The Petite Dungeon Explorer 52 A Warm Family

"It does, indeed, look like you'd rolled around in it," Mime echoes.

"Cecily did her best!" She humps as she crosses her arms. Her face and her dress are both covered in flour and other things like sugar and fillings. She'd had the most fun out of all of us and ended up the dirtiest.

"You look like a snow angel," I laugh softly.

"More like a flour angel," Ekon snorts.

Cecily little face was turning bright red as we teased her. I felt my stomach grumble as I look at all the sweets in front of us.

The baking in the kitchen had taken a lot longer than I expected it to and by the time that we were done it was time for dinner.

We'd all been so absorbed in cooking that the time had flown by. It was basically time for dinner now.

"What are we going to do with all these?" I ask.

"Eat them!" Cecily says shortly.

"They're too much for just the four of us to eat! We'll get fat if we do that," Mime says with a frown.

Wiping my hands on a towel, I listen to them bicker for a while longer. This had been a lot of fun; I can't remember the last time that I had this much fun and laughed so much.

It was nice to relax like this every once in a while. Leaning my elbows on the kitchen bench, I place my chin in my hands and watch the three of them. Everyone looks like children as they bicker over what they want to do with all of our sweets.

This was so comfortable.

"Why don't we just take them to dinner?" I say.

All three of them turn their head towards me. Mime begins to nod his head and Ekon just shrugs.

"Cecily, agree with Hollis!" She says bouncing over towards me. She touches my leg and grins at the boys. Apparently, pleased with herself for agreeing with me first. I wanted to shake my head at her antics, but she's just too sweet.

"Fine by me," Ekon shrugs.

"I'm sure everyone will be excited to taste what we made," Mime says grinning.

"Perfect looks like we're all in agreement! Let's get a cart and fill it with the sweets," I say standing up and patting Cecily's head.

With that a servant wheels over a beautiful hand-carved wooden cart for us to pile our deserts onto. We quickly filled the cart with all the goodies and then begin to clean ourselves up a little bit for dinner.

One of the attendants with Mime cast cleaning magic on us. With that Cecily's flour-covered body becomes sparkling clean, it was like she'd never even gotten dirty in the first place.

She repeats this process another three times cleaning each of us.

[Lifestyle Magic] that was pretty useful, I'd have to learn how to use some for future events. I'm sure that it would make staying out in the woods a whole lot easier.

Plus, it's something that you can learn no matter what cla.s.s you are with relative ease.

"Cecily wants to go now!" She says bouncing around as she grabs my hand and drags me towards the dining area. Honestly, she's just a ma.s.sive ball of energy, I don't know how she's always so happy and peppy.

Maybe, she's just an airhead of sorts…

The boys follow behind us and so do the attendants that are wheeling the cart behind us.

Soon we arrive in front of the dining room doors, pus.h.i.+ng the doors open we head inside. The rooms completely covered in windows that let us see outside in the garden, the moon is hanging in a full circle outside the window.

My father sits at the head of the table with my mother on his left. She's dressed in a simple but elegant golden dress, that s.h.i.+mmers in the light. Her hair has been braided into three buns that run along the back of her head and highlight her sharp profile.

While my Father's dressed in a simple white s.h.i.+rt and his dark brown hair was light and wavy atop his head. His one good golden eye was drawn up into a smile.

Mime's father sits on the right of my Father. He's dressed in a light kimono, and his orange hair is unruly, and he's got a bright smile on his face. It seems he and my father are locked in a spirited conversation.

Next to Mime's father is Clemente. Sitting beside my mother is Salem, who as always has a relatively impa.s.sive look on his face.

My other brothers had left to attend to their duties in the world dungeon. They'd stayed for quite a while, taking a long break from dungeon exploration to spend some time with me. But nothing lasts for forever.

"h.e.l.lo Children," my mother says turning to look at us all.

Her emerald eyes are warm as they look at us all.

"h.e.l.lo Auntie," Cecily says.

"Good Evening, Emberlynn," Ekon says waling up beside me.

"h.e.l.lo, Governess," Mime says with a bow.

A small laugh leaves my Mother's mouth as she watches him.

"You don't need to keep up t.i.tles here, little one. Feel free to address me as Emberlynn if you'd like or auntie. Whichever you prefer," she smiles.

Ha, she was easy going but I could see the grin in her eyes. My mother absolutely adores children, I'm sure that she just wanted to hug him.

Walking forward, I take the seat next to Salem and Cecily quickly sits next to me. Ekon and Mime sit next to each other on the opposite side of the table next to Clemente.

"We've prepared some desert for everyone," I say.

Some servant comes forward and quickly begin to put food down in front of us. Sitting in front of my on the plate is a smoke golden duck. It's blood pools around it inside of the bowl it's sitting in.

To the side of that blood jellied bread was placed and a tall gla.s.s of star juice is place. On the opposite side, a gla.s.s of dark black blood is placed down next to me.

Cecily gets the same thing just without all the blood. The boys are quickly given plates as well.

"What did you make for us, Sis?" Clemente asks.

"We made some desert from Mime's home country."

"Oh, that will be exciting to taste," my mother comment as she places a soft bit of duck in her mouth.

"Did you make anything special for your dear old dad?"

"Horace, you've got it bad, don't you?" Garrik snort, downing a mug of beer.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? Who wouldn't be excited to get a hand-baked sweet from there darling little daughter?" My father roars.

They start to get into a fight and I just roll my eyes stabbing a piece of duck and popping it into my mouth. The sweet and savory taste of the fresh meat enters my mouth, along with the thick taste of blood.

"How are you feeling?" Salem asks, turning to look at me.

His face is drawn into a worried expression. He must have heard about what happened earlier with Clemente.

"I'm doing great. I spent most of the day resting."

"That right! Cecily made sure that she relaxed for a bit today!" She declares looking straight into my brothers' eyes.

He looks right back at her, and his eyes are soft as he nods his head. "Good! It's your job to make sure that she doesn't work so hard all the time!" He says matter of factly.

Cecily nods her little head listening to every word that he has to say.

"Is that really necessary you two?" I ask.

"Of course," they reply at the same time.

"If you're left on your own, I'm sure that you'd run yourself into the ground with training. I still don't even understand why your rus.h.i.+ng to take your cla.s.s test," he says rubbing his nose.

"We're taking it early so that we can go on adventurers," Ekon chimes in all of the sudden.

"Cecily understands, we want to explorer and adventurer as soon as possible!" She clenches her little fist.

A hint of surprise flashes over Salem's face as he looks at all of us.

"See you heard them! We've got to work hard so that we can go on adventures!" I say cheekily.

"It's no use arguing with her, Salem. She's already made up her mind and her friends are willing to follow that. Shouldn't we respect that?" My mother asks.

A complex expression appears on my brother's face as he looks downwards at his food.

"You're not alone, Son! I don't want her to do it either, but I promised your mother that I'd let her do what she wants. You know our little blood candy is as stubborn as her Mother!" My father cries as he slams his hand on the table.

"Pfft," I try to stop myself from laughing.

"Come on, Father. Don't lie you're just as stubborn, if not more so. She probably got her stubbornness from you," Clemente snorts.

The bickering doesn't stop after that. But it was nice, I felt warm on the inside.

Being surrounded by family and friends was defiantly the best thing ever!