NOVEL NEXT Sabbatical – Chapter 190: Name and Rank
The small bell chimed again as the door closed behind Aperio. While she had to duck through doorways on Venerier, the ones on Earth all seemed to be just a little bit tinier, and it felt good to be able to stand at her full height again. She let her gaze wander through the room, taking in the crackling fireplace, the chairs on the rug in front of it, and the small sofa off to the side near a few shelves stocked with books.
It looked like a proper inn to her eyes. Everything felt like it fit, down to the counter on the far left side of the room and the stairs rising just to its right which neatly split the room in half. A thought brought her in front of the counter, and a small smile appeared on her face when she ran her fingers along its surface. The wood it was made from reminded her a little of the trees she had first seen just outside the dungeon she had returned in on Venerier.
A moment later, the old gentleman she had sensed in the room behind the counter pushed back the simple cloth that covered the doorway and emerged into view. He hesitated when he spotted her, his eyes widening before he cleared his throat and shook his head.
"Welcome," he said and offered a nod. "A room, I assume?"
"Two, for two weeks," Aperio corrected with a smile. "One for a friend and one for my partner and I."
He nodded again, more to himself than Aperio, and pressed a few buttons on the machine to his right. "Paying in cash, I assume?" he asked, pulling a lever once the All-Mother had given him a nod of her own, causing a pleasant ringing sound to fill the room. "That would be eight-hundred and twenty-three dollars. Breakfast and dinner are included."
Aperio wanted to decline the food before she recalled that Adam needed to eat and Caethya might wish to try what Earth had to offer.
"Much obliged," she replied and slid her hand under the armour that covered her hips to pull the wallet from her Void. Counting out the money she needed to pay only took a moment and she handed him nine bills that all had a hundred printed on them. "You may keep the difference."
"You people have too much money," the man mumbled as he placed the bills in the register and pushed it closed. He turned around, taking two keys from the board that adorned the wall and placed them on the counter. "Your room is the first on the left, your friend has the first on the right."
He hesitated for a moment, obviously wanting to ask something but not sure if he should. The All-Mother merely looked at him with a raised brow as she took the keys. "Yes?"
"Have you been here before?" he asked. "I have this feeling of familiarity."
Aperio tilted her head in reply. "That would be quite impossible. This is the first time I have come to this country."
"Not a relative either, then?"
"I have none here," she replied. "Perhaps you are merely confusing me for someone else?" Though, that would be weird.
The old man gave a chuckle at that and shook his head. "I do not know anyone that looks like you, but you feel familiar." He gave another laugh. "Perhaps my age is finally taking its toll. In any case, your rooms will be ready whenever you return. Dinner will stop being served at eleven, but our doors are always open should you choose to end your day later than that."
"I thank you for accommodating us on short notice," Aperio said, giving the man the best smile she could. "I do have other things to attend to, so I have to bid you farewell."
With those words and a wave, she turned around and made her way to the door with a few large strides. Once she had ducked through and it had closed behind her, a thought brought her back to the alley. She would have liked to stay longer at the inn to encounter the mortal that seemed to possess a usable amount of mana, but she needed to be at the alley in order to talk to the officials of this town.
Her aura was not needed to spot the motorised carriage that was nearing their group as it was equipped both with flashing lights and a loud siren. Why must their vehicle be so loud? Additionally, now that it was within her field of view she could also see that there were letters on the car proclaiming it to be part of the police. So much redundancy. I do hope the guards are not as annoying as their vehicle.
///
Adam shook his head as Aperio returned to the alley. She smiled at him, handing him a key. "I booked rooms for two weeks, that should be enough, right?"
"Yes," he replied, also using the Elven language the All-Mother had used. "Though, I do need the name of the hotel and its phone number."
"Ah, yes," Aperio replied, handing him a card she had likely just taken from the hotel in question. "That should be enough, right?"
"I sure hope it is," he replied as he turned the card in his hand. "Dragonfly Inn," Adam mumbled as he looked at the depiction of the insect. "Sounds fancy."
"I thought to be quite a reasonable place." The All-Mother offered a small shrug before she stepped up to Caethya and poked one of the three perpetrators with her foot. "Quite cheap too, all things considered. A mortal I have taken interest in also seems to have chosen it." She smiled, something that seemed to have been happening a lot more recently. "Truly a fortunate turn of events."
"We all know that fate has no influence on you," Caethya said as she ran her hand over Aperio's back. "You chose it because you want to meet them, right?"
"Perhaps," the All-Mother replied before turning to look at the police car coming to a stop at the entrance of the alleyway. "I assume those are the ones you called?"
Adam gave a nod in reply before looking back at the All-Mother. "Please don't try to start a fight with them. Just answer their questions." He scratched the back of his head as he looked at the three on the ground. "Gonna be hard to explain how they lost consciousness though."
"Why?" Caethya asked and gestured towards Aperio. "They tried to fight and lost. That is quite literally what happened."
"I could offer them the opportunity to fight me," the All-Mother said, the smile on her face widening. "That would most certainly convince them, no?" Before Adam could tell her what a terrible idea that was, Aperio let out a sigh and held up her hand. "Do not worry, that was a joke."
The Human could only stare at the Goddess. While there was no doubt that the people of this planet were unable to do anything that would harm her, he would still like to avoid getting in trouble with the authorities. He also still had to figure out what to tell them. And hope they don't ask where, exactly, we are from…
Communication between the various police departments was poor most of the time, but Adam was sure that, with his luck, the two officers that had just exited their car would already know that he was missing. Not my full name, then. Adam Lincoln was probably a decently common name, so that should help. The current pressing issue was more along the lines of what Aperio and Caethya would be telling them.
