Len is a dancer by way of his race, elegant and graceful, transitioning smoothly from one motion to another. He keeps his lips close to Rin's ear as he sweeps left, then right, his arm taut around her slender waist. Not once does he stumble nor trip nor falter, while Rin is something of the complete opposite, too distracted by their close propinquity to think of what she's doing with her feet. They trip over one another, over Len's, and Rin hardly notices. This is all so overwhelming, in the best of ways.
When she's least expecting it, he slips his fingers around hers, holding tightly, and spins her. The breath flees from Rin's lungs as she lifts one leg partially, allowing herself to be twirled again and again, tunic flying wildly around her. The trees begin to grow into a blur of colors, dizzying. She closes her eyes, lets the wind and music streaking through her body soothe her.
Abruptly, she is pulled back into Len's arms. He's grinning, mouth against her ear as it should be when he says, "You're not too shabby for being a beginner." A lie—she's horrible—but Rin smiles anyway, giggling, swaying into the gyration of Len's body. If she's not mistaken, the flowers exposed on his neck, collarbone and wrists are flourishing vivaciously, trailing petals around him from head to toe (Which means something, right? But what? That he's happy, pleased, enjoying Rin's company? Because she's sure enjoying his). Rin is tempted to pluck a flower from off Len's body and take it in her fingers, like a temporary reminiscence.
She doesn't get the chance, as he does it for her. He must notice her staring (Rin doesn't know how to be subtle about hiding it), so he takes a tulip from off his neck and guides it to her hair, where, amid their slowing fluent motions, he braids it into the soft golden strands. "Pretty," Rin muses under her breath, managing to catch the lavender hue out of the corner of her periphery every so often.
"Thank you," Len says, almost cockily, and it makes Rin laugh painfully hard. He offers a giggle himself and spins her twice more before the song present melts lucidly into another. Rin wants to keep dancing, wants to stay here forever—with Len, with the Festival and the Fae and the Leering Wood—but Len doesn't allow this. He takes her and teeters toward the treeline, weaving in between roots jutting from loose soil and scattered branches.
"Sorry," he says a long while later, "for getting out of there so quickly. If we stayed any longer, we would have never left. The elves are tricky like that. Pesky with their music."
"I was wondering why it seemed like none of the songs stopped," Rin says, glancing at she and Len's clasped palms. "Or why one song was so long."
Len smiles. "Yes, the elves do that—love doing it, really. It's a way for them to ensure no one leaves, a method of hypnotism." He ponders this for a heartbeat, answering Rin's unasked question. "Because they're sadistic, and odd. I've never gotten along well with the elves, especially after one tried to slit my throat," he says, and stops walking, slipping his fingers from Rin's hand, nonchalantly observing the area.
Beside him, Rin openly gapes. "An elf attempted to kill you?" she asks.
"I deserved it, to be fair. I think." Len shrugs. He purses his lips, nods, and gestures to Rin, then proceeds to clamber down a slope to his right, disappearing into weeds and crumbling boulders. Rin huffs and follows him, her feet catching on slackened gravel. She keeps slipping, and eventually, sick of trying to stay upright, Rin tumbles down the slope, curling her knees tightly to her chest.
She lands on a pad of cushioned dirt, sprawled on her back. Upon opening her eyes, she sees Len hovering over her, grinning cheekily.
"Graceful," he comments, offering a hand.
Rin rolls her eyes and shifts to accept; she actually yelps when Len draws his arm back and she flies to her feet, stunned by the strength he doesn't really look like he's capable of possessing for being a literal flower boy. Before Rin can keel over over from her surprised staggering, Len catches her, steadying her balance. He wipes some dirt off of her forehead and steps back into darkness.
"Why here?" Rin asks when she has composed herself. She reaches for the tulip to make certain that it's still twined into her hair, delighted when she finds that it is, and didn't unhinge during her little scuffle with the slope.
