Originally posted on Ao3. Schezo/Witch. Started as Schezo practice, turned into introspection. Everyone is overage.

The faint echoes of birdsong in the distance roused the dark wizard from sleep.

Were it his choice, he would not be awake yet. Not for another hour at the very least. The singing grew louder, and Schezo's brow furrowed. That bird had been interrupting his sleep far too often as of late. It was some sort of mockingbird, and its voice was different enough each day that he could not grow accustomed to it. Only shooing it away gave him any measure of relief. It was an annoying routine he only had so much patience for… He would have gone and done so today if not for the figure beside him.

Despite the noise, she was still asleep, her golden hair strewn about the sheets. He moved, and she stirred, rolling onto her side, but she did not wake. He waited, and she remained asleep, despite another piercing cry of its infernal song sounding outside. Accursed bird. Had it found some harpy nearby to mimic? Nonetheless, that she had moved was enough to give him pause. She would be cold if he left her, and she did not handle the cave's cold well. It was one of the primary things she disliked about his current dwelling, she certainly complained about it enough. Yet she always returned. A measure of complaining just seemed to be a part of her nature.

Hmph. Her nature. It could have been easily misread, with her asleep with only faint light from the cave's distant entrance to discern her expression by. What he could see of it was peaceful, as most dreamers' were. He knew her habits, were she not at peace she'd be rolling around, or gripping him- She'd had the nerve to kick him, once. Truly a wretched experience. But today she was calm in such a way that she rarely was in her waking hours. While she was awake the witch was a firecracker; it would not surprise him if her blood burned with the starlight she conjured, even if faintly. Or perhaps it was just the passion of youth that made her burn so brightly, and she would cool with age. Had he been so hot-blooded when he was younger? Surely not, he couldn't recall being as passionate as she… Though to himself, he would admit that was a long time ago, and many of his memories were lost to time.

There was something formidable about that kind of fire, one that truly seemed to burn as brightly and as long as the stars. Rarely did she tire; she attacked every pursuit of hers with reckless abandon, from potion making to flight to mastering new magic. She did not settle, she had yet to decide enough was enough. Even when she got burned by her impatience she was always eager to return to her studies. Now that was familiar. Her determination in pursuing her goals reminded him of himself. Seeing it was what had swayed him into a tentative acceptance of her presence into his life as allies despite their differences in temperament. After all, they shared a common goal in the form of the pursuit of power (though he was still definitely the greater of them).

Having an ally was a new concept. Sure, he had had dealings with others before, Arle and Rulue, but those bonds were fleeting and temporary. They always parted ways once their tasks were complete, whatever those tasks ended up being (far too often they involved that irksome Satan). At first it was strange to be working in tandem with another for so long, especially with her. She was not an easy woman to get along with by any means; he could easily list her flaws. She was impatient, disrespectful… Her determination easily passed the line into sheer stubborn bullheadedness. She refused to take no for an answer without very good reason (and even then…). Then there was the matter of her thoughts; he'd felt her eyes on him on far more than one occasion, even when she denied it. When she bothered to, anyways…

"Why am I labelled the pervert while your eyes and mouth are free to roam wherever they desire?"

"Pff. Come on. You are a pervert. And like I've told you, one's more than enough- Don't look at me like that. I mean whenever you're around people just figure you're gonna be the one they need to watch out for. It lets me get away with murder, figuratively speaking."

"Hmph. You're despicable to appropriate my plight for your own purposes."

"Fufu, thanks. Seriously, though, it helps that I keep most of my thoughts to myself."

"Your intentions are blatant and transparent, witch."

"To you. Most people aren't that smart. And people take what you say the wrong way, you do get that, right?"

"Hmph, it's not so easy to simply change my speech into modern colloquialisms. And I have no desire to partake in such odd language anyways."

"Yeah, I get that. Not everyone else does."

Yet her eyes had wandered over others less over the moons they spent in each other's company, examining ruins and archives for hidden secrets, fighting the monsters that inhabited those haunts. At least, that was his observation; they were not always together, she had other obligations and he still enjoyed his solitude too much to want to part with it entirely. Still, he'd found it… Oddly disconcerting when after one eve of summoning enough fire to paint acres black in ash together she did not reappear for a good two weeks. Like an itch at the back of his mind that could not quite be reached comfortably to be scratched. It was not the first time she disappeared but it was the first she did not give him a reason for such an action. It was troublesome, and when she finally returned on her broom, grinning at him as though nothing had happened, he'd been quite irritated.

"Where have you been?"

"Yo to you too. Training."

"Feh. You have no respect at all, do you? No regard for anyone's time but your own. Do you think me some disposable scrap you can lead on and abandon at your whim, girl?"

"You're blowing this way out of proportion. Since when do you care? I'm back now, and I have news!"

He'd sputtered at that, as undignified as it was to remember. "W-wh- Excuse me? How dare you presume to put words in my mouth! Who said I cared? I certainly didn't! Hmph. Tell me your news then, witch, it had better be good to have cost me so much time."

She hadn't seemed nearly as bothered by his words as he would have wished her to be. In fact she'd chuckled, if he recalled things correctly. But in hindsight, that wasn't at all surprising. Being fearless was in her nature too. And she had had news. With a flip of her hair (it had caught the light oddly, like sunlight dancing off a pool of water) she'd told him.

"Not just witch. Not anymore! I was training for my exams, Schezo. And I passed, ohohoho, not that there was ever any doubt I would. I could have done them in the dark."

