July 1994 - Mexico City
It was a beautiful summer afternoon. The streets of the city were flowing gently with traffic, there were street vendors offering balloons and blowing bubbles to attract the children, everything was completely normal, except for two people. Annaliese and Erick Belmont were sitting on a bench in the Alameda Central as they ate ice-cream and admired at the crowd surrounding a group of clowns, to any passerby they looked like normal people, with their matching light-washed jeans and white sneakers but what any passerby didn't know is that the two siblings were members of one of the most prestigious families in Magical Mexico, of course, a passerby wouldn't know what Magical Mexico was either.
The people in front of the light brown-haired teens laughed and cheered as one of the clowns told a dirty joke, clearly meant for only the adult audience to understand. Erick sighed dreamily, his amber eyes sparkling with excitement.
"They are so easily amused," he said, smiling.
His sister scanned the mass of people, her jade green eyes cold and calculating, she leaned forward and smirked as she spotted two men circling the crowd slowly.
"And ridiculously distracted," Anneliese added as she gestured to a man that had just pulled out a wallet from someone's pocket.
They both turned to look at each other with a knowing smile and took a spoonful of ice-cream.
"Misted" they both murmured at the same time, turning back to their new-found entertainment.
They continued staring until Anne's watch marked it was five o'clock, which for them meant that they had to get back home and get ready for the mandatory family dinner with their parents and whoever they decided to invite that Friday.
"Do you want me to apparate us there or should we take the other way?" Erick asked.
"I'll take the other way, you are still not the best at apparting two people at the same time," Anne said as she stood up.
"Well, we should get going, before they close."
As the siblings walked away from the park and set their way back home, they commented on all the things they found different from their everyday life; from the cars to the street vendors and things like the way the Palacio de Bellas Artes was sinking into the ground.
When they were done analyzing Bellas Artes, they crossed the street from Avenida Hidalgo to Tacuba and headed straight to the Palacio Postal.
Before entering Anne slipped on the lilac cardigan she had been carrying around, her brother quietly stared at her with confusion in his eyes while he waited inside.
"It's all the marble," she explained, "it makes the inside of the building much cooler than the outside".
He shrugged, not minding the change in temperature, besides, they would be gone soon.
"Come on, before mom starts stressing about us being gone too long." She said as she walked to the centre of the building where the elevators were.
"I'm not the one slowing us down," he mumbled, burying his hands in the pockets of his red jacket, "besides I'm the older one, I shouldn't be the one listening to her."
Still, he trotted up to her when she turned around and looked at him questioningly as to why he wasn't right behind her.
"Did you feel lost without me?" he said when he reached her.
"Terribly" she smirked.
They both walked into one the elevator on the left. Once inside, Erick pressed the button for the same floor they were in for thirteen seconds and then said:
"Please, state your name and position." Spoke a cold female voice.
"X'tab Anneliese Belmont and Uay Balam Erick Belmont," Anne said.
The world outside the crystal walls filled up with smoke and ghostly figures that circled them, dragging their hands through the doors, waiting for whoever was inside to prove themselves to be a fake and take them for sacrifice.
"Who are you looking for?" spoke a cold female voice.
"Leonora's white horse" Erick answered.
The smoke cleared up along with whatever was waiting for them to fail. When they walked out of the elevator they were still on the first floor of the Palacio Postal, just that this time there were people dressed in colourful robes and the air was filled with bird-shaped papers carrying information to the top floors.
Two tall men dressed in dark robes were waiting for them by the exit, one wore red gloves embroidered with jaguar motifs and the other wore green leather gloves. Their names were Álvaro and Hugo, they were responsible for keeping the young heirs out of trouble, among other things.
"My Lords, for a second we thought we had lost you," Álvaro said, "You never were this unruly as children" he sighed.
Erick laughed and brushed it off, attributing all to 'simple curiosity' and promised to be more careful next time.
Álvaro sighed tiredly, but Hugo was not impressed by the boy.
"You two go ahead, Miss Anneliese and I will stay behind," Hugo said, then turned to Álvaro, "You will say that Mr Balam went looking for materials for his garden and I will say that Miss Anneliese went looking for books in our world. We don't want our visitors to worry about the children mingling with the wrong crowd."
Álvaro nodded and pushed Erick to continue walking, but the young man stepped back towards his sister.
"Hugo, it was my idea, she wanted to see what dresses the misted girls used for their quinceañera parties."
Hugo turned to look at Anne outraged for what he had just heard was his misses' new interest. She smirked at him awkwardly and turned to her brother, unable to smile lovingly at him, despite his terrible habit of digging her deeper into the mud.
