Chapter 10: Chapter 9: Over the Dragon and Through the Woods

The door clicked closed behind Susan as she stepped into the house, ready to crash. Her second day at school had been well and truly exhausting. She breathed in deep, waited a second then breathed out. As she did, she tried visualizing all of her negative feelings leaving as well.

She failed the second the image of Cole’s face flashed through her mind. She groaned, kicking off her shoes and before thumping her way upstairs to her room.

Her bedroom door opened to reveal Elizabeth crashed on her bed. She was sprawled out on her stomach, reading through a comic book. The bright colors of her middle school’s mandatory polo shirt and skirt clashing with the calm grays and browns of Susan’s bedroom. Her head perked up as she saw Susan.

“Oh hey you’re ba-” Her voice cut off as Susan slammed the door shut between them.

“What was that for?” Elizabeth’s muffled whine echoed through the door.

“Why are you in my room?” Susan shouted back

“I thought we were gonna see Granny Hilda about the Garage Sale!”

“Why would we do that?” Susan roared.

“I thought we should find out if she was at the Garage Sale last night!” Elizabeth’s voice echoed back.

Susan growled, throwing the door open as she marched into her room. A toss left her backpack thudding to the ground next to her desk as she walked over to her bed.

“Can’t it wait?” She asked, staring down at her sister with her hands on her hips.

Elizabeth tilted her head in confusion, “Isn’t it better to find out and get it over with?”

Susan turned and walked away, throwing her hands up in the air helplessly, “Can’t I just pretend my family doesn’t have insane magical powers for once?”

“Hey,” Elizabeth protested as she sat up, “It worked out fine with me, didn’t it.”

“You SUPLEXED me and then I had to fight my friend's evil uncle!” Susan whirled around to point an accusatory pointer finger back at her.

Elizabeth crossed her arms as she stared at Susan for a moment.

“Why are you so mad?” She asked.

“I’m not mad!” Susan yelled back.

“Really?” Elizabeth deadpanned, giving Susan a look.

Susan’s arms flopped by her side as she deflated. Elizabeth looked scarily like their mom when she did that.

“Sorry, guess I am kind of mad,” She said, “Cole was driving me crazy today at school.”

Elizabeth gave her a second, but when no elaboration came, raised an eyebrow.

“…Uh, who?”

“Oh right,” Susan resisted the urge to facepalm, “He’s a friend from school that I saved from a vampire yesterday. I was hoping he’d forgotten about it but he’s been trying to ask questions all day, and it's been getting harder and harder to deflect him.”

Elizabeth gave an understanding nod, “Need any help? I can get rid of the vampire if you want me to,”

Susan decided to ignore that slightly ominous response.

“I don’t think so,” She said, “I took the vampire to the BSMP yesterday and I heard that she was taken out of school this morning. As for Cole, I don’t know. Anne said she had an idea to get him off our backs, but I’m not sure how well that’s going to work.”

Elizabeth waited until she had finished, then gave her a second to fully calm down from her rant.

“Sooo….”

“Fine,” Susan caved.

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They didn’t leave immediately. Susan did not plan to visit her grandparents in her typical ratty jeans and sweater. Instead she took a few minutes to find a nice blouse and a slightly more formal pair of pants. Then it was time to go.

Lacking their parents to drive them, the two had to hitch a ride on the bus. Their grandparents lived in a nice two story log cabin far into the woods on the other side of town.

It was nice to see, but a pain to visit. Upon reaching the edge of town, you either had to drive or walk down a series of roads that definitely weren’t passing any safety inspections to find it.

The public bus was about as boring as you’d expect. The most visually interesting thing was the monotone colors splashed over the uncomfortable plastic seats that filled the long interior of the bus in rows. Standing metal bars and grab handles took up the most space besides the seats, despite the fact that the city bus system never saw enough usage to ever require them.

Which made it surprising that there was a mousekin lounging in one of the back rows.

He idly glanced toward the front, then stiffened as he spotted Susan. She saw his eyes lock onto her hair for a second, then her eyes before whipping to the side to stare back out the window.

She quietly settled in one of the seats at the front with Elizabeth.

The ride didn’t take long, only about fifteen minutes. Though plenty long enough for Elizabeth to get bored and hang off the support bars for entertainment. Susan spent her time watching the panicking mousekin out of the corner of her eye.

He had quickly grabbed his phone, sending out a text before returning to his charade of nonchalance. It wasn’t convincing. He clearly knew he was trapped on a bus with someone capable of fighting dozens of mousekin at once, and the knowledge visibly ate at him.