"I'm glad you asked," Len says. He lowers himself into a graceful bow, then sweeps a hand along the grass. He arches himself upward, the same hand raised over his head, the other wrapped around his chest. Slowly, he brings his left foot to his right knee and tilts his head back, exhaling softly. It is at that moment that a swarm of fireflies slips from the wood around them, fluttering quaintly toward Len's outstretched hand.
Rin stumbles backward in awe, the breath rushing from her lungs. The forest has gone alight in the glow of a golden storm, nothing left touched by darkness.
Len pivots backwards, his spine lurching and fingertips expelling outward. Curiously, the insects he's attracted the attention of follow, swirling around him and obscuring all but the outline of his silhouette. Rin can't quite see what he's doing until the fireflies surge toward the treeline in the formation of a whirlpool, illuminating slices of Rin's bright, wide eyes as she stares gaping up at the sky, fingers twitching behind her ears.
Piercing and auroral in the blackened veil of the night sky, the fireflies could so easily be mistaken for a meteor shower. They have such a supernatural ambiance to them, set in the way they dip down in waves, only to glide right up into line again as if this is what they've been doing for their entire minuscule lives.
Len's eyelashes flutter as he pirouettes his way to Rin, eliciting a delicate smile from the both of them when he leads her dancing into the center of the clearing. That familiar energy renders Rin speechless when it bites into her veins, and she feels herself going nebulous, unsure of her whereabouts in the consummation of magic her body has now fallen victim to being unused to.
"You like it?" Len says breathlessly, leading Rin in a very half-hearted waltz.
Rin nods. It's the best that she can do.
"I can make it better," Len says, "with your help."
"My staff," Rin says, tipping her chin toward where it's been left discarded in the dirt, glittering in a frenzy of the firefly's own dance.
"You won't need it," Len reassures, then: "Fluere folio!"
Rin jolts at the accent Len puts into the spell, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on edge. She feels a pulsing underneath layers of skin, a pull in her heart that is magnified when she sees the kindling of green set ablaze in Len's eyes; the grass beneath their feet lengthens, twirling in a gentle breeze, and on the branches of every tree, leaves dying are revived into life once more. Flowers bloom and bloom and bloom on each one until the petals burst off, and a flurry of them caper around the two figures lingering exactly where they should and shouldn't be.
In the distance, Rin hears the music of the elves increase in pace and volume. Len must, too, because he tugs Rin with him backward, humming another tune under his breath. It has no real rhythm, no beat, no particular purpose other than to distract, and Rin finds it alleviating. She watches as a petal catches in Len's hair, supplanted by a second, and a third, shed from the trees in a variety of colors.
"You—" Rin sucks in a deep breath and lets it out evenly, trying to gather her bearings. Obtaining magic like this is no different from being inebriated, completely intoxicated on the essence. "You...took Kaito here, didn't you? And—showed him this, too."
Len lofts a brow. "What makes you assume that?"
"Nothing makes me assume it," Rin says, smiling. "I have no assumptions. It's only the truth." (Although she doesn't know how she knows that it is.)
"And you know that how?" Len inquiries, his gaze sliding to the few fireflies that have loitered into the grass, buzzing by their swaying feet.
"As if I have an answer for that." Rin purses her lips, an idea resonating in her thoughts. She adds, "Though, if I could take a guess, it's your magic. Maybe it feeds more memories than it does anything else."
Len squints at their fingers, and then slowly untangles them, crossing his arms firmly behind his back. Rin ogles him distantly, the sensation of magic already retreating into thin air. She wants to fight for it, take his shoulders in his hands and withdraw his magic because she feels so lost without it, so hopeless, and she finds herself cursing that were in her head and gritting her teeth and—
Len yells and topples over, snapping Rin out of a stupor. Her eyes blow wide, and a force hits her so roughly that it knocks her off her feet as well, sending her sprawling out into the grass, gasping for oxygen. She fists her fingers into the front of her tunic and quivers, seething with energy that doesn't belong to her.
Energy that she stole.
Across from her, Len sits up and clambers to her side. The fireflies have begun to flee and the petals are wilting. Len looks so much paler in the muted glow of moonlight (And perhaps a little scared?). "Rin," he says. He reaches out to touch her but recoils against it, wincing.
