Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The room was hot, making it difficult to focus on what she was doing. The old hag brought up an arm to wipe the sweat off her forehead, her brittle grey hair sticking to her forehead. The oven was up too high, there was a risk she might melt the candy her house was constructed of, but if she wanted this to work, she had to risk it.

Her hands were at work as she shaped the gingerbread on the tray in front of her. Her fingers worked carefully to sculpt the body of the body she wished she had when she was younger. Although it wouldn't be created as a teen, what she was making would be a child, who'd soon grow up to be how the hag had always wanted to be.
Soon, it was done. The gingerbread is in the shape of a small child, one of a baby. Her tray was large enough to fit the cookie with the arms and legs out to the sides.

She sighed, looking at how thin the cookie was. She didn't want her creation to be sickly thin, so she'd need to make more doe to stack upon each other.

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With the sun now setting, the hag placed one last duplicate of the gingerbread child upon the original. Opening her oven door, a blast of heat went straight to her face, causing her to quickly shield it with her arms. Moving away from the open oven, she picked up the tray with the gingerbread on it, her frail arms shaking as she put it in the oven, closing the door as she stood up straight.

Turning away from the oven, her cloak swayed behind her as she went down to the basement, starting to grab the ingredients she'd need to perform the spell. Returning to the kitchen, she placed them all down on the counter, grabbing a cauldron as she struggled to move it onto the fireplace.

The hag moved out to the well in her yard, one of the only parts of her house not crafted from candy. Attaching a bucket to a rope, she began to lower it into the well, before bringing it back up. With a bucket now full of water, she hurried back into her house, as fast as her thin legs would allow. Pouring the water into the cauldron, she lit the fireplace alight, letting the water start to boil.

Glancing out the window and seeing that the sun is not fully set yet, she grabs a bowl and some sugar crystals in pink and blue. Using the help of an appliance she had gotten from a wandering tradesman, she spun up the sugar crystals, creating a light and fluffy candy that was a soft pastel blue with streaks of pastel pink all through it.

She moves over to a shelf filled with books, taking the dustiest of them all off the shelf and starting to flick through the pages. Finding the page she needed, she put the book down on a table by the fireplace, keeping the page open.

A ding from the oven causes her to jump as she moves over to it, opening the door with mitts and removing the tray. Putting the tray with the gingerbread baby on it on the counter, she proceeded to turn off the oven, leaving it slightly open so it could cool.

She grabs the ingredients from the counter and brings them to a table by the fireplace, before moving back and grabbing the bowl of spun sugar and placing it next to the jars of strange items. Grabbing the curtains of the window and pulling them aside to let light seep through the sugar glass making the window panes. Moonlight filtered into the room, the strongest of the light landing upon the cauldron, a full moon making the light stronger than usual.

With the water boiling away in the cauldron and the moonlight shining upon it, the hag began to speak, her hoarse voice cracking as she opened the first jar of her ingredients.

"With eyes from a child," The hag reached into the jar, removing two eyes, whose beautiful colour had led her to store them instead of consume them, and dropping them into the cauldron. Placing the now empty jar in a crate next to the fireplace, she grabbed another one of the ingredients, opening this jar. "And the ears of a rabbit," She continued, tilting the jar so two white rabbit ears fell from the jar and into the cauldron, landing with a small splash in the boiling water as it began to tint red. "Grant thy child perfect hearing and sight."

Picking up the bowl of spun sugar, the hag dumped it in the cauldron, continuing on with her spell. "Beautiful hair light as a feather, but thick and soft as fur, for upon thy child's head." Grabbing a cherry from the ingredient pile, she dropped it in as she continued, "Lips as red as a cherry, but soft as silk, to grace thy child's face."

"A voice of a nightingale," she picked up a tiny vial, taking out the cork and dropping a bird's voicebox into the potion. "Too sweet talk with a voice of gold." The hag then picked up a jar containing a tongue and tipped it into the mixture.
"The tongue of a fox," The hag then went to the corner of the room, breaking off part of a branch from a flowering plant, making sure not to cut herself on any of the thorns. "And a branch from a crown of thorns," She dropped it into the cauldron, it sinking below the surface with a sizzling noise. "To give thy child a tongue of silver, yet as sharp as a claw."

Picking up the skull of the only grown lady she had ever cooked, she dropped it into the cauldron with a loud plop. "The skull of a woman for cheekbones high as the sky," The hag then grabbed a small wooden box from the few ingredients remaining, opened it up and took out what was inside. "The heart of a loving child, so thy will thrive," She then dropped the heart into the mixture, watching as it began to beat in the reddish-green liquid.

"A bag of sugar," She continued on, dumping an entire sack full of the powder into the cauldron. Then grabbing small cubes of ice, ones that were tinted yellow, "And ice made from lemons," she added those into the cauldron. "So thy child is sweet as sugar, but cold as ice."

"And finally, the blood of the mother, so thy child can truly feel," The hag added, before grabbing the last remaining item from the table, a knife. Picking it up, she then closed her eyes before feeling a stab of pain in her finger. Reopening her eyes, the knife was back on the table and blood was dripping down from her finger into the cauldron.

Grabbing a wooden spoon with her other arm, she began to mix the concoction together, letting the moonlight soak into it as the potion began to softly glow. Moving into the kitchen, she picked up the baby-shaped gingerbread, cradling it in her frail arms as she moved back to the cauldron.

Holding it above her head, she spoke, "As the body of thy child is lowered into the source of thy's life beneath the moonlight, life will blossom inside and thy will become mine." With that, she placed the gingerbread inside the bubbling cauldron, watching as the liquid began to glow silver as it trickled over the sides.

After a moment, she removed the gingerbread from the cauldron, yet, now it was soft and warm to the touch instead of hard. Taking a step away from the cauldron, the hag cradled the creature in her arms, watching as the small baby, born from gingerbread and her spell, reached up towards her face. The baby's eyes wide and pure as it looked up at her, trying to grab onto her nose, yet its arms were too short to reach it.

The old woman smiled, tears coming to her eyes as she hugged the child close to her chest. Despite the fact she hated children, this would be the one creature that'd receive her love and protection.

Chapter Text

Disney: Twisted Wonderland (or TWST/twst for short) is a Japanese mobile game created by Aniplex and Walt Disney Japan. While it is an anime game, it is not an otome game.
There is an English version of the game available in Canada, USA, Australia, and Singapore but you can get it anywhere by using a region bypassed. Yes, there is a canon translation of the game, there are many fan translations of the JP version on YouTube, due to the game section not being in English at the time.

The original story plotline does not belong to me, nor do the characters, as they are owned by the creator, Yana Toboso, and its publishers, Aniplex and Disney.
The only things owned by me in this story are the Y/N, the way the Candy Witch acts and just little changes to the plotline, but keep in mind this is just fanfiction.

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This story will follow the original plotline of the main story, followed by events that'll be added in depending on if they can fit in before we need to go on to the next book.
(Practically all the events will happen before the book 7 stuff because I don't want to deal with it yet and face the truth.)

The reader is female (needing to disguise as a male), with some physical aspects set, like height, but most are left blank for you to insert yourself into it with.

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This story is inspired by two fabulous books and creators on Wattpad whose own twst fanfic has given me the motivation to write fanfics again.

Beauty & The Beasts (Twisted Wonderland X Reader)
Written by: SweetPea-23

THE BADDEST | |  Twisted Wonderland X Reader
Written by: LunariaMV

Both of them are wonderful authors, and their stories are much further ahead than this one will be for quite a while.

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If you enjoy this story enough, leave a vote, if we reach a certain number of votes, then I might post a special chapter.

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Please note that there's a 95% chance that people I actually know from irl will read this fanfic as I got them into the twst fandom, so if you see any call-outs then that'll explain it since some of them will go insane over certain characters and I have a request from one to make the story "hard" but that won't be happening very often.

Chapter Text

The ache in your arms grew stronger as you rolled out the dough. The sweeping of the broom and the crackling of the fire burning away in the oven were just background noises as you could feel perspiration beading on your forehead. Bringing a hand away from the rolling pin, you wiped the back of your wrist across your forehead, removing the perspiration beginning to form, while also being careful not to get any of the dough on your face.

You couldn’t help but glance over your shoulder, checking on the young girl your mother had working for her. She looked downcast, sweeping away any dust from the ground, and putting bones back onto the piles in the corners if any fell or dislodged. You couldn’t help but feel a little pity for the younger girl, she looked to be about only eleven or twelve years old. From what you could remember, her name was Gretel while her younger brother’s name was Hansel.

Sneaking a glance over your other shoulder, you caught a look at the boy locked in the cage. He seemed bored out of his mind, just fiddling with fraying threads from his clothing and softly squeezing his fingers to see how much weight he’d put on from the constant feedings the candy witch gave him.

Turning your attention back to the dough on the butterscotch counter, you resumed rolling it out, watching as little flecks of chocolate within it disappeared and then reappeared. Once you were short the dough had an even thickness all over, you grabbed a rectangular cutter before beginning to press it into the dough. Moving each cut-out rectangle onto the tray beside you, you continued to roll out the dough and cut out the shape until there was not enough dough left to make anymore. Picking up the tray, you carried it over to the large oven, supporting the tray with one hand, you opened the oven with the other, leaning into the heat inside it as you placed the tray down. Leaning back out you stepped back and closed the door, turning around to go to the sink and wash the dried dough off your hands. However, Gretel is standing straight behind you, clutching the broom so tight her knuckles are turning white.

“Iss zat vat vill happen to Hansel ven zee vitch zinkss he iss fat enough…?” The question catches you off guard, not having expected her to ask about that topic.

Crouching down a little so you’d be at eye level with Gretel, (which isn’t too far as she’s only a head shorter) you gently place your hand on her shoulder. You can’t help but feel pity for her, no children should go through what they’re going through, but you can’t speak out to your mother.

“It is…but, hey, we’re managing to prolong it since Rosina can’t see properly,” You try to comfort her, tucking a strand of loose hair behind her ear. You look away from her for a moment, sighing softly as you try to think of something else to say. You can’t call the candy witch your mother, since the siblings seem to think you’re a captive of hers, so using her real name works in its stead. Turning your eyes back to Gretel, you continue, “…but it won’t be too much longer until she can’t wait anymore.”

Standing straight, you hurry over to the sink, washing the dried dough off your hands as a confused Gretel stays stood by the oven. You dry off your hands before going back to her, once again crouching down to her height. You flick your wrist, focusing on crafting the item of thin air. A few sparks fall from your fingertips before two small red candies appear, perfectly round and softly refracting any light that hits them.

“Here, eat one and give the other to your brother,” You hold out the candies to Gretel, whom looks at you with wide eyes, clutching the broomstick tighter as she takes a step back.

“You are vorkink vith zee vitch!” She yells, rapidly backing away from you, and you can’t help the rush of panic that floods through your body.

“No, no no…! Shhh…!” You hurriedly tried to shush Gretel as you stepped closer, not wanting your mother to come in and see this interaction. “I’m not, these candies are special ones, they’ll make you more resistant to flames and heat.” You genuinely add on, holding out the candies to the younger girl again, silently hoping that she’ll believe you and take them.

Unluckily, it didn’t seem she did as Gretel continued to back away from you. She changed her grip on the broom, holding the end with the bristles towards your body at an angle.
“Lair!” She hissed out, preparing to hit you with the broom if you tried to come closer to her. “You are vorkink vith zee vitch as zee vitches apprentice! You kan use magik!”

Letting out a sigh, you stand up straight, throwing the two candies off to the side where they dissipate into nothing, having no use now. “You can think what you like, but I was trying to help you.” You mumble just loud enough for her to hear, before speaking properly, “But you should probably get back to sweeping before Rosina comes in from all the shouting.”

Gretel’s hold on the broom falters at that, but not even a second later the gingerbread door bursts open. Your mother stood in the doorway, looking very annoyed with all the noise she could hear from the kitchen.

“What’s with all the ruckus?!” She demands, looking at both you and Gretel with a stern look. You freeze in place, straightening your posture up more as you face your mother, silently relieved the candies dissipated before she came in.

“I-I was just trying to get Gretel to help me get the biscuit tiles out of the oven so I can finish replacing the stuff she and her brother ate from the house’s exterior.” You quickly make up an excuse, silently cursing yourself for letting a small stutter slip out.

