Tales of Arcadia: Mordred's Curse

Part 21

It was the next day, and the Hall's house had been chosen for preparations of the day's events.

A truly ludicrous amount of cooking commenced, Jim and Sofia commandeering the kitchen with glorious ferocity.

And Steve, in fact, actually pulled through with finding at least half of the candles needed, and Jordan simply duplicated the rest.

Cara spent the morning aggressively making frogs.

Irene had ended up giving Douxie a much-needed massage as the others helped set up the table for dah food.

Everything else just seemed to go genuinely perfectly well for almost everyone.

It stayed that way up until people started showing up.

Mordred was one of the first to arrive.

"Hello!" Mordred said with an almost genuine smile, going to hug Douxie.

Douxie accepted it, narrowing his eyes behind Mordred's back.

"Heyyyy," Irene said, leaning against Douxie a bit, holding his hand as she joined the two, "It's been a while!"

"It has!" Mordred laughed, eyes watching Irene the moment she started approached, "I'm assuming things went well after what happened the other day?"

"Yes, yes... I assume it was all just some big misunderstanding?" Irene smiled.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Mordred muttered awkwardly.

"It's alright, it's not like you were completely lying or something, it's in the past now," Irene tilted her head a little.

Mordred narrowed his eyes at her a little.

Cara casually looked up at him in the background, and her eyes flashed Akiridion.

Irene noticed his eyes falter from hers to Cara's before returning to the Siren's, "In the past, yes..." Mordred nodded, then flinched as Ian, Anton, Zhanna, and Zoe came through the front door with all their chaotic energy.

Irene smirked a little before heading over to the group and hugging them as they entered, "Wassup! Hey, Zoe, I told you we'd get the candles."

"Where is sh- CARA!" Zhanna said, almost forgetting to give Douxie a casual 'Happy Birthday' and side hug before rushing over to the smol Akirirdion.

"Oh- hi?" Cara said before getting flattened.

"WHERE ARE THE FR- ohmygoodness I love them," Zhanna muttered after cackle hugging her.

Cara just laughed and handed her a light blue one.

"When did you start making these?" Zhanna asked.

"A few weeks ago," Cara said.

"Good," Zhanna said and nodded her head, "Keep going."

"O- okay???" Cara said, hunching over the frog in her hands a little bit and stitching faster.

Zhanna laughed and went around to say hi to the others.

After a few minutes of mingling, everyone meandered towards the table.

Irene headed in first, then quickly turned around to go behind Douxie and cover his eyes with her hands while chuckling, "Hehehhe... Be prepared- it's pretty amazing."

He put his hands over hers. "Oh-?"

"Yes, yes," Irene chuckled, having to awkwardly shuffle her stretched-out self to lead him to a chair near the center of the cake.

He chuckled quietly at this and scrunched his legs down a bit for her.

Irene chuckled back as she got him to take a seat, "Ready?" She said quietly as the others got around.