MAZE - The Endless Quest

When Hera and her dad finally got home, it was already late. Her mother was taking a bath and Hera took the chance to go to the bedroom, saying she was tired from the long day.

Hera wasn't sleepy. So she took her time to read the book she started on the trip, waiting for the drowsiness to beat her. However, that mellow book made a complete 180. The soft romantic comedy ended up having time travel, deals with gods, and an earthquake that destroyed a city. It was past 1 a.m. when she finished the book.

Hera tried to go to sleep, but she felt restless. Getting up, she walked to the kitchen to grab a warm glass of milk.

When she arrived, her mother was leaning on the counter with a cup of tea in her hand.

"Hello, sweetheart. Sorry I wasn't here when you arrived. I wasn't expecting you two to get home so late," she said with a smile.

"Don't worry, mom. Sorry I went straight to bed. I had a long day yesterday," Hera said, opening the fridge to look for milk.

"Long day at that little bookstore you work at?" her mother said between sips.

"Something like that," Hera mumbled.

"Honey, you should speak up when you talk. If you don't, people won't know you are there," her mother replied with a sigh.

Hera didn't even bother saying it again. She had given up on that a long time ago. It didn't matter how much she followed her mother's advice. There was always something else to fix.

"Sorry, I just asked where is the milk. I'm not seeing it here," she said, changing the subject.

"Milk? No no no, It's much too late for that. If you drink it now, not only will you have a bad night of sleep, it will also go straight to your thighs." her mother said pushing Hera aways from the fridge.

"Here, if you are having trouble to sleep drink this," she passed Hera a cup of tea, "it has chamomile, kale, cucumber, green tea, rose water and spinach. It will knock you right out."

Hera grabbed the cup and stared at the green liquid inside. This would probably knock her out just by smelling it.

"Thanks, mom," Hera replied weakly.

"Now, I'm going to bed. We have a big day tomorrow, your cousins are coming from school. Ah, look at me still talking like they are kids. They are in college now. Maybe you can ask how it's like there. Who knows, you might be inspired to do something with your life."

Stella placed her cup on the sink and walked past her daughter.

"And honey, try not to sleep with makeup on. I'm glad you are finally taking care of yourself, but you need to be careful. Not only it's bad for your skin, but it will stain the sheets." Stella said, rubbing Hera's cheek.

"But I'm not wearing any makeup." Hera protested.

"Hera, you are much too old to be embarrassed about those things. In the guest bathroom, there are some tissues that are perfect for cleaning this up. Just let me know if you use them all so I can put it on the shopping list."

Not leaving any chance for Hera to reply, Stella walked back to her bedroom.

Feeling like she was in highschool again, Hera waited to hear the sound of the door closing before dumping the tea on the sink. Giving up on the milk, Hera went back to her bedroom hoping she would be able to sleep.

When the morning finally came, Hera was still tired. She barely had any sleep. The image of the kobold trainer kept popping in her head through the night.

Hera left the guest bedroom around 6 a.m.

The first thing she heard was her mother complaining about how much she needed to do for lunch.

Fearing her mom would ask for help, Hera quickly went out, saying she would buy something for breakfast. That way, Stella would have more time to do what she needed to do.

Hera left before her mom could answer. She knew that if she stayed around, Stella would ask her to help in the kitchen. The problem wasn't helping out, but anything she did would be wrong. She already had too much on her mind without having to deal with a scolding for doing things differently.

Hera greeted a few people she recognized on the way to a bakery close by. Arriving at the store, Hera had no idea what to order. She couldn't decide if it was better to ask just for bread or get something fancier. It was weird. She never had any problems with ordering food. Even as a kid, she never took long to decide what she wanted.

After almost half an hour staring at the display filled with different pastries. Hera realized she would never leave like this, and finally, she ordered.

"Hi, could you get me one of each?" Hera said to the attendant.

"Sure thing! One of each of what?" the attendant asked.

"Everything in the display, please," Hera replied, not giving it much thought.

"You want one of each thing that is in the display?" the attendant tried to hide his shock.

"Yeah, is that a problem?" Hera asked, absent-minded.

"Not at all, I was just confirming your order," the attendant blurted out. Knowing that he should never talk a customer out of a purchase.

It took another ten minutes of waiting before all that she purchased was ready to go. In the meantime, Hera paid 137 gold for the pastries.

With everything ready, Hera took the five bags filled with food and walked back home. To anyone watching, that was an odd sight. That small woman was carrying five heavy bags without a problem. If it was any other person, they could just assume they were high level. But most people in the neighborhood knew Hera was still level one. How was she doing that?