The candy witch clicked her tongue, turning her body towards Gretel as she dismissed you with a wave of her hand, having believed your excuse. “Well get to it then, I need the oven empty.” She turned her head back to look at you again. “But don’t take the girl with you, Y/N, I need her to help me.”

You nod as the candy witch returned her attention to Gretel, waving the young girl over as you turned away. Moving towards the oven, you slip on a pair of oven mitts before you open the door. Leaning inside you take out the tray, the cookie dough now baked hard and ready to be used as replacement tiles for the consumed bits of the roof.

Placing the tray down on the butterscotch counter, you took off the oven mitts, moving away from the counter as you let the new tiles cool. You approached the room you could hear your mother in, moving into the room to stand at the back.

Gretel was clutching the broomstick close to her chest, stood beside the candy witch, albeit slightly behind. Hansel was holding out the bone we’d given him days ago, the witch feeling it along thinking it was his finger.

Her face scrunched up, increasing the already large amount of wrinkles along it, as she spat into the hearth. “This is taking too long, I can’t wait another day!” She yelled, turning away from the cage. “The boy will be my dinner tonight no matter how thin he may be!”

Hansel’s face paled as he looked at Gretel, fear evident on the younger sibling’s face. The pity you had felt for both wasn’t as strong as before, however, it was still quite powerful.

“Girl, follow me,” Rosina demanded, moving towards the kitchen and gesturing for Gretel to follow. Gretel trailed behind her, looking a slight bit like a lost puppy, although a much more scared one. Giving one last fleeting glance to the boy locked in the cage, you followed after the two.

They stopped in front of the oven, so you stayed back a bit, lingering over by the back door that led out to the well. The candy witch looked to Gretel with a sly grin, one you’d seen many times and knew what it meant.

“Be a dear and check if it’s hot enough for me, will you?” The witch requested a sinister glimmer in her eyes which Gretel didn’t fail to notice. You watched the young girl’s face pale a little before she looked down, putting the broom to the side of the oven.

“I do not knov hov to tell,” Gretel answered, yet that earned a harsh bark from the candy witch, making her flinch.

“Nonsense! Nothing could be easier. Just go inside!” Rosina demanded, becoming annoyed by the girl’s fake stupidity, although her old age might be the reason why she couldn’t tell if things were fake.

“Schov me hov firsht, please.” Gretel slowly requests, resulting in the candy witch spitting in the oven, the saliva evaporating in a second.

“Stupid girl!” She snapped, mumbling to herself in annoyance as she grumbled. “Y/N could tell with no problem, stupid child…” As your mother opened the door, you saw Gretel step closer to her from behind, unaware of what the child may do.

You cleared your throat, gaining the attention of your mother before she leaned into the oven and the attention of Gretel. Knowing that there wasn’t much you could do in this situation anyway, you gave up keeping your secret hidden.

“Um, Mother,” You began, noticing how Gretel’s posture straightened and the young girl’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think you should show her how to do it.”

Your mother’s head cocked to the side a bit, the heat of the open oven casting an eerie orange glow over her from behind. Just as she opened her mouth to respond to you, Gretel whipped back around to face the candy witch and shoved her into the oven.

You stepped back with a gasp as you watched your mother fall back into the burning depths of the oven. But before you could even do anything, Gretel lunged for the door and slammed it shut, quickly placing the broom handle in the latch to keep it from opening.

She whirled back to face you as the yells of the candy witch echoed inside the oven, leaking into your ears and bleeding into your consciousness. You felt dizzy, your head was pounding, you didn’t know what to do. You wanted to go and help your mother, get her out of the oven before she was cooked alive like the many children before her, but you feared what this one may do if you tried. No child had fought back against your mother before, and in your fear, you turned to flee.

That was a horrible idea because as soon as your back was to Gretel, you heard fast-paced footsteps coming up behind you. Before you could even move again, something hard hit you over the back of the head with a resounding thump.

Your eyelids flickered as your knees collapsed beneath you, the world spinning and your ears ringing with the pained screams and curses your mother was spewing. You managed to turn yourself around just enough to catch a glimpse of Gretel before your head hit the ground and your vision went dark.

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The young girl stood there, eyes wide and a metal tray in her hands, her knuckles white from how hard she was clenching it. She dropped it, stepping back from the body of the teenage girl unconscious on the ground in front of her. The screams of the old hag she’d shoved into the oven fell deaf upon her ears.

Gretel looked down at her hands, they were shaking, she could feel the tears welling in her eyes even when she shouldn’t feel bad for what she’d done. “…Y-you schouldn’t feel guilty Gretel…!” She tried to scold herself, denying the reality of what she’d just done. “Sche vas ze daughter of zat vitch, you dit za right zink…”

Despite everything she was telling herself, she turned her head away from the teenager, not able to bring herself to look at her body. Turning away from what she’d done, she casts her gaze back upon the oven. The screams of that…cannibal had gone silent while she was consoling herself.

She walked over to the oven and stood in front of it, staring at its metal door. Her mouth was dry as she tried to produce some saliva, only succeeding after a few moments. Tilting her head back a little, Gretel tried to duplicate what the candy witch had done earlier and spat onto the oven door. But it didn’t shoot out in a little ball like the candy witches had, instead, it was a dribble of spit, which she quickly wiped her mouth to remove the trail of.

Turning away from the oven, she fled back into the room her brother was locked within, the cage his prison until she found the key. Gretel had as long as she needed from what she knew, she had killed the witch and most likely her daughter too, so she didn’t need to rush, but it’d still be best to get out of the house before nightfall.

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Your ears rang as you brought a hand to your head, a pounding pain throbbing just behind your temples. You squinted your eyes to peek out at your surroundings, trying to regain your bearings, but the light hurt your eyes and the world spun around you, so you quickly closed them again.

You tried to sit up, feeling as if you’d fall back down onto the ground, but you eventually managed to seat yourself on the surprisingly warm ground. You couldn’t remember the past things that happened before you woke up, and if you tried, a spike of pain went off behind your eyes.

Giving yourself a bit of time, you let the ringing in your ears tone down and waited till the pain became a dull throb before you tried opening your eyes again. Blinking a couple of times to get used to the light in the room, you looked around where you were.

You were in the kitchen, the oven still on behind you, probably the reason, the floor was so warm. Grabbing onto the counter, you used it to help you stand back up, your legs a bit shaky beneath you.

With a lack of memory from what happened before you woke up, you looked out the window. The moon was beginning to rise, leaving the kitchen in a dark glow caused by the oven.

If the oven was on then that must mean that Hansel and Gretel would be in it then, right? So, why wasn’t your mother around to monitor the cooking process to make sure the children don’t get overcooked?

You shakily left the kitchen, leaning onto the wall for support so you wouldn’t fall over as you went. You moved into the room the cage was kept in, and as you expected, the cage door was wide open. But the small glint of something shiny on the ground caught your attention.

Slowly moving over to the cage, you crouched down and picked up the small iolite that lay in front of the cage. Examining it between your fingers, you noticed a knocked-over vase from the side of your eye.

You slipped the iolite into your pocket and dashed over to the vase, stumbling on your feet a few times while doing so. As soon as you got to the vase, you bent down and put it back up the way it was supposed to be. But checking inside it, it was mostly empty, just a few pretty gemstones left inside.

“…Gumdrops!” You mumbled under your breath, getting a sudden surge of adrenaline as you turned away from the vase and dashed for the front door. Seeing it wide open, your breath caught in your throat, and you turned away dashing back to the kitchen.

The moment you saw the broom wedged in the door latch on the oven, everything that went down before you woke up came flooding back to you. Your chest felt tight as you quickly grabbed onto the broom, trying to tug it out from where it was jammed to keep the door shut.

Eventually succeeding, you could feel the tears pricking your eyes evaporate as you tugged open the oven door. The heatwave that hit you from inside the oven didn’t stop you as you leaned inside it, grabbing onto the crumpled pile that lay on the ground. Hurriedly you began tugging it out, holding back the choked sobs that built in your throat.

When you had successfully pulled out what was in the oven, you slammed the door shut, turning it off a second later. You laid down what you’d pulled out of the oven, dusting off soot from the clothes.

You could feel the tears evaporate the moment they spilled out as you saw the burned face of your mother. Her skin was wrinkled and thin, but bright red and peeling. There were holes burned through her clothes and her hair was singed down to the roots. You couldn’t look at her, hands covering your mouth as you fled out of the house.

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You ran for as long as you could, the moon high in the sky by the time you stopped running. Your cheeks were numb, and your throat hurt, the tears finally able to spill with the lack of heat in the cold forest. Each tear that ran down your cheeks left a tingly trail before they fell to the ground.

You bent over, your hands on your knees as you panted between choked sobs. The image of your mother’s corpse was burned into your brain. You couldn’t stop yourself as you began to retch, practically nothing coming up but stomach bile. It stung your throat, but you couldn’t stop it, even though nothing was leaving your body.

You felt sick, the coughing from the retching causing you to do it more. By the time you finally managed to pull yourself together, your throat was dry and scratchy. You couldn’t even figure out the way back to your home, you had run that far.

Wiping your cheeks with your wrist, you began to walk off in a random direction. Eventually, you began to hear hooves hitting the ground from further ahead, so you made your way closer to the noise. Peeking out of the foliage, you saw a large line of horse-drawn carriages moving along a dirt path that wound through the trees and undergrowth. You couldn’t make them out very well with most of the moonlight being blocked out by the canopy.

Staying in the foliage, you just watched them all pass by, unsure of what you were supposed to do. You’d never left the candy house before, your mother had been the one to do that, going out to get items to repair and add on to the house, as well as some metal appliances on occasion.

Thinking about your mother brought tears to your eyes again, but you quickly wiped them away, not wanting to cry anymore. The carriages had gone past you now, the trotting of hooves slowly fading away into the distance.

You move out of the foliage, standing on the edge of the dirt path as you dust down your clothing, removing brambles, leaves, twigs, and a few seeds. While tidying yourself up, you felt a small lump in your clothing. Slipping your hand into the layers you used as a pocket, your fingers wrapped around a small round item that was rather cold.

Pulling it out of the makeshift pocket, you hold it up to the sky, trying to get a better look at it. It was the iolite from earlier. It was the perfect shape for a pendant or an accessory on a belt, but it was the one thing you still had with you from the candy house.

Lowering the iolite back down, a single beam of moonlight hit the gemstone, setting off a small glimmer of light from the precious rock. You dropped the gem in surprise, but it landed directly next to a little white pebble just in front of you. Bending down, you pick up the iolite, which had luckily not broken, but as your fingers brush against the smooth pebble, it lights up with a small glow.

You jump back from it in surprise as one by one more little white pebbles light up along the edge of the dirt path. You clutch the iolite tightly in your hand, as you straighten up, glancing around at the dark forest and dirt path once more. The little trail of light led in the opposite direction the horse-drawn carriages had gone, so you weren’t too sure if going in that direction was a good idea.

Suddenly, a stick cracked from somewhere behind you in the undergrowth, followed by the hoot of an owl. Snapped out of your hesitation and straight back into reality, you hurriedly start to follow the trail of small shiny lights, not wanting to find out what was back there.

However, as you hurried along the edge of the dirt path, you were unaware of the two faces that peeked out at you from within a bush. Each belonging to a different creature, one a meerkat and the other, a warthog.

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You don’t know how long you had followed that trail of pebbles, but your legs ached. Your throat was dry, and you wanted to lie down.

You made sure to watch the ground and your surroundings, but it looked like you kept walking in circles. Looking up from the ground to look for the next lightly illuminated pebble, you were met with no light apart from the moon and the last white pebble you stood next to.

Panicking a bit, you run to where the next pebble should’ve been, 10 steps ahead of the previous one. Looking at the ground and spinning around on the spot, you couldn’t see any little white pebbles.

You could feel your pulse speed up as you panicked more, you didn’t know what the pebbles were supposed to lead you to, but it seemed that they’d just made you more lost than you already were. You look down at the iolite in your hand, tucking it back into the pocket with a small sigh as you began to look around at the forest in the area you were in.

