My Servant System

"What was the reason for this again..? We are all rather overworked at the moment, so a change of scenery is nice, but..."

Pausing in front of the all too familiar gate, Anput clicked her tongue and glanced over at me, Gabrielle snoozing quietly in her arms as she took the opportunity to do what she loved most even in this ’new’ place.

My mate said that yet she was barely able to hide her smile and her tail was slowly swishing side to side behind her, something that made me raise a brow and look down at it pointedly only for her to just smirk and say "There’s just a couple of flies around."

"Well, that’s exactly the reason we should take a day to just come out and reminisce instead of locking ourselves away, isn’t it? Besides, all of them were curious about the place they were hearing about in the stories."

Leone stepped forwards and pushed the gate open, allowing Camilla, Nicoletta and Astra to bolt inside as the three began to explore the familiar yard that rested in front of the cottage we had once called home.

Samara was standing beside Anput looking around curiously, her little hand hooked into her Mom’s belt as she made sure to keep herself tied to her without being ’intrusive’, at least to what her young mind considered intrusive.

Then there was Zariah, who was currently in the process of deciding if this darker, ashier place was dangerous enough to warrant hiding behind the big bad Demoness’ legs or if she should stick with her sisters and keep moving.

What possibly caused her to be so terrified of everything was something I had no answer for, and seeing her tail sticking flush to the back of her legs while her ears constantly twitched definitely always made me want to scoop her up and promise her that everything was fine, but...

Like always a quick glance at Mother made me sigh softly as I just walked forwards, leaving Zariah as she was and letting her make her own decisions in regards to her ’safety’, even if that meant leaving her in this ’terrified’ state.

Instead of immediately soothing her I instead strode out onto the trimmed grass that encompassed most of this front yard, taking in the familiar sights and scents before heading right inside, wanting to see what had been my home for quite a bit of time.

Having three pups instantly rushing around my legs as I walked inside was something I was getting accustomed to, though as soon as Camilla launched herself towards the couch I had to step forwards and call out her name, only to sigh as a plume of dust filled the air.

"She is certainly an energetic one..."

"Grandma! Look! It’s... raining..?"

Camilla slammed a fist into the couch and giggled at the explosion of dust that followed, showing it proudly to Mother and causing the older Dogkin to just chuckle before she said "It’s not rain, little one. That is dust, and it-"

She didn’t get to finish since being in the center of a dust cloud could make anyone sneeze, let alone a young pup that was already breathing quite quickly thanks to her earlier sprint... and one that was tilting her head back to look up at us.

Four back to back sneezes echoed in the house followed by a peal of laughter from both Nicoletta and Astra, who were pointing at their eldest sister and enjoying her plight before they also sneezed, evening the score a bit.

Mother took a step back and turned to protect the two quiet children in her arms, both of them just looking around curiously and making it abundantly clear that they didn’t want to come down just yet as they rested their heads against her shoulders.

"It does tend to make one sneeze... and it isn’t good on the eyes either, so please don’t disturb more of it. How about we head back outside, hm? It’s rather clear out right now, so let us enjoy some of this... wonderful sunlight."

The one problem that I - and apparently Mother - had always had with the Capital was a simple one, that being that the volcano was fairly prone to bouts of ash clouds that would darken the skies alongside the real clouds.

Yet at the same time after being here for so long I quite enjoyed the dimmer daylight and darker nights, primarily because it was easier on the eyes and also because it made it easier to avoid people seeing specific details about me.

The three children all let out a chorus of agreements as they rushed back outside without any hesitation, allowing Mother to just give me a smile before she left the door open so that I could begin a very quick and rudimentary cleaning.

Jahi had barely been able to step inside before I sent her back out as well, telling her to go with Leone to pick up a few different things for lunch and dinner so that we could enjoy our own meals... and because I saw the gleam in her amethyst eyes that could only mean she wanted to reenact some memories in the main bedroom.

So instead she just sighed and turned around again, leaving Zariah standing indecisively in the doorway as she looked outside and then back at me, only to be corralled inside as Anput and Samara walked in.

"Samara, Zariah, come hold these for me, hm? Unless you both want to go outside and play?"

The second eldest just shrugged and walked over to me while Zariah looked outside, looked back at me, and then shuffled forwards as she hesitantly took the broom from me, holding it straight and looking quite pitiful as she watched the door.

Meanwhile Anput just sauntered over to the counter and leaned against it, watching me with a lazy smirk as I began to quickly weave together a few spells in order to clean everything up... all while she used Gabrielle as a reason to not do any work whatsoever.

It was also because of her that I didn’t really catch just how paranoid Zariah was becoming, though it likely wouldn’t have changed much at all anyways.