Aunt Margareth

John was having mixed feelings about the little intruder. As if breaking into his barrier wasn’t enough, the dismissive way she interacted with Amelia about him had struck a nerve. Before he could ask his friend who the girl was, he was surprised by a delayed message.

Achievement Unlocked - Third Time The Charmer
You have put into practice your vast theoretical knowledge of kissing and made your girl happy due to it. Well done! What else can you put into practice?
New Skill: Kissing

Skill - Kissing Lvl 1 (Passive)
I would say the skill name is self-explanatory. Just remember, practice makes perfect.

Amelia chuckled, reminding John that she could read his system messages. She winked at him and then turned to the girl.

“Nessy, what are you doing here?” she asked her. “You’re supposed to be grounded.”

“I was searching for Mimi,” she stated defensively.

“Sweety, Mimi is at the Hunter’s Camp,” Amelia corrected her.

“But she was here yesterday,” Nessy retorted. “I know because I smelled her scent.”

“She was in Aviemore yesterday? That makes no sense, John was the one…” Amelia stopped mid-sentence as she realized the source of confusion, then looked back at John. “Oh, shit.”

“You said a bad word,” Nessy snorted.

“I am sorry, Nessy,” the redhead apologized before asking. “Just before, you had asked why John had Mimi’s scent on him, right?”

“Yes, it’s the same one I was following,” the girl answered.

“And you can sense it on me now?” John asked, grasping what Amelia had realized.

“Yes, what did you do to my friend?” she asked accusingly.

John turned to Amelia and asked, “The pact?”

“Most likely,” Amelia agreed as she circled around John using her glasses to try to detect any anomaly. “Cynthia told me you pinky swore. Did you feel anything while doing it?”

“I felt a surge of energy from her,” he recounted his memory from the event. “I even had a warning not to break the pact.”

“That’s the problem with derp powers, we don’t really know what will happen until it does.” The redhead sighed.

“Do you think that’s how she broke into this barrier all the way from Scotland?” John asked.

“Melia, please, I didn’t do nothing wrong,” Nessy pleaded to the redhead. “Ok, I did escape from my room, uh, twice. But I swears that I don’t know how I got here.”

“Tell me exactly what happened before you entered this barrier,” Amelia demanded.

“Ok, sniff. I was back in my boring room. When I felt this weird energy coming from this hill,” the girl claimed. “I thought it was Mimi again. So, I escaped again and ran over to here. All I wanted was to see my friend, I swears, please don’t tell momma.”

“It’s ok, sweety,” Amelia tried to calm her. “Please continue.”

“As soon as I arrived, everything went blurry and then quickly went back to normal, that’s when I saw you.”

“Thank you, Nessy. I understand what happened now.” Amelia patted her on her head.

“You do?” Nessy asked the redhead.

“Yes.” Amelia sighed. “John, we need to go to my house. Aunt Margareth needs to know about this.”

“Amelia, can’t I just go back to the Inn?” Nessy pleaded. “No one else needs to know of my escape.”

“Can you return to Aviemore from here?” Amelia asked with a smile.

“Heh.” Nessy looked around too confused to figure out where to go or what to do. “No…”

“Then, let’s go to my house,” Amelia decided, grabbing the girl by the hand and leaving the barrier soon after.

“Aunt Margareth,” Amelia called out when she passed through the front door, “I am home.”

“Amelia, what are you doing home so early?” her aunt asked from the kitchen. It sounded like she was preparing something.

Walking towards the living room, John looked around as old memories came to him, it hadn’t changed much from back then. Family pictures everywhere, he remembered being fascinated at how big her family was in comparison to his. Of course, the TV was new, and there was no gaming console, he and Amelia always did prefer PC gaming. As he stopped behind a chair from the dining room table, he noticed it was smaller; the obvious reason for that saddened him. The kitchen was only partially visible from the dining room, so he wasn’t able to see Aunt Margareth yet.

It had been a long time since he’d seen the platinum blonde beauty. She was Andrew MacKenzie’s youngest sister, being only six years older than John and Amelia. She visited her brother’s family often and, whenever John was around, she would tease him to instigate a jealous tirade from her niece. More than once, when she was experimenting with one of her delicious recipes, she took a scoop of some batter or sauce with her index finger and brought it up to John’s face for him to taste. An annoyed Amelia was somehow always present to drag him from the kitchen before he could even decide what to do.

“We’re skipping the rest of the day,” Amelia answered her aunt, bringing John back to the present. “Any news from Peter?”

“He’s delayed again; he should be here by midnight,” the aunt answered, still in the kitchen making some more noises. “You’re less than a day back together and you’re already skipping school? If this keeps on repeating, I’ll have to call your mother, John.”

“What’s Nessy doing here?” she asked the moment she stepped into the living room. “She’s supposed to be grounded.”

John’s jaw dropped as the pale-skinned woman finally appeared before him; apart from her now very short platinum blonde hair, she hadn’t changed much. Her tight-fitting chef’s clothes didn’t hide much of her medium-sized breast and nicely shaped ass. An elbow to his ribs made him realize what he was doing; he was thankful that the chair was still obstructing the rest of him from everyone else, especially Amelia.

“I’ll let her explain that to you,” Amelia answered. “I’ve got to take John to my lab.”

“Oh no, you won’t!” the aunt demanded. “Have you even eaten yet?”

