61.3. For Better or Worse - Part 3

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"You're kidding, right?" Erik raises his eyebrows when he looks at Gotrid's luggage neatly prepared in the hall. Thirty-five boxes to be precise.

"I'm moving, Erik, I wasn't here on a business trip like you," Gotrid rolls his eyes. "And I'm not abandoning my precious possessions."

"There's no way it's going to fit our apartment," Erik grumbles.

"Your home should be remodelled and enlarged by now," Ayala reminds him. "I think it shouldn't be any problem."

"Yess!" Gotrid celebrates. "Can you transport them on the plane immediately?" he asks the guards who start moving the boxes using telekinesis.

"Bigger or not, our new apartment is going to be full of junk now," Erik comments bitterly. Except for hoarding expensive suits and accessories, he's surprisingly minimalistic in all other areas.

"I'm sorry?! My collectibles aren't junk!" Gotrid retorts. "I'm a proud geek!"

"Oh, right," I realise only now and get excited about the fact. "You're a gamer, just like me."

"I can't wait for our collections to combine, it'll be so beautiful," Gotrid sings.

Liana emerges from her apartment, looking slightly pissed.

"Li, are you okay?" I hurry to her.

"I'm fine," she assures me. "But it was a lot of work to arrange commercial planes to take our people."

"A problem with visa admissions?" I guess. "Or leaving permits?"

"Nothing of the sort," she shakes her head. "The EU is happy to have us while the US is happy to be rid of us. But the airplane companies I hired charged me an extortionate amount of money."

"More than is usual?" Gotrid frowns.

"Much more," she hisses. "They argued that the cost of everything increased ever since the Great Evolution and they had to re-book human customers to other days and compensate them."

"Is there anything I can help with?" I caress her wing.

"I'm afraid not," she sighs. "I paid for it because most of our people lost their jobs so they can't afford the ticket but I swear this is the last time I'm sponsoring anyone. Not even my wallet is bottomless. We need to start earning money, the sooner the better."

She's right, of course. It's been over three months since our transformation so it's high time we do something about our income. A few rich Draconians can't keep sponsoring the rest forever. Fortunately, with upcoming crafting and battling monsters, we should be able to give our people decent jobs.

"Your Majesty, our people are restless. Could you possibly do something?" Soren suddenly appears, all worried. "They hate the idea of travelling separate from you."

I introduced Soren to Erik two days ago and Soren has been acting as a liaison office between our inner government and Celestials from the US ever since. I got to really like him because he's an honest person who works hard and he turned out to be dependable.

"What do you expect me to do?" I bite my lip. "Our plane isn't inflatable."

"Calm them down somehow?" Soren suggests. "Like you did that evening?"

I sigh. I might have dug my own grave. Ever since I did that, Celestials started to think that I'm going to communicate with them telepathically from now on. It seems almost surreal to even think I was afraid of telling them because not only then took it well, now they think it's only natural their embodiment of magic is a telepath on top.

But Soren is right, I can feel that my people are restless because I'm leaving today. I should do something about it. I take a deep breath, close my eyes for a second and try to send every Celestial in range a comforting thought.

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