FREE GRUB
Present
After hearing a recount of the past from the council, the Blacksmith kids were relieved from their audience with the committee. They were sent back to their quarters to rest and save their promise to fix the part of the forest they ruined for the next day, while the council, on the other hand, continued to convene about Garuba, the convicted fugitive golem.
Jago, who just came back from his errands, heard about their day from Kamilos, went ahead and asked to talk with them after they finished getting cleaned up and have their dinner.
They all knew it was going to be another round of scolding.
Although he has his sweet moments around the kids, Jago has always been like a strict grandfather to them and has never tolerated any kind of roundhousing. Kamilos, on the other hand, plays the opposite and lets them get away with almost anything.
Gone were the usual noisy dinners where the younger ones always find another way to annoy the older kids. The tension was so thick, and it almost felt like it made dinner taste bad.
Currently, all of them are seated, albeit a little cramped, in the living room where Jago ordered them to gather.
Before speaking to the lot, Hurricane asked to talk to Jago first, and the latter agreed. To keep a little privacy, Hurri casually went out to the porch as Jago followed suit.
It felt a little disturbing seeing the humongous winged lion inside their living quarters and quite impressive that he would absurdly fit in the hut with them. After some time of pondering, it would make sense because, after all, this world is not a place solely for humans. In fact, in this particular place, they were the ones who were considered the abnormality, an anomaly of some sort.
"Am I the only one who feels like puking?" Jethro blurted out nervously. Waiting for Hurricane to finish her talk with Jago is doing backflips on his insides.
Jullian threw him a glare.
"This is no time for your silly jokes Jethro. Have you seen Jago's face when he heard the story from Kamilos? He's terrifying." His twin responded without a smile.
"H-hey, I wasn't playing around." He spat back out at his twin, a little offended by her words.
"I think I'll agree for all of us here, Jethro. That guardian is on another level. I guess being a guardian for countless true heirs made him what he is now a-" Jade kindly said to comfort the latter but was cut off.
"A scary grandpa?" Jago supplied, unamused.
Collective gasps were heard from the shocked bunch. It turns out Hurricane and Jago were done with their talk and are now joining in their huddle.
Jade couldn't answer. She had like a fish out of the water expression on her face.
The lion looked pleased with what he saw. They were all wary and scared. 'good...' he thought before starting,
"I hope that by now you are reflecting on what you did wrong and that you have realized the gravity of the situation. Soon, they will all be looking upon you as their prophesied salvation. Every speck of your actions, whether you did alone or as a group, reflects each and every one of you. They will be ruthless, harsh, and subjective towards you, and there will be ones who will look up and rely upon you."
Silence prevailed inside the hut for a beat or two. What Jago said was right. Now that they all have their memories back, so do their original identities.
They were the Prophesied Eight as the foretold by the seer, sixteen summers ago.
"From today forward, you will learn to act like one and take responsibility for each other. You eat together, breathe together and take punishments together. Understood?" He calmly finished.
"Understood," they replied in unison.
"May I?" Hurricane asked the guardian.
"You may, your highness."
Hurricane visibly flinched at his reply. Even with her memories back, she's still not used to being treated like royalty. She opened her mouth as if to rebuke him but held back on it. Knowing Jago, he will only scold her and lecture her about not losing her subject's respect. Instead, she decided to continue speaking.
"I'm going to push for an appeal to retrial Grub." her statement caused various reactions from her cousins. Most of them looked relieved and happy with the announcement, but Jade, Cyclone, and Jullian looked somewhat skeptical.
"I'm pretty sure the council will not agree with you...especially Queen Seraphina and King Gunther, who loathes Grub's existence," Jullian supplied.
"That may be the case, but I planned to appeal with a retrial in hopes that we can buy Grub time by reopening the investigation for his case. That's the only way that we can clear the poor creatures' name." Hurricane explained calmly.
"Free Grub. That won't be an easy feat considering the damage he did to Zephyra years ago. But it won't be bad if we try." Cyclone added.
"Hey, Someone's getting soft on our stony-faced friend," Jethro quipped, a little giddy this time. Recent scolding was already out of his mind.
His cousins were looking at both him and Hurricane nervously. 'Seriously! Him and his lame jokes!' they thought in frustration.
Save for Aquamarine and Emman, who wanted to cheer him for his untimely pun. Both covered their sniggers and instead tried to look at anywhere else but Jethro, Hurricane, and the ever-serious Jago.
No one expected what happened next.
Hurricane let out a small smile before responding cheekily,
"Let's just say we had a rocky friendship before... but I have seen how close we all have gotten with him and I, with my best judgment, acknowledge his sincerity towards being friends with us."
Everyone stared at Hurricane in shock.
For Jago, just hearing the once unforgiving and ruthless child now accepting people outside of the foretold eight made him want to hug her and confess how proud he is of her for this progress. But he knew it wasn't the time to deal with that yet... 'Not yet...' he thought silently...
On the other hand, her cousins were shocked to see her joining in on Jethro's crazy antics and an intelligent pun response at that!!! The Gods must be blessing them today!
"So... are we officially starting on a clean slate with Grub?" Cyclone chimed in.
"That is if he doesn't take this second chance for granite!" Yellow supplied with a wink.
"Seriously! these puns rock!!!!" Aquamarine couldn't help but blurt out.