"It's alright, don't worry about me, go home and I'll meet you there. Please, go home" Anne added when she saw him ready to prepare another argument.
He nodded, not before hugging her and whispering "Sorry".
She patted him in the back and waved at Álvaro when he raised his two thumbs.
"We will speak once you are changed out of those clothes." He said, climbing up the stairs and heading to the bathrooms on the second floor. "Here you go, I'll wait for you outside, and I want your hair back to normal when you step out." He added.
Anne took the white cloth bag and stepped into the bathroom, not daring to say anything or look him in the eye, afraid to see the disappointed look he always wore before a big scolding.
She stepped into one of the bathroom stalls and changed into the emerald dress with golden embroidery around the hemline and sleeves, she shimmied into the black thighs with more embroidery all over them, and as she reached for the last item in the bag, she was surprised to find a pair of platform combat boots. She only wore these boots for duels. Why would Hugo give her these?
She decided to brush it off and finally changed her hair back to its natural black with a flick of her wrist and with another flick, it braided itself into a half-crown braid with golden a golden snake twisted into it.
"I'm done" Anneliese announced while stepping out, still refusing to look her guardian in the eyes.
"He's been unbearable the whole day," Hugo said.
Hugo stepped closer to her and showed her that slithering out of his cape, was a two-meter long snake with yellow, red and black coloured rings, some bigger than others.
§Where were you?§, asked Yoali, the snake on Hugo's shoulder.
§I was outside, sorry for not taking you with me§, Anne said as the snake slithered towards her.
Yoali didn't answer and simply curled around her as a response.
"We should get going," said Hugo.
He wrapped her up in a long dark cloak to cover her dress, for he didn't want anyone to recognize her, especially not near the get-way between the magical world and the misted one.
They both stepped out into the street, no skyscrapers could be seen like they would have where Anneliese had spent her afternoon, only the many Palacios proved that she was even in the same country.
"Are we apparating there?" she asked hopefully.
He helped Anneliese step into the carriage that had been waiting for them.
"What you were doing in the misted world when you were supposed to be in your fencing class?" He said, sitting in front of her. She waited for the carriage to start moving and stared quietly at the Therstals pulling it before finally turning to look at Hugo, ready to tell him to leave her alone, when Yoali whispered:
§You should answer him, he's been worried all day you know?§
She wanted to ask him whose side he was on, but it made no sense just to pick up a fight with him.
"It's just like Erick said, I wanted to look at the dresses…"
"So I am to assume that it is his fault then?"
"No, I…" she sighed "It wasn't his fault."
"Then tell me the truth about what happened."
"I wanted to see what it would be like to be one of them: go to the movies, eat ice-cream in the park and get excited over the silliest of things. Just see what life without magic is like."
"Anneliese, you are not in trouble for being curious, at least not this time," he said, "I simply worry for you, you've never missed a single fencing class in your life, I would expect this from your brother, but from you?"
"It's just not fair!" she shouted, "Erick gets to be the 'oh so respectful older brother' no matter what he does while I have to be the picture of perfection for everything."
Yoali curled tighter around Anneliese in an attempt to comfort her. He couldn't comprehend what she was saying, but he knew that tone well enough to figure out what was going on.
"You know why that is," Hugo said calmly, like Yoali, he had heard these many times before.
"He is a Belmont too."
"Only in name, never in blood, or else his familiar would also be a snake, instead of that Quetzal that follows him around everywhere."
She sighed and patted Yoali on his head, nothing would come out of talking about this, it never did.
Everyone in the carriage stayed quiet until they approached the Belmont Manor.
§Get ready§, Yoali said as they approached the entrance.
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but there was no time as her father, Antonin, was waiting for her outside along with Pandora, his black rat snake. "Where were you all day?" was the first thing he said.
"She was with the young master" Hugo answered.
"Is that true?"
Anne nodded.
"Well, then I guess he didn't cause too much havoc, did he?" his father smiled at her.
She giggled, glad to at least no be in trouble with him. "I wish, at least I would have had some entertainment that way".
They both laughed and walked inside, Hugo following close behind with his Mistresses' cape, making sure he would be nearby in case Antonin asked any more questions that Anneliese would be nervous to answer. When he realized that the young girl had gained her footing, he left to keep the cloak on the closet.
He really wished the day would end and his mistress would be able to rest, but he knew the young girl's endurance was about to be tested over and over again for the rest of the evening, there was a good reason he had given her the boots reserved for duels after all.