Wind drowned out the echoes of his steps along the road. His styled black hair swayed in the breeze, and was relinquished of its orderly nature.
Bouncing beneath the evening light was this individual, returning from the arduity and routine of the path he had forged. With much excitement and relief, his stubby legs carried him along the road towards reprieve.
"Ah..." he exhaled, stretching his arms in stride. "Dorothy was really onto something, huh? 'No place like home'..."
Leaving a long day of stress behind him, Natsuki Subaru coerced his legs to carry him homeward.
A few years ago, a long day of stress ‒ or rather, any period of time involving stress ‒ seemed unthinkable. He wasted away in the comfort of his own home, seldom venturing outside and clinging onto any flimsy excuse not to attend school. The seventeen-year-old slacker hadn't anything forcing him along any route in particular, so he simply waited at a crossroads, indecisive and regretful.
Over these past years though, he had matured—
—would be a dishonest way of describing his sudden growth, which his father had compelled to new heights.
He ruffled his already dishevelled locks while battling a mix of nostalgia and what one might call cringe at his former lifestyle. Though it was truly in the past, his NEET tendencies often attempted to reassert themselves into his modern via vitae.
"That's all behind me, anyways. That was that, this is this!" Subaru pumped his fist into the air, battling the wind and increasing his pace, enthusiasm pouring through him.
And he had all the reason to be so elated, for this was the day he finally left the dull clamps of tertiary education, and joined his family on an expedition to the countryside. His new-found leisure time coincided with his father's days off from work, and they had scheduled such an outing to commemorate and enjoy themselves.
The ground met his feet, a spring in his step and his backpack bouncing in tandem, as he carried along. A light buzz diffused through his head, irking him slightly, but it was most probably benign. Thoughts of the upcoming venture washed away these worries, draining away all this angst and delivering the young man a jovial—
"‒..."
While continuing along the road, Subaru noticed a queer impression within an alleyway between two businesses.
Upon more scrutinous inspection from afar, he noticed a distinctly humane silhouette ranking above the boxy contours of a large bin. He halted, and considered it.
He rubbed away the weariness decorating his vision, and squinted at the indistinct mass. Peering through the darkness, there was in fact not much to see. A light orange glow shone over the streets, but the shade between the buildings was largely unperturbed.
With the Sun dangling just above the horizon, evening gloom and sparkle illuminated the environment within visible parameters, but left the crevices and creases betwixt the structures impercept—
"...wahh."
A pale appendage drooped over the side of the box, a stark contrast to the shade previously occupying Subaru's sight. Faint cries, seemingly imaginary, emanated from the container, riding the wind and lazily entering his ears, making the hairs stand on end.
"Is that... an arm?" he whispered, the words leaving his mouth dry and hoarse, before being carried away by the breeze.
He whipped around, shifting his sight from side-to-side. No-one else was out at this hour, either having arrived from work already or having gone inside for dinner. Gale force winds suffocated any sound mustered in the otherwise silent area. There were not even any elderly poking their noses through their window curtains, from what he could see ‒ the street was totally abandoned.
Perfect for a murder.
"Agh!" Subaru furiously ruffled his already dishevelled hair. "Don't hype up something so benign, not everything is a murder!"
A thought arose, of a potential attempted murder, where someone's body was dumped into an almost-invisible alleyway during the evening. It bore resemblance to a light novel plot.
The chance of such a crime being perpetrated within his quiet town was infinitesimal; in fact, there were a myriad of more reasonable explanations for a human-shaped object to wind up in a desolate, inconspicuous, alleyway between two small businesses, with its corpse-like pallor and distinct stillness—
"It could be a sexdoll!" Subaru blurted out.
He nodded proudly.
"Yeah!" Subaru combed his hair back with a hand, everything suddenly beginning to make sense. "Some creep was trying to get rid of his stuff and just dumped it into the first bin he saw. Now I was the first one to see it on my way home, and I'm scarred for life?"
Muttering this, he trailed his gaze over the numerous shops lining the street. No residential buildings in sight. Would someone really go all this way to dump an embarrassing item?
"..."
And what would that noise have been, anyhow, which was reminiscent of muffled whining?
Subaru closed his eyes and stroked his chin, contemplating.
"...maybe it had built-up air in it?"
...
"Yeah, no. That's stupid."
He sighed and opened his eyes, staring once more at the bin situated away from direct sight. The arm drooped over the side, still.
His backpack was placed on the floor beside him. Inhaling, he patted his knees, readying himself.
"It's not like you're a hero or anything..." he scolded. "You could just walk away and pretend you didn't see anything."
He was but a man, strolling through the potholed road called 'life'. It would do no favours to get himself involved in something thrilling and novel.
...
"...but it also wouldn't hurt to make sure."
Briefly noting the lack of traffic on either side of the road, he cautiously strode forward, approaching the alleyway.
The vagueness of its appearance receded as he advanced, the light meeting his eyes and allowing him a better view of the area. The actual filth and stench of the bin and the surroundings assaulted him immediately after leaving the strong gusts from before. Subaru was careful to plug his nose and avoid wanton puddles of bin-juice beneath his feet.
Further in was the bin itself. He honed in on it and drew forward, able to analyse the limb from an even closer distance. It most definitely belonged to a human, as he could easily distinguish between flesh and silicone, even from this distance. The fact that it could actually be a cadaver in the container was finally realised fully, but he was too close to claim obliviousness if someone stumbled upon him now.
The cool air trapped between the two buildings and his intense mouth-breathing made his skin clammy with cold sweat, along with the fact that his plausible deniability was rapidly waning out of reality.
Two metres away, he—
"E-excuse me!" he warbled, trembling, fingers pinching his nose. "Are y-you a corpse?"
