Alec walked down the hall groggy, wearing black shorts and a gray tank top. It seemed to be warmer in the house than usual, and he felt he would die of heat stroke in his butler outfit. When he walked into the kitchen he saw Rose, Aqua, Viren, Stella, Angelene and Dylan. Rose was cooking, while the three quests sat eating, Angelene and Dylan had pulled a couple chair from another room and sat with their food on the counter. Everyone was chatting, “food is great” “Anima” and other snippets were all he caught.
Rose turned when he entered and smiled, seemingly not caring he wasn’t properly dressed. Angelene quickly got up, only wearing a thick bathrobe over was he assumed was undergarments, and smiled as she greeted him with a quick hug. Dylan, wearing long navy blue sweat pants and no shirt, smiled to him. It seemed everyone was in a good mood this morning, but after yesterday Alec couldn’t imagine why. The brown haired boy got a plate and put some French toast on it, and was about to help Rose finish cooking when she motioned to the table for him to sit. “You just have to help clean up after.” She laughed.
Quickly the mood caught on and Alec was laughing with the others, they told old jokes, and frequently asked about his home town, TV. shows and movie stars. He enjoyed their expressions when he described new technology, not believing that they didn’t have iPod’s and things like that where they live. “Well where we live we still hunt deer and other critters for food.” Stella said as she made a slashing motion with her hand.
“We still use fire to cook our food; it’s really gross when you bite into raw meat.” Aqua said, Stella socked her in the arm saying raw is beast, everyone laughed.
Alec realized that Viren and Dylan remained mostly silent, or would have side conversations with each other, but didn’t interfere with the girl’s conversations. “So Rose how’s your home town?” Alec asked, Rose froze for a second before chuckling.
“The people are pretty nice, it’s a big place.” She said before suddenly falling quiet. Alec realized she didn’t want to speak about it so quickly went back to talking with Aqua and Stella about their towns.
After breakfast everyone went to get dressed, Angelene said that Alec could stay in what he was wearing since it was hot. He helped Rose wash the mountains of dishes. “Hey Rose?”
“Yeah?”
“You have any family?” Rose stopped for a moment before taking in a deep breath.
“No, they died a long time ago, war y’no?” She stayed rather even when she said it, but Alec didn’t press any further.
“Alec?”
“Yeah?”
“You have family?”
“Yeah, father, mother, younger brother and sister.” They stood in silence for a moment.
“What’s their names?”
“My brother is Ashtin, sister is Amy.” Rose giggled and Alec looked up from the dishes.
“All A’s?” She started laughing and he smiled before joining her.
“They weren’t very creative.” Both of them laughed for some time before they continued their work.
“If you have family why do you work here?” She asked after a few moments.
“Because my dad’s in the hospital and my mom can’t support us on her own, I need the money.” Rose went silent after that. Neither talked until later that afternoon, but that seemed to be the last they’d get to know each other before Alec learned a new truth about his co-worker.
