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Coughing here. The main reason you didn't know about our relationship is that I just now told you. In fact, none of us knew that she was a relative either. We were about to find out though.
No, of course we aren't really related. It's a subterfuge that Kali needed in order to allay our suspicions. Not so easy when we're already suspicious of everything and everyone. But, as always, she had a plan. A most delicious plan at that. Whatever else she may be, her plans are artforms.
She might be getting on in years, but her sense of humor, and of the absurd, hasn't aged a day.
OH MY GOD! What did I just say about Kali's age? NO. PLEASE! DO NOT TELL HER!!
Why are you grinning at me like that? What? You'll tell me later. All right then, but you have to promise not to tell her, OK? Please?>>
Kali drove up to the front gate. It was locked. Bah! She didn't have time for delays. The longer she manifested on the earthly plane, the greater the chance of some sort of major disaster. She made the computer controlling the gate think that she had a transponder, and it obediently opened for her. As she very slowly drove up the drive, she saw the Kimiko child leaping from tree to tree so as to get ahead of her.
Up at the house alarms were going off due to the unauthorized entry. The kids, Kimiko having just arrived, were scrambled into one of the the safe rooms (yep, we had two now). Karla and Jane went to their watch positions and turned on the outdoor monitors and audio. If it was a false alarm, then no harm done. If it wasn't, they would be ready.
A battered, puke green Volkswagen Beetle, wheezed its way up the drive and stopped in the middle of the parking area. The driver's door flew open so hard that it looked like the hinges might break off, which made Karla and Jane tense up -- momentarily. What followed had them both gaping in slack-jawed astonishment.
A woman unfolded herself from the car, stood next to it, and surveyed the surroundings. Karla had never seen a woman quite like that before, except as a caricature. She was a full 2 meters tall, and she was draped in the most gaudy, garish, multi-colored kaftan that Karla had ever seen. She was almost certain that it contained colors that didn't exist.
(She was right. Kali invented most of them. She wasn't happy with just the ordinary palette available to human designers. Her artistry was lost on many beings as those who, unlike Karla, saw the same spectrum as humans, couldn't see her new colors.)
In addition to the kaftan, she was wearing gigantic earrings with some sort of dangling bangles that were at least 15 cm across. Then there was her hair.
Her hair was a medium length, pixie cut like Karla's and was the color of those cheap Brach's caramels. The end two centimeters had been bleached white.
"Karla. Karla honey. Come on out. Is this any way to greet your aunt Kara? Come on out little one, and let me give you a hug!"
Kara. Aunt Kara. Karla didn't have any relatives. What the heck?
She swayed for a moment, just a momentary dizzy spell, then she headed for the door.
Right! Aunt Kara. Not exactly a real aunt, but one of her mother's friends. One of the few her father allowed her mother to have. How could she have forgotten Aunt Kara? It was probably because she'd have been very happy not remembering.
Just take all the obnoxious traits of every aunt in history and she had them.. Cheap, stinky perfume to begin with. She picks you up and kisses you on a whim. She has a brassy voice that's beyond loud. I guess I don't need to go on. Everyone has at least one like her somewhere in the family, though, hopefully, not nearly so extreme.
Karla especially didn't like the picking up and kissing part and hoped that now that she was full grown it wasn't going to happen again.
She sort of shuffled her way out the door, with Jane right behind her.
"Karla, dahling! It's been so long!"
Kara hurried forward and...you guessed it. She picked Karla up and tried to suffocate her in her bosom while she gushed about how "beautiful your daughter Jane is."
Karla tried to push herself away but it was like being caught in a whirlpool. No matter how hard she struggled nothing worked. She felt herself starting to lose consciousness when Kara finally relented, sort of.
She pushed Karla back and held her at arm's length, with her feet dangling half a meter in the air. Then she gushed all over again, "My my, how you've grown, or not. You really are such a small thing. But you're cute, so that's good enough."
Then she pulled her close and covered Karla's face with kisses. Naturally, since she was wearing way too much makeup, she managed to leave powder and lipstick all over Karla's face.
Then she again pushed Karla away and examined her critically.
"Karla, dear. It's really not my place to say anything, seeing as this is your home, but you really need to go wash your face. You shouldn't greet visitors looking like this."
