The Enchantments: Book 4 - The Key of Mulastef

Chapter 36: Home Sweet Home

For the first time in a long while the trip home was uneventful. For Simeneon this was a welcome break from the past year, and she couldn't have been more grateful. She slept the sleep of the dead, figuratively speaking. All the people she had come to love in the last four years were here with her now. They doted on her, made her comfortable, and all she wanted was to be left alone, but knowing them, they weren't going to let her out of their sight.

She smiled.

Simeneon woke, the grogginess flitted in and out until she finally opened her eyes revealing where she was. The room, her room looked how she remembered it. The soft, cool sheets wrapped her body and made her feel something she hadn't felt in such a long time.

She was home.

She sat backward again, her head against the pillow, and pulled the sheets up towards her. The insecurity she felt during the past year made it very difficult to sleep, but exhaustion had taken hold, and she had slept like the dead. She felt great, but she still knew she was long ways from becoming perfectly healthy again. The road back would be tough but so much more rewarding now since she realized how important her friends were to her now. The old proverb that raced through her head had meant to her now.

'Distance makes the heart grow fonder,' a quote she now believed.

A small knock at the door

"Come in," Simeneon said as she pulled the blanket in tighter.

Doctor Millers smiling face poke through the crevice left by the door. "Is it alright if I come in? I want to make sure everything is alright with you?"

"I'm fine," she giggled.

"I'll be the judge of that." He said sternly yet there was slight humor in his voice.

For the next fifteen minutes, he poked, prodded and pricked Simeneon getting her to the state of exhaustion all over again. The doctor sighed.

"So am I gonna live?" She joked.

The doctor's smile faltered, "That was a very brave and very stupid you thing you did by jumping off that train. I understand why you did it but to put your life in the hands of a creature who hated you so much and would have given anything to see you dead, well, I don't want to think about it."

"I'm fine doc," she gently touched his arm. "I'm back where I belong, that is if you still want me here?"

She was taken aback by the tears that had started to well in the doctor's eyes, and all she could do was reach forward and hug the man that had done more for her than he could ever have imagined.

"I'm sorry," was all she could say. They held strong for more minutes than either could have imagined until there was another soft knock at the door. They broke apart and waited for the person to show their head.

Fin peered behind the door, and when he saw the smile return to Simeneon, he sauntered in.

"I'm going to organize the dinner we have planned for you tonight, excuse me will you?" He then walked from the room closing the door softly.

Fin stood at the foot of the bed looking down at his best friend, and she looked haggard and far from the most beautiful creature he had seen those many years ago. She smiled, and the vague impression of his old friend showed in those blue eyes, and he felt a lump forming in his throat.

"That was very stupid," he said with a monotone in his voice.

"I know," was all she whispered back.

"You think of us as friends?" He asked.

"Of course Fin, I..."

"No," He interrupted with his hand to stop her train of thought. "I've been with you on this quest since the beginning, and all at once you took it upon yourself to tear the fabric of our friendship away by thinking you could do this on your own. What would have happened if Sly of all people wasn't there to bring you back? We are more than friends here, and I deserve to know that you have my back as I've had yours. Did you think for a moment the doctor and I wouldn't continue to follow leads and bring this mission of your to a successful end?"