Chapter 30 - Back Home

 While Pan nearly had a stroke in the credit center.  Edward was pacing back and forth in his quarters. The poor butler knew that his master was on foot and would soon arrive for two days. But he couldn't stop thinking about the shame and disgrace it would be to serve an apprentice and let him die before the graduation exam even started.

 "That little bastard, I'm going to beat him until he comes to his senses! Oh for the veil that guards us, as if it wasn't enough just reading about flowers all day, he decides to go outside the walls! Alone and without an arm! Without ever taking a damn battle class!" Said Edward full of venom walking back and forth, while gesturing with his hands as if he wanted to choke the air.

 Edward, of course, would never say such things to one of his masters behind his back. But Pan came testing his patience again and again, just telling him that everything was fine and everything was under his control.

 "How can it be all right? Ham? It's even good that you went hunting the little devils, you too are a goddamn pixie, party with your family, your, your... Oh star that shines on us, give me clarity of mind to not leave these walls and find my goddamned master and then beat him to the brink of death", babbled Edward, twirling his fingers in the forehead side as if he wanted to pierce it.

 "Want to beat me to death? Old bones should act like old bones, you're full of yourself," Pan announced after enjoying the show for a while.

 Edward was so wracked with worry that he hadn't noticed the target of his curses standing in the doorway behind him for a few minutes.

 "You!" Said Edward with a red face, while pointing a finger at Pan. "You are the worst master a three-miracles butler could ever serve, you cynical imp," Edward pointed out venomously.

 "Come on Eddie, you call me a imp, but then you use the fingers of your right arm to curse me. Can't you see that you hurt my poor feelings?" Pan spoke half whimpering, while looking towards the right arm that was missing.

 An act that nearly killed the butler with a heart attack.

 "Humpf. Imps don't have feelings to be hurt," the butler replied in a huff, but his voice was already getting calmer.

 Edward couldn't say when, but at some point their relationship became more of a grandson and a grandfather than a master and a butler. Pan knew even less, when he saw it, the old butler had already lost all his elegance and turned into an old tantrum who only pestered him "for no reason".

 And deep down Pan kind of liked it. It reminded him of the bittersweet, loving but prickly relationship he'd had with Nanna.

 The same could be said of Edward, he would never admit it, but he grew closer and closer each day to his peculiar master.  It was for this reason and not just the honor that Pan made him anguished to no end….  He was worried.

 "Do imps get that, old man?" Pan spoke and put a pot on the table.

 "Don't call me… that and?" asked Edward in disbelief as he eyed the pot on the table.

 "A mandrake spawn!" Said Pan enthusiastically. "But don't get too tense, your old bones might crack," said Pan, grinning mischievously.

 'Say botanica is bad now, if I hadn't studied it I probably would have mistaken it for a stone.' Thought Pan.

 "An offspring?" Edward stammered, shocked to the point of not even noticing Pan's mischievous banter.

 "Exactly, not just one offspring, but two live mandrakes already sold," replied Pan triumphantly, placing a bag of ninety pieces of silver on the table.

 It must be remembered that ninety pieces of silver is the sum the butler would earn in three full years of service. Which, of course, made Edward think that angst and age were making him hallucinate.

 'Am I getting cenil?' Thought Edward.

 But even Pan couldn't believe he won so much, in Pallas' book he said that each mandrake in perfect condition was worth ten silvers. Come to think of it, the book was one of the dustiest. Pan remembers having to clean the cover with his hand to read the title.

 'Is Pallas dead?' Thought Pan.

 That could very well be the case, given that inflation has quintupled since the book was written. If one of the mandrakes hadn't been injured, pan would have received a hundred silvers.

 "Is there any problem? Master Pan?" Asked the butler seriously, noticing that something was wrong.