Everyone except for Jago is on full-out laughing by now. The winged lion is wondering what the hell is so funny that they all looked like they were about to pass out from laughing too much, but the scene before him made him smile secretly.
"Ah, what a great night..." he murmured to himself.
---
Affira a week after the last council meeting:
"Send word to the gatekeepers. I have to set for Terriona this instant," King Gunther muttered to the servant.
"Is something wrong, father?" Darnell, Gunther's second son, asked.
"I received a missive from Terrriona. It says the true heir wanted to call for a council meeting." He responded.
"True heir? Is she back? Why didn't anyone tell me?" He all but shouted, obviously shocked.
This surprised Gunther. It was natural to be shocked by the news, but for someone who's not met the true heir yet, his reaction was... let's say, over the top.
Gunther stared at his son as if he had suddenly grown two horns.
"What's wrong with you? Right... that reminds me, where do you keep going these days? Are you perhaps bailing out on your classes to play somewhere?" He asked his son, genuinely curious.
Darnell started sweating bullets and fidgeted so much from nervousness.
"What? No. As my sword teacher suggested, I just started doing my training alone to work on my focus." He reasoned, albeit powerfully.
"Hmmm...Well, if that's how you say it is... Let's talk when I get back. I have to go now." Although he's still worried, he had more pressing matters to attend to at present. He'll have to go through with this after the council meeting.
Later he promised himself as he set for Terriona.
----
Terriona
Instead of the usual council hall where they always had their meetings, King Kygo insisted that they opt out of the big hall today and instead chose the war room to give them a little more privacy.
Apparently, it wasn't just Hurricane who had something 'very important' to say.
Because they were still deemed young of minds, Emman and Lucy were excluded from this highly secretive conference and were left under Kamilos' guidance.

This made Emman very upset. Every day that passes by and still no news of their real identities, the feeling of being excluded from the 'family' is getting stronger. Not only were they not a part of the mentioned eight in the prophecy, but they also don't even have any idea who they were—heck, he's not even sure if they were named Emman and Lucy!
"Ugh!!! This is so annoying!" he all but shouted.
Lucy looked at him funny. His 8-year-old sister, just two-foot shorter than him, looks like his replica, except that she was born a girl: same blonde hair and expressive cobalt-blue eyes.
On that thought, anyone with a good pair of eyes could tell that besides him and Lucy, their cousins don't even look related!
Jethro and Jullian were blessed with luscious long black hair, a pair of golden eyes, and flawless brown skin. While Jade and her sisters, although all of them were blessed with blonde hair, they have weird, different colored eyes.

Like how Yellow got golden eyes with hues of orange in it like the fire, Mint got blue-green tinged with white flecks like the wind. Jade got forest green eyes with brown flecks in them like trees and the earth, and lastly, Aquamarine and her deep sea-green eyes.
Even the 'calamity siblings, ' ironically enough, don't even look anywhere like siblings! Hurricane with her fiery red hair and emerald green eyes--A trait inherent to the human royal bloodline, as Kamilos happily provided. At the same time, Cyclone-true to his name has platinum white hair and icy blue eyes!
How bizarre is that? If this were back on earth, they would literally be famous for having an 'out of this world' unique look! I mean, Yellow technically was a well-known view tuber with her GRWM (Get ready with me) vlogs while Aqua was TikTok famous for being such a meme 24/7, but aside from that fact, they have this magical aura that seems to surround all of them. That is, IF they are back on Earth, which they were supposedly before all this crazy isekai trip they all did with granny's book!
Why didn't anybody notice that back on Earth? Was that part of the spell grandma Isadora cast? Like their made-up lives, family, and memories? Where does he and Lucy fit in their story?
All this thinking is making his headache.
Instead of agonizing himself with all these unanswered questions, he decided just to let it all go in the meantime and seated himself next to Lucy by the tree.
"What's up with you?" his sister asked with her signature expressionless face.
"Hmm? Nothing. Nothing for you to worry about." He replied.
"You have this look about you..." She started, her hand lifted to gesture her face.
"What look?" He asked again, a little jittery this time.
"Like you're lost or something," she replied with a shrug.
Goosebumps rocked his whole body. It wasn't the first time his sister had read him like this. She always had this look in her, as if she could see beyond him, wistful--sometimes sad.
"Do I?" He asked almost in a whisper. But deep inside, he was shivering relentlessly because she's right.


Author's Note:
Oooooh, Emman's got something going on :O
I just realized that posting schedules get delayed on weekends :(
That is why I'll work on my calendar to somehow keep true to my promise. There may be some adjustments for posting dates, but worry not!
I'll be working my brains out to give you guys the best chapters to look forward to as possible! I swear that in Jago's mane ;D
Also, I was agonizing a LOT about how to share with you guys my visual inspo for the characters. I feel like my descriptions don't give them enough justice :(
Then someone gave me the brilliant idea by reminding me about social media :D and so I did, yay!
I made an account where I will be posting character visual inspos, some inside spoilers, and thoughts about my novel that I haven't shared before!!!
I will also do many interactions with you guys there, like answering your questions about the novel and anything else!!!
So long as you be nice.
Give @grubisthebest a follow on IG. See ya there!