The Foolhardies 34 Date Nigh

The sun had just set, but as Aura and I were now connected through our pact, I didn't need to follow the old summoning rules I first used to meet her.

"Um, shouldn't we have protection?" Ty asked.

"Aura doesn't bite, Ty," I answered laughing.

"Yeah... but what if it's not her you summon?" Ty countered. "What if it's something... nastier?"

"Then we'll have something big to feed it, Tiberius," Arah answered just before she smacked him on the arm. "Don't be such a wuss..."

I couldn't help noticing that Arah had one hand over her arm in an obvious attempt to stop it from shaking.

"Should we cancel? I could just let Aura know that you guys were too freaked out to meet her," I smiled.

In truth, I preferred that my two worlds didn't collide like this as this meeting would certainly change things. However, I knew it would eventually turn out this way after I confessed the truth to Ty and Arah. They would want to know more. They were just like me in their desire for adventure, after all. Plus, I really couldn't say no to any of Aura's requests. Especially not after I'd let her get kidnapped while I was there.

"Although I'm not one to agree with Tiberius, shouldn't we take extra precautions while attempting to contact the other realm?" Arah asked, finally giving in to her nerves.

"Y-yeah," Ty agreed.

I understood why they were so nervous. It was the same feeling I experienced during the first time I summoned Aura to Mudgard. But this wasn't a time for fear. It was a time for action.

As I was between the two of them, I patted them both reassuringly on the shoulders. "It's going to be okay. We're not summoning some scary tentacle monster from the Cthulhu mythos."

I raised my left hand and showed them both the bracelet Aura had given me. It glowed with a faint golden glow tonight.

"Aura's cool. You'll both like her," I said.

I pointed my left hand, palm up, at the circle of stones and told my friends to close their eyes. I did the same.

"A scion of House Dapper greets the Princess of the Trickster Pavillion this auspicious night and bids her to cross through into this mortal plane," I said in a confident voice.

I heard her giggle before I opened my eyes and saw her.

Aura was standing in front of me wearing the new magician's robe she'd bought in the Rings Auction House. she smiled that gorgeous smile of hers, and once more I was captivated by her otherworldly beauty. My two friends who gawked at her probably felt the same as I did.

"Yo," I said with my hand raised.

"Hello," she answered before she gave me a high-five.

This got a weird reaction from Ty, who blurted out, "You guys usually high-five each other when you meet?"

"Only recently," Aura answered as she turned to look at Ty who was standing on my left. "Our training has been really tough so this is how we've been encouraging each other."

Her honeyed voice must have been too much for him as I could visibly see his face turn red as an apple from the chin up to the forehead.

"You must be Ty..." she smiled at him.

If this were a cartoon I swear there would have been a small puff of white smoke coming out of Ty by now.
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"Forgive our cognitively challenged friend, Princess Aurana," Arah said nonchalantly. "I'm afraid he doesn't know how to speak to women."

Now that she was certain no demonic entity was crossing over, it seemed Arah's nervousness had gone away. In fact, by how she was looking cautiously at Aura, I thought she was a little more hostile than necessary.

Aura sent her smile at aura which obviously disarmed my friend enough that the frown on her face vanished instantly.

"You're Arah. Dean tells me your twice as smart as he is," Aura said in greeting.

Arah's response was a soft, "Um... thank you?"

Then she elbowed me.

"Fine, she's nice," Arah conceded.

I grinned. "Told ya."

"So, what will we be doing first?" Aura asked. "I am particularly interested in these sweets called chocolates Dean keeps telling me about... and... television?"

Arah rolled her eyes at me. "What have you bee teaching this girl, Dean Dapper?"

"Only the good stuff," I said proudly. "Right, Aura?"

"Michael Keaton is still the best Batman," Aura repeated this line I've drilled into her head about Mudgardian pop culture.

Arah sighed heavily. "boys..."

She gave Aura a once over with her eyes. Then she grabbed my partner by the hand as if this wasn't the hardest thing in the world to do and led her away from the circle stones.

"We need to get you some proper clothes or people might think you're some weird cosplayer," Arah explained.

Aura followed her obediently, and I could see the excitement in her face. It might have been because Arah had mentioned clothes or the novelty of a night out in Mudgard.

"Women," I sighed before I followed them. I glanced behind me after a few steps. "Are you coming, Ty?"

Ty, who was still dazed, finally snapped out of it and jogged toward me. "Y-yeah... wait for me!"

Once we'd cleared the forest and returned to the suburbs, we made straight for Arah's house to get appropriate Mudgardian attire for Aura.

After an hour of trying on new clothes, the girls finally decided Aura was ready in her new green sweater, light brown pants, and dark brown boots. The necklace I gave her was still on her neck.

Yes, the cliched imagery of a forest dweller did not escape my notice.

Yet, even with her new clothes, the first thing Aura and Arah wanted to do was shop for more clothes. Not that Aura could bring these home. It was more the principle of wanting it, they told me. And Arah had agreed to keep Aura's clothes for the next time she dropped by.

So, we decided to head to midtown via the commuter bus as neither Arah and I were convinced Ty—who did nothing but ogle Aura and stutter when asked a question—wasn't in the right frame of mind to drive us into town in his Camaro.

