Chapter 469: A Zuccat Returns
Tala stretched and twisted, popping her back as she waited on one side of a quiet dell within her sanctum.
Large trees arched over the oval shaped dip in the landscape, creating an almost throne-room-like aesthetic. Though it held more an air of peace, tranquility, and reverence than one of authority and power.
It was the morning after her breakfast and lunch with her siblings, and dawn’s early light filtered through the trunks and leaves to give a diffuse, ethereal illumination to the place.
On the far side of the dell lay the teleportation receiving circle, carved into a large, smooth, level bit of stone. The silver shone bright and untarnished in what light there was, and the edge of which rested barely a dozen feet away from where Tala stood, waiting.
Haster Zuccat was supposed to arrive in Tala’s sanctum soon. She and the Zuccats had arranged for him to come straight from the Academy to this receiver.
Rane had a few errands in the city, and Terry was hunting in Walden’s forest. That left Tala there, waiting almost alone, beside the teleportation circle. She was to meet the young man as she had the previous Zuccats—her siblings were having breakfast with their parents that morning.
The almost was because, this time, Anna was with her.
The young woman was positively bubbling with excitement, as made manifest by her ongoing flow of words, only occasionally interrupted with a question and the appropriate pause for a response. “Oh! I’m so excited! I haven’t seen Haster in years now. Do you suppose he’s grown?”
Tala glanced toward Anna. “Well… yes?”