Leilani sighs and hands her bowl to Jay.

“At least save me a melon bread if I don’t come back in time for the Snowball. Annabelle, you stay here and catch your breath. I'll be back in a bit.”

Jay walks over to his wife, Annabelle, and hands her the chunky looking Snowball he made while keeping the perfectly shaved Snowball for himself. He adds the nearest syrup without any sweetened cream and rushes into the kitchen to avoid Annabelle’s frown. 

Leilani sighs looking at Aegir, “Can you get me to my room? I need to change and get my weapons.”

“Just wear that, you can tell my mom how it feels to fight in it. You know how much she loves hearing you using the stuff she creates”

As they walk outside, Aegir puts the spoon in his mouth and casts a wind spell in the shape of a dome over the bowl to repel debris. Holding the half eaten shaved ice bowl in one hand, he wraps his other arm around Leilani’s waist and uses his wind spell to move them up above the buildings so they can fly directly to Leilani's hotel. 

Instinctively, Leilani wraps her arm around his waist even though she doesn’t need to. It is an old habit from when they were kids. His wind spells were unsteady then. They are much better now, but he still occasionally pranks her with an unsteady spell if she doesn’t wrap her arms around him. 

Looking down, the bazaar was starting to pick up. Gladiator matches were typically after lunch, and her match was one of the later ones. Once the matches were done, people would crowd to the bazaar. The six blocks would have taken them a lot longer if they had to go through the impending crowd. 

Her hotel is a modest 3-level structure, previously a warehouse for a wealthy family who lost it during the last power struggle for the throne by siding with the wrong prince. The warehouse would have been a difficult purchase for Leilani without the help of Cloud’s End. The sale was hosted by Rainbow via an invite-only underground auction, thus starting her long term contact with Cloud’s End and frequent participation in the Rainbow auctions. She needs a place to safely store her money, but does not like loaning out her money the way the gladiator today did. His questionable lending rates resulted in the hit. 

They land on the roof of the hotel and scope the courtyard. A group of 8 hooligans are harassing her staff. She quietly jogs into her room to grab 2 bolas, a quiver of gypsy arrows, a dagger strapped on the outside of each thigh and her pair of hook blades. 

“I guess I’m on medical duty. That’s fine, I can finish my Snowball,” Aegir said as he takes the dome spell off her Snowball. “I’ll check both these levels to make sure everyone is alright and to note anything suspicious. Whistle if you need any assistance.”

Aegir uses his wind spell to send Leilani to the main entrance as he meanders on the third floor. The entrance of the hotel leads immediately into an open top courtyard where the hooligans are trying to get to the second floor to scare the guests. The male employees are trying to stop the group from getting to the stairs while the females are guarding various doors on the first floor leading to the dining areas. Thanks to the timing, there aren’t any customers in the courtyard. 

“How can I help you gentlemen?” Leilani says in a neutral tone, trying not to seem irritated. 

“Oh, look who finally arrived, the ungrateful little lass who should have lost today. You know, Axel is a very forgiving man, if you just gave up, he would have treated you well. Now you’ve caused a big mess killing someone you shouldn’t have.”

Axel…must be the name of the gladiator, thought Leilani. She prefers fighting in the morning matches, which are against animals. That way she can do more acrobatic moves and engage the audience. 

“He never asked for mercy and anything can happen during a match. I know the Colosseum Fathers will be compensating you handsomely for your loss. I don’t see why you are here when you should be at the Colosseum demanding payment.”

The majority of gladiator matches do not end in death. After all, it’s expensive to train someone up, get them popular, just to have them killed off. It doesn’t make financial sense. Plus, the entertainer who kills their opponent is partially responsible for the payout. She knows the hooligans got paid a decent amount from her and the Fathers’ pool. 

“That is pittance compared to his value and genius. I think we will also need to take over this hotel and dining hall to make it worth our while. You can surrender the title to us now while we are asking nicely. It would be a shame if something happened to the owner. The Public Safety division is too busy right now with the crowd from the Coliseum matches to come here and help you.” Sneers the one who looks to be the current leader of Axel’s entourage comfortably surrounded by the other seven bodyguards.  

