*** KINGDOM OF OLLAGON, TYLER’S WOODEN COTTAGE HUT ***

*** ELLA ***

The little girl wipe the sweat of her face and continued to clean the dishes. Tears are about to leak out of her brown eyes but she savagely forces herself to stop crying.

She’s been trying to clean the stain out of her mama’s favorite pot, but the stain simply wouldn’t badge. Her small hands were raw but she kept at it. Mama is already angry with her and this will only make her even angrier.

She didn’t know why her mama is always angry with her, but that was her reality ever since she remembers. Her earliest memory was when one night it was raining really hard and she got scared by the boom of thunder. She unconsciously snuggled next to her Mama’s back who is lying next to the bed. Her Mama was so angry at her that she push her hard out of the bed until she fell with a thud into the dirt below.

Papa was so outraged that he and Mama started arguing and screaming all throughout the night. She didn’t want to add to their problems that she never reveal the cut on her leg despite how painful it was. And she never cried again.

Ever.

Now that she is a bit older, she is always guarded when she is near her Mama. She always follows her order without complain and she has to listen very carefully because sometimes Mama use big words and she could not understand it and Mama always cuff her ears if she asks her to repeat it or indicate in any way that she didn’t completely understand what she said.

She is grateful though that at least Papa is not like her. Papa likes to be hug and smile and tickle her every now and then. But he is very busy, and Ella didn’t like that he always drink a lot this days. Drinking lots of water is good for you, according to Master Lohan, but the drink Papa likes to guzzle in has a funny smell and one time she tasted it and it was awful.

Papa and Mama are always fighting a lot this days, and somehow Ella feels that her Mama is getting angrier whenever she sees her and papa laughing. Even Papa sense it and now we only laugh and hug and tickle and wrestle when mama is not around.

Someone is knocking at the door. “Oh no,” Ella whispered in anguished. “They are already here.”

Today is market day, and Papa and Mama always go to the big town of Gentra with brownie, to get some goodies for the house like flour for bread, salt, honey, some jams, candles, magic scrolls, empty crystals, potions, and other essentials.

They left her a few things to do, but she is nowhere near doing half of them. Mama will definitely get angry again and will hit her bottom with the stick again. She hated that stick. For a second, she considers hiding the stick but that will only make her Mama even more angry with her.

Someone knock at the door once again, and Ella sighed again with sadness. There is nothing else to do but accept her faith, she thought forlorn. “Comiiiing,” she said weakly, sadness in her voice.

When she opened the door, a tall man with red hair and an astonishing green eyes stared back at her. She blink and her little heart skip a bit.

She knew she has never seen this man before in her entire 3 years of life, but the man with the weathered face looking back at her, looks so familiar. His emerald green eyes is intently looking back at her, and it was filled with a mixture of joy and pain and sadness. The little girl solemnly stared back at the stranger and despite her reserve, she wanted to hug and console the man.

Instead, she asked a question. “How can I help you sir?”

*** KINGDOM OF OLLAGON, TYLER’S WOODEN COTTAGE RESIDENCE ***

*** Amriel ***

Amriel stared longingly at the little girl who answered the door. She barely reaches his knees and yet she has the solemnity of a well-bred lady.

He knew exactly who the girl was the moment she opened the door, for he feel the very radiance signature that Daniel already memorize in his soul. And the radiance signature belong to this girl, Amriel’s child Ella.

Her long silky black hair and the intelligent brown eyes were her mothers. A miniature Allana. A heartbreaker in a making. Amriel had to consciously stop himself from stooping down and crushing the little girl in his arms, or risk scaring the girl.

The girl blink at him, and Amriel recognize Allana’s expression when she is deeply observing something. Despite himself, the corner of his lips twitch upward.

‘She looks so beautiful,’ Amriel thought, helplessly.

Unknown to the little girl, a giant cat is rubbing his face in her left shoulder, while a tiny dog wiggled his tail wildly as he looks up adoringly at Ella. Behind them, Aida is hesitatingly patting Ella tiny head while openly crying a river. “Beautiful,” she echoed sadly.

“How can I help you sir?” She asked.

Amriel immediately compose himself. “I’m looking for Tyler the second of TwoTree,” he said formally.

“Papa?” Asked the child, her face perking up. “He’s out for the moment. If you could wait for 1 stick of time or you could just come back later.”

Amriel had a sad smile in his face. “I see,” He said.

Shayla silently watch him in one corner, her face unreadable.

Amriel blink and frowned around him. So did the boy named Simon next to him. When the nearby barn did not show any horses, Amriel already half expected that Tyler is out.

Damn, I don’t want to meet Navina alone, Amriel thought.

“So how about your mother then,” Amriel prodded. “Anyone else I can talk to inside your house?”

Ella smiled. “Sorry, I’m all alone in the house right now,” Ella said innocently. “You can talk to me!”

Now Amriel and all 4 of his Aspects were frowning directly at Ella. “You’re alone here?”