"I just—" Rin gawks with a horrified countenance, the impulse to cry overwhelming her. "I didn't mean—to do that, whatever I just did, I—"
"You stole my magic," Len says, avoiding eye contact at all costs, biting one of his knuckles. "You—took it. Without even having the necessity to touch me that time, you usurped it. Forcibly." He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat, an entire elegant show in and of itself.
"I've never done that before," Rin whispers. She props herself onto her elbows, breathing haggardly. "Len."
"This is an ability only Fae, sorcerers and the Oracle possess, Rin. Alchemists can't usurp magic," Len says. "And they most certainly cannot obtain memories or passive cognition, either. You did something you shouldn't be able to do. Something even most nymphs are not capable of doing."
"You can't?" Rin asks airily.
"No," Len says, frowning, "nor would I ever want to. It's a sickening thing to steal magic. Borrowing is yet another matter, an acceptable one under terms, but—this, you cannot do. Stealing it." He hesitantly touches Rin's shoulder. They both flinch, but don't move away.
Rin shakes her head indifferently. "I wasn't controlling it," she says. "I thought something, and it was so slight, so measly...It never occurred to me that I could do that, or have that effect. I had no idea."
"That is the way it should be. You shouldn't have ever so much as thought you could do this." Sighing, Len withdraws, legs tucked beneath him as he cards a hand through his unkempt bangs. Rin arranges herself in a similar seating across from him, palms braced on her knees.
"Are you—mad?" Rin asks daintily, the words clogged in her mouth.
Len's lips twist as if he'll laugh; he doesn't, not really, only puffs a short, amused breath from his nose. "Not at all," he says, raising a finger tentatively. A firefly flits out from the trees and lands on his knuckle. "Only concerned for you and what this means."
"What it means...? You have ideas?" Rin says, furrowing her brow. She folds her arms around her torso, feeling very dizzy and sickened.
"I suppose. Yet for now they are unimportant and they will remain that way. I don't need to burden or worry you with them now," he says, shaking his head solemnly. "I'd much rather protect you from any sort of ill-barren fate."
Rin tenses (Ill-barren fate?). "I'm so confused," she whispers.
"I am as well," Len murmurs, dragging a fingertip underneath his lower lip. "There is certainly a strange aura blossoming inside of you."
He sounds so timorous that it sets Rin to the brink, because this doesn't feel right. Since the dawn of time, she has been normal. A civilian of Calcherth as she has always been and nothing else. Nothing more, nothing less; she doesn't want either, doesn't want to change. She doesn't want to have this twist to what has been the semblance of routine in her life. She can't. She can't hurt people, rob what belongs to them.
She is dragged back into reality when Len says, "You were right, by the way." Rin peeps up at him, aghast, and he gesticulates vaguely to stress his point. "About—Kaito, I mean. And...this. The fireflies and whatnot. I can't quite say it's an original performance."
"You must have really loved him." Rin doesn't know where that came from, but it has to be true. Rarely has she heard of nymphs falling in love—over all else, they're succubi, meant to lure mortals into the wood to do only God knows what with them—though when it comes to Len, there is little else to believe in but that he was so hopelessly, helplessly in love.
"I did," he says. He twists the stem of a leaf in between his index and thumb, expression thoughtful. "In the same way a human could love a human, I loved him."
"What—was he like?"
"Charming," Len says, without missing a beat. He smiles, not looking up. "He held himself well, but the most doltish of things flustered him. He would do this—" Len sighs and pushes the cusp of his palm against his jaw. "If he was embarrassed, he'd laugh the sweetest of laughs and touch the back of his neck, flushed red, and—he was beautiful. Utterly beautiful, enough it could kill.
"In a way," he says, "you remind me of him."
Rin goes fervent, ducking her head and trailing her fingers through the grass to wring out the rest of the magic that remains trapped beneath the skin.