No response. A free hand reached out to poke the arm and check for liveliness. Slowly, he leaned forward, making contact with the limb—
"‒hk!"
Subaru choked on himself, reeling back in shock as the arm was snatched away.
He stumbled backwards, desperately attempting to avoid slipping in the muck on the ground. Flailing his arms around, he successfully latched on the wall. The gunk grabbed his shoes, stabilising him at the cost of a good pair of footwear.
His mind was racing. Whipping his head back to where the arm was, he saw the bin topple over, spilling its contents onto the ground. He yelped and backed away from the liquid filth being spewed. It surrounded him. Was this some sort of trap?! Did he get lured into a dingy alleyway so he would be murdered and dumped instead? And where did the arm even g—
His trembling vision settled on a pale woman before him, with absurdly long brown hair tied up in segments. It was too dark to see all her features, but he noticed a bright white gleam where her face should have been. She was smiling.
The woman hoisted her arms towards him, who was frightened and vulnerable. Was this the last thing he would see before death?
She leapt at him as a yelp once again escaped his hoarse throat. Fierce arms crushed him, embracing him and eliciting a—
"Master~!"
...
What Shaula first noticed was her sudden change of scenery.
"This isn't my room," she mused, scutinising the crinkly black sacks surrounding her.
She shifted around, as she normally does after awakening in strange places, and dully glanced to her side. Her new bed was a box of sorts, filled with the crinkly black sacks and their intolerable odour. Well, intolerable for most people. Shaula was accustomed to the taste of raw sewage in her own mouth, so putrid waste wasn't much of a challenge to her senses.
The sharp shards of glass and needles digging into her body were, though.
"Ouchie," she moved around more, ultimately introducing more pain to her exposed skin. "Yuckyuckyuck! Ow!"
Letting out small eeps at the fiery pricks stinging her vulnerable body, Shaula tried to assume a less excruciating position. The sacks provided friction and shuffled with her, driving their sharp edges further into her flesh.
She didn't particularly remember any rooms like this back in the tower, but she did recall her master describing something similar to these black sacks with pointy innards. Bin bags, he had muttered. Rubbish service, he had whined. Flugel had complained about the lack of appropriate waste disposal methods, resorting to the living incinerator that was Volcanica.
Shaula came to the conclusion that she had found herself inside one of these embin/ems. In Flugel terms, her situation could be described as most Papadopoulan.
"...wahh."
Shaula sighed dramatically, stretching her limbs and drooping an arm over the side of the bin after finding the least-painful position. She wondered who would go and throw Shaula into a wastebin. Reid was a possible candidate, but this wasn't his preferred method of torture, and he seemed a bit too dead to adequately prank her. Volcanica simply wasn't capable of such stealth, and was ruled out immediately.
Would her own master do this to her? He was awfully cruel, but he always had a reason for his shenanigans, as expected of her master, the Sage.
But she hadn't seen her master in four-hundred years. The notion of him doing such a thing to her before even properly reintroducing himself didn't sit well in her belly.
Then who would have done it? Who would be so cruel as to throw such an innocent Shaula into a box of waste?
"Satella," she muttered. "Or the Witch of Envy."
The half-elf was the likeliest source of Shaula's bin troubles. The most relevant factor in Shaula's conclusion was that she was capable of teleporting, and always had a jealous spot for Shaula in her heart! Satella was always envious of Shaula's perfect relationship with master, that she wanted in on! She did this! She dropped Shaula in a bin in some dingy place where she was far away from—
—her tower.
Shaula was not in her tower.
Shaula was not in her tower, the tower with which she was entrusted.
Shaula was not in her tower, the tower with which she was entrusted to protect and oversee by her master, Flugel.
Shaula had been told by her master, Flugel, to protect and oversee the tower.
Shaula was not in her tower.
Shaula was going against what Flugel had told her.
Shaula was—
"E-excuse me! Are y-you a corpse?"
Something called and interrupted her thoughts. Shaula froze.
She had been ordered to attack anyone approaching the tower. She was no longer in the tower. Was she still required to attack anyone?
Shaula drew all her limbs in ‒ eliciting a yelp from the something beside her ‒ and pushed against the black sacks beneath her. She leapt upwards slightly and leaned against the bin, toppling it and using the momentum to bring her body forward. Swinging her legs over the edge of the container, the ground soon met her feet.
The bin's contents pooled around her boots and approached the stumbling person before her. It was far too dark to make out any details, but her other senses were more than sufficient.
A single breath, a single whiff, was all she needed.
A sickly-sweet aroma, tickling her senses, far more cogent and salient than mere putrefaction.
A significant redolence, allowing her all she required, allowing her satisfaction.
It allowed her the knowledge she desired, for all these past four-hundred years.
The knowledge of‒
"Master~!"
She rushed forward, enveloping her master in a loving embrace. His thin arms and mobile body within her grip filled her with elation. Lifting and squeezing him after four-hundred years of separation was barely enough for Shaula, but she was content just to do this for now.
He was not.
"Euh!" he squealed. "Gah! Lemme go!"
Master's arms were stuck beneath Shaula's own, and he was trapped squirming in her grip. He protested this affection, to Shaula's disappointment and chagrin, and she dropped him.
"‒gah!"
He was dropped onto the filthy floor, staining his shoes and nearly slipping into the muck himself. Grabbing onto Shaula's arms, he stabilised himself once again.
Shaula grinned in the darkness.
"Je~ez, master! You tell Shaula to let go and immediately grab her again! You're so confusing!" she leaned forward and nuzzled his chest with her maculate forehead.
