Rogue Huntsman
Sentiment
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"Why are you still following me?" I grumbled, pushing a branch out of my way before letting it go.
A healthy snap cracked against my stalker's arm as she brushed the attack aside, stepping through the forest behind me.
"Because why not?" the brunette asked. Or rather, more formally, the firm ice cream in space believer.
"Not a real reason," I muttered, placing my gloved hand on the trunk of an old, tall tree to step over its root system. Seemed to have been around for just over three hundred years, given how it felt.
"Neither was yours when I asked you where you were going," Skyla chirped annoyingly, slipping around the other side of the tree to catch up to my side.
Couldn't the tree just reach out and slap her?
"I didn't give you an answer." I could hear the tree groaning too. We were all aggravated, it seemed.
"Exactly!" She exclaimed, pitched voice sounded more like a gunshot in the bristling forest. Harsher than the wind slipping through the canopy and its occupants.
Could've probably been heard for miles too, just like the concussive ring of an actual bullet.
"Where I'm going won't exactly be easy," I stated evenly, stealing the smallest of glances to see her face.
She had the stupidest grin when I looked at her.
And a stupid face.
"It'll be fun!" Another bullet in the form of her voice echoed through the trees. It was a damn good thing I wasn't trying to be unnoticed. "Come on, just you and me, this tree and that tree, we'll have so much fun! Where are we going anyway?"
"Somewhere between Mistral and Vale," I finally answered, giving her a dead, sour look.
Could you die please?
Maybe something would kill her on the way.
"Oooo, so what's out there?"
"Ask another question, and I'll happily throw you there so you can find out," I growled, taking another step forward to keep my pace through the forest grounds.
My only hope was the couple packs of Grimm rummaging about in the trees, trying to be stealthy in their prowls.
Not like somebody's piercing voice wasn't reaching them or anything.
"Oh oh, can you just throw me now then?" Skyla jumped up and down like a little kid in an ice cream factory, ready to be kicked to the moon.
I could do that.
But she wouldn't survive the kick.
It was horrendously inaccurate anyway. She'd probably miss the moon altogether and crash into some void of space to eat the asteroids of ice cream spinning around her.
After all, her confidence was easily large enough to make up for her gravitational lack of mass.
I needed to kill her.
But that was what she wanted…
"On second thought, it'd probably be better if I threw you the other way," I said, coming to a slow stop to look at her.
She was aerodynamic enough to make it over Vale.
Maybe hit Vacuo's desert region.
Now that I thought about it, that sounded like a great plan.
"Nah, I wanna come with you-" I cut her off by grabbing her arm and straight-tossing her backward, where we came.
That piercing voice laughed and giggled as she broke the sound barrier and crashed through the forest canopy above.
I even made sure to throw her through one of the tall trees reaching up there. Just for added effect.
"Don't come back…" The words were out of my mouth before I realized something small and annoying just landed safely on the ground about a mile away.
She really didn't know how to quit! And what knocked her out of the sky? A damn bird?!
I picked up the nearest stone and sent it through the same Skyla-shaped hole in the branches above, hearing the dull crack and thud of something very large and avian hitting the ground soon after.
She was either lucky or painfully determined.
My money was on the former. Because she was enjoying this.
"I'm back-!"
"No you're not." I grabbed Skyla's arm again just as she landed on her feet beside me, tossing her the same way again.
She hit another nevermore and came crashing back down.
I… Am going to kill. Whatever celestial entity. Is doing this.
"Again again!" the girl chirped, like the damn birds she'd been crashing into. And she had the nerve to hold up her arms and jump around me, again, like a school girl high on scooters and drugs.
"I'm not throwing you a third time," I growled in irritation, crushing the cloth of my glove into my hand as I finally got back on track and continued forward.
And yet, she still followed me. After all that.
"Am I annoying you?"
Do you even need to ask?
"I'm annoying you aren't I…?"
I was two steps away from tying her to the nearest tree then throwing that tree to Vacuo. At least then it wouldn't come back down if it hit something mid-flight.
She jumped back to my side and fell in line with my steps, trying to peer forward and up beneath the rim of my black hat. A wide smile twisted her lips, even a damn sparkle glistened in her eyes as she saw my scowl.
I guess some humans weren't born with the innate ability to recognize imminent death when they looked at it.
"Good," she chirped again, straightening back up to give me a smug, proud look.
What the hell did she mean by 'Good'?
There were Grimm three paces away that I was starting to plan feeding her to.
"That means you're human. Cause you're getting fed up with how I've been acting." Skyla's voice fell into a more even, consistent tone at that.
Losing its playfulness and innocence.
A damn liar with a face of a maskless clown.
"I never said I wasn't," I grumbled back, wondering if I could squeeze my hand around her neck to fit the slim thing entirely into my hand.
"But you never said you were, either," the brunette continued, lightly clasping her hands together behind her as she walked with more casual, but slightly accentuated strides. "Word has it that you might not even be human. People are even wondering where you came from, because some curious students have tried looking into each kingdom's hospital records to find your origin."
"And I care about this, why?" I asked, keeping my even pace as the Grimm ahead of us started to close in.
"You don't, but I did," Skyla responded, smiling curiously now as she dipped forward and ducked under a branch I tried snapping back at her. "It wouldn't have caught my interest if they actually came up with something. Like woo hoo, you were born in Vale. Yippity do. But apparently, they came up with nothing. Searched every database too."
"Not everything's digitally logged, you know," I replied, losing my grumble now in wake of a more even, but low tone.
You aren't some ace detective, so stop looking into it.
"So I started asking around, you know? Just visiting the hospitals in Vale to start," she continued.
My cold gaze caught sight of a flash of black fur ahead of us, a streak of molten red blazing behind its shrouded eye as it disappeared into the brush.
Skyla didn't seem to notice.
"Turns out, about 18 years ago," Skyla voiced again, incessant with its annoyingly calm tone, "one of the major hospitals was demolished due to a localize outbreak of an unknown plague. Swiftly took the lives of every worker, patient, and living being in the immediate area inside and around the building in a four block radius before dissipating into the air."
That's it. I snapped my glove forward and ripped the beowolf hiding in the brush ahead of us out of its cover with a burst of green strands, yanking it back toward Skyla's strolling frame.
But the poor furry projectile crashed into her distractedly rising palm before she redirected it into the ground, crushing its skull with a flick of the finger.
"I wasn't done yet," she said, holding up her finger as she continued walking and talking. "Anyway, what I was trying to say was-"
I threw another beowolf at her.
She crushed it into the nearest tree.
