Returning Home [Closed]

Three months had passed by with Maria gone. She left Grandview to figure out why she looked like a little girl. Being an adult that looks like a twelve year old girl was not fun in the least. It didn't just mess up her ability to make friends and have relationships, it also messed up her development. When people constantly treat you as a child who never grows up, you don't really get that chance to. There are so many things you don't experience because of the way you look and Maria was tired of it. It had been messing her life up so much and her trip allowed her to learn why. After a long and very dangerous journey, Maria was able to break a curse that plagued her and in the process got one hell of a weapon to bring home. Maria returned to Granview as a heartbreaker and eye turner who didn't understand exactly what she was, so when people kept staring, she took to the shadows and alleys.

It took a lot of careful maneuvering, but Maria made it back to Neil's home. She realized that the guards weren't going to let her in before she got there to be rejected and decided that she was taking another way. Maria had been part of Neil's home for long enough that she knew her way around. She took an alternative way over the wall and ninja'd up the side of his house until she came to the second story hall window. It was a lot more difficult than she remembered it being, but she made it up there. Maria walked through the halls casually, feeling at home and making her way to Neil's office.

Maria heard someone coming from one of the rooms and hid in a storage closet before she could get caught. Once they were gone, Maria hurried to Neil's office and went to open the door when she felt something tug at her hair. She jumped in a panic, not realizing her hair was caught on a suit of armor... Once again the suit of armor fell and made a loud clanging sound. She picked the decoration up with a strange sense of deja vu, and then went to open Neil's office door. Like the first time she met Neil, she popped her head in and looked around for him. "Uh... H-Hello?" she said nervously.

At first, Maria was confused as hell. She still hadn't gotten used to her knew appearance, but she realized it soon. "Oh! No, it's me!" Maria stepped all the way in and closed the door behind her. Maria had a rather large sword strapped to her back. "It's Maria!" she said, but then she remembered something. There was a password. "Uh oh..." she muttered and then grabbed onto her hair, "No, no, no, no, no, no... What was it? I can't remember? OH! Neil... What's the password aga-.. NO, DON'T TELL ME! If you tell me you won't believe me when I say it's me. Um..." Maria knocked on her own head, paced back and forth, and groaned in annoyance. "What was it?! I can't remember... Don't shoot me!" Maria flailed and then sighed, "I'll remember it sooner or later... I remember you told me a story and we made a password out of it. It's been a long time. I should have written it down... Aw man..." Maria sat down on the ground with her legs crossed, her short skirt more revealing than she thought.

Maria had a hard time remembering the password. "Drago..." she muttered and immediately knew that wasn't it. She knew it had something to do with the story he told her. Maria suddenly gasped when she remembered what it might be. "URB-..." she stopped mid name, slapped her hand over her mouth, and shook her head. That wasn't it and she had almost broken a serious rule Neil gave her. A look of utter shame overtook her expression and she pinched the bridge of her nose out of irritation. And that's when it hit her. She remembered it now. "Silver shavings..." she said confidently and grabbed the sword off her back. She walked over to the wall and leaned the weapon against it. "That's it. It was the strange thing about the ink. Silver shavings." Maria turned to him with a smile, "It's me, Neil."

Maria turned around to be met with chest. She looked up to Neil and "Neil?" was surprised with a sudden kiss. Maria's eyes widened momentarily, but they closed as she pressed her lips back against his to return the kiss. Those five seconds were more to Maria than she would have once understood. Now, she did. This time he kissed her. When the kiss broke, Maria's cheeks were slightly red and she just smiled really happily, like she had just gotten the best Christmas present ever. Maria hurried to the chair across from him and sat down. She put her legs together, her hands in her lap, and sat straight up in a rather lady like and bust-rising way. She wasn't used to having such a large chest.

Maria felt guilty about being gone so long and her face showed it. "I didn't mean to be gone so long, but I had a lot to do. I didn't want to look so... little anymore. I hated it, and to make it go away I had to go really far." Maria looked down to her body and smiled big. "I look like an adult now, so it was all worth it! Hehehehe." Maria wiggled around in her chair, staring down at her own bust while she swung it around. She looked up to Neil and smiled bigger. "So you actually do like it then? I have been worried that I don't look nice enough or... like I can compare to the viper that wants to eat you."