Master immediately released her arms and backed away. Shaula pouted as he shoved her head off his chest. Putting a hand to the chest, he breathed heavily and tried to calm himself. He was not succeeding.
"What's even going on?! I thought you were a corpse!" Master shoved a trembling finger in Shaula's face. She felt compelled to suck on it.
"Ha~ah? Shaula would never die on you, master! You still haven't told me that thing I most want to hear!" Shaula was the foremost expert of self-restraint, and settled for a mere licking of her lips and focussing her sight on the offending digit as it bounced around.
Master evidently noticed her predatory gaze and promptly retracted his hand from biting range. He still appeared discomforted.
"R-right, well, anyway..." he backed further away towards the wall before continuing. "Why are you here? It's nearly evening, shouldn't you be at home, instead of hanging out in bins in alleyways?"
Shaula felt her throat close. To this question, she simply didn't know how to respond adequately.
Master had asked her why she had abandoned the tower, which she hadn't done by choice. He was evidently confused about why she was here instead of obeying his order.
Shaula clenched her fists and tried to force a breath.
"A-are you alright...?"
She felt so so so ungrateful about ever considering that it was who master had put her in the bin. It was so so so wrong of her to allow herself to be whisked away in the first place. How could she ever apologise appropriately for abandoning the one task master had given her, all those four-hundred years ago? Not only that, she also went and hugged him with all of her bloody scratches and filth hugging her body, so just how could he—
"—forgive me!"
"‒ah?!"
Shaula's voice cracked as a sob broke through. Her hands hovered before master's body, before she recalled how disgusted he was at her touch. She pulled them back and wrung them together instead.
"Fo‒rgive me, mast‒er... I... hk... Shaula couldn't e‒even do the one thing master told her t‒to... and then she got kidnapped and lost and dropped in a bunch of black bags and then she got hurt and touched master and betrayed master because Shaula left her tower!" she spat it all out, increasing her velocity near the end.
"H-hey, now!" Shaula could see master's face become gripped with panic after her appeal. Shameless.
"All Shaula can do is beg for forgiveness from master and ask for no punishment! Shaula likes some punishments, but not all! Nononononono... please don't punish Shaula, even though she disobeyed!" she continued through the sob overtaking her throat, shutting her eyes and nearly kneeling on the ground.
...
"I, uh..."
Shaula felt a hand gingerly placed on her shoulder. She glanced up and stared at master through her saline vision.
"I-I'm sorry if I stepped on anything there," now he was apologising? Why would he apologise for Shaula's errors?
"Just forget what I said, okay?" he spread his arms in a placating gesture. "Y-you said you're lost...? Why don't you come with me until... until you gain your bearings again?"
Her face was drenched and burning, while her throat was throbbing with dry discomfort. She rose from her knees and took hold of master's hand.
"Y-you'll really let Shaula c-come with you, after she betrayed your trust...?"
Master gave what she supposed was a reassuring smile, "O-of course."
Shaula sprung up with joy. "Ya~ay!"
"Huh?!" master recoiled in surprise. "Was this all just a ploy to trick me into inviting you home?!"
Roughly nine-hundred to one-thousand murders are reported by Japanese police every year. Many murders are personally motivated, or are otherwise part of a larger massacre. Given the large population of Japan, exceeding one-hundred and twenty million, this is an exceptionally small number. Overall, most areas of the country can be considered safe, when reasonable precautions are taken.
Expectations of such a crime to be perpetrated within a relatively small town in the countryside would be met with incredulity.
"What kind of a corpse makes noise, anyway?"
"Oh-oh! Master! What'sthat! What'sthat!"
Subaru, a victim of his own exaggeration, walked alongside a rather eccentric woman while travelling home. She had foreign features, along with a decidedly unmodest way of dress, which would have rewarded her with judgemental glances were anyone out at this hour.
The woman, Shaula, appeared to genuinely be lost, and claimed to be kidnapped, which meant Subaru was at least partially correct in regards to her body not belonging in a bin.
"That is a tree."
"Oh-oh! And what's that!"
"That is also a tree."
Shaula excitedly pointed at and inquired about most of what she saw once they had entered the street. If Subaru didn't know any better, he would have assumed she was from some fantasy world where modern technology - or trees - didn't exist.
"So many trees?! Are you sure?" Shaula didn't seem to believe him.
"Of course I'm sure! What do you mean am I sure?! They're trees!"
What kind of person had never seen a tree before? Maybe she was just messing with him, but didn't believe she had that type of personality. He also didn't want to make such conclusions about a kidnapped woman who had begged him for help. Maybe she was from some desert country where deciduous trees were what one encountered during an intimate connection with hallucinogens.
"Saudi Arabia...? Now that would be even harder to believe."
From what he could tell, Shaula seemed more European than anything, which discredited the idea of her being some impossibly arid country. Most of her pinpricked body was exposed, with only tight shorts and a brassiere preventing her violating numerous public decency laws. So he found it difficult to consider that she would be from such a place, anyway.
"Especially with how you're hanging onto me!" Subaru flailed the arm Shaula had attached herself to. "Get off! People will think you're an escort!"
"But I am escorting you, master!" she protested with a pout.
"Don't say that ‒ people'll think I'm up to something lecherous! And call me Subaru! I don't have a domination kink either!" he flailed his arm even more, though his attempts were weighed down by his backpack.
He once again yanked on his arm, and found nothing latching onto it, sending him stumbling backwards with the unbalanced weight of his backpack. Shaula had released his arm and retreated some steps beside him.
"Alright... I'll stop touching you, m‒" she stopped herself, glancing away at the ground. "...Subaru."
Subaru had the distinct feeling he had made a mistake, but wasn't sure how to rectify it while exposed to the prying eyes of neighbourhood nannies. Taking note of Shaula's scrunched up face, he continued along the road.