"-that the incident was recorded, and the death records-"
And another, only for that one to be impaled onto the nearest low-reaching branch.
"-of everyone who perished was logged."
She just wouldn't stop talking.
A pack of beowolves were next, strands yanking them in a claw-drawn cluster before slamming them toward the slimly built, slender girl walking behind me.
Every last one of them disintegrated before touching her.
That was the first time I saw her eyes glow with aura.
"The logged names wouldn't have been too important, really, but I stumbled across one name in specific," Skyla finished her little rant, and I was out of fleshy ammunition.
"There better be a point in all this," I stated darkly, eyeing her through the shadow of my cowboy hat as we resumed walking.
"Iridelia Alyra Ezdeil."
I stopped, and she stopped too.
It wasn't like I didn't see the name coming. I saw it hurtling toward me from a mile away in the form of a breakable human being.
But what I wasn't expecting… was for her to actually say it out loud.
I hadn't heard that name in over ten years.
The same name my father used to formulate the name Ahrulian. His sad excuse was that the glove needed a motherly touch, something to always keep nestled in the wielder's hand.
To guide it.
I forget the last time I took the glove off after donning it, now that I had a reason to wonder about that.
"That was her name, wasn't it…?" Skyla asked softly, peering up at me from the mildly close distance away she stood at. There wasn't even a root breaking out of the ground between us.
Just dirt and leaves.
"She had a pretty name," the girl continued, lowering her voice into a whisper now that the wind had died down to give way to silence. "I wish I'd met the woman it belonged to."
Yeah…
That makes two of us.
Too bad I'd never meet her, because wherever she went, I've already damned myself to rot in Hell.
"Curiosity can get you killed. I hope you know that," I responded, keeping my voice even in the dwindling silence of the forest as I brought myself to keep walking.
"Curiosity leads me to answers," Skyla retorted just as evenly, following alongside me again. "Even if those answers aren't the kind I'm looking for, but end up with."
"Happens more than you think," I muttered. My eyes finally caught signs of a clearing between the trees as I noticed a curtain of light in the distance.
A curtain of light, and a black, stone obelisk.
"Today's the anniversary of her death…" Skyla's soft voice spoke out again, her feet stopping just at the edge of the clearing as I made my way into it. "And your birthday."
Anoel hummed for a few long moments as she tapped the black encasement of her closed scroll, sitting leisurely at the breakfast bar.
Thinking.
A couple unread messages sat just inside it, having been sent to Niro's scroll.
She knew what today was, but he wasn't responding.
She'd officially been banned from cooking any kind of meal in the kitchen under Arex's strict orders, too. Not Ly's. Whom of which was mixing another drink by the counter in front of her.
Ano would've been on her scroll sifting through her network or at least messaging Niro if he responded, but she wanted to do something today to make up for a little of what happened and the stress she put Ly under.
If Niro was gone, like he always was at this time of year, she had the day to do it. Considering she had a small legion of her network running her errands for her regarding Quinn's family ties.
It could take them a couple hours to a couple days just to come back with the smallest piece of information.
Or none at all.
If that was the case, she'd have to go out herself.
Until then, the day was hers. But she didn't want to spend it like that.
"Hey, Ly?" Anoel asked idly, spinning her scroll in small circles in front of her.
"Hm?" the thief replied distractedly, shaking her drink mixer, before pouring it into a glass and going to take a sip.
"I was thinking…" Anoel started, resting her cheek in the palm of her hand as she tilted her head a little. It was more just to distract herself, really. "We've never really been on a proper date yet. Like a fancy dinner, or a dance, or something."
The info-broker glanced up to see Ly's face contort into a grimace, expressing her disgust at her experimental drink before immediately pouring the contents into the sink. Watered eyes turned her way a moment later as Ly faced her.
"T-That's a very good point…" the girl sputtered as she wiped her eyes, soon muttering under her breath. "Gods… that was awful…"
"Looked awful," Anoel commented distractedly, eyes sifting over the features of Ly's body and face before looking away. "I want to start making it up to you. And… I was thinking a nice dinner would be a good place to start. Since we've never done that before."
Ly's gaze grew thoughtful as she composed herself, turning to face Ano directly. "And I don't suppose you know how these dinners work, do you? Because I don't. I believe there's a lot more to just the uh… food."
Anoel's brow furrowed for a moment as she heard that. She didn't know how they worked either.
Or proper dates, for that matter.
"I think it's mostly about dressing up and enjoying each other's company, right?" Ano asked, bringing her gaze back to Lylac.
Ly nodded with a little smile. "Yeah, though… we could just wing it."
Ano quirked a delicate brow in face of the pun, eyes staring incredulously at Ly's face. "Did you do that on purpose?"
"No, but I'll take it anyway." Ly's smirk grew a little as she stared at Ano and shook her head.
The phoenix broke into a small smile of her own as she saw that. "Well, I'm happy to try to wing it then. You don't own a dress though… and neither do I."
Anoel's lips pursed pensively as she rested more heavily into her hand, tapping her fingers against her cheek.
"We can always go shopping for them," Ano offered.
"Only if we're buying them for each other," Ly replied, giving Ano a little narrow gaze. "I know for a fact that I'll buy something for myself thinking I like it, only for me to put it on and actually hate it."
Ano smirked a little at the idea. "I'm fine with that. I can find you something nice to wear."
"Then it's settled," Ly beamed, before her face immediately shifted into a deadpan. "No boots. If I have to suffer through wearing heels, you're suffering with me."
Anoel gaped at that. "I would never wear boots on a date," she almost sounded appalled at the very idea.
She would've. She hated heels.
But she caved to Lylac's stern gaze.
"Fine, I'll wear some fancy heels with you," Anoel muttered deflatedly, lowering her hands to the bar to push herself off her stool and onto her feet.
A dull ache shot through her legs for a moment, knees wobbling just slightly before she got ahold of her balance by grasping at the stool beside her. Ly removed her stitches this morning. So, at least she was healing.
"You ready?" Ano asked, acting as if she didn't just struggle to stand a moment before.
"Mhmm," Ly hummed as she tidied up the countertop, ditching the rest of her poorly made drink in the sink and washing out her mixer.
"Good. I'll throw on my boots," Anoel commented playfully, pushing away from the breakfast bar to head down the hall.
"Don't forget your walking stick, you cripple," Ly replied mockingly, grinning as she made her way out of the kitchen. "Wouldn't want you to fall over now, would we?"
Anoel chuckled amusedly at that as she bounced a hand off the wall, considering she just stumbled a little. "Don't worry, I won't forget it. You're coming with me, aren't you?"