"Yes Aunt Kara. You're right. I'll go wash right away. Why don't you talk to Jane for a bit while I freshen up." With that Karla fled into the house, leaving Jane to Aunt Kara's not so tender mercies.
Jane looked at Kara and winced. She wasn't gushing any more. She was glowering, at about a 10 out of 10 level. Then she reached out with her mind toward Jane and 'twisted'.
"Well, 'Jane', for a supposed genius and security expert, you're a total failure. I saw Kimiko up in a tree while I was on the way here. There were two Aztith watching her. She could have been their lunch if I hadn't intervened.
"If you decide to dance the dance, you'd better learn the steps before you start. I'm going to teach you how to deal with the non-corporeal and partially corporeal enemies that you've totally missed. If I hadn't arrived when I did, you'd be mourning a little sister and our project would have failed before it began. I AM NOT PLEASED with you."
Jane had a look of horror on her face and tears started pouring from her eyes in twin rivers.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
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"I, I don't know what to say Mistress. I don't even know how to say it. Nobody told me anything about this being possible. I thought that they would abide by the rules. I thought...."
"You didn't think at all you twit! When did THEY ever abide by the rules. Oh, they give lip service to them, but they twist and turn them every which way they can until they find an interpretation that fits their purposes.
"Now, here's what you're going to do."
Kali locked eyes with Jane, punched a hole in her current persona, and held her that way for a good 20 seconds, after which Jane crumpled to the ground.
Kara rushed forward and was as fussy as a mother hen. "Jane, dahling. What happened to you? Are you prone to fainting spells? Oh dear, oh dear! You need to get inside and get some rest. Have you been working too hard?"
A woozy Jane was helped to her feet by her solicitous aunt. "I guess I have. Thanks for the help. I should be fine. Let's go inside and get something to drink."
Jane grinned wryly. "It's not very polite to keep you standing out here like this. I'm sorry to have made such a scene, fainting and all that."
"Now now dahling, don't worry about that a bit. Your Aunt Kara is here to help you. I don't need pampering. We're family. Family doesn't have to fuss over family."
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Kara half-carried the still muzzy-headed Jane back into the house. Job well done. Now to socialize some. She really did like children and she wanted to meet the rest and get to know them before she had to leave. One of her lesser-known titles was "Mother Goddess" after all.
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Three hours later five totally exhausted people waved a heartfelt goodbye as their Aunt Kara rattled down the drive. (Her car rattled, not Kali, sheesh.)
Jane muttered weakly, "Mama, she's, ah, she's something else."
"To be sure Okaa-san. Never in my most vivid imagination did I think for even a moment that such a person really existed. I though that such were the creations of movies -- you know -- like Auntie Mame. To discover that such a person is real is most unsettling."
Ian rubbed his face. "I'm totally wiped. I wonder if the reason she has so much energy is because she sucks it out of the people around her. I don't know what it is, but it's like she's an energy magnet."
"I'm whipped too Kaa-chan. I'm gonna go inside and take a nap."
Kimiko turned and walked, slowly, into the house. She didn't bounce even once.
Karla tried to clap her hands together vigorously, but only managed a faint, slapping sound. "Sounds like a plan to me. Everyone, let's get up about 5 PM and then make dinner. OK?"
Even Jane was drooping. "Sure Mama. Let's do that." Then she staggered off to bed.
Now that the (sort of) human whirlwind called Aunt Kara had breezed back out of town, there was still the little matter of getting ready to met Mr. Hafiz tomorrow, but that would have to wait. Karla needed a nap too, so she trudged back into the house, down the hall, and fell onto her bed. She was so tired that she didn't notice that half of the chest of the dragon in her tapestry was now black.
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An almost impenetrable fog of yellowish, foul-smelling mist manifested in the center of the office. Fortunately these particular offices had been built by beings who understood that 'strange things' might happen now and then, and they had included some fairly powerful exhaust fans at intervals throughout the building.
Said fans roared into action, and, as the fog was gradually dispersed, one could see the extremely irritated form of Grgur in the middle of it.
"What the freaking hell is so urgent that you had to call me back? Do you have ANY idea how long it takes to book a suite at the resort near that giant volcano on Io? I sure as hell don't see anything going on that's so earth-shattering."
