The scowl on Darlae's face immediately disappeared as she marched over, Kordia still under her arm.
"Kir you had us worried sick!" they chorused together.
"Hi Kir..." Kordia said meekly, wiping her eyes.
"What are you doing with Kordia?" Kir asked.
"When you didn't come back, we went to find you," Brigit said, sitting in the unoccupied chair on Kir's right.
Darlae took the seat on Kir's left, and plopped Kordia into the seat across from him. "We split up and wandered the city. I found this one drawing pictures of you by the fountain."
"You found..." Kir facepalmed. "So you just abducted her?" Kir briefly wondered why Kordia had continued to draw him after promising not to turn over his likeness to the city guards, but the more pressing matter was... "That's kidnapping!"
"I wasn't gonna ransom her," Darlae said defensively.
"You don't need a ransom to kidnap someone!" Kir raised his voice. Already, their table had the attention of the entire room. It was free drama, after all.
"Kir is right," Brigit said, "We should probably let the girl go now..."
Kordia had remained in her seat, her sketchbook clutched tightly against her breasts.
Kir looked her in the eyes, trying as much as he could to soften his expression. "Kordia, I am so very, very sorry about my moms... Can I buy you dinner or something?"
"Is that a bat in your cup?" Darlae asked.
Kordia's face went red as she overheated, awkwardly steaming out "I'd love to..."
Stella, until now submerged up to her ears in Kir's drink, chose that moment to pop up. "Ah, that's the good stuff, she said in a squeaky voice, her face purple from the juice. She was surprised to see Kir's moms looming over her. "I mean... Squeak?"
"What the hell is this?" Brigit stood up and pointed at Stella. "You were gone for a few hours and suddenly you have a familiar?"
"We just sort of... got stuck together. It's a long story..." Kir said, suddenly on the backfoot.
"And what's with those clothes? I know we didn't get you those," Darlae followed up.
His moms were great at one-two punches in conversation. Kir looked around the room nervously before he lowered his voice. "I can't talk about it here, okay? Can we just have dinner now that we're together again?"
As if on cue, the waiter returned.
Brigit ordered a salad and Darlae ordered the same stew Kir had.
When it came to Kordia's turn...
"I'll have the apple butter dragon steak, medium rare, with a side order of vegetables and potatoes, and the dragonfruit wine mixed with pineapple cider and garnished with a whole chili."
"A woman of taste. I'll have your meals," the waiter turned to Kordia "and your Darlae the Destroyer, served momentarily."
Darlae turned away with a slight blush.
"You have a drink named after you?" Kir asked.
"A few," Darlae said, not elaborating. "This one recognized me instantly," she gestured.
"Her name is Kordia. She got me out of the guard house, and she's a second-year at the academy." Kir explained.
"Why didn't you stick with her?" Brigit asked, holding Stella by her wings as the demon complained.
"We... got separated," Kir said. "And then that long story happened, and I kinda got sidetracked."
"And somehow you show up in different clothes, glowing with enough magic to attract a bloody dragon," Brigit said.
"Can we drop it for now?" Kir asked. "My test is tomorrow, and I pretty much lost the whole day."
Kordia piped in, "As long as you have the basics mastered, the professors will put you in classes for other subjects... And if you can demonstrate an original spell, that's pretty much a guarantee..." She scratched the back of her head nervously. "Like the, um... spell you showed me..."
"Oh?" Brigit stared at Kir with eyes that hungered for knowledge.
"She was using lead pencils. You know what I've told you about how it damages bodies..." Kir said.
"What did you do?" Darlae asked.
"He turned my pencils into this..." Kordia pulled out the hemisphere of gold and placed it on the table.
Brigit and Darlae stared. Then Darlae reached out and poked the sphere, hard. "It feels like the real thing. Pure, too."
"Put it away before someone gets ideas," Brigit chastised Kordia, before rounding on Kir. "Don't show anyone that spell, ever," she said.
"Why not?" Kir asked. Some sense from his past life perpetually kept him leery of money.
To him, gold was a commodity more than a thing of inherent value. It was more useful as a conductor and connector in electronics, but on Ayther there were few uses outside of jewelry or as a medium of exchange. And with three other mediums - copper, silver, and orichalc - there were plenty of other things to balance out gold's perceived value. He had no idea if gold was common or rare, having not handled much of it while living in Darlbridge, but from his moms' reactions, it would be treated like gold on Earth.
In other words, people like the man who tried to kill him were likely to be common.
"Because if someone else finds out, you can forget about college, they'll lock you up and turn you into a gold mine," Brigit said.
"Who's 'they'?" Kir asked. Googlᴇ search novel·fiɾe·net
"Everyone! You know what a kingdom would do for wealth-on-demand?" Darlae said in a low voice. "At the very least, you'd spend your entire life under some kind of leash, and worrying about assassinations and abductions... people around you wouldn't be safe."
Kordia whimpered, her ears flattening. "I-I promise I won't tell anyone..." she said, her face visibly paling.
"You should definitely order your familiar to forget as well," Brigit said.
"Bwuh?!" Stella responded.
"I can do that?" Kir asked, looking at Stella. "Somehow that feels wrong..."
"Then just order her not to communicate it in any form," Kordia suggested.
Kir leaned down, close to the table. "Mom, please let her go." As soon as Brigit did, Stella rushed back to Kir. "Stella," Kir whispered, "I order you not to communicate in any way that I know the means to turn lead or any substance into gold."
He felt a little of his mana drain into her, and a light feeling in his chest.
"You got it, boss," Stella replied, quivering a little.
The waiter chose that moment to arrive with dinner, and the conversation took a long pause as everyone received their meals.
"You better enjoy every bite of that," Darlae said to Kordia.
"Wait, you're paying?" Kir asked.
Darlae grunted. "I promised her a meal if she stopped yelling while I brought her here."
"So that crying earlier..." Kir leaned his head on his hand as his empty soup bowl was taken away.
"Tears of joy," Kordia replied. She took her first bite of apple-butter dragon steak and made a sound so happy it brought a smile to Kir's face.