Her voice turned playfully hurt as she glanced back at Ly, eyeing up her cute walking stick following her to their room.
"Without you, I wouldn't know what to do. Kinda hard when someone sweeps me off my feet like that," Ano commented with a coy smile.
"Without me, you'd be lonely," the thief replied as she followed close behind her. "And probably dead."
Anoel rolled her eyes at that as she strolled into the door to their bedroom. "5 years, and you're still as blunt as ever. But you're not wrong."
Ly's hand brushed against the small of Ano's back as she slipped past her. "When am I ever wrong?"
The fleeting touch brought a small arch out of Anoel's back, despite its soreness, before that playful heat slipped away. "Is that you saying you're always right?" Ano asked lightly, grabbing her boots to sit down on the bed.
Only to get an eyeful of her bare legs and thin shirt.
She sighed for a moment before setting the boots down and pushing herself back up, venturing into the closet after Ly.
She needed a quick change of clothes. She'd actually completely forgotten she was still in her pajamas for the day.
"I was right enough to always keep black shirts and jeans that fit you, if that's what you're asking," she simpered in return, looking over her shoulder to grin at the info-broker.
"I think it's just you being jealous and making sure I don't walk into town without any pants on," Anoel returned, stopping just inside the walk-in closet to see Ly turn and place a spare change of clothes into her hands. "Thank you. Just my size, too."
"That's because you don't ever put on weight," Ly countered. "A trait of yours that I actually admit to being jealous of."
Ano hummed bemusedly as Ly turned away, her hand sifting over the clothes hanging by the wall to find her own attire.
Anoel's own arms lightly wrapped around the thief from behind before the info-broker rested her chin over Ly's shoulder. "I'm not the one who can see through clothes. And I have to be light, or I wouldn't be able to fly."
Ly's hands rested on Anoel's arms. "Yeah, I know, flying is your form of getting high."
"Not my only form." Ano pressed a faint kiss to Ly's neck before nuzzling her.
She was content to stay like that for a few minutes, just holding Ly. But it was also a small way to keep her weight off her legs for a few moments.
Ly had to get her clothes though, so Anoel reluctantly starting slipping her arms away.
"I thought we were here to put clothes on, not take them off…" Ly muttered teasingly as she picked out her own attire.
"We're changing clothes, Lylac," Anoel pointed out, stepping back for a moment to look more closely at the articles Ly handed to her. "That involves taking clothes off first before putting others back on."
Ly frowned at her. "You gonna teach me to suck eggs next or are you done stating the obvious?"
"If you don't want me telling you what you already know, you shouldn't leave openings like that for me," Anoel teased, starting to tug at the hem of her shirt with sore arms. "You know I can't resist when you open yourself up like that."
A tiny sigh left Ly's mouth as she rolled her eyes, exiting the walk-in closet with her own change of clothes before laying them on the bed. "You win again, Ano…"
Anoel walked out after her, placing her own change of clothes on the corner of the bed before sliding her hands around Ly's waist to give her cheek a little peck. "I'm not counting that as a win. You just make it too easy sometimes. It almost sounds like you do it on purpose."
"Yeah yeah…" Ly rolled her eyes, but didn't try to escape from the close hold.
"I'll try to stop if you want me to," Anoel offered, flashing a cheeky smile as she craned her head back to look at Ly's face.
"I'm not asking you to stop, you'd be boring then," Ly replied simply, her little smile returning as she returned a chaste kiss Ano soon leaned in to give her. "We should get changed though."
"We should," Anoel agreed, her cheeky smile turning into a happy grin before she moved her hands down to take a gentle hold of the hem of Ly's nightshirt. After a little prod, Ly rolled her eyes again and let Ano take her shirt off for her.
Something she did to silently ask for the favor to be returned… considering she was still too stiff to do it herself.
"Gee, whatever would you do without me if you can't get your own arms over your head," Ly chided teasingly, helping Anoel out of her own shirt in return.
"I'd end up burning the shirt off at that point," Anoel returned, her enwrapped black wings shifting slightly in the open air of the room as she reached down to grab the shirt Ly gave her.
Her feathers layered together and flattened out when they were melded like this, but she'd be lying if there wasn't a little phoenix magic involved in getting them to the thickness of a skin-tight undershirt.
She liked to wrap them like a corset, as well. Something she taught Arex how to do.
It saved them from wearing bras with the tips of her wings acting as that chest support.
When she turned back, she found Ly's eyes roaming over her torso.
"What?" Ano asked, handing Ly the black shirt as she shifted her weight slightly.
"What's wrong, Ano? You know I can't resist when you open yourself up like that," Ly replied as her smirk turned coy.
Anoel's cheeks flared a little red at the return fire. "I deserved that."
Ly let the black shirt drop onto the foot of the bed as she pressed herself up against Ano. "And here I thought you were the dominant sister. Standing there flustered like a crushing schoolgirl..."
Ano's breath sputtered out in a broken reply as Ly's warm skin pressed against her, the arms wrapping around her back pulling them flush together. "W-Who ever s-said I was?"
Ly's smirk widened as her eyes fell into a half-lidded gaze. "It didn't have to be said, but your actions definitely portrayed it."
Anoel let her own gaze fall half-lidded as she wrapped her arms around the small of Ly's back.
"Maybe you're just seeing a new side of me, then," Anoel tried to offer, but she knew Ly could probably see through her.
"Amber eyes and a nervous disposition…" The thief replied slowly. "You've never been embarrassed about showing yourself to me before. So maybe I am seeing a different side."
Anoel drew her bottom lip between her teeth to bite it a little, drawing her bashful gaze back to meet with Ly's.
Ano knew why this felt so different. Before recently, she was always confident because she knew it didn't matter.
That they couldn't ever really be together.
But… now?
She wasn't so sure of that anymore.
And that scared her.
"Your sentiment is unwanted." My voice cut through the glimmering, natural-lit air of the small, homely clearing.
The smell of it was almost sickeningly sweet and fresh.
I was careful to avoid the clusters of colorful flowers growing there in the bright green grass, new colors appearing every year. The old ones all stuck around to keep it vibrant.
"But not unwarranted," Skyla voiced back, her own boots staying still just at the tree line. Part of me actually wondered why she didn't just barge in. "I followed you because I wanted to pay my respects. To… well, both of you."
"I'm not interested in your respect, but you can do what you want," I replied back, weaving my steps carefully through the array of white lilies and black roses clustered closely around the central obelisk.
"I'm still here to give it, if you're willing to let me…" she continued.
She was lucky I was still listening.
