"Alice! Holiday!" Alix rushed out of the library where Eric and Alisa were already waiting for her to bombard her with questions.
"Mama Wolf!"
"Mom, you came to us this time!" Eric and Alisa were pleasantly surprised that Alix actually wanted to see them for a change. "I was so worried when you didn't get here first thing in the morning! And Nasak said that he didn't see you while he was on his run, oh by the way Nasak changed his running route. He said that he wanted to keep running with you but didn't want to come back until he was sure that he would beat you! So you probably won't see Nasak while running for a while."
"Alright, enough with the blabbering." Alix cut off the conversation before Eric and Alisa started to fight because Alisa was hogging all of the air to talk to Alix or something childish like that. "I need you two to help me find Trouler."
"Who's Trouler?" Alisa asked prompting Eric to scoff.
"Pfft! You don't know who Trouler is? How can you be so stupid? He's obviously Mama Wolf's little pig! Man, and I thought the spirits let you cheat. I guess they don't know everything."
"Hey, the spirits are great! They're way smarter than you and they don't have a taste for the blood of living beings!"
"It isn't a taste! I just think the sight of it is beautiful and I don't actually eat it, I just rub it on my wound to absorb it and satiate my thirst!"
"I THOUGHT I SAID ENOUGH BLABBERING!" Eric and Alisa jumped when Alix suddenly shouted at them. They both shrank slightly and dropped their heads dejectedly.
"We're sorry." Alix sighed.
"God! It's like I actually have a pair of kids! Now listen up!" Eric and Alisa straightened up like a pair of soldiers and listened as Alix explained the situation.
"Trouler is in fact my little peccary. He went missing a few days ago and I have been looking for him ever since with no sign of him no matter where I went. However, just a few minutes ago he sent me a message and a vision of the inside of a room within a quaint hotel somewhere in the city. That is why I need you two to help Tyrant and me look through the hotels in the city to find him."
Eric and Alisa nodded resolutely. "We'll do what we can mom/mama! We just have one question!"
"What is it?" Eric and Alisa nodded at each other then looked back at Alix completely dropping the about facing stance.
"Who's Tyrant?"
...
Alix led the Eric and Alisa off school grounds all the way back to the Port of Filth. Though, from the looks on their faces you would have thought that Eric and Alisa had been brought to some sort of festival. Their eyes were locked onto everything and they lit up every time they saw someone that looked just like the pirates from the stories.
"What's that? Is that a giant pirate ship?!" Eric asked.
"Oooh, I think I heard Nasak talk about that place. It's call the um...Rude Raucous!" Alix thought about correcting the girl as she gestured to the floating shiplosseum known as the Feud Pin but she didn't. There was no longer any time for foolishness. They arrived at the Pirate's Worst Nightmare and went inside.
"Why did you bring us here Mama Wolf? I mean, what is this place?"
"It's been my place of residence since last week, now you two wait here while I go grab Tyrant from the back. Sit at one of the tables." Alix ordered then walked off toward the back.
Eric and Alisa did as they were instructed, sitting at one of the tables in the restaurant. The moment that they sat down they heard a loud crash come from the back accompanied by yelling.
"Oh great, what is it now?! You already made me go down into the sewers!"
"Get off your lazy ass and come help me find my Trouler!"
"We just did that this morning, though! You remember? It happened after you burst in here last time and dragged me to fight you!"
"Oh would you stop nagging already and just get up! It's the middle of the day while you're in here acting like a damn rock!" Alisa and Eric waited patiently while overhearing Alix and this person called "Tyrant" arguing.
It took several minutes for Alix to come down the hall with a slightly older boy following behind her with bags under his eyes. "Man, if I knew accepting you as my mother would be this taxing then I would've just won the fight!" Alix jabbed the the boy in his gut without missing a beat of her stride.
"If you could have won I would have lost. Sadly for you, victory was assured the moment you accepted my challenge. Now sit next to the rest of your siblings so I can get this meeting started!" Kent frowned and looked over to the table where Alisa and Eric were sitting. Alisa waved very excitedly while Eric waved much more passively.
