by Namita Singh
folk are ready to stand by your side or not.” She pauses to look at us, “You will need the mass at your side if you wish to stand against the First realm and the Occultists. Once they swear their fealty, you can be assured that they all will stick by your side till the end of time. We will know their decision within a month, commencing after our announcement in two days. The process will actually begin with the receipt of their votes that shall be arranged within a week’s time. Till then, the vaticinator will have as much privileges as any other member of our realm. Any questions?”
The elders in my family raise no question so I immediately suppress mine.
Anastasia nods and looks at Erisna, my grandmother, “Erisna, I am assuming you’re taking the responsibility of showing their rooms that they will be put up in.”
“I will, do not worry about it.”
Anastasia nods, and looks back at us, somehow looking happy at the turn of events, “Feel welcomed.” She says,“You’re a part of this huge family now.”
17.Welcome To My Family
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I hear Neal’s voice.
I lazily lift my head to see what has him whining only to catch him fretting over a suit package. I frown, then sigh and then eventually increase the volume of my iPod and settle back more comfortably on the bouncy mattress. For reasons we didn’t fret over, Neal and I are given a single room. With two different queen sized beds of course. The several rooms in this mansion are meant for the guests from other realms. Nobody really lives in the mansion except for three of the council members who sway between their own houses and the guest rooms of the mansion. I don’t blame them. The guest rooms are strikingly comfortable, if ungodly expensive looking. Our own room is quite big, enough big for me to feel lazy to get up and open the door of our room, if someone comes by. Again, I will not blame myself. I will blame the ridiculously comfortable mattress that is literally molding with my sprawled body. I detect movement in my peripheral vision and turn my head to see an annoyed looking Neal. No surprise there. He is annoyed most of the times. Nonetheless, I sigh and remove the earphones plugged in my ears.
“What?” I ask.
“Why the hell do we need to wear a tux for a ‘judiciary get together’?”
“It’s a tuxedo?” I ask, lifting myself to sit.
In answer to my question, Neal picks up a package which is suspiciously similar to his and tosses it across to me. I catch it and fumble with it a bit before revealing the tuxedo which has a nametag with my name written on it in its foremost breast pocket. I throw aside the name tag and appreciatively marvel over the tux.
“Why do we have to wear this shit?” Neal grumbles loudly, still fretting over the pieces of his tux that he has laid out on his bed in between the ocean of books.
Neal requested that he be well known to this arena now, so he expressed his desire to read some of the historical books concerning the Therians and the Realms. Since I am not talking to my father, Neal himself went, albeit reluctantly, to put forth his request. In two days’ time, he has finished four of the humongous books my father has lent him. Not wanting to appear clingy, he next approached Anastasia and asked for some of the books which the latter was much too happy to give from the mansion’s library. And so, even today, Neal has spent the whole day with his nose buried in some book.
I have noticed that when he is engrossed in his reading feat, he doesn’t at all care about his surroundings. The other books will remain haphazardly sprawled on the bed, the bed sheet will remain wrinkled, the porcelain plate with unfinished food will remain at one corner and the half-eaten apple on the bedside table will remain just that, a half-eaten apple.
Unlike what I had assumed, Neal is not the type to spend hours in a library. He instead settles comfortably on the bed and lets the world war begin around him not even lifting his head when I accidently make a loud sound while bumping into stuff. Boy, can he read. Even with my excessive curiosity I used to manage to read one book in a week and here is Neal, way past his fourth book on the third day. But he is a clumsy nerd, not worried about the chaos around him due to his ignorance.
I shrug at him now, nonchalant, “This whole place seems high maintenance.” I supply.
“That’s fucking peachy.” Neal says in sarcasm.
“I am sure if you make your ill favor known to the council, they will definitely do something to remedy your mood.”