"Anyway..." he announced tentatively. "We're nearing my house, so... behave yourself, I guess?"
Shaula nodded silently, kicking rocks along her stride and wobbling slightly. Subaru spared a glance at her, before scratching his head and sighing.
After too many minutes of this awkward ambulation, he noticed the doorway of his home, and shuffled closer to Shaula.
Before she could shuffle away from him in turn, he grabbed her bloodied hand and tugged her in his direction. Her eyes widened, but she didn't protest the action, and leaned into him as much as she could without direct contact between their shoulders.
"Anyway, we need to get our‒your story straight," Subaru announced, fighting Shaula's attempts to swing their arms together. "How did you end up in that bin?"
His attempts were futile, as Shaula succeeded in swinging their arms at least once during their gait. She stuck her tongue out at him.
"I to~old you, I was kidnapped," she stated this as if it happened regularly. "I bet it was Satella, or the Witch of Envy‒ you know how she is when she sees us together, even if she was sealed away hundreds of years ago~o."
She used her free arm to gesticulate appropriately. Subaru simply shook his head.
"Now, you see‒ that's the problem, there," Subaru poked her forehead to ensure her attention. Shaula hungrily eyed the finger. "I can't let my parents think I brought a mentally-deranged person home."
They stopped before the door to the Natsuki household as Subaru planned her introduction. He gently released her hand, to little protest. Stepping back, he placed his backpack on the floor beside him, and looked her over in the evening light. Ignoring the puppy-dog eyes overwhelming all other details on her face, she was injured all over her skin, with scratches and pinpricks lining her exposed torso.
With the intense wind washing away any pungent odours, it was difficult to recognise the distinct smell adorning her, but he predicted that once she entered the house it would spread and become fatally apparent. The stench was even more intense in the shelter of the house's porch area.
"But ma~ster, I‒"
"‒And there's the other problem," he interjected, poking the pouting Shaula on the nose this time. "Call me by my name, Subaru."
Shaula threw her arms up in defeat, "Fi~ine."
Subaru took a step back, entering the standard thinking pose in an attempt to devise some sort of a plan for the immediate future.
"You definitely need a bath, and then we can get bandages or something for those wounds... ah, how would I explain the situation to mom and dad thou‒?"
Near the end of Subaru's muttering, Shaula whipped her head towards the door, which had slammed open and—
"‒Father Ground-Tackle"
"‒gah!"
A large mass emerged from the doorway, crashing into Subaru and pinning him down. His lungs were crushed against his ribs and he was forced to exhale. The taste of dirt met his open mouth as his face met the ground. Subaru painfully rotated his neck to glance behind him. Milliseconds after this rapid shock to the system, pain set in, and he fully recognised out of the corner of his eye what was pinning him down.
"‒da...uh."
"That's right!"
Kenichi Natsuki flashed a grin, victory plainly adorning his face. He had Subaru's arms beneath him in his powerful grip, woefully unprepared for the sudden assault from his own father. The son appeared to have no prospects of countering.
"You've gotten rusty, kiddo! Is this really all it takes for an old man like me to‒" Kenichi's eyes widened and were overcome with terror. "‒woah!"
"Shaula Recover Assist!"
Subaru felt the weight crushing his body disappear, as his father yelped above him. His arms were liberated, and in this moment of respite he shoved against the ground and stumbled onto his feet.
What he met was unexplainable.
"Shaula wins once again!"
In the position Subaru had occupied seconds before was his father, arms pinned down by Shaula and muttering owowowow.
Subaru was speechless at the sight of his father being overpowered by a woman with such tiny arms. He wondered how such a diminutive individual could even bend a limb of the wall that was Kenichi Natsuki. Then Subaru recalled how Shaula knocked over a bin containing multiple tonnes of rubbish with just a shove, and it became much easier to conceptualise.
"Shaula!" he squeaked. "Don't hurt him!"
Subaru scolded her for rescuing him from his father's inescapable grapple. Shaula merely giggled and lay atop Kenichi victoriously, who still attempted to struggle against his opponent ‒ in vain.
"I'd never hurt him, ma‒" Shaula cut herself off. "Subaru. We're just playing!"
"Don't worry about me, kiddo!" Kenichi assured him from beneath his subjugator. "As if a little grappling is enough to stop me...!"
Kenichi took this moment to rotate his body and attempt to toss Shaula off. He did not succeed, instead further entrenching himself within defeat.
"See?!" Shaula announced triumphantly, straddling the middle-aged man. "Scorpions playsting each other all the time!"
"Neither of you are scorpions!" Subaru cried. "And I don't think they do?!"
Shaula rolled her eyes at his antics, and unmounted his father. Subaru went into aid his father, but recognised the glint in his eye, and hesitated.
A whisper of a smirk crossed the prone Kenichi's face, before being replaced with faux-crushedness, "What, Subaru, aren't you going to help your old man up?"
"After having that done to me for standing near the door, I think I'll take caution when around you, thanks!" Subaru stood well out of grabbing range, exercising his sense of self-preservation.
Kenichi rose from the ground, a hand to his heart and a tear in his eye. "Ah... where's your sense of filial piety, Subaru?" he sniffled. "You didn't even tell us you were bringing a girl home, ah..."
He seemingly immediately recovered from his grief, teleporting beside Subaru.
"‒wah?!"
A fierce hand patted Subaru on the shoulder. Kenichi grinned proudly beside him, while Subaru recovered from the instantaneous movement of his father seconds earlier.
"How did you‒"
"And she even managed to best your old man to save you, Subaru!" Kenichi interrupted with a guffaw. "You've found quite a catch ‒ what's her name?"
