"Bob, what do I do?" groaned Aella. "I already gave Joseph the chickens. He"s the one who suggested moving Frank and Louie. I never imagined this would become a problem!""He knew," said Bob unhappily. "I don"t like to be used, like this. But I"m not going to go against Joseph, and he knows that. Give me a minute."
Aella watched as Bob hung his head for a moment, apparently in deep thought. He was probably talking to Joseph in some magical G.o.d-like way.
"Joseph is amused by your concern and said he only wants you to babysit for an hour. He wants to take Stella on a date."
She stared at Bob"s face. He wasn"t joking. He should be joking about this, but he wasn"t.
"What?" she asked in a whisper.
"Joseph has three kids: Sarah, Merle and Donovan. I strongly suggest you give them cookies and milk, then let them go somewhere far from everyone in this city to burn off the resulting energy. Perhaps you visited somewhere on your month-long haitus?"
"My month-long trip?" she asked in a voice that was barely above a whisper. "But, why would he want me to watch his kids? Surely there"s other people who are better qualified?"
Her? Watching G.o.d kids? What kind of joke was this?
"It just so happens that he doesn"t have anyone else available to watch them, and his wife doesn"t like for him to forget special events, like their marriage," said Bob dryly.
"It"s his anniversary?" she squeaked. Would she be expected to give them a gift? This was a nightmare!
"Just watch the kids for an hour, and he will give you a ring for the hydra to wear. It will end their hunger and stop their growth, so you don"t have to worry about that either. The ring won"t be able to be removed, either," said Bob with another sigh.
"Alright," she said, nodding her head. "When do I start?"
"Right now," said Joseph from behind her with a chuckle.
Aella spun around to see Joseph standing there, with three adorable little human-looking children. A girl and two boys.
"I"ll grab them when the hour is up, and try not to feed them. Their mother gets angry when they get hyper."
"But…" began Aella, remembering that Bob just said to give them cookies, but Joseph was gone.
"Daddy said you would watch us for an hour," said the little girl with a smile. "My name"s Sarah. What"s yours?"
"Aella," she said, watching as the three climbed up onto the stools at the bar.
"Aren"t you the king here?" asked the older boy, Merle.
"Yes."
"Like our dad?" asked the smaller boy, Donovan.
"No, silly. She"s not a G.o.d! She"s just a gargoyle king," said Sarah, rolling her eyes.
"But I thought gargoyles were ugly and had wings," said Merle.
"They normally do have wings," said Aella, glancing at Bob. "My mom was human, though, so I don"t have wings."
"But you can fly, right?" asked Donovan, making his stool spin him around in circles.
"I can," she said, quickly catching the giggling Donovan as he started to fall off his stool. "How about I take you guys to see a waterfall?"
"Oh! I like waterfalls!" exclaimed Sarah, clapping her hands.
"It"s not cold there, is it?" asked Merle with a frown. "I"m not very good at protection from the elements yet."
"Um," said Aella, realizing that it probably would be cold there. "Now that you mention it, the waterfall would probably be frozen."
"Oh! Now I want to see it even more!" exclaimed Sarah.
"Can we slide down it like a slide?" asked Donovan.
"A slide?" asked Aella, never having heard of such a thing.
"She doesn"t know what that is, silly," said Sarah.
"Oh, that"s sad," said Donovan.
Aella scrambled to think of where she could take the kids that wouldn"t be frozen and cold. Anyplace near the old city would be too cold, if they couldn"t handle it. Then she remembered the waterfall site she had found on the other side of the mountains here. Maybe it wouldn"t be too cold?
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"I know a place we could check out," said Aella. "If it"s too cold, I"ll bring you back here."
"Okay!" cried the three, rushing up to hug on her.
"What are you doing?" she cried, raising her arms in surprise.
"We have to hug you so you can teleport us," said Merle, rolling his eyes.
"Oh, right."
She teleported them away from Bob"s bar to the meadow next to the waterfall and stream she had found on the other side of the mountains, while she was searching for another city site after the dinosaurs killed some of her workers.
"Oh!" exclaimed Sarah, clasping her hands under her chin and looking around. "It"s so beautiful here!"
"No one"s been here before!" whispered Merle, looking around in surprise.
"Let"s go play in the water!" cried Donovan, running towards the stream.