Ella bobbed her head in confirmation. Aida glances at the incense stick next to a window. The great Gray Monks of the Elagani Empire first introduce this stick and exported it all over the world. Now, every household in all of Abbadon used incensed stick to drive away mosquitos and freshen the house. Unlike the smoke created in a faraway world called Earth, the incensed actually have a therapeutic effect to strengthen the lungs. That is why very few instances of Asthma was ever recorded in the world.

And most importantly, this incense stick is the universal unit of time in all of Abbadon. Time is measured by how long it takes for a standard incense stick to smolder away, which is approximately an hour for a whole stick.

‘She’s been alone in this house for only the river knows,’ Amriel thought grimly.

“Alone,” said Aida sadly, again patting Ella’s head.

“Hhmmph, at least we are NOT talking to Navina,” Tubby said, rapidly scratching the back of his ear. An imaginary tick the size of a tennis ball flew out of him and landed directly at the head of Rex, the Chihuahua, who is sitting next to the big cat. Rex was grimly nodding, despite the fact that he is turning white from the giant tick in his head.

“Forget about Navina or Tyler for now,” Simon said harshly.

Amriel nodded to himself, then smiled at the little girl. “By any chance, Are you Ella, little lady?”

The girl’s eyes twinkled easily, then she performed a cute curtsy. “Ella the second of twotree.”

Amriel bowed back, his courtly manners coming back to him easily despite the lack of practice. “And I am Amriel the seventh of twotree. It is my pleasure to meet you, young lady.”

Ella’s smile widen at his name. “Are you a clansman then? I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. Please come in!”

“By the source, she is too trusting,” Simon said frowning. That didn’t prevent him from entering the house though.

“Actually I am Tyler’s little brother,” Amriel said. “I am your uncle.”

Ella’s eyes bulged in amazement.

Half a stick later, Amriel finally remove the stain in the cooking pot and started drying it. He did not have the heart to tell the little girl that the stain is actually a rust in the iron pot. Amriel is only able to get rid of it by the use of magic. “I’m all done with the pot,” Amriel announced.

“Oh good! Thank you thank you thank you!” Ella said happily as she continued brushing one side of the room. “I’m really grateful for your help. And there are still a lot to do before Mama and Papa arrived.”

Amriel was asked to clean the window cover, water the plants, hang the laundry outside to dry, widen the dung pit and reinforce a rickety chair. Amriel cannot believe that a 5 year old child is tasked to do all this as part of a daily chore. Now Amriel is asked to retrace the magical runes in the left side of the wall.

Amriel scratch his head looking at the old rune etch in the wall.

“I forgot to ask you if you know anything about runes…” Ella said, watching me looking at the runes.

“A bit,” Amriel said, he stood next to Ella and explain the situation. You see those three runes in the corner. Ella nodded. “I don’t understand the two side runes but I think the big one is to make the wall strong.”

Amriel blink. “Aah, essentially that is correct. The big rune is called a “REINFORCEMENT’ rune. It’s designed to harden the raw building materials of the wall itself. The one on the right is an anti-fire rune to make it real hard for that wall to catch fire. The last rune is an insect repellant rune, mainly to make sure that termites don’t make a colony out of the wooden wall.”

Originally the wooden wall was created with just the reinforcement rune. The builders infuse the wall with enough radiance and with its natural ability to absorb radiance in time, there should have been enough radiance to empower the runes. The problem started when someone added the other runes below the original Reinforcement. Normally each new rune should have received its own power bank, but who ever created the two other runes made a shortcut and simply re-channeled its circuitry so that it sponge up from the older rune. As time goes by, the abnormal rune design is now seriously affecting the structural integrity of the entire wall itself since radiance had completely dried up. Recently, someone stops the other 2 secondary rune from working by adding a huge cut to its left side, stopping the flow of rune to it. But the damage is done. The wall itself is very dry and crusty.

Amriel sighed and drop to his knees in front of the old runes. “I have an idea to fix this,” He said for Ella’s benefit. The little girl peek behind his shoulder and watch Amriel as he started lighting the edge of each of his fingers with blue radiance. Expertly with bold strokes and confident swish of his hand, Amriel drew a new bigger rune. Once he is finish he slowly push the air in front of him and the floating rune moved and etched itself covering the other 3 older runes.

Ella’s eyes watch the new runes and nodded happily. “Your rune will absorb new radiance from the air around the wall. It’s a bit slow but soon it will empower all three runes without absorbing the radiance from the wall. It’ll fix the wall also eventually.”

Amriel was astounded. The rune was complex enough for other much older mages to take a longer time to understand it. But Ella understand the very nature of the new rune just by scanning it once. Even Amriel only started to learn about runes when he started studying to become a knight.

Tubby had a smug look on his face. “Why are you even surprise? Of course my little Ella will be a genius! She got it from my side of your brain,” he said proudly.

Aida slowly stood next to the giant cat. Her smile can light a Christmas tree. “Genius!” she said. The karate chop in tubby’s giant head floored the big cat. “But my side.”

“You’re really good at this, do you know that?” Amriel said softly as he smiled at the young girl, ignoring the chaotic fight of his aspects behind him

“Un!” said Ella. She accepted her uncle patting her head and messing her hair.

I think I like my new uncle, she thought warmly.