2131 close but Far (Part 3)
"About the conditions to go back to Lutia, I also want no guests in the house except for those I invite there myself. I'm tired of people looking for me and touching my womb." Kamila said after snapping out of it.
"Deal." Elina nodded. "Anything else?"
"Just one more. Since we are going to live in the same house, we need ground rules. Like no entering a closed door without knocking first and waiting for a reply." Kamila blushed a little.
There was more than one reason why she and Lith had kept the apartment in Belius for so long and rarely spent the night in Lutia. The most important was the lack of privacy.
That was, after all, the Verhen family's home, and Lith's parents would often walk into a room unannounced with predictable consequences. Locking the door avoided eye contact but didn't make the situation any less awkward.
As for the kids, they would always walk in unannounced and bang on the door when they found it closed. Unless they were outside playing with their magical beasts or already in bed, they seemed to always have the worst possible timing to ask Lith and Kamila to read them a story.
On top of that, there was the issue of the noise.
If Lith soundproofed the walls, he wouldn't be able to hear anything coming from the outside nor to answer any question about the dinner unless someone called him on his amulet.
If he didn't and just blocked the noise from going out, unless it was the middle of the night there was always enough activity in the house to kill the most romantic of moods.
The triplets cried for one reason or another, the magical beasts howled for extra food, Senton and Rena argued about whose turn it was to deal with the triplets, and Raaz yelled at everyone to shut the hell up.
"We can try." Elina shrugged in embarrassment. "Do you want to work on some code? Like a sock on the handle means do not disturb?"
"Gods, no." Kamila, Rena, and even Tista said in unison.
'Who the heck would announce to the world they're having sex?' They thought.
After a long discussion, the Verhens finally came to an agreement that would allow the entire family to exploit the Guardians' protection to go back to Lutia whenever Kamila's duty didn't require her to be in Valeron.
"Just one question." Solus asked after she and Lith returned from the battlefield when the terms of the treaty were already settled. "Where am I supposed to sleep? Unless Tista shares her room with me, I'd be forced to stay in the tower alone."
"We need a bigger house." Raaz sighed. "With the triplets, Solus, and the new babies, it's time to plan for a third floor."
"Yeah, right, but in the meantime, I demand to have the same personal space as the rest of the grown-ups!" She said.
"You can stay in my room until you have one of your own." Trion said with a sad voice. "It's not like I need it anyway."
"Thanks." Solus replied.
"Whatever." Lith grunted. "I can't believe that after working my ass off the whole day I have to listen to this b-"
His eyes fell on Aran and Leria, managing to hold his tongue at the last second.
"Bedlam. Why don't we just stay in the Desert? We have plenty of space, nice people, and no worry that our neighbors might be mean to us."
"I know that this sounds like a chore to you, little brother, but I'm with Mom on this." Rena said. "You have accepted to go through a lot of hardships to give us our old life back.
"Sooner or later, we have to return to Lutia and with how the war is going, now is the perfect moment."
"What do you mean?" Lith asked.
"Do you realize that this is the first time in a long while that we've sat together for dinner?" Rena replied. "Ever since you sealed the deal with the Royals, you and Solus have been off, Tista has been on missions, or Kamila has had to pull double shifst.
"Now that the Kingdom finally has the advantage, we should make the best of this opportunity to go back home and pretend that everything is okay. I believe in you, little brother, and I knew you were destinated for greatness way before you received that white robe.
"Yet not even you can win this war alone. If something goes wrong, these might be the final days we have in the Kingdom before being forced into exile ."
Lith opened his mouth to reply, but only a sigh came out.
'I don't have the strength to tell her that the advantage Leegaain gave us is already gone and we are on the back foot again.' He thought. 'Thrud's Generals have returned for a couple of weeks now and they have launched a great counter offensive with the help of the Undead Courts.
'The Divine Beasts and her Awakened army attack during the day while the undead arrive at night, preventing our troops from resting. Those damn Blood Witches use their powers to bypass our arrays and unleash their knock-off Doom Tide in the middle of our lines.
'The reason why Tista, Solus, and I are back home is that the situation is too chaotic. Our orders are to rest and be ready to attack the moment an opportunity arises. The Council and the Royals simply consider us too valuable assets to be deployed until the situation stabilizes.
'I wonder what the heck is going on and why the Undead Courts became so strong all of a sudden.'
Lith had no idea that Vastor's hybrids were currently in the Empire nor that it was their absence that had caused such a sudden turn in the tide of battle.
Abominations and Eldritches couldn't fight alongside the Kingdom's forces and had to stick to the shadows.
They kept being a thorn in the sides of the Undead Courts and attacking their known bases, but once they relocated, the Eldritches needed much longer than a hybrid to track them down.
Covert missions required finesse and patience whereas Abominations needed sheer willpower just to keep a disguise. Let alone not letting the Chaos run rampant through their bodies and destroy everything they touched.
To make matters worse, after the Undead Courts had discovered the raid on Orpal's secret palaces, they had stopped holding back and gone all-in. Now that they had lost their best weapons against the Mad Queen, the only choice they had left was to make themselves indispensable to her.
Otherwise, once the war was over, Thrud might not deem their merits worthy of sitting with her at the table of winners.
"Fine, let's go back home." Lith raised his hands in surrender.
The following day, when Kamila finished her shift, she Warped to Lutia instead of the Desert, finding the rest of the family waiting for her.
"How was your first day?" She noticed that everyone had a tense expression, even the children. "How did the people of Lutia welcome you back?"
"We'll find out tomorrow." Raaz replied while moving through the house and sliding his fingers on the furniture. "We've just gotten here as well and I don't plan to make visits for today."