Len shakes his head, side-tracked, and continues, "The other nymphs doted over him, adored him. They would weave flower crowns for him and steal his scarf to force him into following them to retrieve it. Play him music, craft him jewelry—whatever means it took to capture his attention. And yet, amid their treatment, he chose me."
"They must have despised that, the other nymphs," Rin murmurs.
Len breezes a tender laugh. "Oh, you can only imagine their agitation. I flaunted his love for me at them any chance I could," he says. And then his shoulders slump, and he sighs. "There was a mortal, however, who hated me more than any nymph ever could for what I did, as she loved Kaito more than I think he ever loved me. I...regret that, I think. Taking him away from her." He hesitates, rigid. "Had I not interfered with them," he whispers, "none of this would have happened, and Kaito would not be dead."
A daunting wind curls over their figures. Rin tightens her tunic around her torso, furrowing her brows. Her heart is aching, racing, further expanding the sickness that swallows her whole. "No, Len, that's—"
"Don't tell me otherwise," he says calmly. "I may regret leading him away from reality, but I would never regret loving him. I made my decisions; he made his." Len squeezes into his fist, and the leaf dissolves, fanning onto the ground in a spray of dust. "Some things are intended to happen. Things we cannot avoid. I couldn't have avoided my feelings, no matter what scenario. The future is determined. There is no changing it."
"That isn't true," Rin protests, straightening her posture. A flicker of anger burns in her stomach; without control over an unpredictable future, there is no structure to fall back upon. No safety net.
"What is set in stone can't be unwritten."
"Well, if you can smash the stone, then I care to disagree."
Len careens his head to the side, quirking a thin blonde brow. "Anomalous thinking," he muses, "though I can't say I don't appreciate it."
Rin averts her gaze.
"Regardless," Len says, splaying his palms out behind him for support, "Kaito was perfection and I tainted him with greediness and led him to his death with a finely forged chain, and that would be the outcome forever, ad nauseam. When a nymph falls in love with you, and you reciprocate, there is no way out. You are doomed, and I understood that, as did he. We accepted that limitation, we were alright with it." Len flops into the grass and tosses a hand at the sky, scowling. "It doesn't matter, anyway. He's gone now. I can't change that. No one can."
Silence, as if even the crickets have stilled in their motions to make way for Len's sorrow, devours them. Rin fidgets, wanting to bring the conversation elsewhere, so she blurts, "What was your first interaction with him like? I surmise you didn't save him from any weres."
"It was much less graphic than my first encounter with you, yes. It—he noticed me, was all. While the female nymphs flocked him, I lingered, and watched, and wished I could be among them. And once, he stayed until evening, when the other Fae lost interest in him, just to approach me. He planted a flower crown atop my head and gave me the most heart-wrenching smile I've ever seen in my life, saying, 'You shouldn't look so lonely'. And I think the moment our eyes met, I fell in love with him," Len says.
"He kept gravitating toward me after that, like I was the only Fae alive in these woods. He would gift me with bouquets of flowers and tell me stories about—about Calcherth. About home. Humans. What it was like there, what it was like communicating with spirits. He seldom mentioned religion for being the apprentice of the Oracle, which I found endearing. He was too considerate for his own good. Too spectacular."
Rin crawls meekly toward Len and flops onto her belly beside him, chin pressed into the dirt. "I don't know how you see likeness between he and myself," she says. "I'm nothing like that."
"You are," Len says, smiling. "Gods, you are. You two even have the same eyes. Not in color, but in hope. Determination. There is a will to progress the happiness of others in those eyes, love and compassion that a heart can't quite comprehend. Those like myself draw those like you two in."
"Those like you?" Rin echoes.
"Filthy. Deceitful. Traitorous. Never good enough."
Perplexity punches Rin in the stomach. "You aren't any of those things."
"I can't believe this," Len says, laughing without much humor. "That's exactly what he said to me once. I wonder if some of his magic linked his soul to yours after he died. Maybe he's trying to lead himself back to me through you. Wouldn't that be lovely?" Len laughs again, and it doesn't tickle Rin in butterflies like how it did earlier. It just stings now, digs a deeper rift into the wound.