You were on your own, nothing to guide you and nobody around to help you. The forest was dark, you wouldn’t want to stray off the dirt path at night if you wanted even a glimpse of guaranteed safety.

Looking back at the dirt path leading ahead, you noticed a very faint orange glow coming from further down the direction you’d been heading. Feeling a small spark of hope ignite in your chest, along with a trickle of fear, you set out towards the glow, not sure what you’d find but hoping it was something helpful.

It was a campfire.

A little campfire kept within a small circle with smooth white stones. You blinked at it a few times in disbelief, not really believing what you’d stumbled upon. The moon was high in the sky, and you were in the middle of a forest right on the edge of a dirt path, and someone had set up camp here. Do they not have a single notion of sensibility?

You whirled around at the sound of a door closing, your heart leaping into your throat. Yet, you calm down a little at the kind voice that follows suit.

“Oh? Why are you out so late?” The voice questions, followed by soft footsteps on wooden steps as a figure moved towards the circle of light the campfire casts. The figure had come from a little wooden cabin on wheels with a strange looking door on the back of it, a white horse sleeping at the front of it. You’d failed to notice both the horse and the little residence on wheels when you came across the campfire, due to how dark it was outside the little ring of light.

As the stranger entered the ring of low light the fire cast, it was quite easy to see it was a man. He had dark coloured hair, navy blue or something similar, as the campfire made it look black. His eyes were unique though, much different from all the children’s you’d seen. His were a bright yellow that seemed to kind of glow, but his pupils were small, almost slitted.

The man looked you over for a second before bringing the curl of his pointer finger to his lips. “You know, it’s not very safe for a young lady like yourself to be out so late at night by yourself.” The stranger reflects, taking a few more steps into the light.

A small sheepish smile tugs at your lips as you look off to the side, absentmindedly fiddling with your fingers due to nervousness. “I don’t really know how to get back home…” You mumble, your voice only just louder than the crackling of the fire.

“Oh…Ohhhhh….” The man began, letting his hand drop from his face as he gave you a pitying smile as he came close to you. The stranger brought his hand up again and began to rub the top of your head, seemingly in an attempt to comfort you.

Not really used to that kind of touch, you just kind of stood there, letting it happen as you looked up at him, albeit more over his shoulder than at his face. Once he removed his hand from upon your head, it tilted a bit to the side, mimicking an owl up in the tree canopy behind him.

You returned your attention to the man before you, confused as to why he did that. “What was that for?” The man chuckled lightly at your confusion before patting your shoulder a little.

“It’s all right child, you can spend the night with me.” He states, turning away from you with a small flourish of the cloak that lay around his shoulder, lifting his hand from your shoulder to gesture you to follow him.

“Aren’t I so generous?” He rhetorically questioned, beginning to walk back towards the small moving house on wheels. With basically nowhere to go, you quickly ran a few paces to walk beside him, albeit a step behind.

Once at the back of his residence, he grabbed onto the little handles of the door, and pulled them open. A dark curtain separated the inside of the caravan from the doors, obscuring any view of the inside of his home. There were shelves lining the inside of one of the doors, while the others had items hanging over it all.

The man walked inside his travelling home, brushing past the curtain. Yet, you didn’t follow him inside, mesmerized by the items on display here. You could only guess he was a merchant; from the stories your mother had told you of those wandering tradespeople she’d sometimes come across when out of the house.

You ran your fingers over the fur of a black and white cloak with red on the inside, it was beautiful and soft to the touch. A large fancy mirror hung on the door beside the cloak, it’s golden frame extremely detailed for such a simple plane of glass, but a smaller hand-held version of it was right beside it. At the edge of the door, there was a quiver of arrows and a bow hung on a small hook, you’d seen a grown man with them once, the only time your mother had ever taken you out of the candy house. You quickly wipe your eyes, forcing away forming tears from the memory.

You turn your head away from the bow and arrow, looking towards the other door that had a ton of shelves on it. On the top shelf, there was a vase of red and white roses all mixed, it was beautiful. Beside it sat a pair of black rimmed glasses and a hat. On the opposite side of the vase was a deck of playing cards, you knew what they were from a child having some on them when they stumbled upon where you lived.

You shake your head, forcing away the memories again. You didn’t want to cry anymore, you needed to find your way back home before you could continue grieving.

You turn your attention to the shelf below that one, where in a small case, sat a pair of small heels, seemingly made of glass. Beside it was a carton of eggs on one side, and a sheathed sword on the other. It was a strange sight, so you moved your attention down to the shelf below that one, but not before doing something.

You reached out and put your hands on the sword handle, gently pulling it off the shelf. Once the handle had slipped off the shelf, the sheathed blade of it followed straight after, causing you to nearly fall over from how heavy the item was. With a quiet groan, you strained your arms to lift the sword back up and get it back on the shelf, which took a bit of time and effort, but you eventually succeeded.

With a sigh of relief, you wiped some sweat off your brow before actually moving your gaze to another shelf this time.

There was a basket of bright red apples that seemed to shine in the moonlight, along with a similar looking item that looked like an apple, but its shape was different. There was a small tower beside it, that seemed to be a toy, right at the very top of it though, was a bell. Between the tower and basket sat a golden shell on a thin gold thread. You reached your hand out and brushed your fingers over the small swirl the shell had as it’s pattern.

A rustle of noise behind you caught you off guard, making you pull your hand back from the shell and whip around to see if the man had come to see why you hadn’t followed him inside. But there was nothing there, the curtain was still, apart from a faint breeze causing the fabric to shift slightly. However, your attention caught onto something from the other door you’d missed earlier. A large red and gold carpet was rolled up and propped against the wall just in front of the curtain, but right where it leaned against the hinges for the door. There were small gold tassels that peeked out of the rolled-up fabric, where the corners of the carpet would be.

Suddenly, the sound of flames erupted from beside you, causing you to whirl around to face the source of the sound, panicked. But what you saw made you jump away, causing you to fall into the curtains slightly.

The large fancy mirror that had been hanging on the door, was in front of you now, floating in the air. Where your reflection should have been, was instead a large wall of green flames. You could feel yourself beginning to panic, you had grown up around magic and witchcraft but had never once seen this happen.

“Ahh…” A deep voice began, coming straight from the mirror. You couldn’t help the spike in your heart rate as you clutched tightly onto the curtains, silently hoping that the man from before would burst through at any moment.

“My cherished benefactor.” The mirror continued, the green flames still flickering along the whole of its glass pane. “A lovely, wicked bloom that doth nobly enthral.”

The mirror moved closer to you, causing you to scramble back, entangling yourself in the dark curtains and knocking over the carpet. “Truly, thou art the fairest one of all.” It continued, slowly floating closer still.

You didn’t even pay any attention to the compliment, panicking further instead as warnings from your mother flashed through your head. How everybody would be out to get you, how it wasn’t safe to leave, how she’d be the only one you’d be able to trust. Regret was washing over you in a wave now, you shouldn’t have trusted that man, you never should’ve fled the house, but you were scared then, and your scared now.

The mirror kept coming closer until it stopped a few inches away from your face, where it proceeded to hover. “Mirror, mirror on the wall.” You were frozen as it spoke more before pausing in its speech, almost as if it were aware that it wasn’t on a wall. “Who is the…”

You didn’t hear the rest of what it said, as a sharp pang of pain shot through your head, causing you to wince and close your eyes. You could feel the moving house tremble slightly as the heavy fall of hooves rang in your ears, getting louder as the trembling grew stronger.

But, the moment you opened your eyes, it was all gone, as if it never happened. But you were met with the sound of the mirror speaking again. “Those who art guided by the Dark Mirror.”

The green flames licking at the glass from the other side slowly began to fade out as it continued. “Follow the wish of thine heart, and take the hand thou seest reflected in the looking glass.” At that, the flames fully out and your breath caught in your throat as a hand came into view. It looked as if it was reaching out towards you, but it was waiting for you. There was something all too familiar about the hand as it waited, something that you just couldn’t place.

The glint of a small ring on its finger caught your attention and it clicked, your mother. Feeling the tears welling up in your eyes again, your pulse calmed down, panic dissipating as you carefully untangled yourself from the curtains.

You began to reach out for your mother’s hand, the one shown in the glass mere centimetres away from you. The words the mirror uttered next feel deaf upon your ears as your fingertips brushed against the glass. The hand quick to reach out and grab onto yours, pulling you through the glass. The mirror broke with a large shatter and fell to the ground, glass shards scattered all over the ground and curtain as the man from before whipped the fabric to the side.

If only you’d heard the warning the mirror had uttered. You would’ve known of what was to come, but sadly, you didn’t. The warning echoed quietly around in the broken glass, never to be heard.

“For I…..And for them…..And for thee…..Little time doth remain. No matter what, take care to never let go of that hand…”

Chapter Text

Your head hurt, a pulsing pain flashing in and out of existence just behind your eyes. Everything was dark, to the point it was impossible to tell if your eyes were open or closed.

Bringing a hand to your head, you gingerly rubbed circles into your temples, trying to ease the throbbing pain. Yet, your fingertips soon brushed against something sharp, something that had a thick liquid slowly flowing down it. You pulled your hand away from it, wincing at the slight sting in your fingers as you put them in your mouth.

An intensely sweet flavor invaded your senses, making you pull your fingers straight back out of your mouth. You grimaced at the taste left on your tongue, a shiver running down your body.

You wiped your hand off on your clothing, not wanting your own blood to remain on your fingers. Your clothing felt different, like the outfit had completely changed, but you couldn’t see in the darkness.

At first, you’d all believed this was a dream, that at any moment you’d wake up back in your house and find your mother still in bed or brewing up another spell or potion. But now… This wasn’t a dream. It never was and it never could be.

You let your body drop to the ground, bringing your knees up to your chin and curling into a ball on the ground. You buried your face into your legs, tears spilling from your eyes as you silently sobbed.

After what felt like eternity, but was most likely mere moments, you remembered that iolite you’d had in your pocket.

Quickly, you sat upright, wiping your nose with your sleeve as you began patting yourself down. After a minute, you felt something hard buried among the layers of cloth that adorned your body. You instantly searched through that section, but you heard a small clatter as the gem fell off, landing somewhere off to the side.

You quickly start to feel around the cold floor, searching for the iolite. As soon as you felt it, you clasped it in your hands, bringing them to your chest where you closed your eyes.

The world shook around you as a clattering sound rang out in the space. Your eyes shot open in surprise, yet the world was still pitch black.

One hand fell away from your chest, moving to your side while the other kept the iolite pressed against your chest. Your empty hand grasped at the space beside you, instinctively reaching out to hold onto your mother’s hand like you’d done so many times ago when you were younger.

Yet, you flinched at the feeling of a hand grasping onto yours, holding it. You looked to your side, in hopes of seeing somebody, or even anything, but it was still pitch black. You reached out with the hand clasping the iolite to the space beside you. But your hand passed through air before meeting a wall, nothing was there.

The hand holding yours tightened slightly, a ring on the pointer finger pressing into your skin slightly as the thumb moved up to rub small circles into your knuckles. It was a motion your mother had always done to help you calm down, and you couldn’t stop the tears that begin to trickle down your face as a small smile pulled at your lips.

Grabbing a hold of your bravery, you tightened your hold back on the hand holding yours. You turned your head to face what you believe is forward, but it’s impossible to tell what direction which is, and what way up or down is when you’re trapped in pitch darkness.

“What was that noise…?” You quietly questioned aloud, hoping for some response from something.

However, the voice of what appeared to be a young boy came from in front of you. “Crap, people are coming…! Gotta get a uniform while…” The voice trailed off before you could here all of what they’d said.

“Grrr!!” The voice reached your ears again, but it sounded as if the person was grating their teeth. The voice let out a sigh, now sounding disappointed and annoyed. “The lid is too heavy.”

“Lid…?” You mumbled to yourself in confusion, not understanding what the voice was talking about.

Keeping a hold of the non-existent holding yours, you reached out in front of you with the hand still clasping the iolite. Your touch met something hard and cold, but it was smooth.

“Time for… my secret move!” The voice stated, sounding kind of proud of itself before making a weird noise. “Guwaahuuh~~~ There!”

Before you could even guess what the owner of the voice was doing, your vision flashed a blinding white. You flinched away, shutting your eyes to avoid being blinded by the sudden onslaught of bright light.