Hera was oblivious about the situation. Her focus was on the decision she had to make. The test was terrifying, but that was the whole point, she understood that now. It wasn't about completing it or teaching them a new skill. Mr. Greyson wanted to know if she could fail while facing something very dangerous and keep going.

The MAZE is more like a survival game than with the stories people write about. But the question remained, could she go there knowing she could die at any moment?

Before she knew, Hera was already back at her parent's house. She opened the door and placed the bags on the table, calling her mom to eat. Looking at the time, her dad would probably still be sleeping. Letting out a long sigh, she sat down and searched for something that looked tasty.

"Thank you for the help, sweetheart. Did you remembered to get those..." Stella stopped talking the second she saw the bags on the table, "Why did you get so much food?"

Hera bit her lip. Since many people were coming, she thought it was ok to buy a lot of food. However, she forgot to account for Stella's reaction.

"I just tried to help, I know how much hard work is to put these gatherings together and I wanted to give you a break," Hera answered knowing it wouldn't work.

"How can you be so self-centered? Did it occur to you that I already bought a lot of food for this? Now, what am I supposed to do? Just make it all and let it go bad?" Stella was already trembling, the same way she did every time she got angry.

"I just wanted to do something nice for the family. Since everyone is coming over, we could make some of the food you bought and if we have leftovers, we can let them take home." Hera was looking down, trying to seem like she was sorry. In reality, after many years, she figured out that, that was the quickest way to make her mom stop complaining.

"I didn't raise you to be this selfish! You are only thinking about yourself and not even considering others. Your cousins were away from home for a long time. They probably want homemade food, and I already planned the whole meal. How much did you pay in all that?" Stella rummaged through the bags.

Hera stopped for a second. She couldn't remember where she put the receipt. If she forgot to get it, or if it was in her pocket, she would be fine.

"Hera! How could you spend so much money on this?" Stella gasped.

Of course, Hera wasn't even sure why she got hopeful. Things always worked like that with her mom.

"When your dad wakes up, we are going to have a long talk about financial responsibility missy!" Stella said before stomping back to the kitchen.

Hera sighed and started to look for something to eat again. She was thinking about a sandwich, but now, she needed something sweet.

When her dad woke up, there was more scolding. Eridan didn't want to tell Stella about the money he borrowed. Hera knew that and stayed silent during most of it. Only saying 'I'm sorry' now and then.

After that, the three set up the table for the whole family. The homemade dishes stayed in the center with the pastries functioning as a decoration to cover the spots with no food. When they were done, it looked like a gaudy banquet, but Stella had a big approving smile on her face.

After that a song came up on the television. Eridan and Stella hugged and started to slow dance to the song. It was the song they had their first dance to. Hera watched them for a while.

Eridan had thick arms, and a big belly, but it was mostly brawn. Working in the wood shop and cutting the trees himself would do that to anyone’s physique. His short golden hair was already starting to grey, but he still had his charm and that big smile that made everything be ok.

Stella used to be very thin but had put on some weight after having Hera. Unlike most people, she embraced that. Her long brown hair was curled up today, giving her look a vintage feel. She had beautiful blue eyes that turned grey at the edges. Hera’s mom would always wear clothing that exposed some skin, be it in the chest, arms, or legs. She was truly beautiful, and the couple made each other extremely happy.

Little by little the guests arrived, and shortly after 1 p.m., the whole family was there. Hera never ceased to be surprised by how many people would come to these gatherings. Counting the partners of a few family members, there were 42 people inside the two-story house.

Thankfully, most of the family was fawning over her two cousins and left Hera alone. Even she went to congratulate them. Amelia was in a university famous for its medical program. Arthur, on the other hand, had just been accepted to a very prestigious college on an engineer scholarship.

Hera was genuinely happy for her cousins, she knew how hard they worked for it. She used her employee discount a few times, buying books to help them study for the enrollment test. Not only that, she always got happy when someone close to her would step towards their dream.

The day went by, and soon the opening ceremony of the olympics began. Part of her family kept talking the whole way through it. But Hera simple tuned of the noise and focused on the presentation.

It was beautiful. Each country would go inside in two groups, the level ones, and the level tens. Because of the attribute difference, they only allowed civilians to take part in the competition. A few years back, the organizers thought it the competition was getting boring in comparison with what explorers could do, so they added the level 10 division. It really increases the appeal to watch the event.

A level one civilian, in the 55kg class that trained his whole life, could lift almost 300kg, while the world record for a level ten was half a tonne. But there were very strict rules about it all, skills were shared or banned, the attributes couldn't go over a certain number. To Hera, the whole system was a mess. Still, it was entertaining to watch.

The ceremony kept going, with a dance accompanied by a magic show made by two famous explorers.

