Ivor blew out a long, slow breath, before lifting his head and giving the lords of Hizelk and the October Children (plus Jesse, who was currently holding Reuben), and the three from Beacontown a very, very grateful look.
"I am in your debt. Immensely so."
Mevia grunted a "don't mention it" and Harper just blushed. "It was no trouble, Ivor," Isa said simply, sweeping an elegant curtsy.
"But it was. I asked for assistance in my own district when I shouldn't have needed assistance and handled it on my own, as a senior Lord. Yet you all came to my aid immediately and without complaint," he said, inclining his head in a respectful motion. "I cannot thank you enough."
After wiping the negative energy from the Institute, Jesse had woken up back in Fortrylle with their head in Harper's lap.
(Mevia teased Harper for a few hours after that about how Jesse had refused to let go of her in their sleep, resulting in Harper throwing a chunk of redstone ore at her and grumbling "shut up" with her face flushed in embarrassment and Gill cheerfully poking Jesse's cheek and saying they looked like a tomato.)
When Jesse asked if the Warden was fine, Ivor had shrugged and nodded, saying that he'd mostly started working on changing some policies to avoid anything like that happening again (including banning solitary confinement as a punishment).
Jesse had also asked if it was normal to sell zombie flesh in the black market; Ivor had sighed and said that unfortunately, meat was meat for a fair amount of 'citizens' in the Institute.
(Jesse made a note to refuse any meat dishes that came their way in the Institute, assuming they ever went back.)
Today, Ivor had called the meeting, which they'd all arrived at a little late- Mevia being the latest, rubbing her eyes and muttering swears under her breath.
(Hadrian had asked her if she was usually so underprepared, upon which Isa had had to casually put an arm around her(self) to avoid Mevia decking Hadrian.)
Petra grinned and clapped Aiden on the back. "Yeah, I owe you all a drink."
"Are you old enough to drink...?" Jesse asked this, a little meekly.
"Alcohol works differently in Cosmos than in the human world, since I'm fairly certain that human alcohol is just fermented grapes or grain... in Cosmos, there's also small amounts of non-lethal poison that are actual beneficial to demons and half-demons," Jack whispered to Jesse, perhaps to spare them further embarrassment.
"Oh."
A short pause.
Jack bent back down to continue whispering after a moment of consideration. "Also we're demons. We don't really have age restrictions on that sort of thing."
"... oh."
"We can give you alcohol if you want to try it-"
"We are not giving Jesse poisonous alcohol, Gill."
Aiden pretended he hadn't heard this exchange as Gill and Maya devolved back into their usual arguing and shrugged at Petra. "We really didn't do much..."
"Still. Thank you." Ivor inclined his head politely, also ignoring the arguing, before giving Jesse and Reuben a wider smile. "And thank you, for doing so much of the purifying."
Jesse shuffled shyly. "It wasn't much..." they murmured shyly.
Hadrian sighed. "Kid, you passed out after every single incident where you purified the negative energy. Take some credit, will you?"
Jesse's cheeks went a lovely shade of pink.
Mevia scowled at Hadrian, but her face lightened a moment later as she glanced at Jesse. "Yes... you did do us a rather large favor, Jesse. You're really going above and beyond what Romeo requested of you."
"Hey, yeah," and Lukas ruffled their hair, smiling at them. Jesse couldn't see his eyes behind the blindfold, but they had a feeling his eyes were a little crinkled up. "You're being a major help."
Jesse blushed harder.
Lukas proceeded to elbow Maya so hard she fell into Gill to cut off their arguing, making the two of them fumble in embarrassment.
Isa smiled at their antics, before her face fell into a more serious expression and she turned to Ivor. "We're planning on attending Xara's party in a week or two."
Jesse had forgotten about the party entirely.
Judging by the way Petra blinked, she had also forgotten.
"Yes... ah, are you getting the October Children invitations?" Ivor asked, blinking suddenly.
Mevia inclined her head. "I don't think Xara will be too displeased... she has nothing against the October Children themselves."
"Would she see it as a breach of manners?" Harper asked, once again startling all of the half-demons and the one human with how very articulate she was on the occasion that she was comfortable enough to speak to the other lords with other people in the room.
"Since she didn't invite them herself? No, there are plus ones. I know Milo and Reginald are also invited. That with the three of us would cover all the plus-ones we can bring, right?" Isa mused aloud.
Jack cleared his throat, making them all look at him. "I don't think she thinks highly of the October Children, but that's mostly due to their connection to Romeo..."