"Nothing's stopping you." I came to a standstill just at the front face of the pillar of black stone, slipping my hands into my pockets as I traced the engravings chiseled intricately into its glossy surface with my eyes.
"I am," she replied evenly, and I could practically feel as much as hear the brushing of her jacket as she crossed her arms over her chest. "I'd like your permission to let me get close."
"Well you don't have it," I cut back, reading one of the smaller inscriptions closer to the base. These were all things my old man carved out.
Little sayings he kept coming up with every year, when we visited.
'Born into a world to meet a family undeserving of her love.'
Seemed the words were still agreeable, even now.
"Then I ask her if I can get close," Skyla continued. The fleeting wind wrapping around the cover of her jacket shifted as she moved her weight to her other leg.
"This isn't that kind of world, shorty," I called back, my eyes flicking over to another inscription.
'The only one of us with the heart to raise a family.'
He wasn't wrong.
"But it can be, can't it?" Skyla wondered aloud, bringing my gaze away from the inscriptions now and to the top of the obelisk, following its pyramidal peak as it touched the clear sky.
"If I give you permission, will you stop talking?" I asked, watching the way the glossy stone glimmered, crested by the sun.
The girl's shoulder quietly pressed against the trunk of a tree before she voiced her response. "Only for a little while."
That was all I wanted. "Fine."
The gentle bristle of grass beneath the soles of her boots padded into the clearing now as I glanced back, watching her walk the same path I did to get close to the obelisk.
Apparently, she had a good memory and ability to mimic.
And an astounding ability to actually be quiet for once.
As cautious as my eyes were, they finally stopped tracking her movements as she came to a silent halt just next to me, my gaze slowly switching back to the obelisk. I didn't know if she actually wanted to pay her respects, or just settle her curiosity about me.
She seemed insistent to keep pursuing the latter.
But her eyes didn't seem to shine in the same intrigue I noticed in them from earlier. They were darker, losing the glistening, amethyst luster they held. Instead, they portrayed misty, hazy depths of a dark purple charoite.
A color less contrasting from the clothes she wore.
As those eyes slowly began to trace the engravings of inscriptions lining the front face of the stone, my own found their way back to empty space just further up.
A smooth surface glimmering with sunlight, and devoid of any etchings or scratches.
Guess I needed to keep the tradition going, even if it lost its meaning. Sorry if I'm not as poetic as you, old man.
I reached my gloved hand forward and rested my fingers against Iridelia's obelisk. A faint trickle of lime green light passed over the smooth stone I gazed at in a momentary flash, before etched lettering began to appear in glowing rays on its surface.
'Wherever you two are, I'm sorry I won't be joining you.'
The light faded back into the stone, my fingers falling away from its smooth surface to hang loosely back at my side. I meant what I wrote.
I didn't really have any plans for what came next for me. I only really have one goal. And once I achieve it, there wasn't really much solace left to find.
None that I can see, anyway.
"Did you write all these?"
Did she honestly think I'd just forget about her word of silence?
"Why are you talking?"
"Some of them are really heartfelt," Skyla spoke softly, fingers tracing some of the intricate phrases my old man wrote.
What the hell was she trying to say?
"Most of them were written by my dad," I responded, eyeing her as she brushed her hand tenderly down the words in the stone, reading them as she went.
"Is your father making you go to Beacon?" she asked curiously, and I couldn't of hit the nail any harder right on the head if I tried. Drive the stake right in there.
He was the only reason why I even cared.
"Something like that," I answered, wary of where her touch was going as it reached the end of the phrase she was interested in.
"I'm sorry for your losses…"
I don't need your sorrow. "You can stop talking again now."
"Don't wanna."
"Well you're insufferable, you know that?" I asked, wondering if her thick head could translate simple words in her native tongue.
"Don't care. I'm here for you." Skyla turned to me and held out her arms, offering me a hug.
If you dangle those limbs out there like that for long enough…
I will break them.
"Go away."
"No."
I glared and she just opened her arms wider, looking expectant.
If she wanted me to break them that bad, she could've asked.
But both of our heads turned to a padding of four footfalls touching the grass at the other side of the clearing, muffled by fur and the sound of the bustling wind.
Icy blue predator eyes gazed back at us from the tree line, the figure of a white lion glowing in the light of the sun as it stepped out into the clearing. Something black and exuding a mixture of poisonous black and dark green mist clenched in its large maw.
"Oh my god… a grimm kitty…"
I placed my hand on Skyla's face and pushed her away, stepping around the obelisk to make my way over to the white Dremoha. "What is that?"
A desolate, low-toned reverberal growl slipped out from around the crystal between its teeth before it leaned its head down, placing the mist-pouring object onto the grass.
Every blade the poison touched turned black, a corruption that spread slowly through the ground in a blackening circle around it.
"Dust?" Skyla's voice came from behind me, but my eyes were fixed on the energy leaking enmasse from the crystal at my feet.
"You found another Core… didn't you…?" I asked aloud, bending down to wrap my fingers around the deathly cold crystal nestled in its nest of black, softly eroding grass and dirt.
The flowers the corruption touched wilted and died, drifting into the wind. I had to force aura into the ground to revert the spreading of that deathly reach and bring life back into the wildlife, even after I removed the crystal from where it rested.
When I glanced back to the face of the lion who carried it here, he simply lowered his head in a confirming, concerned nod. His white mane and fur trailed in wispy frost as he brought his eyes to the girl behind me, then to my own.
"Show me."
Arex rolled over beneath the covers of her shared bed, the tip of her ebony wing slipping out from beneath the blanket to hang from the newly bought foam mattress.
Her arms curled up as she brought her legs in, head falling from the pillow to rest by her loosely closed fingers.
A subtle warmth shifted from over her other wing, the small movement stirring her enough to slowly crack her eyes open with a half-lidded gaze to see what moved.
Kit's sleeping frame was curling up in the crook of her wing, nestling herself into Arex's feathers before coiling her tails around herself again.
She just looked like a little ball of fur now.
Arex smiled softly at that, rolling over again to peer toward the window.
The sun was just rising.
She took a moment to wonder how long she wanted to stay like this, eyes roaming back to Kitsuki again before deciding she didn't want to wake the kitsune just yet.
This was probably the most she's slept over this past week.
A little blue light appeared on the bedside table a few minutes after, looking active as usual as she cleared her throat.
Or pretended to, at least.
"Ray's leaving for the Vault today. I'm here to give the obligatory invitation for him, just in case you wanted to see what you missed out on," The AI said informatively as she donned a warm smile.