“We’re not hungry,” Amelia simply answered for the duo, trying to drag John away.

“Ah, Amelia. We haven’t eaten yet. I am a bit hungry,” John corrected her, avoiding Amelia’s annoyed look.

“See!” Margareth gave her niece a teasing smile. “Big John needs some food in him.”

‘Big John, I haven’t heard that in a while.’ He got pulled back into the past once again.

“Fine!” the redhead growled. “I’ll set the table, as usual. John, you’ll help me,” she ordered him before her aunt could recruit him for some food tasting.

“Nessy, sweety,” Margareth called the girl over. “You can help me while you explain why you’re here.”

While the duo prepared the table, Amelia remained somewhat annoyed. In her impatience to show John her lab, she had forgotten about eating their lunch.

“John, please do me a favor,” Amelia urged him, “don’t use observe on my aunt, ok?”

“Oh, uh sure, Amelia,” he reassured her. “I guess I hadn't really thought about it but people probably like their privacy.”

“Aye.” She smiled at him. “We’ll come up with a way to decide when it’s ok for you to use it.”

The duo finished their chore at the same time that Margareth and Nessy started bringing in the food. Once again, fond memories came back to him; this time they were brought by the delicious smell.

“So, John,” Margareth quipped as everyone sat down to eat, “it’s been a while. I hope you still like my food.”

“Hmm, I am sorry, Margareth,” John lamented. “Believe me, there’s nothing I’d like to eat more right now but I can’t. I have a quest.”

“A quest?” Margareth asked.

“I have gaming powers,” John answered. “Part of it allows me to become stronger and gain skills through quests.”

“Oh, aye,” the blonde smirked, “Amelia half mumbled, half rejoiced about that for the past two days. So, what kind of quest prohibits you from eating my tasty food?”

“Well, it’s more on the type of food,” John explained. “I can only eat fruits and fruit-based dishes for 2 days, today is the last day.”

“Well,” she pondered. “I might be able to come up with something. Give me a sec.”

“There’s no need,” he told her. “I still have some food with me.”

Margareth’s eyes widened when he produced out of thin air a container and started pouring its contents in the bow in front of him. ‘Thankfully, my storage system behaves like a stasis field. This should still be fresh,’ he thought, sensing the aroma of the fruits present and gratefully no hint of any foulness.

“I am sorry, I would offer you some, but there’s only enough left for me,” he stated.

“As you said, Aunt, Big John needs all the food he can get.” Amelia chuckled.

“That’s a fruit salad,” Margareth spoke, recovering from the surprise. “Wait a minute, you got this yesterday at my brother’s inn, didn’t you?” John nodded. “Maria?” He nodded again.

“So, the slu-,” she stopped herself in time, remembering that Nessy was with them. “She finally learned how to make herself useful.”

“Come on, Margareth,” Amelia admonished. “She’s not that bad.”

“Hmpf.” Margareth took a small spoonful from John’s bowl. “Not bad. At least the oranges she used were fresh, so there’s no need for it to be sweetened.”

They chit-chatted some more while eating. Nessy mostly stayed quiet not wanting to put herself into more trouble than she already was, her fate was yet to be decided.

“Well, it’s so nice to see you again, John,” Margareth finally admitted once everyone was finished. “I was pleasantly surprised that you’d gained powers. Just be careful, ok?”

“Don’t worry, Aunty,” Amelia replied for John. “We’ll train a lot together. I’ll get him up to speed. Peter should help too.”

“You two together brings back so many fond memories.” She sighed and then chuckled. “I remember when John asked your father for your hand in marriage.”

“What?” the duo exclaimed together.

“Oh, don’t you remember, John?” she asked, smiling. “We were celebrating Peter’s recovery after months in the hospital. I was on barbecue grill duty helping Andrew, the other adults were in the kitchen prepping other food for the feast. You kids were playing somewhere.

“You, John, appeared out of nowhere, startling both me and my brother,” she laughed. “You came up to Andrew and said like a little gentleman, ‘Sir, I would like to ask you for your daughter’s hand in marriage.’ Weird thing is, Andrew never missed a beat.”

“You don’t say?” Andrew started. “I don’t know, John. Amelia has been getting a lot of suitors coming up to me lately.”

“I’ll fight them all for her,” John exclaimed back at him, sounding very confident.

The adults laughed more in surprise at his determination than at him.

“You’ll see,” John doubled down. “When we’re old enough we’ll get married. She will be mine!”

“Yours?” Andrew chuckled. “Laddy, if she’s anything like her mother, she’ll own you.”

After Margareth finished her story, Amelia started laughing.

“Laugh it up, Red,” her aunt continued. “This isn’t the end of the story.”

“There’s more?” John asked, redfaced in embarrassment.

“Aye,” Margareth laughed. “There’s more. After you left to play with the twins, Andrew just couldn’t stop laughing. It took him a couple of minutes until he was able to speak again.

“‘You know what’s funny?’ he asked me. ‘Amelia pulled the same stunt with John’s parents the day before; she was supposed to invite them for today’s celebration but claimed it was her and John’s engagement party.’ We laughed so much we almost let the meat on the grill get burned.”

Everyone at the table started laughing. When they settled down, they began the process of clearing the table.

“Ok,” Amelia beamed at John, “now that you’re full, let’s go to my lab.”

“Leave the door open,” Margareth ordered from the kitchen.