Manaia hands the collected weapons to Leilani. 

“Is your hand alright? You didn’t hurt yourself swinging the chair on that idiot's head did you?”

“I did not do anything dangerous. I was safely standing behind a closed door, not doing ANYTHING dangerous.” said Manaia in a strained voice trying to emphasize that she doesn't want to get lectured either. 

“Ah, my mistake.”

Leilani and Aegir walk toward the group of hooligans. They are all tied up. The one with the arrow injury has been bandaged up and is currently tied up by lying down to make sure his injury doesn’t worsen.

“...and they say she’s pregnant. Hmmm.” Oliana gossips. Oliana is one of the grandmothers who lives there and helps run the hotel and the private dining rooms. Given her personable nature, she naturally is the hostess. 

“And what are the families doing about this?” said one of the hooligans.

Leilani and Aegir enter the courtyard looking rather confused. If the hooligans weren’t tied up, you would think they were in the courtyard chatting about the latest gossip. Though this calmer atmosphere is better than the chaos they walked away from earlier. 

“Grandma Oliana.” Leilani said in a cautious tone. “Is everyone alright?”

“Oh! Little Lei-Lei, have you eaten yet? How did your match go earlier? Were you hurt? Do you need any water? OH! Little Aegir, you’re so thin! You must eat something, let me get that for you.” she says as she disappears into the kitchen area. She’s always a whirlwind. 

Leilani waits until Oliana is out of sight before asking, “So are you ready to talk…”

“Little Lei-Lei!” Now all the grandmothers are coming to the courtyard. Tala and Anani, the cooks, both have plates of food in their hands. Oliana is holding a tray of drinks. Litia, the best one with household tasks like sewing and weaving, comes with napkins. Lastly, Rikia, the organizer, walks in while writing on a notepad trying to organize what should be the dinner menu for the hotel’s take-out, opening dining room and private dining rooms. 

The grandmothers crowd around Leilani examining her to make sure she is alright. After they see she is alright, they go to the hooligans and start untying them. 

“Why did you need to be so rough with Atticus and his friends? They said they were only here to talk,” Oliana said. 

“Who is Atticus?” Leilani looks over to the group. The new leader nods. How is she supposed to know his name? This is her first time seeing him. 

“I suppose our conversation got a little heated. But when I arrived, they didn’t look like they only wanted to talk.” Leilani says. 

Aegir is helping Rikia with the notepad. She asks him to hold a bunch of the pads so she can see them all at the same time. He uses his wind spell to help, but is nervously glancing over in case Leilani needs any help. He doesn't like seeing the hooligans free. 

“Oh kids these days, they are so quick to fight. She gets her temper from her mother, don't ya know,” Tala says as she hands the hooligans some snacks. 

“What is going on?” Leilani says, confused as to how she is getting picked on now. 

“Turns out they are in a rough position because they lost Axel. Not only did they lose a family member, but his businesses are solely under his name. They just wanted some advice on how to ensure the business goes to them rather than to the city. It’s just a friendly chat,” Oliana explains.

Leilani looks shocked. How did she get all that information in this short of a time? “Go see a lawyer, why are you here!?” she yelled at them.

“Well, you’re one of the few gladiators with property and such to your name. We figured you may know what to do.” Atticus calmly answers. 

“And about wanting the hotel?” Leilani asks as she rubs her temples, unable to hide her annoyance. What a waste of time. She could be enjoying a Snowball, lamenting the situation. 

“Oh no. That's stealing. We would be jailed for that.” Atticus continues.

“Aye.” “That’s bad.” “We wouldn’t…” murmurs the other hooligans. 

“Axel said we should always negotiate from the higher ground. If we don't have something of value, we should pretend to take it and give it back. Afterall, if we just saunter up to you and ask for the information, you may not give us the time of day.” 

Aegir nods while trying to keep a straight face at this amusing turn of events, clearly no longer worried about being attacked. It’s true, Leilani wouldn’t give them the time of day. 

“See, a simple conversation would have solved everything. You boys did create a mess, you will help us clean and set up before the dinner crowd starts coming in.” Rikia commands now that she is done with the planning. “We’re delayed because of this kerfuffle so the least you could do is help us set up.” 

“Oh! We’ll have some dinner for you to take out.” says Anani, the take-out cook. Tala focuses on cooking for their dine-in customers. 

“Thank you Aunty Anani, Aunty Tala,” the hooligans say in unison. 

“Hohoho! We’re too old to be called auntie, you should call us grandma like Little Lei Lei,” Tala says, but obviously pleased to be called Auntie. 