Arex didn't move for a few seconds, just watching Kit's tails softly flick and twitch in the kitsune's sleep for a few more seconds before nodding.
"I'd love to. And I have all day too," Arex replied quietly, pushing herself up into a sitting position. "Classes don't start back up until tomorrow."
Her weekend felt weirdly long…
But that may have only been because of how much happened in it.
And how much changed.
"When's he leaving?"
"After breakfast, he's still getting ready. I'll spare the details," GHOST replied casually. "I'll see you soon, Arex."
The phoenix gave a little smile at that and nodded, brushing her disheveled hair behind her ear. "Yeah. See you soon."
After GHOST disappeared, Arex carefully extracted her wing from beneath Kitsuki's sleeping form without waking her. She wanted to let the kitsune sleep for now, especially if Ray didn't grant her request to bring her along.
She didn't want to wake her up just to tell her she couldn't go…
So Arex silently climbed out of bed and moved to the closet the two of them filled with the clothes they packed. She quickly threw on a set of casual attire, slipping into a pair of black short-shorts and a thin olive sweater to throw over it.
Being in the Vault actually made her comfortable enough to go out like this, considering it'd only really be GHOST who sees her while inside.
She did mind a little that Ray was going to see her like this, but she marked it off due to her doubting he'd see it for long.
She'd seen him in a towel anyway.
Her being a little more free with her clothes shouldn't be too much of a bother.
As soon as she had her shoes on, she slipped quietly out of the room with her scroll in hand. The new CPU chip was installed last night, replacing her old one.
She didn't mess around with its processing speed too much, but it was fast. That much was easy to find out.
The rest of its capabilities… she'd have to experiment with.
For now though, she needed to find Ray.
And the first place she started moving toward, once in the hall, was the living area, where the kitchen was.
Ray was sat by the breakfast bar, quietly minding his own business as he ate his cereal and went through his scroll.
The rest of the room was empty.
Save for Seyda asleep on the couch again.
The phoenix quietly made her way into the room, moving to the opposite side of the bar from Ray to turn the box of cereal around to see what it was.
After a moment, she pushed away and grabbed her own bowl, pulling the milk from the fridge to pour herself a small serving to eat before heading out.
"Can I… ask you something?" Arex voiced, standing with her arms on the counter in front of him, filled bowl resting before her.
His eyes fixed their gaze on her for a moment before he quirked his eyebrow in curiosity. "Sure."
Arex pursed her lips for a moment as she dipped her spoon into her cereal, falling into her usual stance of crossing one foot over the back of her heel behind her. "It's more of a request, actually."
"What is it?" Ray asked, his eyes switching to her untouched cereal for a moment before returning to her face.
She took a short breath, letting go of her spoon as she met his gaze, then immediately broke it. "I'd like to bring Kitsuki with me to the Vault."
The phoenix bit her lip before hastily adding the conditions Ly told her to tack on.
"I promise she won't touch anything if you don't want her to. I'll be keeping a close eye on her… if you'd let me."
He stared at her for a few, awkwardly tense moments, long enough for the phoenix to begin to regret asking the question before he gave her an answer.
"What do you want her there for?"
His voice was still as neutral as it was before, but he asked his question slowly.
That actually scared her a little more than if he'd lashed out at her, which was kind of what she was expecting in the first place.
But… she was glad he didn't.
"I… hate leaving her alone," Arex muttered honestly, drifting her gaze back to him before lowering it. "Especially since I'll be spending a lot of time at the Vault."
Another moment of silence passed before he formulated his response.
"Keep her where you can see her at all times."
A building pent up breath immediately left Arex's lips at that, eyes snapping back to his in some amount of relief and excitement.
"Don't let her touch anything that looks even remotely dangerous. And make sure she doesn't eat or drink outside level 2, except in the case where delicate electronics are not susceptible to waterlogging or particulate contamination."
The phoenix quickly nodded to all of the above, just happy she'd be able to bring Kit with her. "I'll keep her in line. And she won't leave my sight either, I promise."
"Good. We leave in an hour, shower, change your clothes, whatever you need to do," Ray instructed calmly. "Just make sure you're ready, or you'll have to wait for the next transport."
Arex had already done most of the above, but she figured a shower would be nice. She'll just slip in and out of the clothes she'd just thrown on to do so.
That, and she'll need to wake Kit up to get her ready too.
"Thank you, Ray," Arex quipped, giving a happy nod before pushing away from the counter and starting for the hallway.
"Your bowl."
"R-Right." Arex quickly backtracked and grabbed her cereal to take with her, disappearing down the hall to enter her room again.
She took a small bite of her breakfast before resting the bowl down on the dresser, leaving it there to make her way over to Kit's side of the bed.
The kitsune hadn't moved much, save for curling further into her warm tails after Arex's warmth left the bed.
It was a routine for them at this point, though. For Kit to sleep on Arex's wing.
In fact, Arex was pretty sure she laid Kit down first before going to sleep herself a little while later.
Kit must've pulled her wing out to sleep on at some point after that.
But with a small, excited smile, Arex gently nudged Kitsuki's slim shoulder to wake her up a little, lightly pinching her closest ear like usual to draw Kit out of her slumber.
When those golden-orange eyes opened and Kit rolled over, peering up at Arex, the phoenix just smiled and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Wanna see where I disappeared to yesterday?"
We followed padded steps wreathed in ice through the forest of Sanus, making our way south. Each step chilled the forest ground, the very air we passed through growing frigid as every tree and root glimmered in a thin layer of spanning white frost.
A crystalline hum crackled in the air with every passing second as the lion's energy seeped into the atmosphere, distilling the world and taking away its color.
His energy was running more rampant than usual. For as long as I've known him, the ice imbued inside him never spanned out like this so idly.
He was on edge.
It took something bigger than a Dremoha to make him worry.
Especially for one as powerful as him.
"We're nearing the coast," Skyla spoke up, an oceanic breeze starting to sift through the leaves. Her hand lifted to keep her brown bangs out of her face, but her eyes were switching between three places.
The horizon beyond the trees, the dark crystal still seeping mist in my hand, and the white lion leading the way at our front.
Three points of interest she hadn't asked about yet.
"And a watery graveyard," I replied coldly. If the Core was down there, it would've been a fitting place for it to reside.
Skyla's gaze slowly tracked back to me. Of course that'd make her curious. "Down where?"
"Kerillor's grave," I answered, glancing toward her for a moment before bringing my eyes back to the lion walking ahead of us. "There used to be a Life Core that resided beneath the island, which bled into its water sources and plantlife. One of the reasons why its goods and products held special properties."