It peered into the Knight home. "They're all asleep. Did one of them get bit by a mosquito or something?"
"Grgur, just shut up and listen. SHE was there. She just left."
Grgur grabbed at the closest desk and looked like it was about to faint. "Holy SHIT! And the building is still standing?" It scanned the surrounding countryside.
"I don't see any smoking craters, no massive forest fires. So what's the... Oh my."
That last came out as a hoarse whisper. "No. It can't be. She didn't? Did she?"
It closed its eyes and concentrated. Its body was locked rigidly in position, but its mind was tracing the energy lines that were attached to Kali's handiwork. Finally, it came back to itself and shuddered.
It turned to the Observer with a look of total disbelief on its face. "How long before it hits?"
The Observer rubbed his face with both his forelimbs. "I have no idea. From the looks of it, it MAY not happen any sooner, but all three of the foreseers on duty think that it will end up a full magnitude higher than it would have been otherwise."
"Instead of a magnitude 7 to 8, the earthquake will probably be an 8 to 9 when it finally rips."
Grgur winced at the pathetic attempt at a pun. But, given situations as grave as this, you do what you can to de-stress.
Erelah approached, and she was shaking. "Sir, the Chief wants to see you. Right now!"
Then she added in a barely audible tone, "In his private office."
Oh Lord above. Now what? Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. From the subdued looks on Erelah and Grgur's faces, they knew it too. Well, nothing to do but get it over with.
"Since you're here Grgur, take over for me while I go get chewed on. I'm not sure what happened, but, well, you know."
"Sure Boss. I'll keep an eye on things till you get back."
Both of them knew that whether or not he would come back was iffy. Even if he did, nobody ever came back entirely whole after being summoned to the Chief's inner sanctum.
Erelah and Grgur did what comes naturally in critically tense situations like this. They flirted. The fact that they were dissimilar species, and one was asexual, didn't slow them down a bit. When the stress level was this high, you did whatever you could to avoid going crazy.
Beings like them had exquisitely honed senses. If they didn't, they wouldn't be working in such an important department. So it really wasn't any surprise when they felt the building shake. It probably wasn't enough to be noticeable to the average creature, but they felt it. They didn't hear a thing, but that of itself didn't mean anything. The Chief's inner office had been incredibly well soundproofed and reinforced over the centuries, starting right after he accidentally blew out every single window on their floor one day when he was in full bellow.
What did surprise them was that it lasted only about 12 seconds. Usually once the Chief got going he kept on for at least several minutes. A bigger surprise was that the Observer did come back. He was dragging his tail, and his jacket was smoking here and there, but he was, apparently, otherwise unharmed.
Both of them rushed forward to assist. While he was a more than a tad officious now and then, and extremely prissy about details, he was a good-hearted being, and they truly cared for him.
Each of them supported one of his forewings and helped him to his desk. After he'd gotten himself situated, he took a deep breath and gave a long, low, whistling sigh.
Seeing their expectant faces, he didn't make them wait any longer.
"It could have been worse. Much worse. It seems that SHE noticed my reaction when she appeared. She filed a complaint with the Chief. She said that if any other being had noticed how I'd 'disturbed the aether' it might have been a problem."
"The only thing that saved me from being thoroughly toasted by the Chief was the fact that what SHE did was about 10,000 times worse. Any sensitive within a thousand kilometers couldn't have helped but feel it."
He drew himself up and tried to minic the Chief's clipped accent. "Ahem. Now look here Observer. Things are bad enough already without you stirring things up, and by 'stirring things up' I mean making me have to deal with a complaint that SHE has filed. Have you any idea how much paperwork is involved when a deity gets irritated? Of course you don't. That's my job, not yours. And it's not likely to be your job for at least two centuries longer than it would have been otherwise."
They both looked a question at him, and he decided to answer. "I haven't exactly been demoted, but a formal reprimand has been appended to my dossier. The Chief figures that it may well take about 200 years for Kali to forget about it. Whenever she does, I'll be back on track. For now, there is no chance at all of my being promoted."
Both commiserated with him for a while, then went back to their duties. Or rather Erelah did. Grgur headed back to Io. It still had the suite for another 5 days, and it intended to make the best of the situation. Maybe it could forget that the chance of it being promoted also just got set back by two centuries. Damn bureaucrats!