That wasn’t Susan’s focus though. What worried her was the way he seemed to be looking for her based off of a description. It indicated that Joseph was trying to keep tabs on her. Apparently the man knew exactly how annoying he was to kill, though she doubted he would ever phrase it that way.

And yet somehow he didn’t seem to fully understand what she was.

Their stop came. A carefully placed illusion spell ensured that the mousekin wouldn’t notice them leaving.

They stepped out onto the sidewalk of a lonely road just off of the main thoroughfare leading out of town. The stop was a metal sign that demarcated the bus stop, the entire area covered in enormous pines that surrounded the road. The sun beat overhead, with no hint of a breeze to help with the heat.

Susan could see the unmarked road that led to their grandparents house further down the road, about a half mile away.

She turned to look at Elizabeth, “How far is the walk to their house again?”

Elizabeth pursed her lips, “Uh, a couple of miles or something?”

“Hm,” Susan nodded a few times in understanding.

A quick turn of her head showed that no cars were coming, so she quickly started drawing a runic circle in the air. A few seconds later she was transforming into her miniature dragon form as Elizabeth squealed in joy.

“Are you gonna fly?” Elizabeth gasped.

“Well I’m certainly not walking,” Susan groused back.

“Can I ride you?” Elizabeth begged, shooting Susan with her best attempt at puppy eyes. Susan immediately went to turn her down, but found her words dying in her throat as she stared at the enormous doe eyes in front of her.

“You already did it yesterday!” She cried hopelessly.

Elizabeth just stared harder.

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The second part of their trip was much more enjoyable than the first. Even with her troglodyte younger sister hanging off her neck and whooping with every flap of her wings.

It was hard to stay worried as she drifted along the winds toward her destination. Elizabeth’s joy was infectious. The numerous problems she had concerning the mousekin and their mad leader seemed to drift away as she flew along the familiar path to their grandparents house.

It seemed like only a moment before they were settling down on a wider patch of the gravel road they were following. It was disappointing to end the flight so soon, but much better than terrifying their grandparents. Or in the worst case scenario, they had magic and decided to attack the flying intruders.

She waited until Elizabeth had hopped down to the ground before transforming back. At least this time when she changed back into her human form it was into her usual clothes. Unlike her outfit from last night that had been shredded into oblivion by the sudden collapse of the subspace magic that hid her body.

Once again in her human form, she glanced around. The two were still a few hundred yards away from their grandparents house, still hidden by the subtle curve of the road ahead.

It took another five minutes to cover the distance. And despite flying most of the way, Susan was still sweating by the time they made it to their grandparents lawn.

Unlike the American standard of bright green grass squares, their grandparents had a circular lawn covered in wildflowers. Walking along the footpath to the porch, Susan mused for the thousandth time how much it resembled a flowery fairy circle.

The house itself had a very similar air. The two story log cabin with its enormous front porch had always seemed a photograph away from the front of a children’s storybook. A younger Susan had always loved the quiet brown wood of the walls, the bright red brick chimney and the gray slate roof.

An older Susan was noticing the security runes formed by the pattern of flowers around the lawn.

They made it to the porch, rapping the enormous bronze knocker that stood out from the plain wooden door it hung over. They heard the knocks boom through the house before stepping back to wait.

It took a long minute before the latch clicked and the door swung open to reveal a familiar figure.

At almost ninety seven years old, age had taken its toll on Grandpa Zach. Heavy eyebrows bleached white hung over wrinkled eyes and a hooked nose. Time hadn’t quite beaten him though. In spite of his sapped muscles and shrunken height, he still stood with a straight back and walked with a skip in his step.

He was wearing an older style of shirt and pants, like something you’d expect to find on a farmer from the last century. Susan smiled as she took in the familiar bright brown eyes, sparkling with joy.

“Hey Grandpa Zach,” She said before her throat closed up and she had to fight back the familiar tears of joy.

“Girls!” He exclaimed in his familiar raspy voice, “How wonderful to see you!”

He threw his arms wide and rushed through the doorway, quickly pullIng both girls into a hug. Susan returned it, wrapping her arms around her grandfather's bony frame as she quietly basked in the familiar comfort of family.

Elizabeth happily grabbed both of them in a group hug, squeezing happily.

Grandpa Zach laughed at her enthusiasm, “Careful there girl, you’re going to twist me into a pretzel!”