The space suddenly felt extremely hot, and you could hear the crackling of flames. Opening your eyes, you were finally met with something you could see. There were flames all over the small space you were trapped inside of, yet they weren’t the normal colour, they were light blue.

“F-Fire?!” You screeched, scrambling around in the small space trying to escape the flames. You shoved yourself towards the wall in front of you, silently hoping it’d disappear, and you’d escape.

“Ok, ok. Gotta get…” The voice started, before suddenly stopping the same moment the wall fell with you. You tumbled to the ground; landing sprawled out despite the small distance you fell.

The iolite had slipped from your hold during the tumbling, landing a small distance away from where you lay. The hand you’d felt in yours was gone now, as if it’d vanished. You groaned, propping yourself up a little on your elbows. You winced at the light, beginning to blink rapidly to get yourself adjusted to it as you shook your head, regaining your bearings.

“WHAAAAAAAAA!!!” The voice screamed, causing you to flinch from how loud it was now that it wasn’t muffled by the walls that kept you inside whatever you were in before.

“Why are you up?!” It questioned panicked by the notion of you being awake for some reason. However, when you raised your head to look at the owner of the voice, all you could see was a mess of baby blue and baby pink obscuring your vision.

You pushed yourself off the ground, moving into a sitting position as you swept your long hair out of your face. The first thing you properly saw since awaking made you jump straight off the ground.

“A talking raccoon?!” You’d seen raccoons a few times before, when they had come across your house and began to consume it, thinking it an easy source of food. Your mother had always taken delight in chasing the dirty creatures away.

Although, this one looked a bit different, scratch that, quite different. Its ears had little blue flames coming out of them, and its tail looked like a weird utensil you’d never seen before.

“Just who are you calling a raccoon!!!” The creature demanded, offended by the remark.

Its paws moved to sit on its hips as it tilted its furry head up, looking at you from down its muzzle. “I am the Great Grim!” It stated, closing its eyes as it spoke its name before looking down its muzzle at you again.

You blinked a few times in disbelief, trying to figure out if you were seeing things, especially after what had happened with the mirror back at the house on wheels. Speaking of that transportable home, where even is it and where are you?

The creature failed to take notice of your distraction from it as you looked around the room. It raised a paw up near its face, beginning to inspect its claws. “Well, whatever.” It sounded bored, but as soon as it looked back at you, its eyes narrowed, and its paws dropped back down to its sides.

“Hey, human!” The creature snapped, causing your attention to shoot back to the raccoon-like being stood on its hind legs before you. Grim’s definitely a guy.

“Hurry and gimme those clothes!” Grim demanded, sticking a paw out as you don’t move, he added on a threat. “Otherwise…. I’ll roast ya!”

He took a large breath before spewing out a large plume of the blue flames. You let out a squeak as you dodged to the side, only just narrowly avoiding getting hit by the fire. However, you stumbled over the iolite, tripping over and landing flat on the floor.

You scrambled to get back up, grabbing the iolite as you go. Grim gathers another breath to blow out more blue flames as you dodge to the side, unintentionally somersaulting and hitting your head on the bottom of a tall but slim floating box.

“Ow…” You groaned in pain, bringing one hand to your head as the world spun around you a bit. Yet, when a blast of powerful heat shot past your head by a mere space, you flinched, quickly scrambling back up onto your feet. Even though you bumped your head on the corner of the bottom of the box, you began to run.

Despite not knowing where you are, who’s around or why this is happening, you call out for help. “S-somebody help-!” You cut yourself off as the creature began to chase after you, running on all fours. You shrieked as he blew blue flames all around the place, causing you to weave around and duck to avoid getting hit.

You were already growing tired, so the moment the creature paused to take a breath, you acted. Quickly, you focus your attention on your fingers, watching as tiny sparks begin to fall from the tips of them. Hurriedly, you flick your wrist and a small cyan candy popped into existence.

At that exact moment, the raccoon-like being spewed out more flames in your general direction. You shoved the candy into your mouth as you started running again. After a few seconds, you could feel it beginning to take effect as you began to feel more energized.

“There’s a fire-breathing raccoon creature trying to kill me!” You yelled out in hopes of anybody coming to your aid, but there was no response from anybody. However, you dived to the side with a shriek as Grim spat a blue fireball at you, obviously ticked off now.

“I said I’m not a freaking raccoon!” He yelled, dashing after you as he took another breath to spew out more flames. It was surprising how nobody had taken notice of all the commotion in here yet, if there was anybody even around.

Trying to escape the creature that seemed intent on killing you, you sprinted towards a pair of very large doors. You grabbed onto the handles to open one of them, but dived to the side when a beam of fire was shot at you. From that motion, you’d pulled one of the doors open.

Hurriedly, you let go of the handle, dashing out through the door with Grim hot on your heels.

It led straight out into a hallway, with lots of doors on the outer wall. The inner wall was just some pillars spaced apart and a small wall that’d function as a fence. It showed a view of what seemed like a clearing in a forest, but full of built in paths and benches.

You lunged at the first door you saw, which opened inwards from the impact of your weight. You stumbled a few steps, blinking, not having expected it to open and instead break.

You were in a room that had a desk at the back, stacked with books on the two front corners. There was a large black board on the wall behind it, a bookshelf filled with books beside it. However, what confused you the most were the little wooden counters that sat beside one another on either side of the room. There was one row of them right before the wall on either side, with space to walk between the two objects. Another row was in front of that one, a little lower down than the other row and with enough space to walk between the two.

Yet, you couldn’t stop and stare at the strange interior design of the room as Grim was right behind you. You lunged behind one of the counters in the row as he blew a flame right where you last stood.

“Stop dodging and let me burn you to a crisp already!” He yelled, jumping up on top of the counter you were hiding behind. You squeaked as he blew a flame right at you, but you only just managed to dodge it by rolling to the side and out from behind the counter. You hurried to your feet before dashing out the room, straight back into the hallway.

Dodging more flames spewed at you, you sprinted at the small inner wall of the corridor and heaved yourself up onto it. You jumped off the edge of it, right onto the other side. The landing impact hurt your feet a little, but you couldn’t pay attention to that right now. You took off once more, Grim’s angry yelling echoing through the corridors behind you as it struggled to pull itself over the wall and follow you.

You clutched the iolite close to your chest as you ran through the new scenery, your breath heaving from how much you were exerting yourself.

There were big trees with apples in their branches behind each bench. Small bushes were scattered around the grass and sometimes ran along the sides of the paths or nestled between the roots of the large trees. There was a group of tall, thin trees that looked like bushes surrounding a circular patch of the path which had a fancy, but old, well sat in the middle of it.

You slowed down for a moment, not hearing the creature anymore, before you finally came to a stop. You bent over, your hands on your knees as you panted, trying to catch your breath after what’s just happened. Energy and adrenaline were still coursing through your veins, but you still needed to breathe.

At the sound of footsteps in grass coming from off to the side, your head shot up to look at what made the sound. You were ready to sprint off again if it was Grim.

However, you froze at the sight of what was approaching you.

It was a tall male, dressed in what seemed to be a formal uniform for something. He had long dark hair that framed his face and rested upon his chest, but it ended just below his shoulders. Yet, what made you freeze were the two long dark horns that grew out of his head and the pointed ears that peeked out from beneath his locks.

His face held a look of surprise, his arms crossed over his chest as he looked at you with wide eyes. You couldn’t make out most of his features due to the moonlight being your only source of light, but it felt as if his eyes were searching your very soul.

The male opened his mouth to speak, but a blue fireball shot between you two and hit the well, dissipating upon contact with the stone.

You squeaked, quickly starting to run again as Grim’s yells of annoyance reached your ears. As you ran away, the horned male brought one hand up to clasp his chin, watching as you ran back into the building with narrowed eyes.

Chapter Text

Eventually, you ended up in a giant room. Practically every wall was covered in shelves that held hundreds upon thousands of books. There were even more shelves scattered around the room, still filled with books.

Yet, there was enough room for a staircase to lead up to another level of the book room and spaces for areas with tables and chairs.

Your chest was heaving, and you couldn’t hear the creature anymore, so you dropped to the ground, laying flat on it as you caught your breath. At some point, you rolled onto your back and looked up to the ceiling of the room.

There were books floating all over the place, some even moving about and putting themselves back onto the shelves.

You quickly sat up, intrigued by all this magic. Back in your home, your mother’s spell books and cook books could never fly or even float.

You felt your heart drop at the memory, and you quickly brought your hands up to your face and wiped at your eyes with the back of your wrists, to keep yourself from crying.

As soon as you knew you wouldn’t cry anymore, you brought your knees to your chest and wrapped your arms around your legs. Looking down at your shoes, you wanted to go back home and see your mother again.

“…If this is a dream, I wanna wake up…” You quietly mumbled to yourself, burying your face in the small crevice between your knees and breasts.

But thanks to their being lanterns on in the library, you could still see despite having put your face in a dark space. Lifting your head back up, you looked down at yourself, paying attention to your clothing now.

Your outfit had drastically changed. Instead of the patchwork dress you’d been wearing made from rags, the shoes you’d made from gumdrops, and the apron your mother had given you, was something else entirely.

It was a weird looking kind of robe, but still fancy all the same. With fully black long-sleeved undershirt and long underpants, no skin was visible apart from your hands, face, and neck. There was a pair of pointy-toed shoes that were mostly black, but the toes were gold and the bit separating the two colours was purple. The robes had long sleeves that covered your hands if you dropped them, and a thing that looked like a skirt that went down just past your knees. It didn’t fall apart because of a thick purple belt, made of the same fabric as the rest of it, held it all together with a gold clasp.

You blink a few times in surprise, touching the fabric to discover how soft it felt. You found a small dip in the belt, and put the iolite in there, not really wanting to carry it for who knows how much longer.

With both your hands now empty, you run them through your hair, slightly working out the few tangles that formed from all the running. While doing that though, you’re fingers brush against the soft fabric of a hood that’s connected to the robes.

You pull the hood up over your head, the hem of the hood coming over half of your forehead and slightly hiding your face in a shadow. You couldn’t help but feel slightly safer with your face hidden from prying eyes, despite nobody being around.

But you couldn’t revel in that sense of safety for long, as a plume of blue fire shot past you. And Grim ran into the giant room full of books.

He stopped in front of you, paws on his hipbone(?) as he stood on his hind legs. “Did you really think you could get away from my nose? Dumb human!” He smirked as he insulted you, almost as if he believed he was a higher being then you, which he honestly could be with his capability of breathing fire.

“If you don’t wanna get roasted, better hand over-“ Grim didn’t get to finish what he was saying as a loud whipping noise rung out in the air.

You flinched at the sound; that sounded like it’d really hurt.

“Buwah?! Ow!” He cried, starting to writhe around in the thing wrapped around his body. However, it wasn’t falling off, so he started rolling around on the ground, and even then, it still wouldn’t come off.

“What’s with this rope?!” Grim demanded, still rolling around on the ground trying to get out of the unyielding binding he was trapped within.

“This is no mere rope.” A formal voice rings out in the vast room, as footsteps follow suit, the heels of the shoes clacking against the wooden ground as the owner of the voice came into view.

“It is a lash of love!” The man stated, coming into visible view, his arms spread out slightly as if he was showing something off despite nothing being in his arms.

You cocked your head to the side in confusion at him, although there was something about him you recognized even though you’d never seen him before. It was probably the tall hat with a tiny mirror on it upon his head, or the weird feathery cape he had on. The suit seemed normal considering the horned man you’d seen earlier on in the garden. What stood out most though, was the black bird-like mask that covered the top half of his face.

The man was glaring at the creature, one gloved hand holding a tight grip to a small little handle connected to the end of the long black rope that was coiled around Grim.

The masked man looked around for a moment, before his eyes landed on you. His yellow eyes suddenly softened as his hands went to his hips. He turned to face you, keeping a hold of the handle for his ‘lash of love.’

“Ah, I’ve found you at last.” He said, completely ignoring the annoyed noises coming from Grim as he kept squirming around on the ground trying to break out of the lash’s hold.

