “I don’t think we can get into the one here, not if we’re leaving soon too.”

“Ye. Squeeze this wizard butler dry and get us cool stuff.”

Joram made a miffed face and adjusted the gold-velvet choker holding his embroidered undershirt. “A little inappropriate, don’t you think, miss Guillerme?”

“Yeah, whatchu gonna do about that?”

Joram blinked, stunned.

Allie chuckled. “Hahaa! Just messing with you.”

Faham looked cautiously excited. “Raz? I think it’s a good deal. You could look up stuff for us if you don’t have limited computer time and we can print it out here. And if you learn to speak, we’ll learn twice as fast speaking with you when we join.”

“Faham…” Raz frowned. “I just… maybe?” She turned to Joram. “How often can we come back here to visit them? Or can they come visit? Maybe we can still see each other everyday.”

“Underail tickets from your new residence are fifteen-three each. We could budget wee–” He held up a finger, produced an embroidered notebook from his breast pocket, checked something, and slipped it back. All in the span of a second. “Bi-weekly visits, until master Maroque awakes.”

“Only twice a week?” Raz frowned.

“That’s not so bad, right?”

“Not bad.”

“Isn’t it though?” Raz squinted at them.

“Oh for f-” Allie pulled Raz into a smothering hug and patted her back. “There, there, big sis is sorry for raising you into a wuss who can’t go pee during night without hand holding.”

“I can! What she says isn’t true!” Raz tried to escape, but not too hard to overpower Allie.

Joram put fingers into his ears. “Highly insensitive to be sharing such personal details. Highly insensitive.”

Allie ignored him entirely. “Raz, let me be real here. Love you to bits.”

“Oh.” Raz stared at her and felt a grin rising. “Love you too.”

Allie gave her forehead a snap. 

“Ow!”

“Ew, quit dorking so hard. Aight, so, thing is, you’re clingy af…”

“No–”

“Apapapa! No, keep your mouth shut. Just go. Give it a try. Live a couple weeks in Oor, visit us, then we join. Figure yourself out, cos your life can’t just hover around me and Faham and wait to be needed. We are safe now. Got it? I don’t need you rolling me around to find light. I’ve got a portable lamp now. Faham doesn’t need coddling. They’ve got AC here. It’s all ok now. So, yeah, go figure out you-stuff for a bit, so that you can be all awesome and cool when we join you.”

Allie then gave her scalp another thwack and left the hug.

“Ow?” Raz held her cheek, giving Allie a devastated look.

“Diabetes medicine. Just in case.”

Raz rubbed her forehead, organizing her thoughts. She glanced at Faham. 

After hesitation, he said, “I don’t hate it. It’s nice to have you help out, but I also sorta agree.” Faham paused, brows furrowing and antennae slowly curling. He then nodded, determined. “Yeah. I think it’d be good for you.”

“Maybe.” She conceded, still conflicted. “It feels a bit unfair to you guys.”

“Yeah well, you’re gonna make it up to us.”

“You’ll be our spy in Oor, helping us prepare for invasion!”

Allie let out a malicious cackle, ruffling his hair.

Raz allowed herself a cautious smile. The next breath she took felt strangely light. Suppressed excitement bubbled up, though she kept it under a lid.

“I’m going to Oor.”

It didn’t feel real. The wait had felt like a small forever. 

“Yeah!” Allie shook her.

“Hip hip Ooray!” cheered Faham.

Raz laughed. “Ooray!”

Allie joined the cheering.

They started hugging, then left the table to bounce around in every excitifying loop of cheers and hugs. The baristas looked awkward. Joram waved at them apologetically. Raz and sibs didn’t care. Daydreams that had been stomped down so many times they turned bitter had come true. They reveled in joy. 

When the rush started subsiding, Raz helped Allie back into her seat.

Joram continued like nothing had happened, “You will have some hours still to make your goodbyes and set your affairs here in order. I came in part to also fetch Maroque. The intent is to take the fringe underrail at twelve, though we should be there half an hour before departure.”

Less than two hours to leave?

“That’s too soon! I can’t leave yet, I need… at least a day! Can’t we wait a day?” she stared at him hopefully.

Faham joined her staring.

Allie glared, slowly clapping a fist against her palm.

Joram’s puckered lips moved between expressions, settling into reluctant acceptance. “Delaying our departure to tomorrow morning is possible.”

Raz and Faham cheered.

“In which case we will take the…” Again, he consulted his notebook. “Six thirty underrail, though you should come to section A at least fifteen minutes early for immigration clearing. The necessary paperwork has been prepared, sans your signature, but station security does need to log it.”

“Sure, okay.” Raz turned to Faham and Allie. “I’m going to Oor.”

“We should celebrate,” said Faham.

“Yeah.”

“Hold on. This calls for a real splurgathon.” Raz took off her shoe and upturned it on the table. 

Faham started vibrating. “Splurgathon? Like the last jam day?”

“Even better!” A five value coin and two halves clinked down from the boot. “Behold!”

Faham oohed. “We can get two more pastries! Or, or real sandwiches!”

“So it’s on, huh?” Allie made a solemn face, then reached into her pocket.

Another seven and change appeared on the table!

Faham aahed. “Where do you guys get this?”

Joram fidgeted uncomfortably, checked his notebook, and crossed something over with a heavy expression. He then pulled out fifty value bill from his purse. He set it down and pushed it into the pile. “Consider this an apology for my earlier tactlessness. Please, do enjoy your evening.”

“Fifty!” Faham was wide eyed in shock. “Fifty?!”

Joram stood to leave.

“You want to come with us?” Raz asked. “You’re like Maroque’s butler or something?”

“Servsman and friend.”

“So we’ll be living together later, all of us. Let’s hang out. We’ll show you all the sights.”

“All the sights.” Faham nodded vigorously.

“The weird refugees, the angry refugees, the violent refugees–”

“Allie!” Raz gave her a shove. 

Faham gaped. “There are nice places here.”

Allie cackled.

“Do not mistake my manners for delicateness, little miss,” said, fixing Allie with an amused stare. “I do not insist on joining you. Should you wish to conduct your gathering in private, I will respect your wishes. You need only say so.”

“Allie, we’re gonna live with him soon, be nice.”

Allie rolled her eyes, shifting on the bench. “Fiiine. We can skip the violent refugees.”

Raz gave her a shove.

“And the angry ones.”

Raz made a sound of exasperation.

“What? The weirdos are great fun. Like the Jesus guy.”

“They are…” Raz paused in the middle of a lecturing gesture. “I mean… yeah?” The Jesus guy was kinda funny, but she did feel a bit sorry for him. “But there’s gotta be better stuff to do. We could wander about to find a musician and bribe him with a sandwich?”

“I want a sandwich,” said Faham, the menu back in his hands. “Can we order, then figure out what to do?”

“Splurgathon first,” agreed Raz, reopening the menu. 

Allie ate herself nauseous. A man with an electric keyboard improved Raz a hope filled song for a sandwich. The sibs sang it, bullied Joram into join in, and cried when he ambushed them with way too passionate a performance. All the old hallways were checked out. Goodbyes and hugs were given to people who might’ve become friends if Raz had stayed around.

Late that night, in their little corner of the crowded hallway, Raz listened to the distant ambiance of the refugee camp and her tummy’s protests against the sweet binge. Joram lay on the floor before them, his eyes closed. That same scent of Christmas spice that Maroque had emanated from him, though fainter. He seemed like a nice man. A little uptight, but nice.

Allie and Faham snoozed softly against her. Raz wanted to join them in sleep. She was exhausted. But her brain was abuzz.

Finally, the life they’d dreamt of could begin.