Kent yawned while he shambled over to join the family meeting. "Are you Tyrant?" Eric asked the moment the boy's butt hit the chair.
"That's what mother calls me even though my name is Kent Tyrio." Alisa shot up from her chair and stared at Kent with her mouth agape.
"Are you Captain Kent? Leader of the Tyrant Storm pirates from the Marconix Orphanage?"
"Yes? And you are?"
"It's me! Obnoxious Alisa! Well, mom calls me Alice but it's me!" Kent's eyes lit up in recognition.
"Oh yeah, I remember you! You were that little brat that always played with the spirits and Nasak right? Man and here I thought that you'd be in some sort of asylum by now. Never expected you to become my little sister."
"Ahem!" Alix cleared her throat to get everyone's attention but Kent instead turned his over to Eric completely ignoring her.
"And who would you be dear younger brother?"
"Eric Holland! Mama calls me Holiday because every time she sees me she just lights up like it's a holiday! So, I guess that means that I'm her favorite!" Eric pointed his thumb to himself as he stood proudly.
"Excuse me!" Alix tried to gain the children's attention again but it yet again failed as Alisa slammed the table and leaned closer to Eric.
"You just made that up! Besides, she calls me Alice just like the stories of that adventurer who made the world into her wonderland! So, hah!"
"That is so wrong! She just calls you Alice because she thinks that Alisa is a stupid name!"
"No she doesn't!"
"Well, she calls me Tyrant so I think she holds some level of animosity towards me for being a pirate. Or she just thinks that I'm a jerk?" Kent shrugged not sure which guess was right as either one could be knowing Alix.
"BANG!" Alix slammed her hand onto the table scaring the three sitting at it. They faced Alix who was currently shaking and clenching her fists very tightly.
"You three are quite possibly the biggest annoyances that I've ever had the indecency of needing to rely on. In fact, had I not been in dire need of help, I would have rather searched this entire city from top to bottom to find Trouler on my own!" For the second time on this day, Alix had started yelling at the people that called her their maternal figure.
"I am so sick and tired of all of this meaningless fighting and banter! I need you three. I do not want to ask for your help but I need it! Do you know why?" Alix asked with desperation clear in her voice. Eric was the first to try to answer.
"B-because you need us to find Trouler. Right?"
"No!" Alix shouted slamming the table again. "It's because Mo told me that looking for Trouler alone would just make everything take longer so I should find some people that I could trust to help me. And, in case you three didn't know, all of you are the only people in this city that I've connected my heartstrings to! So you are the only ones that I can actually ask for help!"
"I don't feel as close to anyone else like I do you three! Not Winston, Hedgie, Nasak, or Denver or even my own mother for goodness sake!" The three stooges sat listening to Alix with blank expressions. She looked up at all of them with tears welling up in her eyes. A sight that none of them had ever witnessed alone but were now seeing together.
"Now tell me. Will you help me find Trouler? After that you can do whatever you want. You can agrue, sleep or go killing people in the middle of the night like a serial killer for all I care. I just need your help right now. Do you all understand?"
...
"I'm sorry mom." Alisa drooped her head apologetically.
"I think I got most of it but you're gonna need to explain it to me one more time." Eric answered with his normal level of confusion
"Hey, I promised that I'd treat you like my mother just this morning! I'm not one to back down on promises that quickly!" Kent boldly claimed.
Alix felt a wave of relief pass through her. She looked at each of the people before her. Or, more specifically, the heartstrings that were attached to each of them. She didn't know what it was about these three people that allowed her to attach the strings to them when she couldn't even put one on her own mother.
It was a question that would likely plague her mind for years to come. It was not one that she was bothered by though. Alix wiped the tears from her eyes and nodded at Mo. He nodded back with a warm smile on his face. She turned back to Tyrant, Alice and Holiday with a serious expression on her face.
"Okay! Now we can finally go find my Trouler!"