You tilted your head to the side a little and the man mirrored you, tilting his head to the side a bit too. “Are you one of the new students?” He questioned you, before doing a quick up-and-down glance over your body.

His eyes narrowed as he made eye-contact with you again, crossing his arms over his chest. “You shouldn’t do things like that.” He states, earning another head tilt from you which causes him to let out a sigh.

“Leaving the gate on your own!” He clarifies, hoping that’d clear it up for you, yet when it didn’t, he pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand and sighed again.

He stopped pinching the bridge of his nose and instead just waved his hand in dismissal before crossing his arms again. “Not only that, you have yet to tame you familiar which has broken a number of school rules.”

You frowned, furrowing your eyebrows at the man’s misinterpretation about the creature. Yet, as you open your mouth to respond to the man, Grim beats you to it.

“Let me go! I’m not their freakin’ familiar!” He yells, throwing his arms up near his head as best he could with the ‘lash of love’ restraining them.

However, the man just sighs, and scratches Grim lightly behind one of his flaming ears. “Sure, sure. The rebellious ones always say things like that.”

He doesn’t get to pet Grim for long, as the raccoon-like creature frowns and quickly tilts his head back to try and blow a plume of fire at the man’s hand. The man pulls his hand back just in time to avoid it getting scorched. He clicks his tongue as his eyes narrow at him. The hand he has holding the handle for his ‘lash of love,’ tilts the handle slightly, making the lash’s hold on the Grim a slight bit tighter, causing him to growl.

“Just quiet down for a moment,” The man calmly demands of him before reaching into his pocket with his free hand. He fishes out a weird looking mask thing for an animal muzzle, which certainly doesn’t look like it’d fit in his pocket.

The man attaches it to Grim’s face, who struggles in the confines of the ‘lash of love’ all the while. As soon as the muzzle mask is on Grim, he tries to speak, but the muzzle mask holds his mouth closed, so it ends up coming out as a muffled “Mmmghmmmm!”

You quickly cover your mouth with one hand to hide your snickers, which Grim does end up noticing. In response to your hidden snickers, Grim’s eyes narrow and he yells more into his muzzle mask which comes out as more muffled yelling which makes you crack into even more laughter.

The man takes a step back, watching the scene unfold with a deadpan. “My goodness…” He mumbles, exasperated with this whole situation already. He watches for a moment longer before clearing his throat, causing your laughter to cut off and your attention to shoot to him.

“It’s unprecedented for a new student to leave the Gate on their own.” The man states, crossing his arms over his chest. The hand holding the handle of his ‘lash of love’ tapping on his arm, causing Grim to be lifted off the ground slightly then dropped back down repeatedly.

“Uuuggh… How impatient can you be?” The man complains, letting his hands drop and shoulders sag while he looks up at the roof for a moment. Grim gets dropped onto the floor with a heavy thud from the movement, causing your cheeks to puff up as you hold in a laugh.

However, as soon as the man’s words sink in, your face scrunches up in confusion. What’s the ‘Gate’ and did he just call you a student again?

“The entrance ceremony is already well under way. Let’s head to the hall of mirrors.” The man states, giving you barely any time to finish processing his previous words.

“…Gate…? …..What’s the ‘Gate’….?” You mumble to yourself in verbal confusion, but the man hears your words and quickly starts to explain.

“It’s the room you woke up in with all the doors.” He explains, although that just makes you even more confused. There were no doors in that room except for that big pair of them you ran out of. Although, there were tons of tall, but mostly slim, floating boxes that had lids, like the one you were removed from.

“All students who wish to attend this academy must pass through one of those doors to arrive here.” He adds onto his explanation, just increasing your confusion even further. So, all that explanation basically did was tell you that other ‘students(?)’ come out of those weird box-door things to be here at this ‘academy.’ But what’s an academy?

You frowned in confusion, but you didn’t get any more time to act on your confusion as the man continued to explain more stuff. “Normally, students wake up only after the door is opened with a special key but…” He trails off, crossing his arms as he looks at you, waiting to explain how you somehow left your ‘door.’

You don’t speak for a moment, watching Grim dangle sideways, slightly above the ground as the man keeps his arms crossed. You take this quick pause to gather your thoughts and make sense of all the confusing things you’d learned.
So, you were asleep in one of those weird tall floating boxes, which are called ‘doors,’ for some odd reason. And you woke up because the lid was removed, probably from Grim’s fire. And the room you’d fallen into was what was referred to as the ‘Gate’? And only students end up here, at this ‘academy’? But none of that explains what an academy is still.

As you connected some of the dots in your head, your eyes widened in surprise and your mouth formed an ‘O’. Although you were still riddled with confusion, you’d at least made some kind of sense out of all the chaos in your head right now.

“The fire must have blown the lid off.” You confirmed verbally to yourself, feeling kind of proud about how your mother’s teachings had helped you figure that out.

The man’s eyes widened in surprise before they turned to Grim, narrowing in on him as he dangled from the ‘lash of love.’ Grim winced away, his ears going flat in fear of what might be about to happen if he had incurred this man’s wrath.

“So, in the end the culprit was this familiar.” The man concluded how you left the door, eyes boring into Grim as he dangles slightly above the ground on his side. “If you’re going to bring it with you, you have to take responsibility and properly take care of it.” He directs his words at you, not giving you any attention as his anger is honed-in on Grim.

However, his anger doesn’t remain for long as his body quickly relaxes from its tensed state. “…Oh my! Now isn’t the time to be long winded. The entrance ceremony will soon come to a close.” He mumbles to himself, bringing his free hand to his chin and crossing his occupied hand across his body. That causes Grim to get flung off to the side with a muffled cry of panic, still dangling just above the ground thanks to the ‘lash of love’ still wrapped around his body.

Quickly, the man drops his arms to his sides, making Grim plummet onto the ground again. “Let’s get a move on.” He states, beginning to walk towards the doors to leave the room full of shelves of books. Grim being dragged along behind the man, digging his hind paws claws into the wooden floor to try and not get dragged along behind him.

You hurriedly speak up, wanting to get a bit of information about the man, at least his name. “Just a second…” The man stopped in his tracks, looking over his shoulder at you, giving you silent permission to continue your question.

“Um,” You look down at your shoes, suddenly feeling self-conscious. You let some of your cotton-candy coloured hair fall over your face, hiding you a little bit more with the hood. “Who exactly are you…?” You question the man, your voice trailing off as you spoke.

Luckily, he heard you, and turned around fully to face you. But there was confusion written over his face that you could easily see despite his mask. He brought his free hand to his chin, his head cocking to the side as he looked at you, before quickly walking over to stand in front of you.

“What’s this? Are you still dazed?” The man questions, before removing his hand from his chin. He moves the handle of his ‘lash of love’ and uses it to softly tilt your chin up so he can see your face, lifting Grim off the ground with it. Your eyes widen as you’re forced to look up at him, your mouth slightly open as he moves your hair out of your face with his other hand. You’re shocked into silence as when he completes that, he places it on your forehead. After a few seconds, he frowns, removing his hand from your forehead and stepping back.

“It appears the teleportation magic has left you disoriented…” The man mumbles, seemingly concerned about you. Although you didn’t feel at all disoriented, you did feel kind of strange, like there was a faint buzzing inside your body or something.

Ignoring that weird feeling inside you, you manage to catch seeing Grim get lifted then dropped back down to the ground by the ‘lash of love’ as the man shrugged.

“Well, it is fine. It happens often enough. I shall give you an explanation as we make our way there. For I am gracious.” He states a large smile spreading across his face before he turns on his heel and begins to walk off, dragging Grim along behind him.

You quickly scurry after him, not wanting to be left behind and wanting to at least learn more about this situation you’ve ended up in.

––––––––––––––––––––––––

The walk is silent as you end up back in the little ‘indoor forest clearing(?)’ following along behind the masked man as Grim is dragged along beside you, writhing around in his bindings. You couldn’t help but to look around the area, checking to see if that horned guy was still around.

However, your attention is knocked back to the masked male leading you through the area as he cleared his throat. Grim’s struggling paused for a moment, also knocked out of his focus to escape the ‘lash of love.’

“This is Night Raven College.” He states, gesturing around to the building’s hallways surrounding the outside themed area you’re currently walking through.

“Those magicians blessed with a unique aptitude for magic gather from all over the world, here at the most prestigious magical academy in Twisted Wonderland. And I am the headmaster, appointed to take care of this academy by the board chairman, Dire Crowley.”

You now had a name for the masked man, Dire Crowley, but that was an information overload. What’s a headmaster? What’s a board chairman? What’s a magician? That’s way less answers and way more questions.

“Ma…magician?” You ask, wanting to get the simplest seeming thing out of the way.

“Only those magicians seen as worthy by the Dark Mirror can attend this school. Chosen ones use the Gate and are summoned here from around the world.” Crowley answers, explaining as if all of this is just common knowledge.

You just awkwardly nod, a very perplexed expression on your face as you reach up and tug the hood further down. You had genuinely no idea what he was blabbering on about at this point, none of his explanations explaining anything, instead just adding more questions.

“An Ebony Carriage carrying a Gate should have gone to meet you as well.”

That rung a bell.

“Oh! I remember going through a dark forest!” You stated, remembering that weird house on wheels and the talking mirror with the green flames. How the ground had started trembling and the dizzying feeling the sound of hooves elicited. That could be the ‘Ebony Carriage’ Crowley was talking about!

Crowley nods at you, before continuing with his monologue of an explanation. “The Ebony Carriage goes to welcome new students chosen by the Dark Mirror. They are special carriages that carry doors to the academy. The market decided long ago that carriages are used to welcome people on special days."

Market? You’d never heard of a market before, but your mother had once spoken of a place where people would gather to trade and used a similar name for it. What was it again, trading post?

Wait, the Ebony Carriages go to ‘welcome’ new students? Does that mean they’re alive?!

“You’re telling me that carriage just brought me here on its own?!” You yelled, more in a mixture of shock and surprise then anger.

If carriages are alive, then that’d mean somebody had gotten your mother’s spell and had brought other inanimate items to life! You basically had siblings then!

The grin that was slowly forming on your face at the thought instantly dropped as your train of thought was cut off by Grim’s muffled yelling, although it was quieter now. You barely picked it up over Crowley’s rambling.

“Muggamm! Muggghh!!” One of Grim’s paws slipped out of the ‘lash of love’ and he quickly let his claws snake out before slashing at the rope binding the rest of his body. It took a few swipes before part of it snapped off and fell away from his body, causing him to drop down to the ground, where he landed on all paws with a small squeak.

Grim quickly shook himself, shaking out his fur, before glaring up at you and running off in the opposite direction you and the ‘headmaster’ were heading. Just as you were about to speak up about it when Crowley finally stopped speaking, he beat you to the punch.

“Come. Let us go to the entrance ceremony.”

With that he began to walk faster, making you have to double your walking pace. If Crowley was gonna keep being a blabbermouth, you weren’t gonna bother to tell him that Grim had broken out of the ‘lash of love.’

The ‘headmaster’ could deal with that problem himself!

Chapter Text

You were back at those doors, the big pair of doors you’d fled through earlier from Grim. Speaking of that, where had he run off too, you hadn’t spotted him as you followed Crowley back here.

You could hear loud chattering coming through the door, which seemed a little off considering this was supposed to be a ‘welcoming ceremony.’ Whenever your mother had her rare ceremonies, she made you sit in near silence the whole time, so the fact there was loud chatter seemed off.

Needless of this, Crowley pushed the doors open, walking straight inside the room with the floating boxes. Following behind him, you kept close, sort of hiding in his shadow as you hid under your hood.

There were rows of benches right up near the middle of the room where the floating boxes were. More rows were behind that one, following one another so far back that they stopped a couple of steps away from where you stayed somewhat behind Crowley.

Practically every bench was filled with people wearing the same robes as you, other than a handful stood off to the side of the room. The murmuring quieted down, but didn’t completely stop, as hundreds of faces turned to look at the both of you.

There were so many people….

You unconsciously curled in on yourself and huddled behind Crowley a bit more, not used to the amount of people in the room. Although, some didn’t turn to look at whom had just entered the room, instead whispering to the person/people beside them or watching as one of the slim boxes descended from where it was floating.

Suddenly, the lid of it popped off at clattered to the floor as someone stepped out of it with a loud shout.