Elizabeth laughed as well as she let them go and hopped away to give them space. Susan decided to let go as well, stepping back as she quietly tried to clear her throat.

She was interrupted when Zach put his hands on his hips and leaned forward in a familiar gesture.

“So what brings you two to my door?” He asked, looking between the two of them with a grin on his face.

“Grandma’s sweetbread!” Elizabeth shouted.

Zach laughed again, “Well come on in then, and I’ll see if Hilda can whip some up for you.”

He stepped back into the house and waved them in. The girls followed, Susan giving her sister the side eye as they did. Elizabeth was the one who wanted to come here, what was she doing getting distracted by desserts. Even if they were good desserts.

Neither of their grandparents were from the United States. As a result, most of the food they cooked was odd or unfamiliar, some of it entirely distasteful to Susan and Elizabeth’s American palates.

This was not the case for Granny Hilda’s sweets. Whatever pastries or treats came out of her oven were seen as works of art in the eyes of her granddaughters.

Especially her sweetbread. Susan had tried multiple times to find the recipe online, but something about the name never translated properly leaving her unable to find it.

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Susan started as she found herself plop down next to Elizabeth on top of an old wooden couch. In the time she had been distracted thinking about sweets, the small group had already settled down around a low wooden coffee table in the living room.

The door they entered through was across the room from them to their right, to its left the stairway that led upstairs. To their immediate left sat an ornate brick fireplace, while behind then was the entrance to the kitchen.

The room itself was filled with a lifetime's worth of keepsakes and knick knacks that crowded high up shelves and tables. Each one a piece of the near century long story of their owners lives.

Grandpa Zach was sitting on another couch across from them, calling for their grandmother in the other room.

“Hilda dear, the girls are here and they're asking for your sweetbread again!” He called through the doorway to the kitchen.

”Well,” Susan said a bit awkwardly, ”We weren’t exactly here for sweetbread.”

Zach chuckled, “Oh, I know. But if we're going to talk it might as well be over something tasty.”

A booming laugh came from the kitchen, “Listen to your grandfather, he knows his stuff.”

The speaker stepped through the kitchen door, a steaming tray of sugared buns held aloft on one hand.

Unlike her husband, Granny Hilda had won in the fight against old age. She still had the thin skin typical to the elderly, but on her it was stretched over heavy muscles. She stood tall, a straight-backed woman who easily dwarfed most men. Black hair streaked with gray reached her shoulders, and she had the same blue eyes as her granddaughters.

Grandpa Zach always had the calm and kindly demeanor of a grandfather. Granny Hilda on the other hand still maintained some of the cocksure attitude of a younger woman, and it would take something stronger than time to take that away from her.

She dropped the tray on the coffee table in front of the two girls before settling down on the couch across from them.

Susan’s hand reached out automatically to snag one of the buns and bring it to her mouth.She couldn’t help the smile that covered her face as she bit down. It was savory, sweet, and wonderfully fluffy in a way that no other desert she had tried ever managed.

“So what brought you here?” Hilda asked, a wide grin splitting her expressive face as she threw an arm around her husband.

Elizabeth surreptitiously glanced at Susan. She just stared back blankly, another sweet bun halfway to her mouth.

It had been over a thousand years since she’d last tasted her grandmother's cooking. Any awkward questions regarding her grandparents magical abilities could wait until the beautiful balls of sugary goodness were eaten.

Elizabeth sighed in response while both grandparents looked on with knowing smirks.

She let out a heavy sigh, “So Susan and I were at the Garage Sale when we thought we saw you.”

Both grandparents stiffened. Susan stopped mid chew as she watched.

“And we thought we would come over and ask if you knew about the Brick and magic and all that-”

“Now hold on a minute. You were at the Goblin Market?” Hilda cut Elizabeth off as she spoke up. Her back was ramrod straight as she glared back and forth between the two of them.

Elizabeth shot a worried glance at Susan, who returned it with a raised eyebrow. This was Elizabeth’s idea, she would deal with it.

Elizabeth quickly turned back to their grandmother.

‘Uh, yes?” She said with an awkward grin and a shrug.

Both grandparents looked outraged at this. They shared a look for a moment before turning their laser focus back onto the girls.

“And who exactly was escorting you?” Zach asked.

“Uh,” Elizabeth stared back and forth between them with a grimace before muttering, “No one?”

“YOU WERE ALONE?” Hilda roared.