"Didn't know there was a populated island down south…" Skyla replied, an obvious unsureness in her voice. "And you mentioned a 'Core' again, like I'm supposed to know what that is."
"Focal point of where a particular Dust type is naturally generated. You know, the places where the veins of the stuff come from," I said, trying to be as patronizing as possible.
For her benefit, of course.
"And I said 'used to be' for a reason," I continued. "The island got destroyed by a grimm before your generation."
"Just the one?"
"That's all it took," I muttered. And to be honest, I think it was after the Core the island housed. Omegas tended to crave energy like that.
"So… why would two Cores be in the same place? The island didn't show signs of the second one, did it?" Skyla asked.
I would've insulted her in some way. Or berated her. Unfortunately, she voiced what I was actually wondering myself.
"It didn't. Just an abundance of life and prosperity," I returned, slowly bringing the crystal in my hand up to gaze down at it. "The land didn't ooze with death."
These Cores were polar opposites from one another. Their energies would clash. No way in hell would the two ever exist in the same place naturally.
Not unless the Omega dragged it there. But they weren't powerful enough to do that.
"That came from a Death Core then." Skyla's eyes dragged down to where my own gaze stared, watching wisps of poisonous color slither out around my pale fingers.
"Unfortunately, it seems so."
Cores always held some sort of reigning, overwhelming impact on the environment around them.
Most were obvious. That Life Core turned an island into a breeding ground of life. In its people, its trees, even its water its life drank from.
Lightning was equally as obvious. Lightning energized the ground, and in some deep crevices of Remnant, infected Grimm that wandered through the area with its energy. Imbuing them with lightning.
But Death…? That corrupted the life around it. Biological beings of any kind were affected by its seeping energy.
Grimm and Humankind alike. And everything in between.
My gaze drifted away from the crystal in my hand, casting to Skyla for a moment before watching a trickle of mist seep out and try to reach for her.
Only to disperse halfway. Its phatasmal shape almost looked like a thin, grasping arm before it vanished.
Death devoured life. Putting those two Cores together…
Nothing should've been smart enough to do that. Or dumb enough to even try.
"Do me a favor," I stated, watching Skyla's eyes flick up to mine for a moment in recognition. "Hold this."
I tossed the crystal her way, countless little wisps immediately reaching out of it in a poisonous swamp of grasping fingers as the deadly gem flipped through the air.
I needed to know what this thing did to humans with corruptible aura.
So seeing its effects firsthand needed to be done.
But a crystalline clang rung out just as the crystal was in reach of Skyla's shoulder, knocking the Dust out of the air and sending it into the clenching maw of the white lion pressing its paws into the ground ahead of us.
A glower narrowed his crystal blue eyes, poison softly billowing from the crystal clasped in his mouth again as he fixed me with his glare.
"What?" I asked, glancing down to the small shard of ice he used to deflect the toss. "Can't blame me for looking for answers."
Deep, narrow eyes turned away before he began his methodical walk again, keeping the crystal in his clutches.
Fine. If you wanted to carry it, you should've said so.
"Trying to sacrifice me?" Skyla asked, voice almost sounding insulted as she hugged her arms and looked at me.
Tried and failed. Unfortunately. "It's exactly what it looked like."
We made it to the coast a little while after that. A blue ocean sat between us and the rest of the world, a distant island residing too far, far out to see beyond what normal people could obverse from here. And if you looked far enough, you could just make out the ridge of Solitas over the crest of blue.
But nobody could see that far anyway.
"So… are we swimming there?" Skyla asked. And so wonderfully too, because now I have an excuse to throw her again.
"The destruction of Kerillor left a crater on the ocean floor. A black abyss." My eyes turned to her for a moment as I non-discretely grabbed her arm in a vice grip. "In other words, it's the newest, and deepest, part of the ocean."
A resounding growl stopped my actions, my eyes turning to the lion again as he flicked his gaze back at me. The nearest wave ahead of him was in the middle of shattering from the clenched rumble alone.
"What's your problem?" I asked, slowly letting go of Skyla's arm. The lion's eye eventually turned away, looking back to the ocean before its paws moved forward again, pressing into the sand.
The waves ahead of him began to die down, the tide beginning to grow still as his front paws met with the water at the shallowest part of the coast.
The crystal between his teeth hummed and resonated as it got closer to the water, bubbling it when he set it down, but that noise was drowned out under an encroaching and drowning presence of ice starting to surge from the white lion touching the water ahead.
An ear-piercing wave of freezing, screeching ice ripped into the air in the few seconds that passed before he tensed the muscles in his legs and craned forward, breaking the air and atmosphere with a sonic roar.
The shearing screech of ice erupted from his body and cast outward, splitting and shoving the water in his way aside before freezing the forming walls of the oceanic trench he just burrowed for us.
Its slit-like, icy reach spanned down along the ocean floor and into the distance, giving us an icy pathway to walk on.
"H-He… he parted the ocean…" Skyla cracked in a broken voice, trying to figure out how to use words again.
Oh, what a studious observation.
Here's a sticker.
"Show off," I grumbled, getting a satisfied shake of a white mane from the lion before he picked the crystal back up and started heading down the split path he made.
I felt Skyla's glance fall on me again as I followed, keeping behind the lion.
The incessant girl caught up eventually.
It was times like these, though, where I actually respected the lion's power. You could hear the weight of the ocean behind his thin layer of enforced ice.
Everywhere you looked, you could see out into the dark, dreary depths through his veil. And every step we took not only preserved the coral we occasionally walked on, but kept living things in a stasis of ice until the ocean could sweep back in again when we were done.
And to do it on this scale without flaw, it kind of made me want to punch one of the walls and watch it all come crumbling back in.
Not like it'd do much with him here.
After a couple hours passed though, there was one more thing I noticed as we ventured further, and deeper, into the ocean's massive clutches.
"Weird…" I murmured, looking back for a moment before tracing the wall.
"W-What's weird?" Skyla asked with a slight quiver in her voice.
What was that? A quiver, per chance?
"Somebody's not being annoying for once," I elaborated, shooting her a glance as we progressed.
She didn't have an immediate retort to that. She opened her mouth and was about to say something, but quickly closed it.
Guess it wasn't everyday you saw what a Dremoha at this stage could do.
He was the only one there, after all. Balancing on the threshold between ascending to Omega class, and staying a Dremoha.
Ridiculously enough, he chose the latter. He prefered earnest loyalty over forced fealty in his followers. To him, Omegas only knew one thing.
Power.
And that included power over Grimm.
Guess he didn't want that.
"It's just… s-something feels off…" Skyla eventually voiced out.
