Ichigo adjusted her costume, as there was a convention in town and she wanted to introduce Malleus to new series. He had already binge watched the entire series of Gargoyles, which she found hilarious.

To that end, she was going to have fun with this. Orihime would be joining them later, but Tatsuki had bowed out due to her Karate club having a meet the next town over.

"How do the wings looks?" asked Ichigo.

"Nice. Dad's going to have a fit when he sees the outfit though," grinned Karin.

Ichigo was dressed as Bloom from the series Winx Club, in her fairy form. Malleus had found her fascination with faeries and the older stories amusing for whatever reason...however he had also become her new supplier, which was why she had several new posters in her room. She loved it.

Even better, he had some sort of knack in getting really old, hard to find books that were out of print and interesting. Her bookshelf had been somewhat barren, but now had several new additions that made her really happy.

She couldn't wait to see his costume.

Slipping out of the clinic was a pain, and she was glad she had the sense to wear a long shirt she had borrowed from Malleus to cover most of it. It was going to be a pain to put the wings back on, but the look was so worth it.

She took one look at Malleus and had to fight the urge to drool. To be fair, she wasn't expecting him to go dressed as the most perfect cosplay of a male version of the Disney villain Maleficent she had ever seen. He even had the horns right, which most people had the most difficulty with.

"Nice. I can't wait to see people's reactions to your costume," she said in delight. "How did you managed to find such a good replica of the horns so fast?"

Malleus looked deeply amused by the question.

"I'll leave that a secret for now," he said.

"We are so entering the costume contests they always have. You'd be a shoe-in with your crossplay of Maleficent!"

"Crossplay?" he repeated.

"Crossplay is when people do a gender-swap of a character when cosplaying," she explained.

"What about your costume?" he asked. They were walking to the nearest bus stop that would take them to the convention. No way would they be able to hire an Uber...especially with his horns. She didn't want to mess up his costume, with how much care he had put into it.

Ichigo grinned.

"I'm Bloom from the Winx Club series...it's a cartoon about faeries, and my character's power is all about dragonfire," she said cheerfully. Malleus' lips quirked upwards in odd amusement.

She was rather pleased when he made a point to wrap his arm around her waist, but not anywhere she would be inclined to punch him for, once they were on the bus.

Orihime took one look at their costumes and beamed at them. She was in costume as well, though she was dressed as Sailor Venus.

"Hey Ichigo! Malleus! Your costumes look great!" said Orihime cheerfully.

"I know right? He's a dead ringer for Maleficent," said Ichigo happily.

Malleus still looked amused for reasons he refused to explain, but they were okay with that.

As predicted, he won the costume contest by a landslide.

"This is so much fun," said Orihime happily.

"I know right?" said Ichigo. "I wish I could have brought Karin and Yuzu, but Karin has a soccer game later and Yuzu said she wanted to get in on a sale later."

Malleus was currently busy by multiple requests for pictures, mostly for his outfit. The fact that so many strangers displayed a lack of fear towards him was a novelty.

Ichigo spotted something and grinned.

"Hey Malleus, I think I see a display for some Gargoyle merchandise a few booths over. Want to go look?" she said, walking up to her boyfriend.

Malleus perked up at that, and allowed her to lead the way. Sure enough, there were a few posters and figurines at a marked up price. Then again, it was a convention so that was to be expected.

She even found an artist who did commissions, and Malleus was more than happy to pay for a picture of Goliath, Demona and their daughter Angela together. He was particularly pleased finding the comics being sold of his new favorite series. He made a note to get his hands on the rest.

"Did you have fun?" asked Ichigo. Malleus had a pleased expression on his face.

"It was rather enjoyable. I'm not sure how to feel about so many people asking for photos of my costume."

"To be fair, even I wasn't expecting you to come up with such a good replica of Maleficent on such short notice. Most people spend months on their costumes for a con," said Ichigo.

His expression was of deep amusement. Ichigo still couldn't figure out why, but let it go.

"What was that one booth about? The one with the Fairest Queen being a mayor?" asked Malleus.

Ichigo blinked, mostly trying to translate that.

"Fairest Queen?" she repeated.

"I believe the name of the town on the poster was 'Storybrook'," said Malleus.

"Story...oh, you mean Once Upon a Time!" said Ichigo. She grinned. "Something tells me you're really going to like that series. They put a refreshing spin on the older stories."

Seeing his intrigued expression, Ichigo made a point to get her copies of the show for him to watch. It made for a nice, quiet date night at least.

~*~*~*~*~

It was Ichigo's birthday, and Malleus had been invited. It was clear he was rather good for her, as her usual closed off expression began to wane. She was smiling more, and looked more relaxed.

There was one thing bugging her, at least since Yuzu mentioned it. Namely that sometimes she occasionally caught Ichigo's boyfriend with pointed ears instead of round ones.

Which lead Ichigo to believe Malleus wasn't being entirely truthful around her.

"You wish me to remove the spell on my appearance?" asked Malleus, amused.

"Spell?" said Ichigo.

"I received a great deal of staring with my normal appearance, thus I placed a spell to hide a few of my features from casual observation," explained Malleus.

They were in Ichigo's home, where Yuzu was busy making curry and Isshin had gone to get the cake. Orihime, Tatsuki, and Chad were there as well, mostly talking about some show or another.