As Aura had been into the city before, there was no cliched wide-eyed staring at the ingenuity of humanity. Instead, we got a different observational response to the glass towers and horseless carriages of the age.

"If only humans could create your modern inventions without sacrificing Mudgard to do so," Aura said.

Hearing the word 'Mudgard' prompted Arah to start a debate that would last the entire trip to midtown's busiest street, 5th Avenue.

The shops we entered all carried the same symbol on their storefronts. It was the golden four leaf clover that was embossed onto one side of the Fayne's Golden Leprechauns. This meant that the establishment was not only aware of the Fayne but also did business with fairies and their currency. This also meant I didn't have to shell out for aura who was way richer than me in terms of Leprechauns.

Five stores and a couple of shopping bags later, which Ty and I had to carry, we found ourselves in a booth inside Edward's Chocolate Bar so Aura can try Ed's Burgers and Milkshake combo as well as Ed's famous Triple Layer Chocolate Cake.

Aura, who sat beside me, sliced a piece of burger with a knife and fork, prompting Ty to finally snap out of his daze in outrage at her blasphemy of burger eating.

He took a minute educating Aura about how to properly eat burgers, and that was with your hands. Aura humored him and followed his instructions, and when the burger came away from her face, there was ketchup on her cheeks. This caused everyone to laugh, and finally the knotted tension I was feeling in my stomach at Aura meeting my friends vanished.

The rest of the dinner was a discussion on all things fairy. Arah and Ty had prepared a long list of questions and Aura did her best to answer each honestly enough. She was under no compunctions to hide anything from them as she viewed their help a month ago the reason I was able to save Luca and find her afterward.

So when Ty asked the taboo question of her age, aura answered truthfully with, "I'm fifty-years-old."

Both Arah's and ty's eyes widened at hearing this prompting Aura to explain.

"Elves have much longer lifespans than humans... and it takes us much longer to mature the way you would view it," she reasoned. "In fact, in terms of maturity, I would say I'm only about seventeen in your human years."

"But you do die?" Arah asked.

Aura nodded. "All things die. We just take much longer."

There was a soft melancholy in Aura's eyes as she gazed outside the window.

"You may think this disingenuous of me but I envy humans your short lifespans," she said softly. "You build towers that reach the skies in a span of a few short years and create beautiful artworks within days of each other... Each of you is seeking meaning to your lives as if you must have meaning... as if you would die if you didn't have one..."

She turned to us look at us.

"Such passion rarely exists among the fay... We take too long to adapt to change, and we mostly watch the time pass uneventfully," she continued. "Our own creations, at least the ones we don't use for warfare, take decades to be imagined and even longer to be realized. We're only really quick and good at making war amongst ourselves... it is a trait we've no doubt passed onto mankind."

This very heavy exposition about the differences in fairy and human understanding of the passage of time would certainly have dampened the mood if Ty wasn't such a goofball and asked, "So~~o, you're technically still a kid, right?"

His dumb question caused Aura to smile again and thankfully diffused the depressed mood. He also received an elbow from Arah who was sitting beside him.

"Ty, you really have to learn to read the mood," she sighed.

We all laughed.

The conversation moved onto my unit and the training Aura and I were missing this night.

"Yeah... how does that work exactly?" Arah asked. "I thought Dean couldn't resist going to the Fayne every night?"

"It's because I'm here," Aura touched the pendant of the necklace I'd given her. "And since I'm his contractor, I've given him one night a month of time away from the Fayne... but he's never used it before."

"Seriously, dude?" Ty's brow creased. "You're that much of a workaholic?"

"It's not like that," I said while shaking my head. "It's because I don't want Luca to spend any more nights alone."

Ty nodded thoughtfully. "You are such a bro, bro."

We fist-bumped across the table.

"Speaking of the Follhardies," Aura said suddenly. "Zarz Mildew arrived at Camp Darah earlier today to officially join the unit and bring your new falchion to you."

My eyes were glittering when I feigned annoyance, "He said it would only take him a week but it's been over a month," but deep down inside I was shouting for joy. I could finally see if my intuition regarding that iron arcane focus was right or not.

My new weapon prompted another discussion about the Fayne that included many more samplings of chocolate cake which caused Aura and Arah to join hands in their newfound shared love for sweets. This lasted until it was well past nine in the evening.

We'd just walked out of Edward's Chocolate Bar when Aura grabbed my hand and pulled me eastward.

Her seemingly bold action drew incredulous stares from both Arah and Ty, and I thought to myself that their shared expressions were beginning to become a bad habit. Sadly, they didn't know what I knew. Aura meant nothing by the gesture.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I would like to see your mother again and see if I can help her..." Aura let go of my hand. "Also..."

The mention of mom brought a chill up my spine. "Y-yeah... what else?"

"He's in that hospital too right?" Aura had a determined expression on her face. "We're going to fight him soon, right? I'd like to meet him and talk to him while I can."

What she just said sent the chills traveling up my spine back down. My brow furrowed. My mouth went dry.

Of course, I knew who she wanted to meet. It was the very same person I'd been trying to avoid the past month and a half. Aura wanted to have a chat with Azuma.

Chapter end