“I’m going to miss my bus!!”

You jump at the loud noises, while other people whip around to see who it was or just look over their shoulder. You watch as the guy who walked out of look confused, almost reflecting how you felt when you got here.

He looked like he was a similar age to that horned guy you’d seen in the forest clearing, but not a forest clearing, area earlier when you’d been running from Grim. They were both even wearing a formal kind of uniform, although this guy’s looked different, it was a lighter colour.

“Where am I…? I’m sure I was just at the bus stop…” You barely heard him from how far away you were, but you could see as he looked around the room, before stopping on the lid on the ground.

“Hm? That’s shaped like…” Sudden recognition showed on his face as he whirled around to see behind him, his voice suddenly spiking into a higher pitch as his face contorted into shock and fear. “A COFFIN?!”

Oh, so that’s what those floating boxes are called. Coffins… Not a weird name like ‘Gates.’

All the people on the benches were silent as they watched him shoot backwards, moving away from the coffin as a tall, thin pole-thingy wrapped up in fabric, falls out of the coffin.

Standing before the coffin, he goes silent, seeming to be thinking about something before he quietly mumbled something to himself that you failed to catch. Yet, as he goes silent again, the murmuring of all those people in the same robes as you, starts back up again.

You manage to catch some from the people in the people in the bench in front of you;
“Hey…that guy…just came out of the Gate all on his own.”
“How does that even happen…?”

You technically came out of your coffin all on your own, although Grim was a massive part of that considering his fire and all. Speaking of that raccoon-monster, where had he even gone?

Looking around the room, you couldn’t see any blue fire, so you turned to look behind you. The doors had closed behind you and Crowley, so he wouldn’t have gotten in then unless he darted between your legs when you’re walking, but you would’ve noticed that, right?

Anyway, you turn your attention back to the guy stood on the area at the middle of the room, where practically every other person was looking at him. He seemed rather panicked…

Clack, clack, clack

The noise made you jump, as you quickly looked back to where Crowley was previously stood in front of you, only to see he’d started walking towards the boy on the stage.

You panicked, your only way of hiding from all the eyes in the room had just began walking off, so you froze, quickly weighing your options.
Hide behind one of the benches and hope you don’t get spotted, follow behind him and look like a lost child, or just stay stood in the middle of the passage between the rows of benches.

Hesitating for a second, you waddle a few steps to the side and duck down behind the back row of the bench, peeking out from around the side and down the corridor to see what happens.

Crowley stops not far from the guy, leaning a little of his weight on a cane topped with a bird. Wait… When did he get a cane?!

“Oh, honestly… You can’t come through your gate unbidden. It’s unheard of.” Crowley stated, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder towards where you had previously been stood. He took a quick double-take over the fact you were gone before sighing, turning to look at the guy again. “What an impatient lad you must be.”

The guy glared at him, crouching down and picking up the wrapped-up pole thing-a-ma-bob and holding it in front of him, aimed straight at the headmaster.

“Stay away from me!!” You flinched at how loud he was while the ‘headmaster’ merely winced, holding one hand up in a manner you’d use to calm a wild animal while he spoke. “Please, calm yourself. I have given you no reason to distrust me.”

“Um, just looking at you brings up all kinds of red flags!” The guy yells, still holding the wrapped-up stick thingy out in front of him in a manner of self-defence.

You don’t know what he meant by red flags, but it sounded like a bad thing. And honestly, Crowley doesn’t look very trustworthy, considering he dresses like a raven, whom your mother had always said were ill omens.

“This whole thing – this place, you guys…” The guy yells, his voice going quieter as he looks around the room again. He tightens his grip on the thing and looks back at Crowley, once again yelling. “What is going on?! Why am I in this weird place?!”

“Why?” Crowley questions, placing a hand on his hip while his other hand remains firmly planted on the cane still. “Because you were chosen, of course.”

The boy seems to mumble something, confused, but because you were so far away you couldn’t hear it. But you knew Crowley was about to start a monologue again on what this whole place was.

You groan, not expecting the person in front of you to have heard it. You froze, looking up at a person staring down at you with wide, bright blue eyes. They looked like a girl, but you weren’t too sure, they did look young though. They were obviously surprised though, not having planned on seeing somebody crouched down hiding behind a bench.

They opened their mouth to speak, but you rapidly shook your head, waving your hands in panic to make sure he doesn’t. Your actions made your hood fall off, which you didn’t notice. The person quickly shut their mouth but seemed even more surprised at the sight at of you.

Realising that they wouldn’t say anything, you let out a small breath in relief, not very good at being around people. You made eye contact with them for a split second, of which you both broke. However, you didn’t fail to notice their lavender hair and how pretty they looked.

After a moment, you looked back at them, only to see them nod their head sideways while looking back at you. Your nose scrunched up slightly in confusion on why they did that. They click their tongue, making the motion again, only to cause you more confusion.

They gave up at that, looking up at the sky in what seemed like annoyance before roughly pointing to the empty space on the bench beside them. It was right beside the empty space that left a passage between the benches to get to the middle of the room.

Your mouth opened in slight realisation before you gingerly stood up a bit, moving into the corner of some people’s vision as you slipped into the spot beside them. You kept your eyes on the ground as you sat down, feeling extremely anxious and for some reason, kinda embarrassed.

You felt a small nudge on your arm, causing you to look up to them. They nodded their head towards the middle of the room, another discreet movement, but you understood what it probably meant now.

You turn your attention back to what was happening in the middle of the room, just in time to not get jumped by Crowley’s double clap as it echoed around the chamber. Crowley began to walk away from the centre of the room again, talking about the ceremony again.

“Wait a minute!” You flinch at the volume of the boy’s voice, not expecting it to reverb around the room despite it happening every time somebody yells. “This doesn’t make any sense! Are you sure there isn’t some kind of mistake?”

His voice was quieter now, but he took a deep breath. You braced yourself, planning on not flinching this time when he yells. You’d been around a lot of ear-splitting screams from children since you were young, but your ears were still sensitive to all the noise.

“First of all, I can’t use magic!!” Crowley stopped walking away at that, his cane hitting the ground as he turned around to face the boy.

Your mother had always told you that it wasn’t safe to go outside because people couldn’t use magic and feared it. There were so many people here, and you’d always thought it was just you and your mother who could do magic. Well, other than her little trio of witch friends. Those three had always been rather creepy with their identical doll faces.

But maybe your mother had been wrong about people fearing magic. He didn’t seem scared, but then again, no-one was using any magic. He seemed more concerned and angry, than fearful of everybody.

“What did you say…?” You barely heard the ‘headmasters’ voice from how quiet it was, but the projection of his voice allowed you to hear it.

The boy doesn’t answer him, instead gripping his weapon thing tighter.

“And besides… I have an important tournament tomorrow…!” He added on, looking down at the wrapped-up item as he squeezed it’s cover in his fist.

You’d never heard of a tournament before, it’s a funny word, tournament…

You’re learning a lot of new, strange words here, many more than those sister witches had used when they’d visit and vastly different from the words that were constantly in your mother’s spell books.

The boy acted quick, bending down to reach up a compact duffle bag, much like the ones your mother would take with her when she went out ingredient collecting for potions and spells. He slung his wrapped-up pole thing over his shoulder then turned on his heel, walking straight past Crowley and heading right down the passage between the benches.

“So, if you’ll excuse me!” He stated loudly, his footsteps echoing a little as he walked away. He ignored all the stares he was receiving as he approached the doors.

“Wait… Come back here! You would reject your acceptance? I’ve never heard of such a thing!” Crowley stated, beginning to walk down the passage, following the boy.

“It hasn’t even started yet, and it’s already getting heated.” You heard a voice from the very front of the benches say, followed quickly by a much more energetic one. “The year off to an entertaining start!”

You straightened your back, leaning forwards and to the side slightly as you craned your neck to try and see who spoke up the front. You’d barely heard the first person over the murmuring from the people nearby, but the second person’s voice was much louder than the firsts, so it had been easier to hear.

Not being able to spot them, your shoulder’s slouched, you were definitely scared from how many people were here, but you wanted to know who had spoken. They sounded nice!

“I need you to stay calm…” Crowley stated, holding out one hand again as an attempt to try and calm him once more.

The boy whirled around to face him, “You think I can be calm?!” You nearly tumbled backwards into the person beside you from the sudden scare but managed to catch yourself before it happened.

You’re not used to seats like these, they’re so easy to fall off of…

The boy seemed to notice that out of the corner of his eye and looked back at you. You froze up, one hand tightly gripping the back of the bench your sat on and the other on the back of the bench in front of you.

His eyes seem to widen a little, but you can’t tell if you saw that or not as he quickly looks away, turning back around.

“I don’t belong here…” He quietly says, starting to walk away once more.

“HOLD IT! EVERYONE JUST STOP!!!!!!!!”

Your eyes widen, you recognize that voice…

“Sugarplums…”

Chapter Text

“Sugar plums…”

You couldn’t keep that curse from slipping from your mouth at the familiarity of that voice.

And not even a moment later, Grim burst through a window right up near the roof, sending glass shards raining down on everybody sat nearby. He plummeted straight towards the chandelier, which he landed on with an unnatural grace before jumping off it. He went straight towards one of the floating coffins, his paws hitting its lid as he kicked off it and went towards the floor.

The coffin went spiraling off to the side, threatening to crash into a wall, but luckily it stabilized itself in time and floated right back to where it previously was as if nothing had even happened.

Grim landed on all four of his paws on the ground, before quickly standing up on his hind legs and holding one front paw in the air while the other was resting where his hip should be if he was human.

“I heard the whole thing!” Grim stated, not even acknowledging the fact that everybody in the room was now staring at him.

You groaned quietly, your head falling into your hands as your cotton-candy hair fell over them, brushing against your knees. Of course, Grim would show up again, you should’ve expected that. He’d been so addiment in trying to get your robes earlier that him just running off to leave after slipping out of Crowley’s ‘lash of love’ didn’t seem right.

The person beside you gave you a confused glance you didn’t pick up on. They didn’t understand what was going on or who that creature was. After a moment of you not even noticing the raised eyebrow they gave you, they sighed, looking back at what was happening in the passage. Not before giving a quick flick of their head to move their lavender locks out of their face.

“Do you have any idea how many people are dying to get into this school?!” Grim demanded towards the boy, who just stared at him in shock. “And you would throw away that chance…? Unbelievable!”

“But if you insist…” Grim began, lowering his paw down from where it was straight up in the sky, “You can leave…”

A smug smirk grew on Grim’s face as he thrust his paw out at the boy, pointing it straight at him.

“…And I’ll take your spot in the school!” He demanded, as if it was something that could happen naturally.

Crowley seemed appalled at that demand, hurriedly speaking up as he approached the two.

“First, you release a student from their gate early and chase them around the academy for their uniform, causing them to be late to our ceremony. Then you barge into said ceremony, and now you’re talking nonsense…!”

You feel Crowley’s eyes on you for a second, and sink into the bench, trying to hide away from his vision. This is embarrassing….

“Whaddaya say?” Grim questions the boy, who is still just staring at him with wide eyes, completely silent as he’s processing what’s happening.

Grim takes his silence as an answer, whirling around to face the ‘headmaster’ with crossed arms.

“See? He’s stunned speechless with gratitude!” Grim stated with a wink, not seeming at all annoyed by the fact he was talking to the same person who’d restrained him with the ‘lash of love’ earlier.

“That…” The boy’s voice is quiet, but luckily, he is close to where the doors are, so you can hear him perfectly fine.

“That tanuki is talking…!” He stated, shocked, “…And standing on two legs…”

Tanuki…? Tanuki… Tanuki…

That’s another new word! But it’s weird, funny too! Tanuki…

Grim seemed absolutely appalled at the suggestion, whirling around to face the boy now. “That’s why you’re stunned?!! AND I’M NOT A TANUKI!!”

“I am a monster who will become a great mage! I am the illustrious Grim!!” Grim introduces himself to the whole room, shoving a paw to his chest.

The massive grin plastered on his furry face fell as soon as a snort of laughter came from the bench in front of you. A group of people in the robes were snickering at him.

