The next day (Wednesday, May 11, 2022) Undisclosed location, New Jersey, United States

Ella forced herself out of bed and almost fell over. Her legs felt unsteady after the time in bed. She held onto the side of her bed and untangled the various wires and IV tube. She had finally gotten them to remove the catheter that morning and now she really needed to pee.

After, she went out into the hall. It looked like any other hospital or medical center, if you ignored three squads of heavily armed troops everywhere. And when they saw her, the reaction was instant. Of each squad, four out of five went to their knees, forehead to the floor. The fifth pulled their rifle and start scanning the surroundings. It was surreal.

“Please. Please get up.” and they shot up with alacrity into military order. She channeled Zaidu, “Back to your duties soldiers.”

Given the familiar framework of orders, they smartly saluted and went back to patrolling.

Speak of the devil, Zaidu emerged from the room next door. His arm was in a sling, and he regarded the soldiers in the hall.

“Many of them are our best. Since your secret is out, they are flying in from all over the world. They compete to be your personal guard.” His normal hiss was subdued for some reason. He regarded her blandly.

Ella blushed. It was beyond embarrassing that so many would think of her this way.

Ella’s mother emerged from the room, having woken up, “Eesha, what are you…”

Without warning, Zaidu slashed at her face with a knife that she hadn’t seen him carrying. Ella faded back and then kicked his leg hard before swinging the IV pole between them.

“Ouch! What the fuck?” Ella’s shin hurt from kicking Zaidu’s combat boot.

“You were slow.” He tapped on his nose and Ella reached up to brush a slight welling of blood from the thin cut across the bridge of her nose. “You can never be slow. Fifty burpees.”

Ella’s mother jumped in, “Tatha khoo choo ja! What the hell was that?” She got in front of Ella torn between defending Ella and checking her.

“Your daughter is our future. She must always be ready. Walking out in a hall in a hospital gown unarmed? Stupid.” Zaidu spat to the ground. just missing Ella’s mother’s foot.

“You can’t just attack her!”

“I can. I did.” He pulled his knife again and held it to her throat faster than sight. “Can you defend your daughter when you can’t defend yourself?”

Navneet looked deep in his eyes, “Look down.”

Zaidu looked down to see a scalpel in her hand held right above his femoral artery at his groin.

“I can see where Eleanor gets her toughness,” Zaidu said approvingly. He removed the blade from her neck and sheathed it and stepped back.

“Mom, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I used to work at Brookdale so this isn’t even the third time someone held a knife to me. I and Mr…”

“Zaidu,” he hissed.

“I and Mr. Zaidu were just coming to an understanding.”

“100 burpees,” he said ignoring Ella’s mother.

“Sir yes sir. I need to get unhooked from this crap first.”

“Fine, then 150 when you are capable.”

Ella desperately kept her mouth shut.

Two weeks in bed had done Ella no favors. She was out of breath as she did the exercises. Her mother watched grimly not quite saying anything but expressing her disapproval at the resumption of activity through her lack of expression.

Ella supposed it would have been better to have gotten dressed first, the hospital gown had a tendency to flap around embarrassingly exposing her ass which she had to keep pulling it around again and again. But she suspected if she hadn’t gotten to them, Zaidu would have somehow known and kept upping the number further.

After, she felt disgustingly sweaty. Her mother was sitting down in a chair staring at her still when she came out of the shower, toweling her hair. And as she got dressed, in her fatigues which were neatly pressed in the closet. She was lacing her boots when she finally broke, “Mother… what?”

“I suppose I should be asking you that question,” her mother said blandly, “Eesha what? What is going on? What were you thinking? What?!”

Ella had never heard her normally reserved mother sound so angry.

“Mother,” Ella started again, “Be. I wanted to tell you, but would you have believed me?”

“If you had brought one of these… these scorpion people with you! Yes!”

“Fine. You want to see it? Fine!” Ella stood back up, her boot laces forgotten. She manifested the crown, let her eyes glow.

“This is what has happened to me? A crazy Emperor stabbed me in the heart and I woke up with crystal eyes and this crown! A magical bear gave me a tooth and it came with more magic. Too much magic.” Ella was yelling. Frustrated and angry.

“Is this how you talk to your mother? I have been here for two weeks watching your eyes glow and flashes of light and scorpions and boyfriends with magic pigeons! It won’t impress me anymore!”

Ella and Navneet stood staring at one another. And then Ella started laughing. A little bit and then a lot, her mother started laughing with her.

“We never did manage to be totally honest with one another. I was so disappointed when you abandoned pre-med, even when I knew it wasn’t the right thing for you.”

“Mothers and daughters, I suppose,” Ella readily agreed. She let the crown and magic fade.

“I hadn’t seen the crown before,” Ella’s mother admitted.

“So Isaac? You met him? And his… bird?”

“We met him. He actually just left yesterday morning. You seem to have made quite an impression on him. The bird? We didn’t actually meet it. Is it really there?”

Ella laughed a bit more. “Yes. It is.”

“He is quite handsome.”

“Ummm… you know we went out on like one date, right?”

“He did stay here almost two weeks. Along with your roommate. That is a lot for just one date?”

“Ummm… yeah.” Ella blushed. Her mom was totally roasting her, and even though Ella knew it, it didn’t matter.

Isaac and Jade had been driven from the medical facility and around New Jersey for a long while before they dropped him off back at his dorm. The bag on his head had made him feel a bit carsick. But it didn’t really matter since Peelatchachía was able to fly freely and told him exactly where Ella was which was outside of somewhere called Apshawa.

He supposed Jade and him could chat, he knew she was seated next to him in this blacked out car. But the bag discouraged idle chatter.

When they dropped Jade off at Charlie’s, he finally got the bag off his head. He noticed that another vehicle behind them, one that had been part of their convoy stayed. The soldier who sat next to him saw the inquisitive look and answered for him.

“The Blessed Innana’s friend has competent security, but they are not aware of the threat level. So we are augmenting it with several squads.”

Later when he got to his dormitory, the same soldier smiled, “I haven’t posed as a college student in a long time. This will be fun.” So Isaac now had bodyguards for some reason.

In his room, he searched for Apshawa on a map and found that it was an old Lenape name for what was now West Milford, New Jersey.

And in the search was an announcement of a luxury medical retreat and spa opening there next week. The Aqrabuamelu seemed like the type of people who followed “waste not, want not” to a tee.