Aella went to stop them, then stopped. If they got wet and cold, she could warm them with her fire and air abilities. If splashing around in the water made them happy, then she could let them do that. Surely an hour wouldn"t take that long? Right?
They had only been playing for about ten minutes when the first issue popped up.
"Isn"t that an eudimorphodon?" asked Donovan, struggling with the long name.
"No, those are only about 3 feet long. That thing is easily over 20 feet. It"s probably a quetzalcoatlus," said Merle, squinting at the giant dinosaur that was approaching them.
Aella jumped to her feet, from the soft patch of gra.s.s where she had been watching them play, and glared at the giant predator. It was eyeing them hungrily, and she wasn"t in the mood to let these little G.o.dlings be eaten. Waving her hands in a circular pattern, she sent a gust of wind at it, knocking it out of the sky as its wings folded.
"Oh no!" cried Sarah, as the thing crashed in the woods nearby. "Who"s going to feed it"s babies?"
"What?" asked Aella.
"You just killed the momma! If she had babies, who"s going to feed them? We need to take them some food!"
"But Sarah," said Aella, shaking her head. "We don"t know there even are babies, and who"s saying it didn"t have a mate?"
"She"s right, Sarah," said Merle, putting his hands on his hips. "That thing was coming to eat us. It needed to die. You know mom and dad would have killed it too."
"I know, but I don"t like thinking about the poor babies starving," said Sarah. "Can we go look for them?"
Aella shook her head. There was no way she was going to go looking for baby dinosaurs with these kids. Not when the babies would be bigger than her.
"Sarah! Look! The mom isn"t dead!" exclaimed Donovan, pointing at the trees on the other side of the stream.
Standing not ten feet from them, the thing had walked up to them. Aella sent a wall of air to stop it as its beak darted for the small boy"s figure. The wall did nothing, as she watched in panic as the boy was swallowed in one gulp. She could see the lump as he traveled down the bird"s throat!
"Donovan!" screamed Sarah, darting towards the dinosaur and punching its front wing, that it was using as a leg.
Merle was right behind her, punching the other wing with a nasty frown on his face. The dinosaur bird squawked in pain and surprise, crumpling to the ground.
"Let go of my little brother, you monster!" cried Sarah, grabbing its upper beak and forcing it open. Standing on the lower beak, she single-handedly held the beak open while Merle darted inside.
"Gee, Joseph, I"m sorry I got all your kids eaten," muttered Aella, fighting to keep the giggles that were threatening to overcome her from breaking through as she teleported next to the bird and stabbed it in the eye to stop it from struggling. Then grabbing Merle by the foot, she dragged him out of the thing"s mouth. He had a grasp on Donovan, so when she dragged one boy out, the other came too.
"It was stinky in there!" complained Donovan, holding up his hands in disgust.
"You must have been in the throat sac," said Sarah, holding her nose and turning away in disgust.
"Come on, let"s get a bath!" said Merle, pulling Donovan to his feet and dragging him over to the stream.
"Still worried about its babies?" asked Donovan to Sarah.
"No way! They probably all have stinky breath like that! Their dad can take care of them!"
Aella stood there next to the 20-foot dinosaur and watched as the three calmly washed each other in the stream. She didn"t even question where they had gotten the soap. It was probably G.o.d soap anyway.
"Can you dry us, please?" asked Sarah, stepping out of the water dripping wet.
Aella licked her dry lips and nodded, sending a warm gust of air around all three of the children, drying their clothes and hair.
"Oh! You even cleaned them up! I knew I could count on you!" exclaimed Joseph behind her as she finished drying them.
"Why is there a dead dinosaur on the other side of the stream?" asked Stella with a frown.
"Can we have some cookies?" asked Sarah, bouncing up to Stella with a wide grin. "Daddy wouldn"t let King Aella feed us anything."
"Of course," said Stella, handing her a plate of cookies out of thin air.
"Here"s the ring, just like we agreed," said Joseph, placing the ring in Aella"s hand. "I sure appreciate it! I hope you"re available in a couple years. I might need you again!"
And then they were gone. Aella turned around, to see the meadow was silent and empty. Glancing down at the ring in her hand, she breathed a sigh of relief that that was over, until she realized he said he would do it again. She would have to make sure she was busy in two years. That was all there was for it!