He knew that Caethya at least had a proper surname and family history, but Aperio had no real need for that. As far as he knew, the woman had no real family outside of another Goddess and likely did not even posses a surname at all, or anything even remotely resembling one. Perhaps she should just take Caethya's?
"How do you plan on introducing yourself?" Adam asked as he watched the two police officers slowly walk towards them. He did his best to avoid hiding behind Aperio even as he noted that both of them had a hand resting on their open holsters, ready to draw their weapon at any time.
"Aperio Velkari," the All-Mother replied. "I had considered asking Caethya to lend me her name, but I do not feel quite ready for that yet."
"Does the name mean anything?" Caethya asked, seemingly unbothered that her girlfriend did not want to take her own name. "I feel like I have heard that before."
"It is a variation of a name I read in an old book," Aperio replied with a shrug. "The person it belonged to created the world of that story. After making a small tweak that makes it feel a little more... proper, I find it to be a fitting name. Perhaps it was my name in the past, and that character is based on me." She smiled slightly. "You never know."
///
Officer Ashley Santori could not help but do a double take at the scene before her. Dispatch had informed them about some apparent gang activity — something that would have been normal for both this time of year and this part of town — but they had failed to mention that the ones that had seemingly resolved the conflict were two woman dressed up as Elves and a very exhausted man that was seemingly trying his best to explain something to them.
It was obvious why the man was doing so, too, as she had no idea what language they were speaking. Well, languages. Their words seemed melodic — almost song-like — as they switched between two unknown languages. She would have said that the more elegant-sounding one was Latin, but she didn't recognize any words. She was sure she remembered at least some of the common vocabulary from the lessons her parents had forced her to take. Connect with your heritage my ass.
"Greetings," the tallest of the two women said, offering a small bow. "Have you come to take away these troublemakers?" She gestured behind her. "And perhaps help Mister Micheal? He might claim that he is well, but he is not."
Ashley leaned slightly to the side to look past the rather large woman. What she saw was a man sitting on the floor looking like he was either just through or a few minutes away from a panic attack.
"We have," Marvin, her colleague, replied as he took his hand off of his weapon. He took a step forward before kneeling down to look at the three people on the ground. "What, exactly, did you guys do to them?" He took out his baton and poked one of the downed men. "They are out cold, but I can't see any injuries."
"Aperio took care of them," the man said with a shake of his head. He gestured towards the tall woman — Aperio, apparently — whose smile widened slightly in reply. "They did not put up much of a fight."
"They practically fell unconscious by themselves," the woman said as she tilted her head to the side, putting the Elven ears she had probably spent way too much time on on full display. "I only talked to them a little more sternly."
Ashley's eyes flicked to the other woman as she took a step to the side. She could have sworn that the second woman's shadow had grown for a moment, and that something had disappeared in its wake. That was, of course, impossible, but it had looked like it. The fact that the taller one's voice seemed to somehow echo in her head did not help matters any.
"I'm sure you did," Marvin replied as he put handcuffs on each of the knocked out men and stood back up again. He shook his head and pulled out a small notepad. "Well, I am sure you know how this goes, so let's start without names."
After Ashley had heard the tall woman rather enthusiastically introduce herself as 'Aperio Velkari', she stepped past them and up to the rather ragged-looking man at the end of the alley. While dispatch had said that an ambulance had been requested, they had also told her that it would take at least twenty minutes and that she should call it off if it turned out that it wasn't needed.
She lowered herself next to the man, just out of arm's reach. "Are you alright?"
"I'm good," he replied as he slumped slightly forward. "Just trying to make sense of what happened."
Ashley narrowed her eyes slightly at the reply. She might not be an expert, but she knew enough to now see that this man was not, in fact, recovering from a panic attack but at the verge of having one. Perhaps a second one, even, judging by how frazzled he seemed. An ambulance was probably unnecessary, but getting him seen by a physician would be important.
///
Aperio could not help but be confused at Earth's equivalent of the guard. She would have raised a brow at the man that was currently questioning them, but something told her that that would not be a wise decision. Luckily, Adam was doing most of the talking as the policeman had seemingly come to the conclusion that the language barrier between them would hamper his endless flood of questions.
The All-Mother gave a small smile before turning around and, as no protests came, began to walk back over to Micheal and the other mortal. Micheal seemed to have calmed down a little, the mana she had lent him doing the task she had appointed it to do. Having achieved its purpose, Aperio commanded her mana to return to her. It wouldn't do for a random mortal to suddenly wake up with magical powers. No chaos for now.
"Are you doing better now?" she asked as she squatted down next to the police woman. "And do not tell me that you are fine, we both know that I know that that is a lie."
Micheal looked at her for a moment, trying his best to hide a look of surprise. "Yes," he eventually said. "I feel like I can breathe again."
"Good," the All-Mother replied with a friendly smile. She turned slightly to look at the other woman. "Is there something you need?"
The woman took a step back, almost falling over, before replying. "Your friend also mentioned the need for an ambulance, so I wanted to see what was wrong. You said yourself that he wasn't fine."
"Because he was not," Aperio replied with a shrug. She wanted to poke the man with a wing, but knew she still had to hide them in order to stay as inconspicuous as possible. Instead, the All-Mother simply gave him a judging look. "He should still see a doctor."
"And how do you know all of that?" Micheal asked, his voice mocking.
The All-Mother stood to her full height in reply, looming over both Micheal and the police officer. "Magic."