Of course something felt off.
We were walking to the embodiment of Death in its energized form.
She was actually starting to look sickly in the face, now that I looked at her.
Wait. Her aura was draining.
"We're getting close," I murmured, looking down to my glove for a moment before channeling aura around my forearm and into my palm. I used that to place a solid hand on the girl's shoulder, pulsing a temporary green light around her entire frame to see if I could stop that poison from progressing.
The closer we got to this Core, the stronger that would get.
"Thanks…"
Damnit. The quiver was gone from her voice. Why couldn't that have stayed, at the very least? It gave her a reason not to talk.
For some reason though, despite that, the girl stayed quiet.
Even as we progressed deeper for another half hour.
Which made sense. We were nearing 4,000 meters beneath the surface now. The sheer weight of the water against the two walls of ice stopping it was immeasurable by now on this kind of scale. Every centimeter must've been experiencing the entire weight of the ocean.
And you could hear it at every step of the way. The deep, overbearing moan of the ocean and its inhabitants. Creaking and groaning, thuming with pulses of far away vibrations.
It exuded that feeling of total, overwhelming desolation. Of absolute isolation. That in a single moment, the wall of water behind that ice could come crashing in and swallow you whole in a very deep, dark, and watery abyss.
I loved that feeling.
I would've enjoyed it more, at least, if we all didn't slow in our step as a howling, distant noise vibrated against the icy shell beside us.
I wasn't a fisherman or a diver. And I definitely wasn't an oceanologist. But that was unmistakably the noise of something big drifting nearby.
Big, and heading our way.
"That's… not a promising sound," Skyla stated, observing the obvious as always.
"No, not at all," I replied. With the weight of the water around us, I wouldn't be able to keep Skyla from being crushed by the pressure alone on her body.
My aura wasn't built for that.
I should've kept throwing her.
"If that thing gets close, will it break through?" she asked hesitantly, eyes gazing out into the shadowy depths beside her.
"That depends," I answered, reaching over to lightly touch one of the cold walls dividing the ocean next to us. "If it's really big, then most likely."
I was being patronizing on purpose.
Thing was, though. Part of me already realized…
We were never making it to the center of this crater. Kerillor's destruction symbolized two things for scale.
It was a display to the world of the sheer power of an Omega. But it wasn't just that. That alone wouldn't brush aside the entire weight of the ocean and swallow an entire island's landmass in its entirety, and the land around it, in one move.
This thing was feeding off of that Life Core.
And now it had a Death Core too.
"Contact." My instincts brought that word out of my lips without even thinking of it, the two of us and the lion slowing to a sudden halt as I kept my eyes on the wall to our left.
The opposite wall the previous noise came from.
It was slow. Methodical in every move it made. And worse, it was silent in its approach. It went entirely unnoticed until now.
And it was a wonder how, too.
Because a slow, creeping shadow loomed over the entirety of the wall beside us. Hazed in blue and black from the ocean and the light that crept down from above and through the thin shield of ice between it and us.
Its shape engulfed all field of view you could even see of it, running down the length of the ice wall. 318 meters. Or just about, from what I could make of its silhouette.
The ice was keeping me from sensing what it was.
All I did know, was that it had a shark fin.
And I think that's all I needed to know as it leaned over and started pressing against the ice, cracking it immediately.
"Time to go." I swept Skyla up just as water began to pour into the icy crevice, flooding down in an icy, encroaching tsunami as I grabbed the girl and ran.
A blur of white kept pace at my right as the wall beside us chipped and cracked. The sheer speed of the ice cracking dwarfed our own, shattering in a web of misting crystal shards that blew by us.
Water slicked the ground, but immediately froze over again as the lion got in front of us and re-froze the path.
The shadow followed us, moving with an abnormal swiftness to juxtapose its size. It darted along the cracked wall, the continent we came from not even in view yet before all hope of seeing it was gone as the colossal creature slammed into the fragmenting sheet of ice and broke into the air keeping us breathing.
Poisonous mist plumed down in front of us as the creature passed overhead, blocking out what little sun we had just as the ocean behind the wall it came from started crashing in.
Half a maw of teeth and tendon barred aggressively as it crashed across to the opposite wall, breaking through that as well to collapse both in the same movement.
It was a shark, alright. Its skin was pitch black, eroding and pouring with the same poisonous energy that seeped from the crystal the white lion found. Plates of white were scattered over its upper half, and spines of white bone trailed down its back as if it once had a spinal fin that reached down its entire body.
But now it was void of flesh.
The fin that reached highest on its central back was just bone, its flesh entirely eroded away, and the same detail I noticed in the silhouette earlier. Most of its fins and skin had holes through them, as if the water itself was eating away at its flesh.
It was a Dremoha that inhabited this part of the ocean. It had to be. The only other reason why it must've been here was if the Omega drew it here.
Which meant there were bound to be more.
"It's now or never, Icy!" I yelled over the crashing water and ice, the two walls of water ahead of us crashing together to seal away our exit.
A crystalline growl broke out across the oceanic collapse as the white lion dug its claws into the ground and turned around, slamming his head into my legs to flip me over it and land me on its back.
I was half-tempted not to hold Skyla as securely as I did, but I didn't drop her.
The girl was clinging to me anyway.
We had nowhere to go but up. And our friendly lion finally decided to pull out his pearly white wings and get us out of there.
He was aggravatingly a fan of the dramatics.
Now I just had to wonder how he got that piece of crystal to begin with.
Anoel really didn't know what to look for in a dress.
She'd spent the past half an hour sifting through all kinds of color, material, skirt length, and size she could get her hands on in the several shops of Vale's mall.
Thankfully, Ly was just as lost as she was. So, despite them sticking together, neither of them found a dress they actually liked yet.
Anoel really only had one thing in mind at this point.
Just get something she'd like. Something she'd look good in.
Something Anoel would be more than happy to look at.
But even those few, simple criteria were hard to come by.
So as she plucked another dress from its hanger for the umpteenth time, she didn't hesitate to let herself get a little distracted as a little commotion started going on at the cash register.
"You're flattering yourselves if you think this is worth 168,000 lien."
"Miss, the dress has gems in it that account heavily toward the total price, that's the lowest you'll find it."
Oh, that was Ly at the register making all that ruckus? Anoel's hands drifted over the material between her fingers, eyes drifting to the noise to see Lylac standing at the glass counter before the store clerk.
She didn't look too happy.
She never did when she found people trying to sell fake gems.
"It's silk with glass beads, this isn't even worth 30,000."