Susan choked down the last bite of sweet bun. The entire conversation was rapidly going off the rails. Their grandparents clearly assumed that they were newly taught students of magic playing tourist to the dangerous creatures of the Brick. And Elizabeth’s answers, while technically true as they weren’t being actually escorted by Abana, weren’t helping.

“Don’t worry, we weren’t in danger,” She spoke quickly.

It didn’t help at all, Hilda only looked more furious.

“The Goblin Market is not a joke!“ She shouted, leaping to her feet. Susan jumped, any plans for further debate driven from her mind as she leaned back in to look up at her incensed grandmother.

Hilda stood there a moment, breathing heavily as she glared down at her granddaughters. She started as Zach reached up to pat her on the leg, glancing back at him. He gave a minute shake of his head and she seemed to come down from her rage a bit.

She huffed before turning back to face Elizabeth and Susan, only to pause upon seeing their startled expressions. Letting out a heavy sigh, she settled back down on the couch.

Elizabeth looked ready to speak but Zack leaned in first.

“No matter what magics you may have learned, the world is full of dangerous creatures and it is easy to get their notice or ire,” He said, “And unless you are as powerful as a dragon, you cannot go running into places like these without supervision.”

“But she is a dragon!” Elizabeth practically wailed, throwing up her hands in desperation.

Zach looked confused before shaking his head, “Elizabeth, please. There are no dragons on earth.”

“Really?” Susan blurted out, “Oh, that explains so much!”

So that was why the mousekin were so careless around her. Why Joseph was so willing to mess with her. They had no frame of reference for the true danger of what they were doing.

Both grandparents stared at Susan for a moment as she parsed this information. They turned back to Elizabeth.

“This is not something to joke about,” Zach said, his mouth drawing into a line as he stared at her with a severe expression. “Dragons are dangerous beings, and bringing them up like this is not going to make your punishment any lighter.”

“Well…” Susan said, immediately drawing the attention of both grandparents, “She’s not lying, I am actually a dragon.”

“Susan,” Zach said flatly.

Elizabeth spoke up, “You're just going to have to show them.”

Susan nodded, standing up and moving to stand at one end of the end table under the expectant and incredulous eyes of her family.

She held up a hand, then paused as an idea passed through her mind. A grin tugged at her lips as she began sketching a new transformation circle in the air in front of her.

An intake of breath came from one end of the table as Zach watched her hands blur into motion, drawing glowing lines on the air itself. His eyes widened as the glowing lines formed into the familiar pattern of arcane symbols within concentric circles.

The circle completed, Susan stepped back. She widened her stance, put one hand on her hip and thrust the other into the air.

“Transform!” She shouted, a glowing rune appearing beneath her feet a moment before she lit up in a flash of light.

Her family watched in various degrees of shock as her incandescent body warped and grew. The shining light condensed as it formed around her into clothes, just as it had last night for Elizabeth.

As the transformation finished, the now quadrupedal Susan looked out at them with a toothy grin. A glittering silver tiara sat on top of her head. The rest of the magical girl outfit wouldn’t work on her body shape. So she was left with a frilly pink skirt that sat roughly where her hips would have been if she were still a human.

Elizabeth leapt to her feet, “You stole my transformation?” She shrieked.

Her bug eyed expression sent Susan crashing to the floor, howling with laughter. She hadn’t expected her paranoia last night to pay off so much.

The magical girls had mostly used their strange instantaneous magic the day before. The only exception being the magic rune that had accompanied Elizabeth’s transformation the night before. Susan had memorized it, then deciphered its functions during her free time today.

It had been challenging, a truly unique spell she had never come across before. The spell formed magical armor out of pure mana according to the desires of the user. She’d put it out of her mind after it was decoded, just relieved it wasn’t anything nefarious. But as she’d stood up to do her transformation, the opportunity to tease her little sister had presented itself and she just had to take it.

After she had picked herself off the floor, she sidled up to Elizabeth.

“So what do you think?” She teased, “I think I make a pretty good magical girl, just need a fancy name.”

She had to hold back another laugh at Elizabeth’s indignant pout.

“Let’s see… I could be Princess Pretty Pteradactal, Resplendent Royal Reptile…The Silk-Stockinged Snake…”

Susan continued her butchering of Magical Girl names. Elizabeth clearly wanted to stay mad, refusing to look her in the eye. But a smile began to tug at her lips as the names continued to get more and more outrageous.

Susan took a moment after her latest name, Lucent Lady Lizard, to gauge the reactions of her grandparents. Granny Hilda looked surprised, but also somewhat relieved at the revelation.