"You're among friends here, right guys?"

"Yeah, it's not like we're going to mock you about some embarrassing birthmark or something," said Tatsuki.

Malleus observed them all for a quiet moment, before calmly removing the spell on his ears...and his horns.

Ichigo stared for several seconds.

"Those horns aren't a prop at all, are they?" she asked.

Malleus' smirk said volumes.

"That is so freaking cool," said Karin, grinning. "Must be a pain to deal with low doors though."

"That would explain why you hid them...the ears are one thing, but horns would get a lot of attention," said Tatsuki, impressed.

"You almost look like a dragon," said Yuzu.

Everyone went dead silent when Malleus proceeded to give off a small puff of flame. Not enough to set off the fire alarms and sprinkler system, but enough to get the point across.

Ichigo's eyes gleamed, while Tatsuki let out a laugh.

"Of course Ichigo would manage to find an actual dragon to date," she cackled.

Isshin to his credit said nothing about Malleus' appearance, though they all noticed how the older male guarded his ice cream. Ichigo grinned and now had even more date night ideas...she couldn't wait to introduce him to new flavors.

Needless to say the first weekend they had off, Ichigo wanted to see his full dragon form (if he had one).

Mallesu was rather pleased to see her positively drooling over it. It was pleasing to know his mate found his true form so appealing.

~*~*~*~

Ichigo was leaning against Malleus, with her dragon of a boyfriend feeling extra lazy after being introduced to Neapolitan ice cream. There was a possessiveness to the way he wrapped his arm around her, not that she minded.

They were watching season three of Once Upon a Time, as Malleus had become rather fond of the show. However his inability to figure out how to properly use a DVD player remote meant that his ability to watch the show was restricted to when Ichigo was around. He didn't mind though.

"I wonder if heart magic really exists," commented Ichigo.

"Hmm?"

"Regina and Cora's signature spell. It would be interesting to see if it could actually work without, you know, killing the target."

Malleus looked bemused at the subject.

"Would you like to find out if you have magic as well?" he inquired.

Ichigo's head turned to look at him.

"Wait...really?" she said.

Malleus smirked at her.

"It's not hard to test," he informed her.

Seeing her expression, Malleus had a fond smile on his face. He got out a small glass of water.

"Cup your hands around the glass without physically touching it."

Ichigo did so, her eyes excited and her facial expression showing anticipation. Good thing she already paused the show.

She listened intently to the way Malleus spoke. His voice was deep and almost mesmerizing, and it took a lot of concentration to pay attention to what he was saying rather than just soak in his voice.

Malleus was not entirely oblivious to this, and found it rather amusing.

For the longest time, nothing really happened. Then slowly, almost agonizingly, the water began to rise out of the glass.

Ichigo's face lit up with excitement...before the water suddenly splashed down and she felt oddly drained.

Malleus was at her side, before she even realized how sleepy she was.

"Using magic for the first time is rather taxing, if you are not used to it."

Ichigo said nothing when he easily lifted her up and had her cuddling against him on the couch, with her in his lap. He was rather warm, but she attributed that to the fact he was a dragon and thus had an inner fire inside him.

She didn't know when she fell asleep, just that she got a text from her dad reminding her not to get up to anything. Good thing she had the next day off from school...she was still lethargic when she woke up.

Waking up with her head against Malleus' chest was something she could get used to, easily. It was almost too comfortable to get up.

A new routine was set, as Ichigo was beyond fascinated with magic and wanted to learn how to use it. She may or may not have been eager to replicate a few attacks or spells from her favorite magical girl series over the years.

Malleus found the lessons rather enjoyable, both because it meant he spent more time with Ichigo, but also seeing the sheer joy in her eyes whenever she managed a new spell or trick.

"Why do I always feel so tired after using even minor magics?" asked Ichigo. Malleus had been teaching her for two months now and she had gotten the hang of casting minor spells, but they always left her so drained.

It had quickly disabused any notion of replicating her favorite shows, since she would be unable to move at all after.

"It's because you're using magic without a focus," said Malleus. "Your body is learning to deal with blot without the buffer."

"Blot?" said Ichigo.

Malleus pulls out an odd rock.

"This is a magestone. When a mage uses magic, they begin to accumulate blot. If too much builds up, there is a risk of Overblot, particularly if they are overcome with negative emotions," explained Malleus.

"And you didn't tell me this before...why?" said Ichigo.

"In Briar Valley, potential mages are trained to channel magic without a focus so they understand how magic flows through their body," explained Malleus. "That, and the fact that most of the people who live in the kingdom have faerie blood in them."

Ichigo perked up at that.

"So I'm just missing a focus to do this properly, correct?"

"It would smooth things up a bit, but it would hinder your instincts when channeling magic," said Malleus.

There was a reason why he hadn't bothered to find a magestone for her. All children in Briar Valley learned to channel their magic without because they needed to develop the correct instincts. To be fair, he had learned how to shift without a proper focus and all of his tutors called such objects a hindrance when teaching him how to use his magic.

In his defense, he was a dragon. In his case it was more of a case of teaching him how to channel his absurd magical powers naturally rather than teaching someone from the ground up with next to no exposure to magic before this.