"We've talked with her before... she's usually quite civil about it," Maya murmured, brow furrowing.
"Unless Romeo's there."
"Well, yeah, she hates him, you dumbass."
"Who you calling a dumbass, asshole?"
"You, you piece of-"
Aiden gave a long-suffering sigh as the two of them dissolved right back into arguing, as per usual.
Lukas sighed, but he was still smiling faintly at them.
Ivor and the other lords either didn't care or consciously ignored the argument, as they continued speaking over the argument. "I think that would technically not breach any rules... especially since you don't have any contracts right now, so there would be no need to bring them along as 'plus ones'."
"Is Petra invited?"
Ivor nodded, giving Petra a half-smile. "She is. Xara was kind enough to send her her own invitation- though I'm sure a great deal of Yurin and the Oasis threw a huge fuss over it."
Isa rolled her eyes to heaven. "Well, it was very polite of her to do so."
"Agreed..."
Ivor glanced at Jesse. "Are they your plus one, then?"
"Mine."
Jesse blinked up at Harper, who'd said it so quickly that they almost had missed her saying it.
Her cheeks flushed as Mevia shot her a devilish grin, but she soldiered on through her embarrassment. "Mevia gets Lukas."
Lukas blinked. Well, Jesse couldn't actually see him blink, but his head shifted enough to give that impression. "Did you guys draw straws or something?"
"We did decide to get it straight about who was whose plus ones; for formality reasons." Isa shrugged. "Otherwise someone in Yurin could make an argument against it or some nonsense like that that we don't want to deal with."
Aiden grunted at that. "Fair enough."
"Why is this all so political...?" Jesse asked meekly.
Radar adjusted his glasses, frowning. "It's... complicated. Mostly Yurin has a lot of fancy-pants people who are a little... prideful..."
Jesse had the overwhelming feeling that he wanted to say "arrogant" but was restraining himself from doing so out of courtesy.
"And Xara would like to prevent them from causing the other barons trouble, so she tries to keep up appearances by us doing traditionally 'polite' procedures when attending parties or such," Radar finished.
Nurm signed "Even though the procedures are outdated by three hundred years," which made both Jack and Jesse snort loudly.
Jack tried to amend it by shooting Nurm a scolding look, but his lips twitched into a grin despite himself.
"Ah, I see..." Jesse said, desperately trying to keep from giggling. "I guess that makes sense..."
Ivor nodded, before clearing his throat and turning back to them. "That being said, I would like to owe each of you a favor- for any future help you might need."
Several eyebrows shot up- Jesse got the feeling that a favor from him was a pretty big deal. Especially since he was so powerful.
Hadrian gave a low whistle, blinking red eyes with interest.
"You don't have to, Ivor," Isa said.
"But it's nice," Gill mumbled.
(Maya proceeded to stomp on his foot so hard that Jesse was surprised that his foot didn't break.)
Ivor put a hand up to stop any incoming protests, acknowledging Gill now hopping around and swearing under his breath by summoning an ice pack and holding it out to him. "I'm fully aware that I don't have to. Consider it thanks for practically doing my job for me at some points."
Jesse went redder than a tomato as Ivor shot them a grateful little smile.
"Will we see you at the party, Ivor?"
"Yes, I imagine so- please don't throw that vase, you two, I happen to like it," Ivor said, not even looking in Gill and Maya's direction.
Jesse looked in time to see Maya frown a little and put the (admittedly quite ugly) vase back onto the table.
"What do you plan to do with your key?" Mevia was asking Ivor.
His brow furrowed a little. "I'm not sure... I'm mostly planning on carrying it in a ceremonial fashion. That'd make it harder for it to simply disappear."
Harper hummed at that, brow creasing in interest. "True."
"Unfortunately, our key's already been taken... there's the two keys that are going to be at the party and Romeo's key. It would be very attractive for whoever's behind taking the keys to go to the party," Mevia murmured.
"I suppose then our job would be to keep an eye on the keys... is Xara planning to carry hers ceremonially as well?"
"We've discussed it," Ivor said, making Harper blink (maybe the Skype call- uh, communication they had accidentally stumbled in on back in the Underneath meant that the lords rarely contacted each other one-on-one, Jesse mused). "It would be beneficial for us both to do so..."
Lukas crossed his arms, considering this. "What would happen if you had to leave the key unattended for a minute?"
"In that case Petra would guard mine... I suppose that does raise the question of what Xara had planned to do if her key's left unattended..."
