Amaya, still relishing on her first human meal of the decade, frowned and pouted at the King whose stare did not waver. Sighing, Amaya swallowed the cake and told them, "the Sentinels did relay their plans, but none concrete even yesterday."
"But the portals have been appearing more frequently lately. Even if each of us closes one, the creatures escaping cannot be handled on time and the sporadic timing is always a headache to deal with," Grell munched on the snacks Gwyneth brought out, looking careless but still made a good point.
"We can deal with the creatures as we do," Morrigan said, "but even we often lost one or two which then rampaged the human world. None noticed. Not yet. But soon, they will," she warned with a seriousness Amaya couldn't ignore.
"If we do not know who opened the portal, we could not really stop all of these from happening," Mairin added, as he paced around the counter. Truly. He worries a lot for an immortal child. Or maybe because he was an immortal child he worries a lot.
"Not to mention you have your rituals. It will be too risky to do them now," Grell pointed out.
"First of all," Amaya said after inhaling the rest of her piece of cake, "I will be fine doing the rituals because all of you are with me." she said and held up her hand to silence them as they were ready to argue.
"Second. The portals. We may not know who opened them, but I know how to close them forever and to hopefully prevent one from opening anywhere else. They cannot just casually open a portal anywhere they want. The location must have at least a bit of magic. Old magic. I can condense the magic into one area per location and when the portal is about to open, we can destroy it," she explained carefully.
"And you know all of these locations?" Lovis asked. Not doubtful, but worried.
"I may. Do you have a map? A globe would be perfect, though," she asked Mavi who nodded and disappeared only to return a second later holding a big globe with wooden stands and setting it down in front of her. They then turned to circle the globe and abandoned the rest of the cake as Amaya started explaining again.
Amaya studied the globe for a while before she smiled and turned back to Mavi who raised his eyebrows questioningly at her. "You are magic. You try and feel it," she pointed at the globe, urging him.
Unsure and a little hesitant, Mavi approached the globe closer and studied it. Trying to 'feel it' like Amaya told him to. He closed his eyes and let his magic fly out of him. Gently stroking the globe, searching for whatever Amaya wanted him to find.
At first everything was dark. His magic was circling and was lost. Until there were little lights emerging in his head. At first it was one. And then it doubled. And it kept on doubling until his head was filled with light.
"Mother of Earth, that was a lot!" Mavi exclaimed in surprise, startling the others but Amaya who smiled at him in adoration and pride.
"Those lights are where the magic of the old lives," Amaya explained, pointing at the little spots on the globe that she had glowing..
"Those are a lot of lights," Mavi stated, slightly overwhelmed, "how are we going to deal with them?" he asked, worry apparent on his face as he looked at his comrades. His brothers and sisters. His family. They then also turned to Amaya who kept on smiling and shrugging.
"We do it like how we always do," Amay smiled at them, "together," she said and they all smiled at that. Relieved. Amaya was truly back, they thought as they stared at the being higher than even the highest priest of the World Beyond.
"That was all nice and comforting and romantic and all," Grell interrupted, although he, too, had a smile on his face, "but we need an actual plan, My Lady," he said.
"Go and plan, then," Amaya rolled her eyes and turned to the fridge and started rummaging through it, "you know I am bad with planning. No need to involve me," she said and it was their turn to roll their eyes because they knew she just wanted to laze around and play.
"Are you going out later?" Gwyneth asked as she helped Amaya take out stuff from the fridge and put them on the counter one after another Amaya almost emptied it except for some condiments.
"Imma play," Amaya said in a sing-song voice, trying to sound 'hip' as the youngsters called it nowadays. Or so Amaya thought.
"Club?" Luca asked, frowning. He wasn't fond of clubs. Pubs are okay. They weren't so different from the taverns of olds. But clubs… Luca shuddered just at the mere mention of it.
"Mayhaps," Amaya grinned at him, "I haven't been on earth in a decade. I really miss it," Amaya admitted. "I need to shop too," she added. Most of the clothes she bought were ceremonial and those weren't, were too old to be worn now.
"Fine, whatever," Allerick, having known what she was going to do, threw her a wallet with her own ID, fake, of course, some money and a credit card.
"Are you not going?" Amaya asked with the best hurt-puppy-look she could ever muster.
"We're going with you shopping, but no clubs," Gwyneth said, chuckling as she brushed Amaya's slightly messy black hair. It was still as long and beautiful as she remembered it.
"Fine," Amaya huffed, "shopping it is. Come," she said and once again darted off first before the rest of them scrambled on their feet to follow her.
"Do you even know where the cars are?" Payton asked, raising his eyebrow and grinning.
"Pull up out front, then," Amaya shouted back as she dashed towards the main entrance of the mansion. Payton shook his head and turned around to go to the back door to get the car from the garage, followed by Lovis and Luca.
They ended up using three cars. Allerick's, Lovis's and Payton's to get to town for some shopping. It was off-season but the town was as bustling as ever with some off-season tourists. It was indeed a vacation island. They have plenty of shops there. From high-end brands to local specialty stores. Amaya dragged them to most of those stores and left with no less than three shopping bags each. Most of the stuff she bought was food, though. Her clothes were mostly made by the faes because she was sensitive to impurities, especially of badly made items. Also because the faes didn't make theirs in a sweatshop and were very, very sustainable. She was the daughter of the earth after all so she had to mind these things. But she did get one or two fashion items which were suitable and weren't all that problematic. She did like dressing up. She was just like any other girls in this regard and the rest of them liked to indulge her any way they could. Only so that they will feel less guilty depending on her power most of the time. Especially when it counted the most, which was when it was the most risky.
She was the daughter of Earth after all. Her mission was to cleanse the world. Quite literally at that. She would perform a ritual every few months to rid the Earth of impurities. Bad energy, trash - yes, literal trash-, creatures of the darkness and the evils. She was the daughter of the earth. The earth's energy was hers. The worse the state of the world is, the weaker her magic will be, thus the ritual was also for her to cleanse herself and purify her magic.
The Earth, as it were, was a big energy condensed and shaped in a way which could sustain itself. But the meddling and greedy humans of course exploited it and ruined it for the whole creatures of the earth and even beyond. Along with the development of society and their technology and thus, their waste, the amount of magic and life force Amaya had to use each time she was cleansing increased, which made her unable to function afterwards. Each time it took her longer than the previous to recuperate. It took her a decade to recharge the last time she performed the ritual.
A decade for them surely only felt like a blink of an eye. But to the world which is constantly changing and developing, a decade could make or break her effort. Most of the time, it ruined it. It was 2010 when she went back to the land of pure magic to recuperate. It was now 2020. Look at how messy the earth is.