Colin's posts

"Mm." Luke muttered.

"Um..." he then mumbled, thinking about something.

"Is it today?" he asked.

"Or tomorrow?" he asked her.

"When are Mom and Dad getting back?"

"..." Luke was silent, before nodding.

"Yeah." he said.

"I remember." he told her.

"But... you were really cool, too." he then said further.

"I didn't know you could do poison like Mom can."

Luke just nodded.

"Okay." he said.

He then sniffled a little, and buried his face in her shirt.

"I'm scared..." he told her.

"I don't know what Mom and Dad are gonna do." he said.

"They're gonna be real mad, though." he said in a frightened tone.

"....kay." Luke replied, when she told him about her injuries and her plan regarding them.

"And yeah." he said.

"I do." he confirmed.

"But that seems to be bad." he then said further.

"I've used it twice. And I destroyed the house and grew bad flowers." he went on.

"Maybe I shouldn't do it." he continued.

"I'll end up hurting more people..."

Luke just nodded.

"Y-yeah..." he said.

"...Lily..." he then muttered.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"You were walking funny when you got here." he said.

"And you looked like you got hurt when I hugged you..." he added guiltily.

".........." Luke was silent for another moment, before he latched onto his sister in a hug.

"Lily..." he said quietly.

"I'm sorry." he told her.

"I'm sorry I made the Telips grow, I'm sorry I heard your thoughts, I'm sorry I made the plant grow that destroyed the house..." he went on.

"I'm sorry I can do what I do." he whimpered.

"I'm sorry what I do is bad."

Luke was silent, before pressing his finger down in the soil that the Telips were growing out of. They then withdrew back into the earth, and he sighed.

"....don't tell Mom..." he said.

"Or Dad." he went on.

"I'm in enough trouble as is, I bet." he said further.

"I bet they'll make me go away." he continued.

"Or do the thing that makes people not have mana anymore." he went on.

'.........basement.' Luke responded.

'And... no.' he told her.

'I haven't.' he admitted.

'...sorry.' he apologized again.

Ash just sighed, and looked at the man he was speaking to.

"So they ARE covered, but the replacements won't be as good, because Anna and Andrew improved them, and you only replace up to original quality." he said.

"Right, give me a price estimate on bringing this place back to how it was exactly before this incident." he told them.

'......sorry.....' she heard in a soft sheepish tone.

'I'm sitting by the Telips.' he told her. Telips being a kind of tulip that were said to give telepathic powers, but all they ever managed to do was make a draydin's telepathy stronger.

But there were other issues with his statement.

The first one being that Telips were almost impossible to grow.

The second one being they didn't have any at the house, supposedly.

The third one being that they were illegal to possess.

'I didn't mean to!' Luke responded mentally to his sister.

'I was just trying to make a small one.' he said.

'To see if it could play nice with the other plants and flowers.' he went on.

'...it worked... until it started to grow...' he then told her.

'I just wanted to help Mom, as she was trying for a while to get a nice one to grow there...' he then added.

"Got it." Ash responded.

"See you when you get back." he told her.

"Hopefully a contractor will have arrived by then to assess the damages." he said.

"Now get back to what was going on." he told her further.

"Last thing you need is to get in trouble because of me."

Ash just sighed.

"Well... hm." he muttered.

"It's Luke, but the answer's more complicated than that." he said.

"Regardless, don't worry about it until you get back. I'll explain it in full once you're here." he told her.

"And yeah, I'm hanging around here until you're back." he added.

After a few seconds, her phone rang, and she picked it up.

"This is easier than texting it all out." Ash said when she answered.

"Long story short, there's been some... damage... to your place." he told her.

"Relax, Luke and Lillie are fine." he then assured her.

"But I'll tell you the details and such when you get back from the meeting." he went on.

"Seriously. Things are under control here."

Ash just put his hand on Luke's head.

"Save the crying." he said.

"Go and eat with your sister." he told him.

Luke just sniffled a little, before nodding and following Lillie, with Ash bringing up the rear.

Meanwhile, Anna and Andrew were sitting in the middle of a clearing, listening to a Dryad drone on and on about current state of affairs, and other such boring stuff that they and a ton of other forest entities were required to sit through every year.

Just as Andrew let out a large bored yawn, Anna's cell phone vibrated silently, indicating a text. When she checked it, she saw it was from Ash.

Hey, what company insures your house? it read.