"I don't know if that's possible or not," Rin says.
"Neither do I," Len murmurs, "but it would be great if it was, wouldn't it?"
"...I really don't know how I feel about sharing my soul, either."
Len chortles. "And I don't know why I keep luring in humans like this. It's a bad habit. I should work on shedding it, or I'm going to end up failing and getting you killed, too," he says.
Rin doesn't respond to this. She has no words left to speak.
They allow the peace to loll around them for as long as they can, comfortable in one another's presence and nothing else; and then Len sits up abruptly, cards a hand through his hair, and mutters something incoherent. Rin totters to her knees to better hear him, but he doesn't repeat himself until she nudges him into doing so.
"We need to begin discussing a plan," he says with a sigh, disappointed. "We have three moons from tonight to track Algeroth's illegitimate child. They could be anywhere...There's hardly much of a way to start searching."
"I mean," Rin says hesitantly, "we could...try combining our magic and using a tracking spell? Surely that could—"
"No." Firmly. Len glares at Rin from the corner of his peripheral. "We have established that that is dangerous and we can't have you doing it anymore if you can help it. It's dangerous and, frankly, it hurts like all hell, whether you're stealing it or borrowing it. We can't."
Rin grips her shoulder for security. "It could be a last resort," she says.
"No," Len repeats. "We aren't resorting to that." He coils a fistful of grass in his hands and bites his lip.
"You could communicate with other Fae," Rin suggests. "Or use animals to your advantage, gather—daresay, gossip—from them? Or...I could ask the Alchemist for assistance."
Len contemplates this momentarily, resulting to chewing on the inside of his cheek. "That...could perhaps be a last resort," Len says. "The Greats aside from Miki are talented...and all three of their apprentices are grandeur in the scheme of things. That, we can work with. But Fae are out of the question. Must I emphasize that they hate me?"
"Right, right." Rin frowns, touching her temple absently. "Ah, do we have any idea of what this...hybrid's traits are? Even a vague description, or—"
The ground quaking beneath them interrupts Rin's statement. She looks at Len for an input, but he's already hopping to his feet and scanning the area.
A second rumble has him jerking in the direction of the Festival. At once, he and Rin both realize quickly what the source of the sound is; toppling trees. The air is split by a thundering shout, and it has Rin tossing herself to her legs and bolting across the clearing to her staff, because she can't just leave it there to get trampled by whatever it is that's trekked after them; that would be ruthless to her old-time companion.
She grips it taut in her callused hands, Len flanking her. Green energy pools around his wrists, swaying up his arms and disappearing into his sleeves. "Goblins," he says when the noise halts. Fireflies are flitting about aimlessly, a reminder of what could have been that makes Rin shudder.
"Goblins?" she repeats. Not once has she has had an encounter with a goblin, barely knows what they look like except that they're nasty and angry and are always prepared to fight. And that most work at the bend and will of Algeroth as a kind of domesticated guard dog team. She peers up at Len and says, "We aren't just going to stay here, right?"
"We may have no other choice," Len mutters, slinging an arm protectively around Rin. He twitches, and Rin is tempted to withdraw, but he holds fast to her. "If there are enough to topple trees, then we stand no chance running." Then he pauses and grits his teeth. Thorns poke out of his skin, overwhelming in contrast to wilting flowers; his defense mechanism, prey hiding from its predator. "There are more than goblins," he says. "A griffin, I think. That they're chasing."
"We stand even less of a chance now, don't we? Wait, Len, how can you even tell?"
"Keen senses," Len says. He frowns at Rin and releases his grip on her when red eyes gleam at them from the bushes, followed by a hissing screech and the awry flutter of wings that can't quite support their weight. "I have a plan," Len says.
Rin is panicking (She thinks she's doing a good job at hiding it—though she doesn't know, considering the drastic turn of events this night has taken). "Okay," she says. One of the goblins makes a sort of snarling sound. Jagged fingernails rake against tree bark; a warning.
