Zoey and Noah exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes, reminding Mokuba of just how much of a charmer Noah could be if he set his mind to it.

As much as Ryo's parents wanted to believe his story on Mokuba's abuse. They didn't really believe much of it. To Zoey at least, Mokuba though trained, she figured he was just in a small family and the king and Ryo just overacted. The boy was simply trained to help out. Though at first she couldn't understand why the boy needed so much explained. But then later figured that they just needed more help around the house and things and just didn't send the boy to school. Not totally uncommon, she'd learned that traveling in the mountains. Their children are often disciplined and trained to do their jobs and forbidden to go to school. Although this close to the city and so young it seemed odd but without knowing more about the family. She felt that Ryo or the king saw them going a little overboard on their discipline and immediately cried abuse.

"You've changed a lot since I last saw you. You've gotten so big! The last time I saw you was his age." Zoey said, motioning towards Mokuba. Surprised to see him hiding behind her.

Noah's eyes went wide seeing Mokuba.

"What are you doing? Didn't anyone ever teach you any manners?" Zoey scolded Mokuba.

Noah smirked all too aware as to why the boy was hiding. "It's fine, we're old friends. He's always been a bit on the shy side."

"Oh, well was there something you needed?"

Snapping back to reality Noah said, "Mother wanted me to come over and see if you had anything to spare. She's making a couple of Christmas cakes for her club meeting, later tonight. She had planned to run into town and get some supplies but the snow was so deep it'd take longer than she had to get there and back. That or she's just lazy, what can I tell you. Anyway she needs flour and eggs. She thought she had enough but it turned out she didn't."

"Oh, I see. Well I'm not sure if we have enough. Come on, we'll go see. I'll give you what we have."

At that Noah smiled, "Thank you that's very kind of you. But would you mind terribly if J… I…I…I mean we waited here. We have some catching up to do." Noah said he forgot Mokuba's name or just never bothered to remember it and nearly screwed up and said JJ. Which would make her wonder why he was using that name. He wasn't about to try to explain why he didn't know his name. The biggest reason was fear; fear that someone may have warned them against him. He couldn't understand why the boy was here but wasn't going to waste such an opportunity, wondering about it.

Zoey looked at him a little at his tongue twister, but then shrugged it off and smiled and said, "Of course. How rude of me not to think of that. The two of you probably have a lot to talk about."

Mokuba couldn't believe she was going to leave him here with Noah! But then again he didn't know what Ryo had told his parents about him. Perhaps she didn't know how dangerous Noah could be. But Mokuba remembered now that when Noah really wanted to be, he could charm you to the point that it would be sickening how thick he laid it on. But those times were rare because even if he was in a charming mood, it wasn't that bad unless he was really in the mood.

Zoey patted the boy on the head. "You be good, I'll be back in a bit." Then she walked away.

"Well with her being so nice about giving us some alone time," Noah sneered walking closer to the boy. "Perhaps I can convince her to let me take you home for a few hours. Then we can have lots of fun."

Mokuba whimpered, pulled his cloak tighter around him and backed up till his back was to the barn. As he hit the wall he was so scared he lost the grip on his baby dragon.

Noah saw something drop and looked down and picked it up. Mokuba started crying, wishing for Ryo or someone else. He really didn't want Noah to hurt his baby dragon.

"You know I definitely think this new place is spoiling you way too much. Giving you toys like this. You don't need toys like this to make you happy." Then moved close to his ear and purred, "You only need me!"

At that Mokuba squeaked. Noah backed up and sneered then turned and much to Mokuba's horror threw his baby dragon into the woods. Mokuba was too frightened to remember what Zariah had told him about his cloak.

x-x-x-x-x-x-xx-x-x-x-x-x

Ryo meanwhile had just finished helping his father load some things into a smaller wagon they had had to rig up on a donkey wagon.

"Tell me again why you bought two sarcophagi?" Ryo asked.

"Your mother got all bent out of shape when we were traveling through Egyptia. It was so hot you could barely breathe. She fainted from heat exhaustion and said when she died she wanted to be buried in a sarcophagus."

"Okay, so what does that have to do with you having them, now?"

"Well when she recovered she insisted we buy them and bring them home."

"Right, but why are we taking them with us?"

"Oh, my friend Steve has a cellar as well as a basement. He said he has plenty of room in his cellar to store them."

"You can't just store them here in the basement, why exactly?"

"Your mother fears that someone would steal them."

"Of course." 'I seriously doubt anyone would want them.' Ryo thought. Then something else occurred to him. But surely not, his parents were rich not just from their jobs but from their family as well. "Dad these aren't made out of real gold are they?"

"What? Oh, no no. Your mother wanted to but I talked her out of it. It'd have cost way too much to have had them shipped all the way out here with us. Not to mention how much heavier than they are now. No it's just the highest quality of gold paint available. Plus they put some kind of coating on it to ensure that the gold wouldn't wear off for a few years. Steve says that they don't use the cellar much and that he has a level below that he hopes will be big enough to store these in. He's not sure why an extra level was added in the cellar but never uses it."

"Oh."

Just then Zoey yells for Ryo and he quickly goes to her to avoid asking any more questions he probably doesn't want the answer to.

"Yes, is there something wrong?" Ryo asked.

"No, dear. Ivera's boy came over wanting things to make a cake with. I'm having trouble finding anything. Do you know if we have any flour?"

"Yeah, it's in the very back of the panty." Ryo said suspiciously, then realized he didn't see Mokuba anywhere. "Mom where Mokuba?"

"Oh, well Noah said that they were old friends and me to give him some time with the boy while I got what he wanted."

Ryo blinked then glared at her and yelled, "And you just left him with him!"

"Of course. I mean the boy shied away but Noah assured me that was normal."

Ryo resisted the urge to slap her. "Now I remember why I hated you so much growing up!" Ryo growled.

Zoey blinked, "What? What do you mean you hated me?"

"Later, I'll be sure to tell you exactly what I mean!" Ryo said, storming off to find Mokuba.