Thank you for reading!
This was just a stupid children's book, so why did Ephemer feel so attached to it? The Raspberry Princess and the Snow Prince. The pictures were rather decent, he'd give it that, but the story? Super cliché. It was all about this particularly stubborn princess that resided in a kingdom nearly overrun by raspberry fields. Then in comes a prince that was able to control snow. He and the raspberry princess constantly butted heads on various topics- mostly about the raspberry fields surrounding her kingdom. Despite this, they slowly started to become friends. When the snow prince had to leave, the duo parted with tears.
It was really stupid.
And yet, Ephemer kinda understood why Anora had given it to him. The snow prince and the raspberry princess were able to be friends while there were so many things they disagreed on. Even if the book was ambiguous on whether the prince and princess would be able to meet in the future, their bittersweet partings were illustrated to look hopeful. It reminded Ephemer a lot of how he and Anora parted before she went off to spend the holidays with her family.
He should have been the one to go home with her. He then shook his head. He didn't deserve to meet Anora's family after what he's done to her. Not that he really knew what he did to her. For the few months they were together, Ephemer just wanted to see Anora smile. Was that such a selfish want? Anora would have said something if she didn't want to go out with him, right?
But then again, Anora didn't really speak more than three words to him until the formal. Maybe he had been pushing her a bit out of her comfort zone. He could faintly remember -or maybe imagine- that every time he took her to a nice outdoor restaurant, she shrunk a little when too many people would crowd in close to them. He had to tell the waiter their order because Anora would suddenly decide that her voice didn't exist. The only way she chose to communicate were through delightful bobs and shakes of her head. Adorable as Ephemer found it, he was sadly coming to the realization that it had been a sign of distress.
Anora was… a friend. He wanted her to be a friend above all else. But not as another Skuld. He only had room for one smart mouthed best friend, thank you. No, Ephemer wanted Anora to be an even deeper friend than Skuld. He wanted to be able to go to her if something was wrong and just vent. They'd go somewhere just so they could smile so wide and for so long that their faces hurt. Saying he wanted to grow old with her was a bit too drastic to say right now, but the idea was becoming more appealing the longer he thought about it.
What would Anora look like as she got older? What would he look like when he got older? Would they find out together? Maybe even happily pointing out each new wrinkle with each other? Thinking about it put an awful pit in his stomach.
"Why you lookin' so sad?" a voice in front of Ephemer piped up.
Ephemer snapped out of his thoughts when he saw Ms. April's daughter, Annie standing rather close to him. The 12 year old was wearing a baseball cap to keep some of her frizzy hair out of her face. Or tried to, if the baseball cap didn't look like it was about to pop off her head the moment she turned it too quickly. She had one eyebrow cocked at him in a similar manner Ms. April did when some student tried to get out of drama class.
"No," Annie decided, "I take that back- why'd you look like you're about to puke? Did you have some sauerkraut? I hate that stuff."
"You wouldn't understand, pipsqueak." Ephemer mumbled as he looked away from her for a moment.
"Excuse you!" Annie huffed as she placed her hands on her hips. "That's Miss Pipsqueak to you!"
Ephemer couldn't help but look back at her and laugh. Annie was almost a mini April. It was rather hilarious the more he spent time thinking about it. He wondered how much of Ava he carried on. Maybe since he'd known them for so long, he carried traits from all the headmasters. Not that he'd be the one to know that.
"Do you mind if I sit with you?" Annie asked. "I'm trying to give Mom and Headmaster Aced some 'alone time.'" She made a point to emphasize the last two words with finger quotes. "And you're the only one from DBA that I trust."
"You don't have any friends?" Ephemer wondered, patting the spot beside him for her to sit.
"Oh, I do." she huffed as she took her spot. "But Mira is sitting with her family, and she's the only one I care about."
"I see." Ephemer chuckled. He waited for Annie to get situated before getting a bit more comfortable himself. He looked up at the night sky and let out a wistful sigh. "It's a nice night for some fireworks."
"Yep." came the absent little answer as Annie also looked up at the sky. She also let out a deep breath- hers sounded a bit more prudent. It didn't take long for her to wonder, "What'cha think stars are?"
"You've taken science classes." Ephemer snorted. "Most are literally just a collection of space dust and..."
"No, you dingus. In a metaphorical kinda way. What do you think stars are?"
At this, Ephemer reclined a little as he thought it over. The near full moon out almost made it impossible to really see the stars, even with every house and business in Departure County in a ceremonial black out.
"Different worlds." Ephemer decided. "Every star is a different world."
"What kinda worlds?" Annie asked him, rocking back and forth a little as she observed him.
"Dunno." Ephemer admitted. "Maybe a world where it's mostly desert with a single song that plays on a loop. Or maybe some coliseum high up in the sky where breaking pots counts as training for one on one fights."
"That's stupid."
Ephemer shrugged. "Never said all of them were nice." He looked over at Annie and smiled at her. "What do you think stars are?"
"I think they're the hearts of a bunch of people. And shooting stars? They're when someone's lost the love of their life because they died or something."
"That's kinda sad."
"Never said all of them were happy." she shot back, a wide grin etched on her face. Ephemer almost gave her a rather snide retort, but he was stopped by the first firework of the night going off. Both of them had jumped at the bang.
"Well," Ephemer sighed. "Only ten more minutes until the new year. Are you going to stand up for when they do the countdown?"
"Nope." Annie declared with a shake of her head. "Too lazy."
Ephemer chuckled a little before asking her, "You mind if I be lazy with you?"
"Not at all." she cheerfully agreed.
The two then went on to watch the rest of the fireworks show. Ephemer was the most impressed by the display, Annie was more surprised by the fireworks that let off louder bangs than others. When it came time for the countdown, the fireworks led the crowd into the last five seconds and went into a massive torrent of bursts that spelled out 'Happy New Year' to the occupants of Cable Town.
"This time next year, Mom and Headmaster Aced are going to be married." Annie thoughtfully said with a small click of her tongue. She turned to Ephemer with a little glint in her eyes. "Wanna help me?"
Ephemer looked back at Annie, lulling his head from side to side as he thought about it. "Only if you help me get Gula and Ava together." he decided with a nod.
Annie grinned. "It's a deal." she agreed before the two shared a fist bump.