"I'll set a trail for you back to my home, understand? Follow it. I'm going to distract the goblins and—ah, attempt to track the griffin and heal it, if I can."
"Heal it?" Rin repeats, bewildered.
Len nods. "Yes," he says. "Heal it. You can't expect me to leave a wild creature damaged in these woods, no less a griffin. Had you no idea they're going extinct?" He blinks and scowls, shoving Rin in the other direction and spitting, "Vestigia in domum! Ut quisque sua!"
A path is suddenly illuminated by tiny blue orbs, and Rin glimpses at Len one time, her smile shaky before sprinting toward the glow, each step dispersing the bead of light behind her into a cloud of soot that catches in strands of grass.
She runs, and thinks herself as Kaito, thinks of their souls as intertwined and how ridiculous yet enticing that sounds. But Rin knows that Kaito would be running in the opposite direction, toward Len, to protect him, save him, remain as a presence by his side.
Surely someone Len could love would never be as cowardly as Rin knows she always will be.
.
The trail of glowing orbs dissipates fully when Rin reaches the entrance to Len's home. It's a miraculous thing, a discrete doorway carved into the trunk of a massive tree that looks oh-so depressing, bark a thick, dark chestnut, branches bending toward the ground, dangling ivy over Rin's head. She waves them out of her way and slips in through the door, closing it quietly behind her.
Len's home is warm and comfortable, as it always is. Rin rests her forehead against the wall of its interior and grits her teeth, wishing she'd stayed with him, no matter how useless she would have been. He did what he told her he would do and sheltered her from harm. (Not to mention, someone like Len can easily take on the challenge of swarming goblins, no problem...right?)
Although Rin has no idea what time it is, she can decipher that it's late. She should be heading home—and she could now, considering she knows her way back to Calcherth from Len's house—but she refuses to leave. She won't until Len returns here, safe and sound. And possibly accompanied by a griffin.
As she seats herself in the chair nearest the door, knees pulled to her chest, Rin wants more than anything else to be at the Festival again, dancing and mocking that Meiji character. It would be nice to bring Galaco and Leon and Yuki along, not that the former two would enjoy it very much (A distaste of crowds does that to people). Still. They deserve to be shown things and introduced to the world of the Fae to know the ying and the yang of it all. They deserve more than this.
Rin dozes off thinking about nymphs, griffins, and a family that she has fallen into quite the disconnection with. She doesn't recollect actually falling asleep until a violent squawk shatters her eardrums and she shrieks, throwing herself onto the floor and swathing her arms around herself.
"Apologies," a soothing voice says, and Rin glances up slowly, trembling. She relaxes. It's just Len, and—
And a griffin.
Rin shrieks a second time and scrambles away, pushing her back against the wall. Len only smiles and gives the vine-rope around the creature's neck a tug; it makes that horrendous noise and paws a talon through the air, agitated. It makes eye contact with Rin, and she hugs herself tighter. Griffins are too similar to wyverns for her to be alright with this (Well, not exactly similar, but—something of the sort), because wyverns are deadly and nearly killed the Alchemist and a griffin could very well do the same.
"How—h-how did you even fit him through the door?" Rin asks, disbelieving.
"Magic," Len says whimsically. He dusts some dirt off of his slacks, exposing blood on his knuckles. The griffin nips at his hair and Len grins, stroking its neck. "He likes me, I think. Which is a first."
Rin's throat clenches. She hobbles into a standing position and takes a timid step forward. The griffin snaps its head at her and caws loudly. "You...aren't planning on keeping him, are you?"
"I'm not quite certain. I'd prefer to," Len says. "I rescued him, after all. And he is still healing. He deserves a place to stay, doesn't he?" In response, the creature ruffles its feathers and collapses into a heap on the ground, nestling into a cozy sleeping stance. "He was paying the Festival a visit when those goblins chased after him."