Grandpa Zach on the other hand, made Susan stop her teasing and do a double take. He looked like he was having a religious experience, his eyes wide as a smile of pure joy lit up his entire face.

“A dragon,” He whispered to himself before speaking louder, “We have a dragon in the family.”

Hilda shot him a glare and he sputtered.

“Alright,” He said after gathering himself for a moment, “It’s good to know you two weren’t doing anything stupid. Now how about we all sit down and talk things over.”

Susan nodded. She quickly drew the transformation runes, and within a few seconds she was sitting on the couch in human form next to Elizabeth again. Her hand snagged one of the last few sweetbreads while Zach and Hilda took a moment to think.

“Well,” Zach began, “I believe the first thing to do now would be to congratulate you. You are the first person in over five generations of our family to succeed in becoming a dragon.”

Grandma Hilda nodded, “Though I gotta ask, how did you manage to pull that off in the time since we’ve last seen you?”

Susan shrugged dismissively, “I got summoned to Themus for a couple centuries, that’s all.”

That got a pair of raised eyebrows as both grandparents stared at her questioningly.

“Themus, truly?” Grandpa Zach asked.

Susan nodded.

“That's… quite the coincidence,” He spoke slowly, seeming to mull over his words as he said them.

“What year?” Hilda asked excitedly, leaning forward.

Susan frowned as she thought about it. She didn’t have exact dates of when she’d been on Themus, but she knew more than enough to guess.

The problem was, she didn’t want or need her grandparents finding out about her time there. That was a can of worms that could stay closed for all she cared.

Lying wasn’t an option though, Elizabeth knew more than enough to call her out and she didn’t have the time to convince her otherwise. That left blind luck as an option. Just hope that they had lived long enough before her that they had no clue of what was happening at the time.

“I think I would have arrived… 3114 or so?”

“Well blast,” Hilda said, smacking a fist into her cupped hand, “We left the place in 2551 or so, must have missed you by six centuries.”

Susan held back a sigh of relief. That was a weight off her shoulders she didn’t know she needed.

“Hold on a moment Dear, it’s better to double check first,” Zach said, before turning to Susan, “Do you know which calendar you are counting from?”

“Uh, give me a second,” Susan had to take another moment to mutter to herself, “Tzolk’in?”

Grandpa Zach blanched, which drew a worried looks from everyone else.

“What’s wrong Dear?” Hilda quickly asked.

“That would have been in the middle of the Atlan Empire,” Zach said quietly, giving Susan a long searching look.

Susan stiffened, he knew.

Grampa Zach’s eyes narrowed in response.

He definitely knew. That was two for two on family members sniffing out her secrets immediately.

Granny Hilda looked at her as well, but it was a worried one shared between her and Elizabeth. She seemed to think for a moment, before standing up from her seat.

Walking to the other side of the table, she dropped down between her granddaughters. Throwing an arm over each of them, she pulled them in close.

“I’m sorry,” She said quietly, “I wish we could have been there to stop it.”

Susan locked up for a moment, before relaxing into the side hug. She was an idiot, of course they weren’t going to assume the worst about her at the drop of a hat.

Why would they, she hadn’t run in and declared herself to be a violent madwoman. She’d just admitted to living through the Themian equivalent of the Chinese three kingdoms period.

Wait a second…

“I’m glad you're safe,” Grandma Hilda continued, breaking Susan out of her train of thought, “I’d hate to lose either of you like that.”

Susan took a moment to enjoy the closeness, reveling in the warmth of the hug. Looking back towards her grandfather, she saw the same worried look on his face as Grandma Hilda.

He definitely knew what she’d gotten up to on Themus, but he was still her grampa.

“I’m guessing you two lived sometime after that?” She asked, finally breaking the somber silence.

Zach nodded, “Indeed, we left the planet about three and a half thousand years after your arrival.”

“Hold up,” Elizabeth spoke up, “How does that make any sense? You and Granny Hilda must have come to earth like fifty years ago, and Susan only left it last week.”

Grandpa Zach’s back straightened as he listened to Elizabeth’s question. Both girls felt dread freeze them in place as they realized what was going to happen.

“The thing you must understand is that when we speak of different worlds, we really mean different realms,” He said in the smooth cadence of a lecturer, “These realms, while operating on the same physical principles, each have a flow of causality independent of one another…”

He continued speaking as Susan slowly tuned out the drawl of his voice. She blamed Elizabeth for this. They both had learned long ago not to get their grandfather talking on any subject at length. He‘d be stuck ranting like this for the next ten minutes and there was no stopping him.

