"Akira, you up?" Liz asks, knocking softly on kid's bedroom door.
"Yeah."
"Can I come in?"
"Sure."
Liz opened the door and was greeted with Akira sitting cross legged in the exact middle of the room, their back straight, palms resting on bent knees. She could tell by the way his hair held volume and stuck up in weird places that they hadn't bothered to straighten their hair after they showered. She leans on the doorway and watches her meister's closed eyes and slow breathing with an amused expression.
"What are you doing?" she asks, and Akira cracks an eye open. Liz blinks in surprise. The eye makes her think of an emerald set in dark stained wood. Seeing her expression, Akira opens the other, matching, eye and looks at her confused.
"What?" he asks.
"Y-you're eyes. They changed."
"They did?" Akira says, looking shocked and springing up to look in the mirror."Holy shit." they mutter.
"Did something happen?" Liz asks.
"Okay so I've been up all night kind of seeing what exactly I'm capable of with magic-"
"Wait, what?"
"-and I've been trying to shape-shift into what Elder looked like, because with the council and all I don't want them questioning anything. It's hard to focus since I've never done it before and there's like, no magic in the atmosphere for me to work off of, so I had to practice using my magic wavelength." They look at Liz through the mirror. She notices three grey lines begin to form on one side of Akira's hair, and they turn around with a huge grin on their face. She gives him a timid thumbs up.
"So what's up?" Akira asks, setting two small, round objects onto the dresser.
"Oh!" Liz said, remembering, "Some woman's here for you, she said her name's Mavis." She see's Akira's eyes widen and feels the influx of air as he runs past her, slides full speed down the railing, and stumbles onto the floor below.
"Why do they insist on being so careless." Liz thinks, walking out of the bedroom and looking down at the reunion from the second floor.
The older woman had mousy brown hair that was hinted with silver pinned into a neat bun at the back of her neck. Her gray skin had light crinkles of age, but her coffee eyes still held a youthful glimmer. The dark brown dress she wore was plain, and had a white apron tied around the waist. Her heeled boots made sharp clicks on the floor.
"Aunt Mavis!" Akira cried, jumping into the woman's outstretched arms. Liz glances at her sister who's on the other side of the staircase, eyes going between her and the woman. Liz shrugs, and the two continue to watch the two demons.
"Oh my child! It's been so long!" Aunt Mavis exclaimed in a rough, throaty accent, holding Akira an arms length away by the shoulders so she could look them up and down.
"Still so small," she tutted, "that idiot father of yours has been feeding you nothing but human food, hasn't he?" There was a touch of anger in her voice.
"There's nothing but human food, and I feed myself."
"Irresponsible." Aunt Mavis huffs, "This realm doesn't have nearly enough calories for a growing godling." She walks briskly to the bottom of the stairs, looking at Patti and Liz in turn. "So," the woman barks, "You two are his partners?"
"Yes." Liz answers.
"How long?"
"Little over four years. Who're you?"
"His mother hired me before he and his sister were born as a nursemaid. I aide in managing the household and keeping the children in line while Her Majesty deals with issues and politics in the realm."
"Why are you here anyway? Shouldn't you be looking after the school?" Akira asks.
"I demanded to come with your mother. Eventually she stopped arguing with me. Besides, I needed to check up on you and I also need to find your sister. She's probably frolicing through the city with her shield up as we speak."
"Shield?" Liz asked, walking down the stairs.
"Soul protect that also makes her look like a human. A combination of shape shifting and wavelength concealment." Akira clarifies. "She put the spell together herself centuries ago so she could hang out in the kingdom without people knowing she was the Princess."
"Sneaky sneaky little sister!" Patti scolded.
"You have no idea," Akira laughed.
Your name is Zadkiel and it's nine in the morning. Right now you are sitting on a park bench in between Rowan and Almas. Your weapon is wearing a black T-shirt with wings in the design of Celtic knots that he swears up and down was never yours but you know better. You don't care much anyway, it looks cute on him.
Speaking of cute, you look away from the one dozing off on your shoulder, Rowan. Gosh darn. She's paying more attention to the trees above than to you, probably spacing out again, so you can get a good look at her without making eye contact.
The first thing you noticed when she woke you and Al, aside from the fact that she not only broke into Lord Angel's door but also your locked room, was what she was wearing. She seems to have a tendency to go for clothes that either hide her figure completely or make it the first thing someone noticed and apparently she felt like showing off today. She's wearing blue jeans at least but her shirt is a crop top that, if it wasn't for the elastic at the hem, would probably show the band of her bra. It is a cute top though, it's white and poofs kind of like a bubble, or like those dress sleeves. The sleeves are actually like that too, except they're off the shoulder. Her curly hair is blown out and draped over the back of the bench so you can see the wall of silver studs and small loops adorning her ear and cartilage. You noted earlier that the other one matches.
The most surprising thing you saw earlier that she doesn't normally show are her tattoos. She has the blacked in lines of a Rowan tree spread across her back, with the long leaves occasionally shown in between the branches. On her inner left arm sprouting from her wrist is a delicate looking sprig of blue hyacinth, and on the fingers of that hand are thin bands of black. One on each finger, and two on her pinky and ring finger. It's obvious what the first two were gotten for, but it's the one on her hand that you don't understand. You wonder if her mother knows she has these, or the piercings even. You know you've never seen her with them in when you talked on the mirror, and she normally had her hands covered.
You kind of feel terrible for crushing on her. You hardly know the girl.
You lay your head back and close your eyes, the cedar scent of your partner's soul mingling with the pomegranate from the girl on your other side. Rowan's wavelength, unlike Al's, seems oddly distant. It bothers you that you can't tell what she's feeling. She felt different when she was having fun exploring the market earlier but all of a sudden that changed. You don't even know enough about her to know if you should be concerned about this or if these swings happen normally.
Al on the other hand clearly should not have gotten up as early as you did, but he was the one who insisted on joining you. He really does need to sleep more. You probably should have declined the offer to spend the day in the city, but you figured it would be good strategy to know your surroundings.
Suddenly Rowan's wavelength spikes in a way that you can only describe as unsettling and you feel the old wood of the bench creek. You open your eyes and lift your head to look at her and she's sitting up and alert with wide eyes.
"What's wrong?" you ask.
"Today." she says in a whispered panic, "It's happening today."