"Did you—"
"Take care of them?" Len finishes. He releases the vine in his hands and gestures to Rin. She approaches him, footsteps unsteady. "I did," he says, "and I saved two lives whilst I was at it." He smiles. It's almost as if he's become another person. Rin is growing nervous, but she's too exhausted and maybe confused to process that emotion. She just wants to sleep, or dance a little more, or—or—
"I would have loved to meet Kaito," she says. Stupidly. "If he was anything like me, we would have gotten along, he and I, huh? I could have met you sooner, in better circumstances."
Len guides her toward the same room she slept in previously, lithe and swift, as if he wants to dash out of this conversation. "Don't ponder that too much," he says. "Under other circumstances, we would never have met at all. I wouldn't need your help if he hadn't died."
(Is that how it is? Seriously?)
"I really shouldn't be staying here," Rin says. "I should—"
"Arguing is futile." Len stands in the threshold and nods at the bed stuffed into the corner. "Sleep," he says. "You need it. We both do."
"I want to go back to the Festival," Rin mumbles.
Len cocks his head. "That's what all the mortals say. You're too infatuated with that thing. It isn't all that extravagant; it's bland." As Rin steps out of her boots and sets her staff aside, Len says, "What do you think his name should be?"
"Huh?" Rin sinks into the surface of the bed and tangles her fingers together, speculatively observing Len's expression. He's distracted—loopy, even, as if he'd been drinking. He's a strange nymph, and an emotional one at that.
"The griffin," Len says. "We should name him Kaito."
"Kaito?" Rin huffs, squints, and then asks the more important question, "We?"
"We co-own him, no? The effort was equal."
"Are you joking? Len, I ran for my life. I didn't do anything valiant for his sake. And Kaito isn't a good name for a griffin."
"Hm. Sleep on it. It will grow on you. Hopefully."
"You're acting...peculiar," Rin says, sitting up.
Len tilts his head back and smiles lamely at her. "The goblins had a kind of inebriating bane. Nothing I haven't faced before. It will wear off."
"Inebriating bane—? That's a toxin, Len! The dangers and aftereffects can be severe!"
"I get a pet griffin from it," Len says. Rin notes the red rimming to his eyes. Her lips pull into a frown, but Len doesn't seem to notice nor care. "Nymphs have amazing tolerance for narcotics, Rin. Have no worries. Come tomorrow morning and it will be fine." He licks his lips and adds, "The goblins were undoubtedly sent by Meiji. I am annoyed."
"You need to get some sleep," Rin says tersely.
"Ah, I presume you're right. Do you need anything before I head off?"
A hold on my feelings and spiraling thoughts, is all, Rin doesn't say. She reels back into the bed and shakes her head. "I'll be fine," she murmurs, eyelids slinking heavily.
"If you say so," Len says. He steps into the corridor and rolls his shoulders back, a distant smile still planted on his mouth. "Sleep well." Delicately, he shuts the door behind him, and the room is flooded by darkness.
That night, Rin falls asleep to the sound of silence. She dreams about withering flowers, fireflies, and the remnants of a boy who has long since been gone, gone, gone.
me, crying: this chapter is so crazy kill me. no seriously this is bizarre, I went from Festival to discussing Kaito to Len adopting a fucking griffin and getting basically high in the span of, like, 5600 words. but I am proud tyty
uh. it probably seems like rin and len's relationship is developing rather quickly? but that's more or less the aim, considering humans are naturally drawn to nymphs, and nymphs, being lustful and easily intrigued, are equally as drawn to humans; especially len, who has had relationships with humans in the past. so yE it isn't necessarily romantic feelings at all, more of just a mutual wonder between one another, and the desire to protect each other. whether or not kaito and rin's souls are actually "intertwined" and how that affects this concept is for your contemplation ;)
also after next chapter, len probably won't be seen for a while! I'm going to be focusing more on rin's relationships in calcherth and a lot of her work as the alchemist's apprentice. plus other stuff. like dealing with the fact she can, er, absorb power.
sorry for the big long ramble, and sorry for any grammatical/spelling errors! hope you enjoyed this update! thank you all so so much for reading aaah! be sure to review, and if ya don't, then see you next time!~