"Maybe leave it to a baron? I know Cassie and Binta are both planning on being there, so it would make sense to leave it with one of them," Isa murmured.
"Or hand it over to one of you," Aiden added. "Since you guys are also lords..."
"Ah, that does make sense..."
Jesse frowned. "Why don't all the lords have contracts?"
"It depends. The 'contract locations' mean that potential contracts drop into specific cities; so usually this means that that district's lords get to decide if they're worthy of a contract. If so, they're the ones who sign the contracts. Yurin is very far north in the human world, so it's rare that people go to that location," Ivor said.
Hadrian frowned. "I think with Hizelk's contract location, it's been made into a tourist location or something. So there are so many potential contracts that it ends up overloading the system, especially since so many make requests that are inconsequential and by the time they find a proper one it's already departed the area."
"It has; you have to pay admission too," Mevia muttered.
"Oh..." Jesse supposed that made sense. "What about Jupin? Does the lack of a lord mean that it's impossible to form contracts?"
"Yeah. Only a lord can make contracts due to the amount of power it takes- a lord can easily give up that amount and be unaffected; a baron would basically be drained by taking on a single person. It's actually very impressive that Romeo's able to handle four at once," Jack said with a nod.
Jesse frowned a bit. "I see... but half-demons can become lords?"
"Ah... Fred was an interesting case; he had such a good handle on certain branches of magic that it was only logical to make him a lord," Ivor replied, after a moment of thought. "It's actually beneficial, because he was quite good at light magic."
Jesse frowned. "Demons can't use light magic, right?"
"They can, but it's immensely difficult, and even for us lords we tend to go with workarounds. Jupin was one of the safest districts for a while because of how difficult it was for negative energy to spawn."
Jesse nodded, keeping that information in mind.
Ivor glanced at Hadrian, who sighed. "Ivor has asked me to offer you to teleport you all back to Hizelk to allow for the time you'll need to reach the Oasis."
"Why didn't you teleport them here in the first place?" Nurm signed curiously, Jack translating for him.
"Because I'll have to teleport to them, then teleport back a week after in order to build up enough energy to get them with me to Enchantra. It was just quicker in the long run for them to travel the normal way," Hadrian responded. "Once I take them there, I'll essentially have to stay with them up until the party-"
"No thanks," Mevia said instantly.
Harper nudged her; when Mevia shot her a disgruntled look, Harper gave her an apologetic shrug. "Quick."
"She's right," Isa murmured. "We need to get to Xara's quickly- with how hard it is to get through Duomoon in this season, it'll eat up a lot of time and we might miss the party entirely."
Mevia glared, before sighing. "Fine."
Ivor stood and bowed politely to the October Children and the Hizelk lords again. "Thank you again for the assistance. I will see you at the party. Petra, do you want to go with them?"
Petra hummed, hands laced behind her head. "Can I?"
Hadrian gave a hefty sigh but said nothing.
"It's not a problem. Just come if I call for you."
"Understood."
Hadrian sighed and beckoned them all closer. "Jack, do you three plan to come to Hizelk for the time being?"
Jack nodded. "Xara offered us a temporary job with security for the party- Radar included," he jerked his head at the younger demon. "We might as well come along since that's the case."
Hadrian sighed again. "Alright... Harper, give me some redstone so we can put it around us in a circle..."
Ivor had to hide a smile as he left the room while Mevia snapped and told him to get his own. It wasn't professional for a senior lord like him to be amused by this argument.
"Mevia, I don't carry redstone around in my fucking pockets."
"Well maybe you should."
"For what? I literally don't fucking use it except for this one occasion."
"Well, you should've known you were going to use it."
"Are you really this juvenile?"
"Stop fighting." That was Harper. "Here."
"See, at least one of you are civil."
Isa spoke up now. "What am I, then, Hadrian, a patch of Nether?"
Ivor had to look up at the ceiling to keep from bursting into very audible laughter.
A/N: hey so i'm updating two stories now. once a week. alternating between hybrid and october children.
hopefully i can actually keep up weekly uploads.
also hybrid is now also on ao3 after like. 4 years. amazing.
responses to reviews!
littleangelbun: :3c
Toni42: He's not having a fun time with this mess lol
Happygoluckymegami: Well, there was negative energy down there, but never that much...
DubstepDragon14: Da Jesse is safe / :3333 / :3c maybe.
I feel like a freaking creepypasta where every time someone looks back at me updating the smile on my face gets bigger as we draw near to a... certain chapter.
anyway that's it so long g'bye!
x.X. A.L. X.x