Hilda snickered as her granddaughters started to go slack in her arms. Zach seemed to notice her distraction, quickly pausing his speech when he saw the glazed looks on the faces of his audience.

“Why don’t we let Susan explain for once?” Hilda asked with a cheeky grin.

Susan perked up as the lecture stopped. Seizing the opportunity to speed things along, she leaned forward to glance around her torso and catch Elizabeth’s eye.

“It’s like Narnia.”

“Oooooh, that’s cool.”

Grandpa Zach huffed in indignation at their display, to Hilda’s obvious amusement.

“Well, I already told Elizabeth about my time on Themus, and I think Grandpa Zach already knows who I am. So what about you, what’s your story?” Susan asked.

“Oh, it’s nothing to exciting,” Zach said with a wry grin, “Your Grandma was a self made adventurer who ran into me after my family lost its noble status-”

“That's why he’s so nutty about you bein’ a dragon,” Hilda whispered as she nudged Susan, who frowned in response.

“Really?” She asked.

Zach coughed to get her attention, “Ahem, yes. After you left Themus there was a revolution in transformation magic, leading to a golden age of Dragons. They became so common that a noble family would lose its status if it went to many generations without a member achieving dragon hood.”

“Huh,” Susan muttered, “That would have been nice to see.”

Zach nodded, “Indeed it was.”

They fell silent a moment before Hilda broke in.

“Anyways,” She began, ”After we hooked up we went around adventuring together. Then after a couple decades, we started to feel our age catching up to us. So we decided to go out with a bang and jump dimensions for a big final adventure.”

Susan felt her mouth fall open as the speech continued. After it was done, she pushed away from her grandmother. Scooting away on the couch so she could fully take in the woman’s confident grin with wide eyes.

“Are you insane?” She almost shouted.

Hilda gave a leisurely shrug as Zach awkwardly looked away.

“What’s wrong?” Elizabeth asked as she peeked around Hilda to look at Susan.

“That whole idea is what’s wrong!” She shot back, “Jumping worlds is some of the most dangerous magic that’s not explicitly forbidden. I only risked doing it because I was able to reverse the spell that initially summoned me, and send myself back to earth.”

Granny Hilda now had a bashful smile as Susan’s rant continued.

“The realms have basically nothing connecting their timelines together, so each time you travel in between them, it could be to an entirely random time and place! You could end up on a planet before life even existed. Or in the middle of an apocalypse, or in literal HELL!”

Susan was left breathlessly panting as she stared at her grandparents. Tales of Realm hoppers varied and spectacular deaths littered every tome of dimensional magic she had ever read. Hearing her grandparents had done it was like them telling her they used to go skydiving without parachutes.

“Eh, it worked out,” Hilda said as she reached out to snag Susan’s arm and pull her back into the group hug. Susan wanted to keep protesting… but the hug was comfy. Her further complaints slowly died out before they reached her lips.

Hilda was right. However stupid it was, it had happened. No need to get mad about it.

“After we got to Earth,” Hilda continued on like nothing had happened, “ We poked around and realized that there wasn’t exactly much to do. So we settled down and had your mother.“

She and Zach both smiled in tandem at the memory.

“And that was plenty enough of an adventure for both of us,” She finished softly, gazing down gently at her granddaughters.

A quiet moment followed. Their collective questions answered, the group settled into a more mellow mood. Susan took the opportunity to snuggle closer to her grandmother. It had been far too long since she’d last had the opportunity.

“So,” Elizabeth broke the silence, “What’s this other world like?”

“Oh, it's an incredible place,” Zach said with a smile.

“At least when people aren’t trying to conquer it,” Susan muttered, then paused.

She hadn’t meant to say that. A look around showed worried glances directed her way, the upbeat mood thoroughly squashed.

“Sorry, it's not actually that bad,” She quickly backpedaled, “I just didn’t see it at a great time.”

The statement did nothing to stop the stares sent her way. Susan waffled a moment before an idea occurred.

“How about I tell another story from there?”

Elizabeth’s mouth pursed, “Are you sure?”

“Totally, this one's fine!” Susan said, ignoring the increase in the intensity of her grandparents' gazes. “In fact, I think this one will include someone Grandpa will recognize!”

That caught Grandpa Zach’s attention.

“Well tell on, then.”