It was a singing duo called Bright Night and Dark Star. The duo would make the dancers appear and disappear. They turned the stage upside down and even made the dusk be followed by dawn, creating a new star in the sky.

Hera tried to use her [Observe] but only the information for the television appeared. She really wanted to know if that was illusion magic or a magic light.

For the finale, Dark Star made all the lights in the arena go out. A shot from a helicopter showed the whole city covered in darkness. The camera focused on the sky. The stars danced around each other, spiraling towards the stage where Bright Night was. They gathered in a ball in front of her, when the sky was completely dark. All the starts on the stage flew out towards the crowd and stopped just by their chest. With a flourish, Bright Night sent all the stars back to the sky, giving back the light for the whole city.

Hera was mesmerized. It was already impressive when she had no idea how they did it. But now, she had a silly smile on her face just by thinking about the elemental affinities the duo could have.

With the presentation over, the president of Jamaica, where the olympics where happening, gave a speech as it was costumery.

Hera kept eating, and talking with her family, her aunt Silvia was annoying her. She kept saying how Hera was lagging behind and soon she would be stuck in a dead-end job.

"She must be so proud of her non-dead-end job as a receptionist for 25 years," Hera thought to herself.

When the guests finally left, it was well past 9 p.m. The last train would leave at 11, and Hera still wasn't sure if she should be in it.

Helping with the cleanup, Hera was doing the dishes while thinking about her decision. She was leaning towards giving up, at least for now. Mr. Greyson said that if she wanted, she could try again after some time. That could be a good idea.

"You need to pay more attention, this one is still dirty," her mom said placing a plate inside the half-full sink.

Eridan was bringing some leftover food to the fridge when Stella asked him to stay.

"Hera, I want to talk to you. You can keep doing the dishes if you want, but pay attention," her mom demanded.

Hera wasn't in the mood to talk, but right now there wasn't a way out.

"Sure, what do you want to talk about, mom?" she asked, not moving her eyes from the dishes.

"About you, look I know you had a dream, and that didn't work. But you need to do something with your life. You can't stay forever in that bookstore. Are you looking for something else?" Stella said.

"No mom, I'm not. But I..." Hera replied but was cut off.

"See, why aren't you looking? You can't honestly be thinking that the bookstore is a good place to work. You need to do something, you need to act or even react to anything. Hera, you need to stop being such of a pushover. Like today. How many times did you got up to fill other people's glasses?" her mom was raising her voice.

She always did that in those long speeches. Hera always hated it. Being loud wouldn't help get your point across.

"I was just being polite like you taught me," Hera replied, still scrubbing a plate.

"There is polite and then there is being a maid. You really need to start saying no. Doing what you want. Why don't you? Are you afraid of what people will say? C'mon, aren't you too old for that?"

Hera scrubbed harder, her fingers almost cracking the plate.

"My love, aren't you being too harsh on her?" Eridan asked.

"No no, she needs a wake-up call. Everything in life is scary now? Are you afraid you will be let down again? Well, get over it! Life is hard, is pain, and is hardship. You have to pull through all that in order to find happiness. If you don't change now, you will be miserable for the rest of your life." Stella paused.

It took Hera everything she had not to snap back at her mom. She was the one always complaining and putting her down. She was the one who made her worrya bout what other people think. She was the one who kicked her when she was down on her 18th birthday.

"Well? Aren't you going to say something? Honestly, Hera, you need to do something, anything! Just stop being so plain!" Stella yelled.

Before Eridan could even call his wife out, Hera tossed the last plate in the sink, shattering it by accident

"Fine! Since you want me to do something. I'm going back home!" Hera said angrily.

"What are you talking about? This is your home," Stella scoffed.

"No, it's not, my home is in Brilansis, my friends, my job and my apartment are all there. This is just where I come to listen to you complain."

Hera stormed off, heading towards the guest bedroom. Quickly grabbing her things, she walked to the door.

"Hera, wait! Where are you going?" Eridan asked, rushing towards her.

"Home, dad. I have training in the morning." Hera said without looking back. She knew she would cry the second she saw her dad's face.

"So, you are actually doing it?" Eridan asked.

"I am, and I'm going to prove to her that I don't need to change to become an explorer," Hera said putting her bag over her shoulder, "don't worry. I'm calling a cab. I can't be near either of you right now."

She walked to the door of the room before realizing what she just said.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean it like that," she said in a soft voice.

"Don't worry, I know. Give them hell, my Fourth Hero," Eridan said with a smile.

Hera looked back, twisting her nose.

"Dad, be serious. That was only cute when I was little."

Eridan laughed, Hera left the house and called a cab. She waited ten minutes outside before it arrived. After asking for the driver to take her to the train station, the tears she was holding in came pouring out.

This was the last time her mom would make her cry.