Neil was looking at her differently than normal. Good! She wasn't little to him anymore either. "My trip was okay. It was scary at first. I had to sleep on the ground a lot and there were animals everywhere. I ran into some people who let me ride on horses with them. I also ran into people who wanted to hurt me and use me, but once I got to Greenwood and could travel by train a lot of that stopped. I was alone a long time." Maria's head lowered and she fiddled her fingers a bit. "I didn't like that. I'm not used to being completely alone. Even when I was with the Vonnera, someone was always around."

Maria took a deep breath and sighed. She brought her head back up with her smile returned and pointed her thumb as herself. "I like not looking so little. I'm not sure if I like this or not. I thought I'd be happy, but it's hard to get used to..." She brought her hands to her breasts and glared angrily down at them, "They're always in the way! They make my back hurt and flop around while I sleep. I tried wrapping them, but I don't know how to do that right, so the wrap always came undone or ripped! If I jump up and down, they're ready to hit me in the head and knock me the fuck out! They're annoying!"

"Besides that!" Maria stood up and grabbed onto her super long hair. It had always been long, but it had thickened out so she had more and was quite a bit longer. "Look at this! It's everywhere all the time! Stay hairs constantly tickle my face, but it's like super soft." Maria hurried around Neil's desk and held locks of her hair out to him. "Feel it. It's sooo sooooft." As he was feeling her hair, "Oh! I'm a bit taller, which is fun, but do you know how hard clothes are to find? I don't understand my sizes yet!"

Maria shivered as his hand met her cheek. "I try to take care of it like women are supposed to." she said about her skin. Neil then pulled her into his lap. The only time anyone ever touched Maria the way Neil just did was when they wanted something from her. Depending on the person, it could have been something as simple as hiring her while most wanted to strip her of her clothing. The look in Neil's eyes had Maria confused, but only cause she hadn't seen it on him before. It was making her nervous and excited at the same time. Maria instinctively wrapped an arm around his neck to keep herself up. The feeling of his arm around her back to hold her there was more exciting and made her blush.

"That sounds fun." Maria tried to be excited and her normal energetic self as she spoke, but her nervousness was showing a bit more than she wanted. Her cheeks were bright red and she was having a hard time looking him straight in the eye. It also didn't help that one small adjustment made her feel something hard under her. It took Maria a second to realize what it was. "N-Neil..." Maria's face turned extremely red and she kept looking away from him, "You're poking me with it... down there."

Maria was happy that it wasn't poking her, but didn't know how to react to the back rub. It was mainly because she didn't know what she was allowed to do. Going farther than she used to would be strange. She kissed him before she left and thought she was going to be hit for it. To her, it was luck that didn't happen. Maria decided not to give any outward reaction, but her heart was racing. Though she was the same Maria from before, her new found figure has forced her to learn a bit more elegance. When Neil moved for her to stand, what usually would have been a hop was a rather graceful glide back to her feet, mainly so the skirt wouldn't fly up and show the pink flowery lace underwear she was wearing.

"M-My fault?" Maria blushed heavily, it getting worse as he went on. He put his hand on her cheek and Maria stared into his eye. She brought her hands up over her chest and was trying to control the excited breathing she was experiencing. "You're making my heart race!" Maria turned away horribly embarrassed and brought her hands to her cheeks, trying to cover up the blush. Before he could say anything else, Maria threw her arms around him and nuzzled her face against his chest. "I missed you, Neil. I missed you so much! I hated being gone so long, and there were times I wished I had never left, but if looking like this will makes you look at me like that, then I would do it a thousand times!"

Maria turned and ran over to the sword. On the sword, there was a decent sized back tied to the handle. She pulled it off and began rummaging through it, pulling out multiple items. "I found all of these on my trip. I bought this one though." Maria pulled out a bottle of wine and walked back over to his desk, setting the items on the table. The first was the wine. "They told me this was a new type being imported from Osynius. It's supposed to be very good, but I didn't try it yet." The second was a black box, the third was a flat and wide red box, and the final one was an old handwritten book. Once they were all spread out on the desk, Maria stared at them, deciding which one to explain first.