"Shaula!" Shaula answered before the stunned young man could. "I'm ma‒ Subaru's best girl!"
Kenichi grinned even more proudly. He approached Shaula and offered a hand, "Well, Shaula, it's a pleasure to meet you!"
Shaula took his hand and shook him up and down, "Of course it is!"
He looked perplexed for only a second, before his smile returned and he ushered Shaula towards the doorway, "Come in, come in! We'd be welcome to have a‒"
Kenichi glanced at his scowling son.
"‒friend of Subaru's over!"
Shaula offered no resistance and eagerly entered the doorway, freeing herself from the intense wind outside. Kenichi's smile faltered slightly as he wrinkled his nose. He backed away from the door back to Subaru, who slung his backpack over his shoulder once again.
"Where did you say you met her?" Kenichi whispered.
"I didn't," Subaru shrugged. "And I found her lying in a box of rubbish."
Kenichi slapped his knee and chuckled, as any father would at such a great joke from their son. Wiping another tear from his eye, he glanced at Subaru.
He did not seem to be having any sort of jest.
Shaula marched forward into the house, leaving the disbelieving Kenichi and grumbling Subaru behind. What she noticed immediately was the intense scent of her master wafting throughout the entire building. She didn't quite understand how his home could smell this much more intense than himself, and she eyed the decorations suspiciously.
Her vision trailed over and scrutinised wooden cupboards, ceramic vases, and of course the glass windows gleaming with evening light. A single thought surfaced within the young woman's mind after properly analysing the interior of the building.
"Everything is so breakable!" she announced joyfully, extending her arms and striking a pose.
"Yes, I suppose it is."
Shaula exited her joy and faced the source of the voice. A shortish woman with tied-up brown hair and an apron approached her, hands behind her back. Advancing until there was only a metre between them, she stopped and tilted her head.
"You're hurt," the woman said, ruffling her eyebrows, scanning Shaula up and down. "And dirty."
"An astute observation, random lady!" Shaula graciously offered a thumbs-up and a grin.
The woman nodded thoughtfully, "I see, I see..."
She took Shaula's lovely, bloodied hands, in her own smooth ones, and tugged on them gently, "Come along, the bathroom's this way."
Hehee... the people in master's house are very nice, Shaula announced to the amphitheatre known as her brain. I wonder what she means by that, though.
Shaula was led around a corner, where she spotted a larger room with many chairs, and a table in the middle. There was a large black screen sitting on a chest of drawers, with an even larger version beside it. A 'tree' occupied the corner, in small pot.
"I also wonder how they grow so thin."
Shaula had paused in the room, as had her guide. They were both staring at the plant in the corner, though probably for different reasons. The woman's eyes trailed to Shaula's waist, which was bare with dried blood and mysterious juices.
"You're also very thin," she stated, ignoring all other things afflicting Shaula's body. "Have you eaten?"
This caused a halt in Shaula's thoughts. When was the last time she ate?
Remembering what you ate for lunch was notoriously a difficult task to accomplish, and Shaula wasn't exactly known for her perfect recall. Nevertheless, she was able to tell how hungry she was ‒ very.
"I dunno," Shaula caressed her chin for effect. "I think the last time I ate was a day or two ago."
Her guided ruffled her eyebrows, "That's not what I asked."
Before Shaula could respond in agreement, the woman took her hands and continued leading her along. "After you bath and apply plasters,you can join us for dinner."
They continued their gait, and Shaula noted a door at the end of a hallway. She assumed that room would be where she was 'bathe'. She still didn't know the name of her guide.
"Who are you?" Shaula blurted out.
They stopped at the door, and the woman turned around to give Shaula a smile. "I'm Natsuki Naoko, who are you?"
"I'm Shaula!" she grinned.
"It's a pleasure to have you, Shaula," Naoko released her hand, to Shaula's disappointment. She opened the door and left it ajar. "Feel free to refreshen yourself in here, and make yourself at home."
Shaula blushed, and felt butterflies in her tummy. As Naoko, strode away, she looked to the floor and formed a hearty, toothy, grin, for what must have been the first time in four-hundred years.
"I will."
"Did mom just take Shaula?"
Subaru peered through the doorway and ambled through the foyer, finding himself in the kitchen.
"I didn't even introduce her yet?!"
Subaru had become thoroughly doused with consternation over the past hour, from his discovery of the Woman of the Bin to his introduction of her in the Natsuki household. While he was sure Shaula was mostly harmless, he wasn't too certain of her being able to take care of herself, considering the state she was in.
"She's just gone into the bathroom."
Naoko half-rounded the corner into the kitchen, leaning across the wall and meeting Subaru's eye. She tilted her head, "And welcome home, Subaru."
Subaru sighed, "I'm glad to back, it's just..."
He gestured to the direction of the bathroom, which Shaula presumably inhabited. Naoko stared at him for a moment, opening her mouth to speak,while Subaru heard steps behind him.
"I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, Subaru," Kenichi announced upon his entrance to the kitchen. "She seems like a fine young lady who can take care of herself."
"Eh... I'm not so sure about that," Subaru muttered. There were more than a few examples of Shaula's... instability during the past hour. He wasn't even sure she knew how to use taps in the bathroom properly.
Subaru had turned to Kenichi during his statement,rubbing the back of his head. Seemingly ignoring what Subaru just muttered, he drew forward into the kitchen and sat in one of the dinner table's chairs. Facing his son, he placed his thumb and index finger under his chin, in the classic intellectual pose.
"Which brings forth the question," Kenichi smirked, a glint in his eye. "Just where did you meet this Shaula, and why are we only hearing about her now?"