Anoel sighed and put the soft dress back, making her way over to the two by the front with a pensive press of her lips.
Usually this would amuse her, but she was a little annoyed with how long this shopping was taking.
She just wanted to have a nice evening with Ly…
Did they really have to get dressed up for that?
"Miss…" the register attendee looked a little nervous under the harsh, unwavering glare Ly was giving her, visibly swallowing at the shimmering cerulean glow of the girl's eyes. "I-It has genuine citrine g-gems…"
Lylac scoffed at the claim, rolling her eyes. "You want to see citrine?"
She placed her hand in her pocket and pulled out a large amber gem, glistening in the well-lit store. "This is citrine. What you're trying to sell me is glass. I am not paying a small fortune for a rip-off."
"Then don't," Anoel spoke up from behind Ly, sighing to herself as she walked up to the gem-thief's side and gave the store clerk a small smile. "Go ahead and remove this thing's tag. I'm sure you didn't know it was false advertising."
Ano kept her voice soft and apologetic, but she was more directing that toward Ly.
"Most people aren't critical gemologists with a keen eye for the real deal," Anoel continued, slipping her arm around Ly's waist to pull her against her. "Especially people this beautiful."
Ly's growing temper melted away as she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment before reopening them to look at the clerk. "I'm taking this dress, but I want the 68,000 knocked off. Else this store earns itself a very bad reputation."
When the clerk's eyes transitioned to Anoel, the info-broker just gave the girl a soft smile, but one that held a very real backing to that threat Ly just made.
"I have the kingdom at my fingertips, honey," Anoel chided innocently, slipping her scroll out of her pocket to flash it to the clerk. "Just sell the dress for what it's really worth."
Little needed to be said as the clerk did as asked, and Anoel ushered Ly out of the shop soon after.
"Are you sure you wanted to buy something you grimace every time you look at?" Anoel asked lightly once they were back in the mall's central area, eyes peering into the bag Ly clutched in delicate fingers. "I'm happy with just a simple black dress."
"I'm replacing the glass with real stuff as soon as I get back…" Ly murmured in reply. "The dress itself was just a canvas."
Anoel lightly smiled at that, letting her gaze fall back on Ly's pearlescent eyes. "I hope it's worth putting me in a dress that expensive then."
Especially something twenty, maybe forty times more expensive than the clerk tried to sell it for.
"It won't be expensive enough for you. If we're going on a fancy date, we might as well look the part," Ly replied softly as her eyes shifted into a pink hue, a little smile forming on her lips.
Ano's eyes seemed to reflect that color as the info-broker smiled brightly. "Ly, I'd be happy with anything you'd give me. Hell, I'd feel like the most priceless gem in the world if you gave me nothing but yourself."
The info-broker donned a much more affectionate smile before holding up a slim finger, looking away for a moment to peer back into the store they came from.
"I do think I found a nice dress for you inside though. I'll be right back."
Without really letting Ly say anything, Anoel dipped back into the doors to come back out with a bag about a minute later.
A little purposeful sway in her steps as she made her way back to the lilac-tipped blonde.
"That was quick, but I guess I shouldn't be too surprised with you," Ly commented lightly as she took a moment to look at the bag in Ano's hand before her eyes locked with the info-broker's.
Ano just moved the bag behind her back and grinned, leaning forward just slightly to peer up at Ly from beneath the rim of her hat. "Just like you, this is a canvas. It's a soft blue right now, but I'll be adding some pretty pink to it to match your eyes while you work on gemming up that black dress. I picked up a thing or two while I worked under Niro's dad."
Sewing was one of them. Especially since she had to sew her own shirts to make sure they accommodated her wings.
She figured it'd be much more lien-efficient to reuse a shirt than shred it each time she wanted to fly.
"Sounds good to me." Ly's smile brightened as her eyes stayed focused on Ano's, eyebrows furrowing slightly. "Hey… do you mind if we get some donuts? I saw a store with them earlier and I've been craving them for a little while now."
Ly almost sounded distracted when she asked that.
Anoel's reflective pink eyes averted to look for the store in question, not noticing how carefully Ly watched her face as she tried to find the storefront.
"Sure, I can go for a few sweets. Wanna share?" Anoel asked, bringing that unknowingly bright gaze back to Lylac as she straightened back up.
"I was thinking the exact same thing, what a coincidence…" Ly replied coyly, her smirk widening.
"Sounds good. Though, we might as well head somewhere to grab lunch after, then finish up the dresses back at the apartment," Anoel replied, reaching forward to slip her hand into Ly's free one. "It'll be like the pre-date to the fancy dinner date."
"Works for me," Ly said, eyes still distractedly gazing into Anoel's own.
Ano didn't know what she was staring at.
Erm, I couldn't help it. The reviews were bugging me. I added a parallel arc involving Niro to help lead up to the upcoming big moment, even if it'll take longer to get there now. That way he's anchored more, and I can have an excuse to play with his character.
I've been struggling to find ways to bring him in because he genuinely does not care what's been happening to the other members of his team. Save for Ano's endeavors.
She's the main reason why he's been staying away, because he doesn't quite know if he can hold himself back when she gets herself hurt again.
It seems they're both acutely aware of that now.
Anyway, gonna be working in more Niro scenes during this timeframe.
Don't bite me.
Also, cute fluff is cute. It's adorable how Ano and Ly don't know what a date is, or how it works.
For now, Favorite and Follow.
I look forward to seeing REVIEWS for this. You'll be introduced to a LOT of concepts of mine. Feel free to give me your thoughts.
Cya XP
Omake: by Xera Stark
"Awwww~ Who's a big kitty! You are! Yes you are!" Skyla cooed, throwing herself arms and all at the big white liony cat as she rubbed her face into its mane and fur. "So cute~!"
"You know he's Grimm, right…?" Niro asked, watching as Skyla brushed her hand down the lion's spine and tried to get him to sit down.
"So cuuuuuuuute~!"
Lime green eyes narrowed as an icy blue gaze met it, an insultingly amused look in them that brought an immediate scoff out of Niro.
"You could at least act Grimm."
A deep, rumbling purr slipped out into the clearing as the white lion curled up into the ground, closing its eyes beneath the rubbing and scratching fingers of the girl cuddling him.
An embarrassment to Grimmkind.
"Unbelievable…" Niro muttered, tugging at his hat as she kicked the crystal on the ground into his hand and moved past the two. "When you two are done, come find me. I'll be killing trees in the meantime."
"Who's a big, adorable lil kitty? That's you! Yes, that's you cutie~!"
"Kill her… please."
Its purring got louder.
"So cute!"