Chapter 241 A Boyfriend

"Why do you want to see me?" asked Aella suspiciously, after the conversation with Daefina and the kids.

"I wanted to show you everything I've gotten done since you were gone!" he exclaimed excitedly.

"Oh," Aella sighed, deflating in relief and a bit… disappointed? Did she really want him as a boyfriend??

"Remember all that stuff I was telling you about with the nobles?" he asked, rubbing his hands together and all but dancing in place with his excitement.

"Mostly," she said, trying to remember any of it. She was not about to tell him she didn't remember!

"Well, it worked! I have them all working super hard to bring the people in line! The taxes are flowing smoothly and a lot of the fighting and insecurity that was causing trouble with the people has all but disappeared!" he cheered, jumping and flapping his wings a little.

He did have nice wings…

"That's great!" she laughed; her mood much improved. "I actually came here for a different reason."

"Oh, I figured," he chuckled, waving his hand as if that was obvious. "You never show up to just say hi. You're far too busy for that!"

Aella had opened her mouth to say she had shown up to say hi, but then realized she never had. For some reason that bothered her. Even with her busy schedule she should still make time for him… shouldn't she?

"I… I brought these elves to give you a tattoo so you could talk to me if you needed to," she stammered, realizing he was watching her and waiting for her to say why she had come.

"Oh, that would be nice," he nodded. "I know your schedule is really busy, so this would be great for us to be able to discuss issues no matter where you are!"

She smiled, not wanting to correct him. He was in such a good mood, it was affecting her, and she was genuinely happy about it. A voice in her head tried to ask her if she was being affected by pheromones, and she shunted it off to the side. The full moon was over, so this wasn't manipulation!

The elves quickly got in place, to do the tattoo on his arm, and Aella watched as they slowly got to work. It was pretty late, and they were probably getting tired after the long day they had spent giving tattoos to everyone so far. If they did this for a living, she might have told them to suck it up, but she had literally grabbed them and told them they were going to do this for her.

"Your elves here look pretty tired," Frederik said, nodding towards them as they packed up their stuff and Aella healed his arm. "Maybe they need a break before you finish whatever you're doing?"

"I was just thinking that," she nodded. "I still need to check on Alfred. He wasn't doing too well, but I think getting him tattooed can wait till morning."

"What does he need a tattoo for?" asked Frederik suspiciously, narrowing his eyes.

"If there's ever an emergency, and I need his help, I need to be able to contact him quickly," said Aella thinking he looked cute when jealous.

"I suppose that's a good reason," he conceded after a moment of thought.

Aella started laughing. "Frederik, I've had every leader in the realm get a tattoo, except for the halflings. I ended up tattooing a little girl, because she was willing."

"Wait, do the halflings not have a leader?" he asked, giving her a confused look.

"Not really. I really don't understand how they do it, but they don't," she said with a shrug.

"Well, if every other leader is doing it, I guess this is just the same?" he asked, glancing at his new tattoo.

"Actually, I really like the idea of talking with you more," she said carefully.

He glanced at her for a moment then a smile slowly covered his face. "Do you still have to sleep?"

XxxxX

The next morning, Aella sat up and stretched. The evening had been very enjoyable, and she now understood why everyone was always wanting to get some. Frederik was still out cold, and would probably sleep for most of the day. She had far more stamina than he did…

Standing up, she glanced over at Precious, who was hiding under a piece of furniture with blankets wrapped around his head so tightly she wasn't sure if he hadn't died of asphyxiation.

"Time to get the elves and head over to check on Alfred. I should probably get the kids from Daefina, too," said Aella.

"What about Firion? He's a leader, too," mewed Precious, uncovering himself and crawling out from under the dresser.

Aella frowned. She had forgotten about him. She should check up on him before Alfred, since he may not know that she had taken… Jozef!!

Grabbing Precious, Aella teleported to the cave she had left the demon chained up in. He was still alive, but she wasn't sure how.

"You smell like sex," he whispered. "Have a good time?"

With a frown, she decided he could die here in this pit.

"Your brother is dead," she said, hoping to inflict as much pain in him before he died as she could.

"I know, I felt the chains on my brain disappear," he said, managing to raise his head to look at her. "You should kill me, you know. He made me do so much evil…"

"You are evil," she spat.

"Of course," he sighed. "I'm a demon. A true demon, not watered down like these people you have here."

"If I kill you, you will cause trouble in the dead realm," she said, thoughfully.

"No, I never claimed this place as my home, as my brother did to travel to the dead lands. I wanted to go back to our home realm when I died. That's why he placed the chains on my mind that he did. He used me, as a true demon would. I would use you, except, I'm too tired."

Aella studied him for a moment, then nodded. She wouldn't kill him, because she didn't want to risk him causing more trouble here. The best thing would be to send him back to the realm he came from. Let him be judged with his true demons.

"You shall return home, but as you are now, not as the dead. And never again shall one of your kind, or any other from your realm, be allow access into my realm," she growled, waving her hand and opening a portal that was one way, to a place of fire and agony.

"What?!" he gasped, glancing through the portal. "No!"

Struggling against the chains, Aella saw that he wasn't as close to death as he had appeared. Watching her chains start to flex and bend, she shoved him through the portal and closed it.

"Well, that's done," said Precious, stretching and flapping his wings for a moment before settling back onto her shoulder. "You really should bathe before we go get the kids."

With a sigh, Aella teleported into the waterfall that she had tried to rehome the lizard people at. With a yowl, Precious jumped off her shoulder and shook himself furiously, out of the range of the spray.

"That wasn't funny!" he hissed, licking his wet fur furiously. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep my feathers oiled?"

Aella didn't respond to his angry muttering, letting the water flow over her and wash away all of the scent of Frederik and her night of fun. The feel of the cold water reminded her that she still needed to get the water powers from Josephine. Once the kids were gone, she would do that.

Flying over to Precious, she was dry and clothed before she picked him up and dried him off. His fur puffed out and he glared at her as she laughed. When she teleported back to Daefina's room, he was still trying to get his fur to stay down.

The room was empty, and Aella looked around with a frown. Had the kids killed everyone? Or turned them into puppies? Spying a hole in the wall, she went over to investigate and found it was a tunnel slide. Could they have made this?

After a moment of contemplation, she entered the slide, and found it angled down very quickly. She had picked up quite a bit of speed but wasn't too worried, as the roof of the tunnel slide disappeared and she found herself surrounded by a maze of slides filling the entire center of the dead space in the dwarven mountain.

Leaving the slide, she flew up and looked around in amazement. Noises off to the side drew her attention, and she spotted the kids chattering excitedly with Daefina and Voluri.

"I don't care how much fun they are!" growled Voluri.

"Just give it a try," coaxed Daefina.

"Yeah! You're heavy enough, you shouldn't go flying out of them like we do!" exclaimed Sarah in excitement.

"What!" cried Aella and Voluri at the same time.