Policeman and the cat

35 - Scolding

After parting ways with Purple, Ian and Nelly wandered about a bit and hunted a couple of black looking manta rays swimming in the air. They were agile, hard to catch, felt more dangerous than Yuads and were less filling, but eating a couple made both of them full, so they headed back.

Ian checked his phone-- it had all taken about two hours, best case scenario. And when they came back, Dad was almost done with grilling some meat.

"Welcome back!" Mom said. "Quicker than expected."

"I sent the worst-case scenario," Ian said, then sniffed at the meat and mixed up a sauce, this time separating it into two portions and infusing some aether in one sauce. As he mixed it up and this time openly drew over the meat using his finger, he talked -

"We went to the place where we hunted those yuads and found another one, but then we figured that maybe we could dig the thing that lured them up to use as a lure elsewhere," Ian said. "They are tasty, after all."

The Rones family had 'huh?' looks about that. 

"I wonder about your stomach, dark aligned stuff is usually poison to the living," Trinity said as she snatched up the first meat piece as soon as it was done.

Nelly covered the meat just with sauce and gave it to Mom, then made some for Dad.

"Aether drain skill converts it," Nelly said, mentioning something Ian did not know either. "We only get lingering bits that aren't harmful and soon convert as well."

It looked like everyone enjoyed the meat even more even if there was less aether infused this time. Dad had done a great job with grilling as well.

"And what happened with digging up?" Grandpa asked, getting them back on track.

"I didn't know if it would be safe, but it felt bad to text Grisham or Kenneth about it, so I summoned a wisp," and then as they ate, Ian told the story - about how he dug Knox up and about why he was buried here. Ian skipped mentioning some details, like that his hands were cut off.

"So this house is already unsafe," Dad concluded the same thing Ian had. "Although after hearing what you used Purple for, I figured he would have looked into you and would likely know already." Upon seeing Ian's curious look, he added - "Purple is known to look into people who use his services that freely."

"He said that my biological father and Mom's family know about me," Ian said, having Mom startle. "And he also said grandma has shares in Mom's grandmother's business and could arrange Mom to meet her grandparents if Mom wanted to.

Grandma was clearly not happy Purple knew that much. "That is true," Grandma nodded. "I was thinking of offering that."

Mom blinked. "I had a suspicion about the ring, but it feels strange to know grandfather knew about us. He never struck me as a person to silently observe, it would be far more aligned with his personality to get a sample of my DNA, check if I'm me, then borderline kidnap us and investigate everything."

"If I may guess," Dad said. "If Ian was under some level of Rembrant family protection, then Michael or his men would meet heavy and disturbing resistance if they tried to investigate either of you."

Wow, to think that while they lived their regular everyday lives, some huge groups were clashing in the background-- that felt more surreal to Ian than becoming a seeing side person and all that followed after.

It was true that Ian always longed to have a bigger family, he was jealous of his friends who had siblings and two parents and grandparents and fuzzy pets, but Ian had found a bigger family in the police guys, and volunteering at the shelter let him pet and care for twenty cats, not just one, he always had plenty of friends as far as he could remember himself. Yes, his romantic life had been a mess and he didn't have a 'real' big family, although-- right now he actually did, and he even had a swarm of fuzzy red bunnies, and his girlfriend was the cutest, so -