Emiliana was closest and approached him first. “Papa?”
No response.
Shenado floated over to Zeff now. ‘Unbelievable,’ she said as she inspected his face. ‘He’s still asleep.’
Marcos didn’t understand. “What?”
‘Your father protected you unconsciously,’ said Shenado. ‘I’ve heard about things like this happening, but I’ve never seen it myself... Wow.’
‘Instinctive knowledge and awareness,’ said Chergoa, hovering up behind Emiliana. ‘You don’t need to be a servant to possess those things. Still, I am quite--’
Ramira’s muffled cries interrupted her.
“She needs help!” said Marcos.
‘Bring her over to the bed and take her shoe off,’ said Shenado. ‘Emiliana?’
The older sister was already rifling through the far cupboards for supplies. Chergoa told her to try under the bed, where she found a first aid kit. Emiliana took over for Marcos in sterilizing and dressing the wound.
Of all the things their mother taught them, Marcos had always thought this would be the least valuable. He’d figured that once they became servants, they would have no need of such skills, but now he saw how wrong he’d been.
As Emiliana finished her work, Chergoa picked up the conversation again.
‘What do you think? Should we leave or stay put?’
‘We seem to be safe for the moment, but we don’t know enough about the situation to be sure. Asad and Dimas are both relatively close. We should meet up with one of them.’
‘Agreed,’ said Chergoa. ‘Em, how’s about you help Big Papa Elroy here walk with us?’
Marcos watched Emiliana place a hesitant hand on the man’s back. She had to take the lead, but just as Chergoa had said, Zeff began to keep pace with her.
Marcos picked Ramira up again and then stopped. “Uh. There’s still a wall of ice in the way...”
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
Dat Heroic Willpower, yo.
ReplyDeleteGoes to show: some reflexes are hard to shift. You hear your little girl cry, you're half-way there when you realise you 1) got out of bed, 2) grabbed your dressing gown, 3) put on your dressing gown, 4) switched at least two lights on and 5) negotiated your way around a plushy/ doll/ mound of blankets before waking up care of Lego + bare feet. ;)
ReplyDeleteThis is that... to the max.
I count reapers and servants as single characters, and I think Roman and Voreese is my third favorite, second until Ibai started being even more awesome.
ReplyDeleteIn Sair, basic parenting skills include murdering bad guys and tearing their heads off to keep in jars.
ReplyDeleteHector is my favorite followed by Big Papa Elroy. Then Roman and Voreese dat snark. Followed by Emiliana who just barely beat out Gina and Asad.
ReplyDeleteThe adorable abomination doesn't even rank? I certainly do like a lot of characters though.
ReplyDeleteHe ranks above Lynn for me, but I'm not sure where that is on the list with out spending more time than I'd care too on it.
ReplyDeleteI am finallu caught up only 1042 pagrs
ReplyDeleteCongrats! And welcome to the club! The Caught-Up Club!
ReplyDelete...and now you can suffer pathetically through the wait in between pages with the rest of us. I pity you, good Sir, as I pity us all. 😢
Apropos of nothing, I think the categories of aberration powers might be becoming clear.
ReplyDelete-Ones that start with physical damage to the victim and consume the soul when the victim dies of it, like Incineration and the black hole guy.
-Ones that start by consuming the soul and then presumably do something with the remains, like Domination.
-Ones that empower the the aberration and selected allies and consume the soul if the user kills in a way involving the power, like Teleportation and Invisibility.
Nice breakdown.
ReplyDeleteThe classes might be named something like "destruction", "consumption" and "empowerment".
ReplyDeleteI think I might be ranking him higher for the fact that as someone with Asperger's syndrome, I can sympathize with someone who means well but has to learn everything about how normal people think and how to get along with them from scratch.
ReplyDelete