Naoko, still leaning slightly across the corner, raised a hand, "I would also like to know, Subaru. She had a lot of wounds. Where did you find her?"
Kenichi's eyes widened, dropping his playful demeanour. "Wounds?"
"Mhm," Naoko nodded. "She had plenty, and she was dressed very lightly. Didn't you notice?"
Kenichi shook his head in disbelief. He was probably too preoccupied with the fact that Subaru had brought someone ‒ especially a woman ‒ home to notice any superfluous details like that.
Subaru slung his backpack off and leaned it against the wall, sighing. He pulled a chair out from the table, intending to sit down and relax.
"As I told dad already," he met Naoko's gaze. "I found her lying in a bin in some dingy alleyway. She seemed lost, and she was hurt, so I brought her home."
It had only just dawned on Subaru that he had brought a mentally-unstable, possibly-trafficked woman into the house without notifying either of his parents.
He blushed and sputtered, flicking his eyes between both Kenichi and Naoko, "A‒ah, if th‒at's fine with both of you...?"
Subaru's parent's met eachothers' gaze, and‒
"EEEEEEEEEH!?"
"‒?!"
Subaru shot to his feet, the chair screeching as its legs dug across the floor. That high-pitched scream came from the bathroom. Not only did it come from where Shaula was, it also sounded exactly like her.
His feet met the floor in his stride and he bounded towards the end of the hallway. Within seconds, his fingers met the door's indentation, and—
"‒Subaru!"
—he slammed it open, entering the bathroom.
What could have happened? His eyes scanned the bathroom, passing over discarded clothingon the floor, the numerous tiles lining the floor, before finally settling on the source of the noise.
"Owowowowowowow!"
Shaula flailed the showerhead in a panic, splashing herself with steaming hot water, as well as the rest of the room.
"Stop waving it around like that!" Subaru yelled. "You're just going to get more on yourself!"
Subaru tentatively inched along the drenched floor toward the shower with an arm shielding his face, soaking his socks and burning his bare skin. He was careful not to slip as he approached, shuffling his soles across the tiles.
Reaching the shower, he reached past the flailing Shaula and slammed down on the tap. The steaming water battering down on them immediately ceased, and the only threat to Subaru's health was the Shaula flailing the showerhead around.
"Subaru~"
Or rather, that was the thought.
Subaru froze, and he slowly turned his gaze to his side. There, he met a predatory gaze, with green irises and three red pupils. Long, undone brown hair flowed around her neck, and a massive grin decorated her countenance. Shaula leaned her face towards his.
"Ehm‒" Subaru choked on his throat. "You turned it too far to the hot side... you need to put it in the middle..."
"Mhm."
Shaula'sface did not remove itself from Subaru's personal space, and Subaru tried to glance anywhere that wasn't her hungry eyes. This was a mistake, as he recalled just exactly what Shaula was doing in the shower.
"UH!" Subaru yelped, covering his eyes and immediately retreating from the shower. "ANYWAY. YOU'VE GOT IT NOW. I'LL LEAVE THE REST TO YOU. SEE YOU. BYE."
And he ran.
Shaula frowned as she watched him rush out of the room, slamming the door on his way out.
She heeded his advice and turned the shower tap near the middle. The tolerably warm water caressed her skin and wiped it of all the dirt she had acquired, as well as stinging her minor wounds.
"And after all that... jeez, master is really hard work," Shaula muttered. "Or Subaru. Master said to call him Subaru. Do I have to call him Subaru when I'm alone? Hm."
She waved the showerhead around, directing the pressurised water all over her body. It was a strange feeling, and it tickled slightly.
"The people in... Subaru's house are nice. That guy that grabbed him was kind of big, and that lady made me..." Shaula rubbed a hand over her chest."Heehee... they're much sweeter than him. Do they balance out for all his cruelty?!"
While Shaula mused to herself in the shower, she heard yelling through the evidently acoustic walls.
"Don't act like I did something romantic! I was just helping her fix the water temperature!"
Shaula put an ear to the wall and listened for the frustrated vibrations.
"It's not the type of thing to cry fatherly tears about! It's not the type of thing to do anything about, because it isn't anything!"
"..."
"The mood is light enough, thanks! And I don't know how..."
The yelling unfortunately subsided, and Shaula was no longer able to hear any of it. She solemnly withdrew from the wall and continued with her pressurised water sprayer.
When she was squeaky clean and all was done, she exited the shower and rubbed herself dry with the fluffy thing she could only assume was meant to dry her.
When she went to exit the bathroom, she was faced with a conundrum. That conundrum being her naked body in the mirror. She vaguely remembered Subaru mentioning something about public decency and how she mustn't waltz about in her favourite outfit, but she couldn't remember how recent that was ‒ whether it was forty minutes ago or four hundred years ago.
She glanced around the room. There was barely anything in it, save the shower at the far end and her dirty clothes she had discarded. Putting on crummy clothes just after cleaning herself wasn't exactly appealing, but she couldn't think of any alternative. Shaula may have been great at causing problems, but solving them was not her speciality.
Seconds away from picking up her shorts and boots ‒ which she had not taken off before entering the house ‒ she heard a knock on the door, and witnessed it slide open.
"I thought you might need these," Naoko announced, standing in the doorway and presenting a small pile of fluffy clothing. "They don't fit me anymore, but I couldn't find any motivation to throw them away."
Shaula stared at the pile in awe, both in awe of the clothing itself and the person-living-in-master's-house's generosity. She approached the doorway to accept the divine garments.
"What the‒!"
Shaula glanced over Naoko's shoulder and saw Subaru in the distance. He could evidently see her as well, with how his face rapidly grew beet-red and he retreated from sight.