“A monster? Become a mage? Not a chance!” One of them stated, before another quickly perked up, “Save your jokes for your mountain friends, tanuki!”

Poor Grim…

Wait, when you’d called Grim a raccoon, he’d blown his blue fire everywhere…

Gumdrops…!

Grim’s tail shot out straight behind him, twitching a bit from side to side as his fur raised, standing on end. A growl, much louder than his tiny body should be able to create, slipped from him.

“WHAT WAS THAT?!!” Grim demanded, claws slipping out from between the tiny gaps in his paws.

They started to laugh harder at that, finding amusement in tormenting the creature with their words.

“IF THAT’S HOW IT’S GONNA BE, I’LL SHOW YOU THE SPECIAL MAGIC I’VE BEEN SAVING!”

Taking in a small breath, he spat out a small blue fireball directed at the ground. It dissipated upon contact, but you didn’t miss the loud boys’ reaction to it, his eyes widening a bunch.

The group of robed strangers in the bench in front of the one you were sat on started laughing even harder, continuing to mock Grim. His fur bristled, the blue flames in his ears growing larger and brighter.

Grim took in a large breath, leaning backwards as he did. Then, leaning forward, he blew a massive plume of blue fire straight at the three. Grim’s tail stuck straight out at the action, the little blue fires in his ears getting smaller and dimmer.

You shoved yourself back into the back of the bench, recoiling away from the flames that caught on the people’s robes. You wanted to get away from it, this had already happened once, and you didn’t want to deal with it again.

The boy stumbled back, dropping his weapon thing-a-ma-bob in surprise. The people who’d been laughing at and mocking Grim, recoiled in their seats before quickly trying to pat the flames out, yelling all the while.
“Hot!”
“My robes!”

Grim laughed, enjoying the revenge he’s returned.

“Ya see that? That’s what I can do!” Grim stated, looking straight at the headmaster, pausing to take a breath. “And there’s a lot more where that came from!”

Grim dropped back down onto all fours and began to send blue fireballs flying off in any direction.

You froze, pulse pounding in your ears as things caught fire all over the place. People were trying to flee the room, wanting to avoid being set alight like the unfortunate mockers from before.

All the yelling from the fleeing individuals fell upon death ears, your eyes locked on Grim as he spun around, eyes shut, as he spat those fireballs everywhere.

You wanted to cry, you felt like you were, but you couldn’t tell from how hot the room had become. It felt like your throat was closing up, you could feel your hands shaking as you began to hyperventilate. You were starting to get lightheaded, the blue flames beginning to merge together as your vision began to go fuzzy.

Something brushed against your hand.

It was warm, but much colder than the heat of the room. You felt fingers slip into the gaps between your own, squeezing your hand lightly for a second.

Your vision began to become stable again as your eyes drifted down to your hand, expecting to see another intertwined with yours from what you could feel. But nothing was there, despite the slightly warm feeling of skin and the cold bite of a metal ring against your skin in the boiling temperature of the room.

Your eyes widened as you were suddenly tugged forwards, pulled off the bench and into the passage that was flooding with other fleeing people donning the same robes as you.

Not even a second later, a flaming plank fell from the roof, heading straight from where you’d previously been. The person who’d let you sit beside them wasn’t there anymore, probably having already fled.

The hand released yours, letting your arm drop back down to your side as you stood still amongst the chaos of people trying to escape. Blue fireballs were still being shot all around the room, you couldn’t see that boy from earlier, but you could see Crowley nearby.

That birdman was staring forwards, the blue flames reflecting slightly in his eyes. You could barely make out what the ‘headmaster’ was saying, but you knew it was something about the fire. He seemed panicked.

You began to push back against the flow of the people fleeing, trying to make your way towards Crowley and Grim. Despite recoiling every time a blue fireball shot by you, you continued forwards.

Even though your mother was gone now, you’d much rather be alone in the candy house than be here, with all the fire and people.

Almost reaching where the headmaster was, you caught movement from the corner of your eye. It wasn’t from the fleeing masses, since you’d already gotten past most of them, but it was someone standing up right near the front.

You stopped trying to fight your way forwards, looking over at the person. There was a few others sat on the bench beside the person. Although, one was stood up, jumping around and rapidly patting a part of their robe which had caught alight. There was a thin floating tray looking thing too, although it was too small to be one, and it was floating vertically, trays are supposed to be kept horizontal.

The one sat beside the person who’d just gotten up had a weird shape on the top of their head, though it was covered by their hood. It looked like there were two rounded pointy things on the top of their head, although it could just be an illusion of the fabric.

Grim had stopped running around the feet of all the fleeing people, now standing in a still place, watching his flames burn things down. Since he wasn’t scampering around anymore, it at least meant people would no longer be falling over him.

You spot the boy from earlier falter in his fleeing, he was a few people away from you. He turned back, looking over his shoulder at the sound of shoes hitting the ground. Curious yourself, you turn to look at where the sound is coming from.

A robed figure is walking straight towards Grim.

“That’s not the way out!!”

You flinch at the yell, looking back at the boy who stood still like you, one of the remaining still in the chamber. Yet, you couldn’t keep your eyes on the strange boy, the robed person was approaching the fire.

Grim seems to sense the presence coming up behind him, so he turns to look over his shoulder at the robed person. Their head was down, the shadow of the hood concealing their eyes. Yet, a shiver ran down your spine as they face off against Grim, almost as if you could sense the glare they seemed to be giving him.

“First, a student refuses to enroll, and now we have a monster running loose?” The person questions, although you can’t figure out if it was directed at Grim, or even anybody in general. “How dare you disrupt the solemn dignity of our orientation ceremony.” Ok, that one was definitely directed at Grim.

“I…” The person looks up, making eye contact with Grim. Unluckily, you can’t see the person’s face, but you know Grim can as his overly large eyes narrow. “…Will remove you from this academy!”

Your eyes widen in surprise at the authority in the person’s tone, not expecting such a small person’s voice to project as well as it did. But, that tone of authority rivalled Crowley’s, and almost matched the tone your mother would use whenever you brought up wanting to go out of the candy house with her whenever she left.

You quickly shook your head, banishing the memory from your mind for the moment. This wasn’t the time to reminisce about your mother, you needed to avoid getting burned to a crisp.

Soon as your eyes landed back on Grim, you realised just how feral he looked when he was angry. Kinda like a rabid raccoon.

“Oh no, you don’t…” Grim stated, pushing the lower half of his body back, his tail sticking straight up in the air. “YOU WON’T GET IN MY WAY!!”

You recoiled at the torrent of blue flames that shot out of Grim’s mouth, the tiny ones in his ears bursting into massive ones before quickly dying down to a dull glow as he ejected it towards the robed person.

“LOOK OUT!!”

You jump away from the voice, shooting off towards the side again, managing not to let out a noise of shocked panicked.

Whipping your head towards the boy who had been beside you mere seconds ago, you had to whip your head back towards Grim to be able to see him sprinting full pelt towards the robed person who did not move despite the oncoming flames.

You can feel the burning pain of a pinched nerve in the back of your, from how fast you turned your head in rapid succession, the ‘roar’ of the boy ringing in your ears as he jumped at the robed figure.

He knocks the figure out of the way of the onslaught of blue flames, the colour barely licking the boy’s shoes in how little time they had left before they were struck with the fire.

The two of them crash to the ground off to the side, the boy on top of the robed figure, who’s hood had fallen during the boy’s attempt to shove him out of the danger zone.

“Trey, he just…!” A slightly panicked voice rang out from practically right behind you.

You barely manage to hold in your scream as you jump, spinning around to face the owner of the voice. Your eyes meet with the necks of two different people almost immediately, causing you to instinctively take a step back as your eyes raised up to see their faces.

The funny thing about it though, was that the both of them were wearing the weird robes too.

The one closest to you had orange hair, some strands of it dangling down in front of their face. They had some very green eyes, practically the colour of grass. Below their right eye though, was a black diamond, running along the edge of their cheekbone.

“This is not good.” The words come from the green-haired one, glasses donning his face, along with a black clover on his cheek, a little below his left eye. He must be the one the ginger called ‘Trey.’

Wait, his name is Tray? What kind of mother names their child after a cooking utensil…?

You’re snapped out of your zoned-out staring by a yell, causing your train of confused thoughts to be diverted off its track. You turn your head back to the commotion the other two are looking at.

You can only see the boy’s back and legs as he looks like he’s hovering over the robed figure who’s flat on the floor beneath him.

“Hey! Kid! Are you okay?!”

You’re 99% sure that it was that boy who asked(yelled) the question, but you can’t see their faces, so you don’t know. Although, the guise that the robed figure is a child sent an instinctual shiver coursing down your spine.

You’re too used to bad things happening whenever you’re around kids. Either they die, or someone you’re close to and depend on entirely dies.

There isn’t any response for a while though. The room is silent, apart from the crackling flames of the blue fires all around the chamber. Even Grim was silent, watching was going on intently.

“Hey…. Kid?” The voice picks back up again, seemingly out of place now from how quiet it was. You couldn’t make out what was happening, from your bad viewpoint but you somehow picked up the quiet panicking of the ginger, who’s mumblings were quieter than the crackling flames. You turn your head back to look at them, confused about why they were wringing their fingers.

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU’RE TALKING TO?!”

You let out a scream, barely managing to cover your mouth in time to muffle even half of the sound. Your head whips back around to see the two on the ground, managing to catch the aftermath of the boy wincing.

However, you missed the seemingly concerned eyebrow raise you got from ‘Trey’ after your scream slipped.

“GET OFF OF ME!” You barely get even a second to process what’s happening before the boy is shoved off the robed figure. He doesn’t go very far though, a couple of steps worth before his back hit one of the benches.

The robed person sat up, seemingly very annoyed, much more so than you’d ever seen your mother be.

Dusting off their robes, they stood up, simply glaring at the boy before turning towards Grim. Said monster jolts, hurriedly standing on his hind paws from where he’d been sat on the ground in a position that made him look limbless.

How does that even work...?

“You don’t know when to quit!” Grim stated, raising one paw to be in front of the white fluff on his chest and the other to be up near his face, his little toes flexing as his claws retract and protract. “You need to-“

“SILENCE!!” The person interrupted him, causing Grim to stumble back in surprise as his eyes widened.

They quickly reached down their robes, one hand clasping onto a fancy gold key looking thing while the other easily slid a weird looking device out of it. It was mostly black, apart from the gold at the pointed tip at the bottom and the small crown atop the top of it. But what stood out the most was the bright red crystal in a fancy gold frame that was right beneath the crown.

The robed figure brought the item up, holding it close to their face. The rose-red gem was positioned just below their chin, the small crown at the top of the fancy stick level with it instead.

The colour of the gem was actually a really close shade of red to their hair. There were two little strands of hair that stuck up a bit at the top of their head, but they followed the same direction as the rest of their hair, making a little heart shape. It was kinda cute…

Wait, why are you even focusing on their hair???

““Are you ready for your sentence?”” The person questioned, although his voice was a little different now.

The boys’ eyes widened from where he was on the ground by the bench, whereas Grim’s fully blue eyes widened completely, a bead of sweat somehow trickling down the fur on his face.

Yet, you felt your heart jump as your eyes were locked on the crystal. It had begun to glow, little salmon-coloured sparks falling from the crystal.

Your mother had always said humans could never use magic, nor could they understand it. They feared it. They feared the people who could use it.

But here was someone using magic in plain sight of so many other people. It didn’t seem to be magic from their body, instead from the pen, but still. They could use magic. And nobody was trying to kill them or was fleeing from them. Well, Grim was sprinting away on all four paws, but that doesn’t count.

““The verdict comes afterwards.”” The person continued, the gem glowing brighter as the sparks grew brighter and began to fall from it in quicker succession.

Was this what Crowley meant by ‘magicians’…? That they were people capable of magic…? That they might be just like you…?

““Any last words?”” There was a bright ball of light beginning to surround the crystal now, as they tightened their grip on the stick.

Their robes were being blown by a wind that wasn’t in the chamber, the part that splayed out around the back of their legs dancing in the non-existent wind.

You genuinely couldn’t take your eyes off the gem attached to the short stick, your mind going blank with the memories of all the stuff that happened before you ended up here disappearing. You could feel your heartbeat in your ears, which had never happened before. You were frozen in wonder, oblivious to everything else happening in the room and the blue flames that crackled with hunger as they fed off items in chamber.