“Oh, you look like you’d be my mother’s age,” one of the hooligans said.

Leilani is nauseated at the sight of the obvious flattery. “Come back tomorrow. I’ll ask around and see who I can introduce to you. Come after the lunch crowd.” 

“Our Little Lei Lei is so popular. She knows everyone, don’t ya know,” Tala brags. 

“Will you be having dinner here?” Rikia asks, looking between Aegir and Leilani.

“We have a reservation at the Provincia,” Aegir explains.

“We do?” says Leilani, as everyone else is murmuring “oohs” and “aahs.” Provincia is a fancy restaurant that caters to anyone who has the money, but they offer very limited seats per night. 

“Do you know what day it is?” 

“... Of course, it’s… Oh, look at the time I need to get ready! I’ll be done soon!” Leilani slowly inches away as she tries to remember but decides to dash toward the stairs to buy more time.

She takes a peak back and sees him, head tilted with a smile that says I knew you would forget.

Leilani turns and runs up to the bath area to clean up before running to her room. 

Aegir grew up with very affectionate parents. Leilani grew up in a loving family, but Aegir’s parents were more in love with one another than in love with the family. Leilani frequently saw this as a young adolescent. Aegir’s parents, Rakel and Rugnar, would leave for days at a time on a “date” or would forget there were guests and be completely enraptured in their own little world. Celebrating an anniversary of getting married, makes sense, that only comes around once a rotation, but they would also remember and celebrate the anniversary of their first date, first kiss, first time holding hands, and all those small things. Aegir’s idea of celebrating could be anything. They’ve known each other since they were 10. 

“So what are we celebrating today?” Leilani asks tentatively, knowing it couldn’t be a dating anniversary. It hasn’t been a rotation yet! They’ve only officially been together for 2 cycles. 

“It’s the anniversary of the day we first met. After all, I’m indebted to the savior who saved my life.” Aegir smiled thinking back on their early memory. 

Aegir’s POV- In the Past

Aegir was 11, but he looked like he would be 8 because of how thin and small he was. He had come down from the Academy with his newly manifested, but not completely controllable, wind power. He knew his parents were on a date somewhere around the royal palace in Veveras. 

Distracted, he hit a branch and fell on the ground hard near the edge of the forest towards the residential area. The fall didn’t hurt much because he fell on something soft, but the aftermath was bad since he fell on a wolf cub. The mother wolf growled and lunged at Aegir. He rolled away, but the wolf was relentless. As he was cornered by the wolf, Aegir tried to activate his magic, but his glove was damaged across his magic circle, rendering his magic inaccessible. Panicking, he looked around at his options…

Then a rock struck the wolf’s head. Flabbergasted, Aegir thought he willed the wind powder to attack the wolf. 

“Run you idiot!” yelled a female voice. He ran toward the voice. 

The girl continued to throw rocks, but then yelled, “Not toward me! Run away!”

But he was already next to her. 

“At least hide somewhere you idiot,” she said in an irritated tone. She took her wooden sword and ran at the wolf to fight it. 

Aegir was equal parts mortified and mesmerized how the girl looked like she was dancing as she was fighting the animal. She killed it without much difficulty and then walked over to the cub and swiftly killed it, too. 

“Why did you do that?” Aegir asked.

“It’s too cruel for an injured pup to survive on its own. A swift death would be a more comfortable end.” The girl said with a dead look in her eyes. She turned to him. “Did you get lost from your parents? The main street is that way. Good luck.”

“Wait!” Aegir grabbed her arm as she turned away. “Could you help me until I get to my parents? They can reward you, but my glove is torn, and I have no way to protect myself.”

Aegir frequently suffered from attacks and kicknappings, which is why his parents got him magicians gloves at such an early age, despite the astronomical price. Since they changed his hair to be blue, he had a very unique look. Pair that with his cute appearance, he would fetch quite a bit in the slave markets. 

The girl sighed, “You will address me as Miss Leilani, and you better tell your parents I saved your life and deserve a large reward.”

“I’m Aegir!” he said smiling. 

They walked hand in hand around the merchant shops until they found Aegir’s family. Since then, they have seen her once a cycle.

Leilani- Present

After a great dinner, they stroll along the harbor looking for the ship that has Aegir’s package. 

“Looks like the ship has docked. I should be able to get my tools tomorrow morning. Should we meet up in the afternoon and head up to my parents?” Aegir asked.

“How about meeting at Cloud’s End? I’ll introduce Atticus to Anise and she will take care of everything,” Leilani responded, lamenting on how early she needs to get up tomorrow to do her jobs for Cloud’s End.