The town loved her. She had come to them with nothing but one bag of belongings, making her mark on the world: doing a year of "training" as her kind were wont to do, playing her radio, talking to a cat familiar no one understood, and, to the delight of most, running her delivery service out of a local bakery, map and parcels in tow as she flew on her broom above the city to mark the best route.

She left them after her year had passed, but she had been reluctant to leave, even if it was to show off her success to her parents and friends; even to train more, and to further her learning; the learning of her kind: witches.

Reluctant to leave someone, the rumors said. A certain light-haired, grinning boy who wasn't often seen out of her company.

She had just turned fourteen when she left, and she was eighteen when she returned, out of the blue, on a train, with a whole cart of luggage in tow, and a familiar black cat slinking behind her.

The town loved her even more. She happily explained to anyone who asked that she had finished what she needed to do at her home, and had come back to continue "training," albeit in a more conventional sense: she had enrolled in the local college, paid her tuition, and would be attending classes the following fall.

It was delightful to see her again, flying in the streets above town. Her black dress was customized to her needs, including various pockets, a belt to hold tools she used, and a dark pair of shorts she wore; she hadn't quite stopped her habit of riding astride her broom, and didn't appreciate the thought of people looking up her dress as she went.

She was often accompanied by her someone, who oftimes rode with her on her broom, holding his arms fast around her waist and grinning ear to ear the faster they went.

AUTHORS NOTE

I had this idea for a hot minute.

Trying to find info about Kiki's Delivery Service is...harder than I thought.

For instance: Did you know it's apparently set in 1960? Like, I kind of got the vibe-Kiki has always seemed like a little world lost in time? Definitely its own universe, though, because school became compulsory for children in Japan in the 1940s, and she wouldn't be released from that obligation until she was 16, I think. But it's okay, because Kiki's a witch, and she lives in a beautiful Ghibli-verse. So. Yeah.

And ladies could and did attend college in the 60s in Japan, but it was apparently not a nice scene? Lots of riots happened in Japanese colleges.

But I figure it's fine. It's just a kind of backdrop, anyway, and we're in this delightful Ghibli-verse. Not real life. So we're fine.

I...am taking this in a weird direction. But stay with me. It'll be...interesting.

~Angeladex