“It would be a shame if none of you got to enjoy the wealth since you would be rotting away in jail waiting for a trial that won’t go your way. Why don’t you politely apologize to my staff, leave quietly and never come back again.” Leilani says in her sweetest tone possible while her hands move to her bolas. A bola is a weapon with 3 weighted balls tied connected by a cord, 1 lighter weight for the user to hand to swing the 2 heavier balls so it can restrain an individual. 

“HAHAHAHA! Let’s teach her a lesson!” the new leader says as he backs further away from the entrance. Obviously, fighting isn’t his strong suit. 

Leilani, with a bola in each hand, throws them and restrains the 2 closest to her. Then takes a gypsy arrow, which is like a large dark that can be used without a bow, to throw at the next hooligan, stabbing into his right shoulder. She tries to draw the opponents to the other side where there is another exit. Her aim is to get them out of the courtyard and onto the streets where she can avoid further damages to her hotel. 

From the corner of her eyes, she sees some of her employees leave their spots to apprehend the disabled hooligans. She uses her hook swords to disarm the next one while hitting him on the back of the head to knock him unconscious. Blood would be a pain to clean up before the dinner crowd gets here. She tries to do the same with the next one but has to change her hit to a hard punch in the stomach in order to dodge a sword swinging at her arm. It cuts her sleeve and shallowly nicks her right arm deep enough for a small trickle of blood to come out. 

Before the winded hooligan can get up, another employee breaks a chair over his head.

“Don’t worry Lei-Lei, we were going to get rid of that chair anyway. It was too shaky.”

Leilani smirks. They know me too well, she thinks. 

She is fighting two at a time when she slowly starts to feel her right arm get cold and move sluggishly. She decides to end it quickly by disarming and stabbing the one on the left side before disarming the one on her right side with her left arm. She is about to stab this one when she hears:

“Drop those weapons or this kid gets it.”

Leilani in mid thrust turns her hood sword so it punches the hooligan’s stomach hard, winding him too She turns around and sees that the leader has taken their new cleaning boy hostage and is making his way to the exit. 

“I think this was enough of a warning. I’ll be back next time with a proper welcome party.”

The doors to the exit swing open and 5 grandmothers walk in holding a bunch of groceries, chatting about the latest gossip they heard from the dining hall patrons.

“...Pregnant by the stable boy they said, how scand….”

They see the new leader holding Aleki. Without missing a beat, a cacophony of scolding comes out of the 5 grandmothers. They put the groceries down at the nearest table and they each take off one of their slippers to attack the new leader. Leilani slowly backs away, not wanting to get too close to that crossfire.

“Why are you so cold?” Aegir approached. “I can feel the cold coming from you.”

“I think there is something going on with the shirt your mom made. Once it got cut, I started feeling extremely cold.”

Aegir looks at the situation. It looks like the hooligans have been subdued. He looks pitifully at the leader who is getting lectures and relentlessly hit by the slippers. He wrapps his arm around Leilani and levitates them to her room. She enters and quickly takes off the top. She is shivering. The blood on her arm isn’t trickling anywhere, instead it is freezing onto her arm. 

Aegir takes out a containing bag and puts the shirt in there. “You should give it to my mom and explain to her what happened. I know she’ll be interested in hearing this. You’ll see her soon anyways. Why don’t you join me when I go back tomorrow?” he asks as he wraps a blanket around her and concentrates a warm wind to get her back to temperature. 

“Let me make sure everything here is fine before I go.” Leilani walks to her armoire and takes out another shirt. “I’m good, let’s go down and get this over with.”

With a flick of his wrist, the blanket is folded and back on the bed, the pouch with the freezing shirt is placed on the nightstand next to her bed, and they float back down to the courtyard where all 8 men are now tied up and still getting lectured by the grandmothers.