"Okay!" Maria picked up the book and opened it up to the middle, where she had a bookmark keeping a page, "This book is supposed to be some sort of clue to lots and lots of money that some old rich guy hid away years ago. I can't read all of it. I was using it to practice reading and there are a lot of big words I don't know. I kind of stole it from this man's shop because he tried to trade sex for something else I needed from him..." Maria glanced to the side annoyed and then shrugged that off, "I thought that maybe if you understood it, we could find it and you'll have more money than you already do... Maybe even enough that you could go and do whatever you want without worrying about other stuff."

Before he could reply to her little dream there, since he would understand how much she wanted him to get out of Grandview, she moved on. Now that she had even witnessed the goods of the outside world, she wanted it more and that would come up later. She grabbed the flat red box. It was well made and had a golden trim that said Taeviel Wrap. "I thought you'd like these the best. They're an Elvish Cigar that is more potent, I learned that word too, than the regular Arcadian Cigars, even the ones from Brauk! I went to this store and they had a lot of stuff like this. This one box costed ten plat, and I did not steal it." Maria smiled real wide, proud of the fact that she had bought it fairly for him.

Maria set that on his desk where he normally sat and then picked up the black box. She tapped her trimmed and lightly painted fingernails on the lid and stared at it for a moment. She looked shy, like she was hesitating to show it to him. "This one is really new. I mean new new, like it only recently was released to the public in Zakat. When I was there, I saw it and thought it would be something you'd really like." She handed it to him and allowed him to open it. She looked on curiously to see what he thought. When he opened it up, inside was a silver thick-banded wristwatch with a light golden trim around the clock. The numbers were made of onyx so they'd pop and there were very small diamonds around the watch's edges. It was extremely well made and obviously cost quite a bit of coin for anyone to buy. "You like it?" Maria tilted her head, hopeful that his answer would be yes, "All of it is yours."

Maria lowered her head again, looking sadly at the floor. "I knew I was gone for a lot longer than I meant. I thought that if I brought you back presents you liked and would be able to use, that you wouldn't be mad at me. And I was scared you wouldn't like the way I looked, so if I showed you I still wanted to be around you, you'd still keep me and not throw me away." Maria put her hands behind her back and twisted her foot back and forth shyly, "I learned a lot on my trip. I met a lot of people, good and bad, but mostly good. I had job offers too. I had this nice couple tell me I could stay with them when I told them I was from Grandview. I had people give me free food and things like that, but... I couldn't stay. I didn't want to. They didn't understand that I had someone in Grandview I wanted to get back to." Maria looked up to him and smiled, a tear falling down her left cheek, "Neil, I don't want to be apart from you again. It was miserable... You are my home now. That is what I learned."

"I did go to Colburn. When I learned about what was wrong with me, there were other places I had to go and Zakat was one of them. It's a strange country. The buildings are very square and shiny. The people there all have yellow hair too and not many of them really liked me." When Maria showed him the watch, she noticed the smile waver. Maria has always paid close attention to Neil and even the smallest changes were something she was able to notice. You'd think she would have known he didn't use wristwatches, but she just assumed that was all he had and he didn't care to get a new one.

Maria needed that confirmation. She didn't understand why he made her so nervous. She wanted his accepted and for him to want her around, so when he told her he would still have kept her, she couldn't have been happier. She reached up and set her hand on his as he wiped the tear. "There can be an us?" Maria tilted her head slightly to the side. She stepped up to him and pushed herself onto her tippy-toes to kiss his cheek. "I know you well, Neil. I understand you, probably less than you understand me, but I do understand you. Not only do I have to because of my job here, but I want do as well."

"There can be an us, but that doesn't mean there will be." she lowered herself to stand normally and turned away from him, "That's okay. I won't stop trying and I'll always be here for you, even if you choose someone else. Honestly, I'm scared. I've never cared for someone before. I've never wanted to kiss anyone, and I've never been willing to let someone take me before you. I don't know if I'm in over my head or if things will work out like my heart has chosen, but I'm ready to try." She smiled over her shoulder at him, "It took time for me to understand that, so I want you to be ready too."