Naoko merely smiled as if she hadn't noticed.
Shaula met her sharp brown eyes and squeezed the clothing against her chest.
"Thank you, Naoko."
Naoko once again merely smiled in response, as did Shaula.
"So, Shaula, where are you from?"
After entering her comfy clothing and having Naoko help her with plasters and small bandages, Shaula made her way to the dinner table in the kitchen. She purposefully sat beside the searingly discomforted Subaru, who sported massive blushes on both cheeks.
Kenichi had asked her this question, sitting alone across the table from the pair while Naoko prepared dinner.
"Huh?" Shaula tilted her head, trying to lean onto Subaru's shoulder. "I'm from Lugunica. Didn't... Subaru, tell you about this?"
The man in question leaned in the opposite direction, "I didn't know anything about you before today."
Shaula continued leaning over her chair towards Subaru, "Ah... he's always forgetting stuff. Did you hit your head on the toilet seat again, Subaru?"
"Now what is that supposed to‒ uwah!"
Subaru had leaned too far away from Shaula, and had fallen off his chair, earning him pain as his shoulder met the floor.
"Gah!"
Shaula crawled over the chairs and smirked at her dethroned master, "You know, Subaru, maybe this is an allegory, for how you mustn't avoid me, or you'll suffer."
"What a strange curse thrown unto me!" Subaru grimaced and rose from the ground, leaning away from Shaula and choosing to stand until she returned to her seat.
"Ahem."
Both perpetrator and victim glanced towards the table's other end, where their eyes met an amused Mr. Natsuki.
"This is endearing, but I feel we're leaving the topic," Kenichi turned to Shaula. "Shaula, where is Lugunica?"
Shaula scrunched her face up, perplexed. She abandoned her crawling and returned to her chair, as did Subaru.
"Master would be much better at explaining this, but he's pretending not to know me..." Shaula muttered, glancing down at the table. "Eh~, this is annoying."
"Erm," she hummed. "It's a... country in the east? That made a pact with Volcanica? Though I don't know why they would do that, since Volcanica is a hu~uge meanie..."
"Shaula," Subaru interrupted, his eyes furrowing. "Do you know where you are?"
Shaula tilted her head, "Your house?"
Subaru scoffed, "Being smart doesn't suit you, y'know!"
Shaula stuck her tongue out at him. "Bleh, mast‒ Subaru's always such a meanie."
She managed to end her gaffe before it finished, stopping herself from calling Subaru the forbidden 'm' word.
"You're in Honshu, Japan, in our wonderful little town," Kenichi added with a finger raised. "Ever heard of it?"
"Hm."
Shaula hummed, ruffling her eyebrows. She'd heard of Japan from her master in the past, but it wasn't as if she had ever visited the place, or been given any relevant information about it. A distinct memory involving her master mentioning 'geisha girls' surfaced, but her knowledge halted there.
"Yes, but not really," she admitted. "Nothing beyond prostitution."
"Which is weird," Subaru muttered. "Because your Japanese is flawless."
"Haaah?!"
"Maybe not! Jeez!"
Subaru threw his hands up in defeat. Shaula chuckled at his antics, and noticed Naoko approaching the dinner table with plates in her hands. She appropriately leaned over the table and gazed upon the dishes like a belly rumbled in turn.
"Oh, Shaula," Naoko uttered, as if she'd just remembered something. "Do you have any allergies?"
Naoko stood over the table, plates balancing in her hand. It took all of Shaula's willpower to refrain from snatching them out of the air.
"Uh," Shaula mumbled. Did she have any allergies? Truthfully, Shaula never had such a varied diet for such things to matter. Four hundred years of eating foul mabeast meat had mangled her sense of taste, so she was willing to eat pretty much anything that didn't come from wailing armed horses. Not to mention the fact that she hadn't eaten in more than a day, which her stomach constantly reminded her of ever since Naoko had asked her the question. "No."
Naoko narrowed her eyes at the young woman vibrating from excitement, but placed a plate before her nonetheless.
Shaula practically shook the table with her infectious fervour. She hungrily eyed the food on the plate, which happened to be some sort of sticky white grain, and the remains of some aquatic animal.
"It's fish," Subaru explained from beside her.
She whipped towards him in shock. "What's fish?"
"Are you really from some desert?!"
Subaru seemed to be reaching a new level of disbelief every time Shaula opened her mouth. Shaula wished she could show him a new type of disbelief the next time she opened her mouth, but this was neither the time nor place.
She stuck her tongue out at him while Naoko handed out the other plates. They all waited for Naoko to sit down before picking up their utensils.
"They remind me too much of that creep..." Shaula frowned.
The thin wooden sticks dredged up unsavoury memories of a red-headed man and his incessant perversion, which were both things she would rather ignore entirely.
"Are you used to Western utensils?"
Seeing Shaula's hesitation to pick up the chopsticks, Subaru asked her this question. She wasn't sure what cardinal directions had to do with kitchenware, but she didn't want to use the sticks she was too accustomed to seeing swung at her. Nodding, Subaru offered her some more familiar eating weapons.
"Ah, yes!" Shaula cried victoriously. "The spoon has never failed me in my exploits against hunger!"
As Shaula raised her spoon to impale the dish—
"Before you do that, Shaula!"
Shaula halted mid-swing at Kenichi's exclamation. Once he had her attention, he smirked and gave her a thumbs-up. "First, we have to say 'thanks for the meal'!"
"Oh!" Shaula didn't appreciate these obstacles preventing her from devouring her corner of the table, but she relented. "Alright."
"Thanks for the meal!" Shaula proclaimed to no-one in particular, but facing Naoko in particular.