Neal throws a dark, warning glare at me. I am not wrong about the council members fawning over Neal. But the reason behind their support for Neal is a very different matter, something which Terry uncle brought to light when I had jumped him for millions of my unanswered questions. According to him, most of the council members accepted Neal because they fear him. They believe that if they reject the vaticinator then the vaticinator may envisage and grant them with poor future. The ones, who declined the acceptance of the vaticinator, are actually the ones who believe that the vaticinator has already worked his magic. He has probably already incurred the future and therefore is facing no problem in being accepted.That doesn’t mean they are not ‘afraid’ of ‘offending’ the vaticinator. The vaticinator, after all, has the power to develop the future of us all by simply closing his eyes. Or so they think, as none are even aware of how long it takes for Neal to accomplish that.
No wonder Ser Daeve had shut up entirely when Neal expressed his distaste over the supposed homophobia Ser Daeve was exhibiting.
Upon hearing the reasons behind the compliance of the council, Neal has turned into his defensive mode. He points out, whenever he gets the chance, that he never, never at all, alters the future for significant events, definitely not for his benefit. He earns very good sly stares from me whenever he goes off in a rant. But then he’ll snap at me, whining and yelling, ‘The Plutocracy is a silly little insignificant thing, Lichinsky. Stop insinuating that I will fucking turn the world around just for my fucking benefit.’
Yeah, he has started to curse a lot.
The irony is that if Terry uncle is correct about the council members ‘fearing’ to make a wrong impression on Neal, then I feel I am back in school. In school, the students were subconsciously aware of Neal’s future diving abilities and hence, they all worshipped and feared him at the same time. Now, people are actually aware of his literal future divining ability and they are similarly groveling at his feet. Somehow, Neal finds the blatant devotion of the council members much more annoying than the attention whore teenagers who used to beg for him to mention them in The Plutocracy.
I fail to see the freaking difference.
“They have given us identical tuxes.” Neal says in a louder voice, his eyes trained on my tuxedo. His tone oddly sounds as if he can’t believe this. “What are we, twins?” he quips.
I roll my eyes at him, “More like a gay couple on a wedding cake. You just had to insinuate that we are a couple, didn’t you?”
Neal huffs, “Who said anything about us being a couple? I was just lashing at that old prick for being a homophobic bastard. Seriously, I don’t see any attraction in your so called ‘realm’. They are all freaking priggish, nothing else.”
I sigh and do not comment. But I couldn’t have agreed more. All of my hopes for what an ideal realm must be have been squashed by the primness I see here. All people seem concerned about is how much power they radiate outwardly. Even my mother’s parentshave failed to provide that homely feeling that I had been anticipating. My grandfather is just as jolly as his wife. But years of being ignorant of each other let us steer towards awkward silences. I do not make an inch of an effort at curbing the awkwardness. I see no reason why I should do that. My parents wanted me to be ignorant of my grandparents and I am doing just that.
At least my grandparents on my mother’s side enthusiastically greet us and Erisna even invites us to her home for a warm cup of chocolate every day. But father’s father, my other grandfather, doesn’t even bother to make introductions with me. I do not know what my father and his father’s deal is.
I am holding choler against father, so I didn’t inquire him about it. All I know is that it is my third day here in this mansion and my grandfather still doesn’t feel the need to be acquainted with me. Fine by me. Two can play that game.
The thirteenth person on the council, the old man who had not put forth a vote is whom I am pitching for as my grandfather. I am not sure but that old man sure bears resemblance to my father. Besides, I have been informed that if the family of a council member is involved in any of the cases, then that council member’s participation during the handling of that case is not allowed. This shall explain why that old man wasn’t asked for a vote. He did not even speak at all.
Come evening, we are asked to get ready for the gathering of all the therians in this division and the head members of the other divisions in this realm.With the kind of fancy clothes we are wearing, it seems more like an auction party. The venue is the huge field which is right behind this mansion, something I haven’t seen yet. I haven’t explored much of this division, except for my grandmother’s home.
“I am not wearing this.” Neal grumbles, throwing away the bow tie on his bed. He hastily wears his jacket and starts making necessary adjustment while standing in front of the mirror. “How the hell did they even