"Your grandmother is in well enough health to have administered them?"

"Don't get any ideas, dark wizard. Yes. She is. And like I said, I passed!"

"Feh." It had not been a terrible achievement, congratulations were customary, but she had vexed him and he had still been displeased by her unnecessary secrecy. She could have told him she would have been taking her exams. She could have trained with him. Hmph. And she herself made it seem trivial. So he'd gone for an unexpected reply. It was perfectly fitting. "Are you expecting praise? You said you could have done it in the dark. I won't congratulate you for something you yourself disparage as so inconsequential."

Ha, he still recalled the look on her face. It was as if she'd bitten into a lemon, a brief look of shock before an annoyed scowl drew itself across her face. Before she could reply he kept on. "Well then, you have a name now. Tell me what you've chosen to call yourself."

"Oh, now you admit you care?"

He'd just laughed, he hadn't been about to apologize. He'd shrugged instead. "Your name belongs to you. If you don't wish to tell me that's your purview."

"I don't."

"Fine."

And unsurprisingly, she did not tell him. Her pride would not have allowed it. He expected no less. Still, they worked in tandem once more, and after a few nights of her pouting in near silence (yet still coming to his side) things continued as they had been before the witch's graduation. For the most part; their objectives did not change, they continued to meet with clear objectives and purpose. Their desires were so well matched. But circumstances happened to require them to have closer and more prolonged contact with each other; the crafting of a potion that required strands of both their hair woven together in order to pass a magical barrier; casting two different types of magic in tandem for a puzzle; hiding from monsters in close quarters, making it impossible to avoid touch. Other moments he didn't recall offhand that blurred together over the months into ebbs and tides of tension between them. He felt it; there was no way she did not. In retrospect, it was inevitable that things had to come to a head-

The witch shifted in her sleep again, breaking him out of his reverie. Slowly, he reached down and ran his fingers through her hair. He was careful with it, it was soft but littered with tangles like a subtle trap due to sleep. She would wake if he was too rough and she would be displeased. But done correctly it soothed her, even when she was unconscious. There was some skill involved in weaving his fingers through the strands, enough that he could feel a small touch of satisfaction when she sighed, leaning into his touch. She was awake- Pity, that hadn't been his intention. Still, he got the consolation prize of one of her hands slipping up from under the blanket to touch his own.

"Mmh… Yo. It feels like morning…"

"It is morning."

She made another disgruntled sound. "Why are we awake..?"

"Birds."

He shouldn't have said it; even still half asleep she laughed.

"I'm glad my plight offers you amusement."

His words did absolutely nothing to quell her laughter. In fact, she giggled harder, going a good fifteen seconds at least before managing to find words. "It's just- The great Dark Wizard being defeated by a few loud birds. Come on. Ignore them, Schez. Or reduce them to dust already, who cares. 's too early."

"Feh." She was one of the few people so blasé about the most destructive choices available that came to mind. Somehow hearing that voiced made him less tempted to use magic on the wretched things. "We should get up anyways. We have quite a bit to prepare."

"Nhh… Have mercy… Five more minutes."

Five more minutes wasn't going to make a difference. Nevertheless, he supposed he could allow it. It wouldn't help but it likely wouldn't hurt either. It wasn't as if he enjoyed the morning. Five minutes, then. He lay back down completely, and she unsurprisingly took advantage of it; within a second she had her arms around him, her head resting in the crook of his neck. Soon she'd likely press kisses to his skin to try to make him shiver- Yes, there it was. She was always enthusiastic about touch, be it gentle in the form of fingers brushing against his, or just a bare hint of contact slipping by him to grab a book or an arcane ingredient, or carefully leaning against him to observe something. And then there was the opposite; she would just as happily wrap her limbs around him and find a way to touch what seemed like every inch of his body, whether it be with her hands or lips.

Those frenzied moods of hers could feel like being engulfed in a whirlwind. After countless years of uninterrupted solitude it had been strange simply to be touched, much less in such a way… It could be overwhelming at times, paradoxically alien and welcome. It wasn't as if her form was unattractive, far from it (though it did not quite align with his usual tastes, his attraction was foremost to her mind and that thirst for power that so complimented his own), merely that he was so unused to it that at times he could not help but need to withdraw to regain his bearings. He supposed he should consider himself lucky she noticed such a thing- He knew there were times when she held back for him, and he was grateful (quietly, to himself). But he was acclimatizing to the witch's affection. Today he felt surprisingly content, feeling her heartbeat and the soft rise and fall of her breath as he ran his fingers through her hair once more. There was nothing that urgently needed doing, no sharp whizz of spells flying in the heat of battle or tense thought trying to solve a puzzle. Just the two of them, spending time in each other's silent company.

That is, until the bird once engaged in its sorry attempt at song. The witch tensed in his arms, and now it was his turn to chuckle.

"Ugh, what is that?"

"Now do you understand?"

"That's awful. How do you just sit back and bear it?" She stirred, sitting up. "I'm dealing with it."

"Wait-" He could have borne it a bit longer for the sake of not interrupting this moment. But he was too slow, once she made up her mind on something one had to be quick to dissuade her. She rolled up and out of bed, not bothering to put on more than her sleep attire as she headed towards the cave's mouth, intent on sorting out the issue in one way or another. She'd likely just shoo it away… Likely.

Feh. She'd better watch her step, the cave floor got slick in bare feet. Well, she should know that by now. In any case, that was his cue to get up too. They had things to do today. The quest for power was never over.