"Oh, I forgot," Naoko uttered, a hand to her cheek. She left the table swiftly, withdrawing into the kitchen.
"Oh no," Subaru muttered, sweat dropping down his face, which was scrunched up in panic. "I saw what she was making earlier."
Shaula wondered what could have her master in such a panic, but her speculations were abruptly ended with the introduction of a large bowl to the table.
"We can't have dinner without peas," Naoko announced joyfully.
Shaula saw both Subaru and Kenichi's souls exit their bodies at the sight of the bowl, but Shaula simply couldn't relate, as she didn't understand the sentiment.
"I don't think those peas are going to be eaten this dinner..." Subaru muttered.
"Subaru, I believe we've been over this..." Kenichi muttered weakly. "If we simply make it into a pi‒"
"The root problem here is making peas when no-one here wants to eat them!" Subaru stood and screeched, pointing at the bowl. "This was never going to make anyone happy!"
Naoko tilted her head, "Well,I don't like peas, or anything small and I think you should try new things, Subaru, and be less picky."
"You can't say those two sentences in the same breath so casually!"
Subaru grimaced at the thought of consuming the peas, while Kenichi cowered behind his clasped hands. Naoko seemed disappointed that her effort had gone to waste.
"I'll take them."
The entire Natsuki household recoiled at this offer ‒ no ‒ and Kenichi looked over at Shaula in awe and pity, while Naoko smiled and slid the bowl across to Shaula.
She studied the small green balls, before tentatively digging her spoon in.
Why were they so against the peas? Shaula could hardly expect them to be poisoned, and they seemed ripe enough, for the woman who hadn't any fresh fruit in centuries.
While Subaru and Kenichi canonised Shaula for her suffering for the sake of the family, Shaula took a spoonful of the peas and settled them in her mouth.
She took one bite, slipping the spoon out of her mouth. Swallowing, one bite became two, became three, became five, became ten, became twenty. Soon, one bite eliminated every pea in the bowl.
"She... she actually did it."
Kenichi and Subaru faced eachother after the former's proclamation. They exhibited both a sense of relief at not being forced to eat the peas, as well as a distinct fear of the insurmountable creature that Shaula evidently was.
Naoko addressed the yet-hungry Shaula proudly, "Well, it seems that you really liked the peas. I suppose I'll have to buy more for the others."
Shaula gave a bandaged thumbs-up as she shifted her focus to the rice and fish on her plate, while Kenichi and Subaru silently accepted their brutal fate.
"Subaru, that brings us to our plans for the next week."
Subaru lifted his gaze from the plate before him, and addressed Kenichi.
"Oh, yeah," he nodded. "I've had everything packed for a while, so you don't have to worry about my side."
Kenichi nodded in turn, before shaking his head. "I was referring more to her," he pointed at Shaula with a flick of his head.
Subaru blinked. What was his father suggesting? "...what about her?"
Naoko interjected, "Why don't we bring Shaula with us?"
Subaru's eyes widened, and coughed on his food slightly. Shaula tilted her head, having finished her food long ago, and simply listening in. "Bring me? Where are we going?"
"Shouldn't we file a report with the police?" Subaru reasoned. "She's probably a missing persons case or something."
"I'm not missing! You found me!"
Subaru ignored Shaula's interjections, trying to gauge both of his parents' seemingly willing expressions. "Are you serious? You want to bring her with us?"
"It would be fun to bring her camping," Naoko explained. "Besides, she seems rather attached to you. Who else would take care of her?"
"Now, I know that's not a great reason, but I don't know enough to refute it..."
It was true that Shaula seemed most attached to Subaru for some esoteric reason, but he wasn't quite sure bringing her along a family trip was the best course of action for someone so clearly the other hand, would giving her to the police really help? She kept naming fictional countries and dragons, and was evidently a type of mentally... divergent. The police might dismiss her as insane and put her in an asylum.
"Hm..."
"Think about it, Subaru!" Kenichi leaned forward and smiled cordially. "I know it would be boring just hanging out with your folks all day ‒ wouldn't it be fun to have a friend your age on the trip?"
"I certainly don't know what you think of our relationship, but it's certainly not as you think!"
Subaru calmed down and sighed, caressing his forehead. "But I mean... I guess so? We'd have to ask her."
The family turned to Shaula, who appeared simply confused.
Shaula tilted her head, "What's camping?"
They passed glances among themselves, before Kenichi bellowed an ohoho, readjusting his glasses and addressing her.
"It's a week out in the wilderness, where the only things we can trust are eachother and the laws of the wild!" Kenichi advertised the concept, gesticulating excessively. "Away from civilisation, the primaeval forests and plains are where our true natures blossom and bear sickly-sweet fruit?"
"Or," Naoko offered, serenely. "We spend a few days in a well-insulated hotel near a camping site."
"That second one is more likely," Subaru added.
Shaula seemed to consider it. She put down the spoon that was still in her hand for whatever reason, and stared at the table, displaying a rare operation of intense thought.
"A week out in the wilderness with Subaru?" she muttered, a hand to her chin.
"I think you've ignored everything after what dad said."
"Hehe... I can't think of anything better!" Shaula grinned, hugging her fluffily-clad body. "Of course I'll come!"
AN: Apologies, the formatting was being weird and everything was italicised, so I just unitalicised everything and fixed the errors where I saw them. There might have been some I missed. I recommend reading the Ao3 version anyhow.
My proofreader informs me that some may not get the Papadopoulan reference. It's a reference to Trials of Apollo, where Lester Papadopoulos (Apollo) starts the book by landing in a dumpster. You can see how it is relevant, I hope :).
The next chapter will contain the camping, and subsequently the most heavily concentrated amount of fluff.