The Demon King's Hero Of Light 205 Chapter 205 Baby Erick

"How long do you think it's been?" asked Precious as Aella teleported to the gnome city.

"I'm not sure," said Aella, stopping to look around. The ground was green and lush, nothing like it had been during the storm. The gnome city was almost completely rebuilt and a new type of anxiety rushed up to fill Aella's mind. "It couldn't possibly have been that long, right? The gnomes are just really good at building…"

"I suppose," said Precious with a yawn.

"Besides, you would have grown a ton if it had been very long," said Aella.

"Oh, I have grown," said Precious, stopping his attempt at a nap to give her a strange look. "Don't you remember… oh, that's right. You were still out when I changed back."

"What are you talking about?" asked Aella, as Precious jumped from her shoulder and glided to just before her.

They were hovering in the air, high above the gnome city, as Precious shook his whole body, like he was wet, and transformed into a huge lion.

Aella flew back away from him in shock.

"I woke up like this. But I really wanted to stay small so I could sleep on your shoulder, so I went back to being small," grinned Precious. His canines were easily as long as Aella's arm. The wings that were lazily flapping were twice as long as Aella was tall, each.

"What… You mean you were in the volcano with me?" stuttered Aella, trying to remember if he had been with her. She thought he had been like a shadow following her around, but it was fuzzy. All of her focus had been on learning from her elements so they would be happy with her and she could grow in who she was.

"Of course, I was. I have your elements inside me, too, because of the magical bond between us. All of the abilities you have, I have too. But if anything happens to you, I will probably just keel over, so don't be dying anytime soon, okay?"

He shook again and returned to being his small cute self, and landed on her shoulder. Aella reached up and petted him, wondering if she had the ability to change herself like that, not that she really wanted to.

"That's why you can't," said shadow in her head. "If you really wanted to change yourself, it would be possible."

"So, in an emergency, if I needed to, I could change my shape?"

"Well, no. You would still be Aella, the part demon, part gargoyle, part human, part etc. girl we all know, but you could do some things," mused shadow.

Aella turned to look over the city below her. It had obviously been longer than just the three months the storm had been supposed to rage, but how much longer? It couldn't have been that long, because the demons were just now taking down the dome over their city.

Firion would know. She landed in an alley and waited. He had said he could feel where she was no matter where she was, so all she had to do was wait, and he should show up.

An hour pa.s.sed before she heard footsteps behind her.

"It's about time," he said. "It's a good thing Bob let me travel through his bar, or I might have missed the birth of my child."

"A few things came up," Aella said, turning to look at him. He still looked the same as she remembered, so it couldn't have been years. "How long has it been?"

He looked at her for a moment before answering. "It's been almost a year. Winter was pretty tough on everyone as the food ran out. I was able to convince Bob to provide some from some other realm with the agreement that you would pay him back somehow. He wasn't too happy with me, because I kept ignoring his no attacking others rule, but he agreed. I don't know why he didn't just give up on our realm, but for some reason he thought it was too important to give up on."

"I had wondered if you had something to do with the food issue," said Aella. "What exactly do I owe him?"

"I don't know, that was going to be decided by the two of you. By the way, did you get a chance to kick the loiterers out of his bar? They were driving him crazy. He couldn't kick them out, because his policy was to allow his bar to be a respite for those who were in danger, which our entire realm was pretty dangerous at the time. They also weren't doing any damage to anyone or anything, so he couldn't kick them out for that."

"Yea, I blew them out into the elven forest," said Aella, wondering about the trees and elves for a moment.

"You should check that place out," said Firion, glancing behind him for a moment before turning to look at her again. "The elves have done fantastic things."

"So, how is Seifer doing as king?"

"Not too bad. He almost killed some of the n.o.bles when they didn't want to accept him as king, but they quickly fell into line. The last I knew things were running pretty smoothly. He had found your cache of coins and was paying people to do what needed to be done."

Aella grimaced. She wanted to move the magical stuff away from there, so they couldn't be abused. A talk with Bridgette was needed, and that could take a while. There were several things she needed to discuss.

"So, Bob is no longer allowing travel between the kingdoms with his bar. I'm going to see Bridgette; do you want to come along?"

"You really need to come up with some kind of transportation methods if Bob's not an option anymore. Everyone was really starting to rely on him."

"That's one of the reason's I'm going to see her," nodded Aella.

Firion looked behind him again, as several gnomish guards appeared and glanced down the alley at them. Both Aella and Firion were invisible to them, so they continued on.

"Have you caused trouble?" sighed Aella.

"Not really," said Firion. "They know there's someone in town causing trouble, but they don't know it's me."

She looked over his grin and shook her head. Whatever it was, she had to trust him. There was too much she had to work on and the realm needed her to be in top form. What if another attack from another realm had come while she was busy in the volcano?

"There wasn't," whispered the realm in her ear.

Shaking her head again, she held out her hand and he took it. Teleporting to the library, Aella watched as he headed out the door.

"Firion, was it a boy or a girl?"

He paused and looked back at her with an even wider grin. "Her name's Cyrene and she is going to be a fantastic hunter!"

Nodding, Aella turned to find Bridgette. The Sage was standing by a book shelf with her arms crossed, glaring at her.

"Bridgette," nodded Aella in greeting, noting that the Sage was much slimmer than the last time she had seen her. The past year must have been very kind to her.

"Why have you been gone for the past year?" demanded Bridgette.

"I was busy dealing with a volcano," said Aella.

"Oh," said Bridgette, seeming to deflate as she looked around as if lost. "Well, mind if you tell me about it?"

"Sure, but you need to answer some questions I have first," said Aella.

The two sat down at the same table Aella had last sat at with Bridgette, and she began to tell about her time in the volcano. Bridgette's hand looked like it might fall off by the time Aella stopped talking. Half the book Bridgette had before her was filled with quickly scrawled words.

"Bridgette, Erick is hungry," said Felix, holding a baby wrapped in a blue blanket.

"Bring him here," said Bridgette, holding out her arms.

Aella watched in shock as the boy handed him over and Bridgette proceeded to nurse the babe.

"When did you have a baby?!" exclaimed Aella.

"Oh, about six months ago, along with everyone else who was pregnant from the full moon," said Bridgette, giving Aella a sour look.

"Who's his father?" asked Aella.

"Seriously, Aella? You don't know?" asked Bridgette, scrunching her brow.

"Of course, I don't!" said Aella, shaking her head in disbelief. "Was that why you were so pudgy before? I thought it was from over eating and not getting enough activity."

"With all the ladders I climb all day, and the heavy books I haul around, I would be surprised if I could get 'pudgy'. You said you had questions when you first got here, what were they?"

"Well," said Aella, trying to get her mind back on track. "I want to know about transportation magic. I found some magical chalk that will allow me to draw runes of transportation, but I need to know the runes first."

"Felix, go grab the black book with gold letterings on bookshelf 17, shelf 5. It should be the 14th book from the left."

Felix nodded and ran off.

"He's grown taller," said Aella watching him disappear behind a bookshelf.

"And his prophecies have all but stopped. I'm worried about him, but he a.s.sures me he's fine."

"Why is his lack of prophecies a problem?" asked Aella.

"It means the future is too chaotic for him to see anything."