“ Off with your head! ”

Chapter Text

“ Off with your head! ”

The sparkles and bright glow coming from the crystal diminished almost instantly as a loud metallic clank echoed around the room.

You flinched slightly at the noise, getting knocked out of your little trance-like state. The world was spinning a little, the colours of everything blurring together a little as you took an unsteady step to the side.

Your hip knocked against the side of a bench, making you wince slightly in pain, but you reached out a hand and felt around for a few seconds to find the back of the bench to stabilize yourself.

Gripping onto it tightly, you blinked a few times while shaking your head, attempting to clear your vision. It worked after a couple of seconds, although it was a little disorienting.

Letting go of the bench, you straighten out the front of your robes, trying to tidy up the messy state your new clothes had become. You check the little fabric belt on the robes, slipping your hand into the little pocket like section of it.

Your fingers brush against a small hard object and you let out a small sigh of relief. The iolite hadn’t fallen out amongst all that chaos, the loose strip of fabric serving as a belt was actually rather useful at keeping things against your body.

“What the heck?”

You slip your hand back out of the make-shift pocket at the familiar voice, turning your head up to see why Grim sounded so confused.

“What is this collar?” You were met with the sight of Grim sat on his haunches, front paws trying to pull an overly large heart shaped collar, over his head.

His claws dug into the golden metal bordering it, making you wince the slightest bit at the painful noises it generated whilst failing to sink into the solid object. It was stuck around his neck, with a big gold lock right at the very front, holding it securely in place.

Grim fell back onto his back, his hind paws kicking in the air as he scrabbled around, trying to pull his head out of the hole in the collar. The metal squished up his cheeks and forced his chin up in the air, making it more difficult to wriggle out of as he just moved it higher up his neck.

“ARRGH!”

You had to cover your mouth to keep yourself from laughing out loud at Grim’s noise. But it wasn’t only that, it was the fact that his hind paws were now scraping at the ground, claws leaving little indents in it, while he pushed the rest of his body up, trying to pull his head out from the collar with weird techniques.

Grim’s body twisted towards the side as he kept trying, but one of his hind paws slipped, causing his body to roll over himself. His legs shot over his front, causing his entire body to follow after as he rolled over his head, the collar making a harsh scratchy-clank noise against the ground.

You couldn’t hold in a laugh at what was happening anymore, making you let out a small snort of laughter into your hand at the sort of show you were being provided.

Grim seemed stun from what happened and didn’t move for a moment before resuming his struggle to get the collar off from around his neck.

“I can’t get it off!!” he yelled, both front paws moving to the underside of the collar as he tried to shove it up, trying to pull his head down at the same time.

He looks like a duck right now… Or a very angry squirrel…

The red-haired boy folded his arms, watching Grim’s struggled with an annoyed expression, although you were certain you could see a sort of amusement hidden beneath that.

“Stop fighting it, cat.” The boy stated, somewhat spitting out the word cat as he glared at Grim, who’s struggled stopped at the insult.

“I’m not a cat, either!!” He demanded, standing up on his hind legs once more, but his body tilted back from the weight of the collar, causing him to stumble and fall back down.

Grumbling, Grim rolled back onto his front before sitting on his haunches once more, glaring at the robed red-hair.

“This time for real! I’m gonna roast you alive!” Grim threatened, taking a deep breath in as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “FRMEOOOOW!”

Grim’s noise of fire breathing was in vain as he pushed his head forwards, his body shaking. He didn’t shoot out any more plumes of blue fire, which was weird, why wasn’t it working anymore?

“Huh?” Grim kept trying to breathe out his flames, starting to try and spit them out but still nothing came out, apart from a small plume of smoke. “HUH?”

“My magic…” Grim’s voice wavered as he sat flat on the ground, his front paws coming up to his face. “I can’t breathe my fire?!”

Grim’s head began to rapidly turn from side to side, trying to figure out what was stopping him from breathing his fire. Honestly, you couldn’t help but feel a little bit of pity for him. He looked like he was on the verge of tears, which tugged at your heartstrings from the familiar expression you’d seen plenty.

“Naturally.” The boy stated easily, not at all surprised by his own prowess of power. “I sealed your magical energy with my Unique Magic.”

Unique magic? What’s that…?

“Wha- What?!” Grim cried, beginning to struggle with the collar more in a desperate attempt to remove it.

Yet, the clapping coming from the man-bird pulled your attention towards the headmaster, “Bravo, you’ve caught the beast!”

Crowley began to walk towards the robed boy and Grim from where he’d been stood near the exit of the room, from his attempt at nothing to stop the chaos from earlier on. Every second step he took he clapped with, making it a slow congratulating clap as he let out more praise.

“Well done, Riddle Rosehearts!” The boy nodded at his name being said, putting the gemmed stick back into its little holster hanging from his robes.

The red-haired boy’s name is Riddle? Riddle…

Huh, new word.

“I’d expect nothing less from the Housewarden of Heartslabyul! Your spell was magnificent!” Crowley continued on with his praise, moving closer to the two.

Riddle turned his head away from the headmaster, dusting off his robes of ashes and small bits of debris that’d fallen from the roof from all of the blue flames Grim spread around the room.

Speaking of the blue flames, what’d happened to them? They all disappeared as soon as Riddle had collared Grim… Oh. It sealed Grim’s magic. Yeah, that makes sense now.

Crowley, bobbed down, right beside Grim, who was on his back using all of his paws to try and push the collar off over his head, tears very prominent in his blue eyes. The headmaster then proceeded to link his fingers through the back of the collar, quickly picking Grim off the ground earning a yelped noise of surprise from the monster.

“As for the tanuki, I shall remove him from the college grounds.” Crowley stated, turning towards the doors to leave. There was basically nobody still in the room, well, there was like 30 remaining, since most had fled from the flames.

“Let go of me!” Grim began to squirm around again, trying to wriggle out of Crowley’s hold and the collar simultaneously now.

“Don’t worry, I won’t make you into stew. For I am so generous!” Crowley tutted, shaking his head at Grim while giving himself praise at the same time.

“Darn you!” Grim cried, trying to kick at Crowley with his hind paws, yet not being able to reach him. “Why, I oughta…!”

“I will never…” Grim began to yell, tail flicking in agitation. “…EVER…” He kept trying to kick Crowley, swinging his body around a bit now, despite how painful it might be for him. “…EVER GIVE UP!!!”

The boy who’d been shot into one of the benches seemed surprised at Grim’s words. It almost looked like recognition flashed across his face.

This felt wrong.

Even though Grim tried to fry you and steal the robes, burn down the chamber, and probably other things too. He didn’t deserve that.

You didn’t even think, no time to process what you were doing.

Sprinting towards the headmaster, your hair blowing slightly in the air behind you in a mix of pastels, the turn of heads towards you at the sudden movement completely ignored. Crowley paused at the sudden flurry of steps coming towards him, turning around to see what it was.

You lunged, grabbing a hold of Grim who let out another yelp of surprise as he stopped squirming in the shock, and tugging him out of Crowley’s hold as you fell to the ground. You curled up slightly around Grim, making sure he wouldn’t get hurt from the impact, which resulted in your shoulder jarring against the ground.

Crowley took a couple steps back in shocked surprise, his eyes wide at the audacity, “Sevens…!”

All eyes in the room were now on you.

Chapter Text

“Ow….” You let out a small groan of pain, sitting up from where you landed.

Looking down in your lap, Grim was laying stunned on the mess of layers the bottom of your robes had become.

Other than how out of it he looked, he seemed ok.

Letting out a small sigh of relief, you shakily stood up, your shoulder throbbing from the impact. Hopefully you didn’t break anything, you don’t have your mother’s spell books here so it won’t be an easy fix if you have.

Cradling Grim in your arms, you position him so his head is able to rest comfortably against your breasts, while the collar pressed against the small gap in your arms and dug uncomfortably into your inframammary fold. Well, that’s what your mother referred to it as the one time you questioned her what the area was called, but it’s literally just the space that’s right beneath your breast.

You know he’d snap out of his stunned state soon enough, but you still couldn’t help but worry about how he might react.

A rhythmic sound of clicking starts up behind you, slowly growing louder as it gets closer.

You turn around to see Riddle come to a halt a few paces away from where you stand, a furrowed brow and frown evident on his face.

“Is this your familiar?” He questions, gesturing towards Grim who still remains curled up against your chest. You could feel something slightly wet through the layers of your robes, so it was probably tears from his magic being revoked unless he had a wet nose, since some animals do.

You don’t answer his question, biting you lip and turning your head away from him. Crowley had asked that question earlier and it wasn’t true, but Grim might get hurt if you said he wasn’t.

Why is this so hard to decide what to do??

At your silence, Riddle crosses his arms, his eyes narrowing at you. “If this is your familiar than you’d best hope you aren’t in Heartslabyul, as you’ve broken Rule 23 of the Law’s Queen of Hearts: ‘One shall never bring a cat to a festival.’”

Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion as you looked back to him, blinking a couple of times to process what he’d said.

His eyes flicker over your face, seemingly trying to figure out if you were going to say anything.

“…So, I guess this isn’t a dream.” You turn your head towards the voice, distracted from what was happening with Riddle, of whom also turned to see who spoke.

It was the boy who’d been shoved into one of the benches…

“Magic…” He’s quieter now, as one hand comes to cradle his elbow, the one he hit on the side of the bench. “I can’t believe it really exists…”

Seems like he’s having a bit of an existential crisis…a bit like the one you went through too…just…a little different in how it works…

You could almost sense how tense Riddle became from where he was stood, yet he was gone in almost an instead.

The rhythmic noise of shoes hitting the grounds starts up again, much quicker this time around.

Looks like you can figure out tell-tale signs of who’s where from their walking patterns.

He stops straight in front of the not-robed boy, whipping out the gemmed stick from its holster once more. He shoves it straight in the boy’s face, barely a hand’s length away from touching his nose.

“How dare you insult me like you did!” Riddle stated, almost yelling from how much his voice spread throughout the whole room. “That is tantamount...” Riddle looked down his nose at him, since the boy was still seated on the ground.

“…To insulting the Queen of Hearts herself!!” The boy seemed shocked, and Crowley was doing absolutely nothing to calm down the situation. Seemingly still in a state of shock from you yanking Grim out of his arms, whom is still cuddled up against your chest. He hasn’t moved an inch…

Wait, who even is the Queen of Hearts??

“It is a horrible crime!”

You glance around, trying to see if anybody looks like they’re going in to stop whatever might be about to happen. Crowley is stood there, his feathers all ruffled. The orange-haired boy and Trey are stood off to the side, seemingly panicking.

“Ergo… You will lose your head!”

Riddle should hopefully be meaning what he did to Grim and NOT actually losing his head, but it’s always possible he meant otherwise.

“Understand?!”

You were about to step up and intervene with what was going on, but someone started quietly laughing. You turned to look at who the owner of the voice was, only to see 4 other robed figures all seated together at the front of the room. It was honestly surprising you could hear their voice from how far back you were, but it could honestly just be the echo of the chamber.

“Heh heh… Mr Rosehearts’s magic never fails to amaze me.” Their voice was smooth, but you couldn’t see who the owner of the voice was since you could just see the back of the people’s robes.

““Off with your head.” A unique spell that places a magical collar around an opponent’s neck, thus completely shutting off their magical power…”

You froze from where you had been slowly inching closer towards the bench to try and see who it was speaking.

That’s…. Honestly a little scary….

..…It might just kill you….

You quickly shake your head as a shiver runs down your spine, silently scolding yourself for even thinking such a thing. You’re made of dark magic. It’s literally your life source, flowing through your gold blood at all times.

“And to be able to activate such an advanced spell with such a short incantation… There aren’t many mages of his calibre, even at this prestigious academy.”

The voice stopped speaking as one of the fingers moved their hand up to their own face, adjusting something you couldn’t see.

The figure beside the one that just moved their hand leaned back, hands behind their head as they rested back against the back of the bench.

“Ha! We’re lucky the little red-headed boy is such a hard worker!” A different voice piped up, this one a little more gruff but a lot deeper. It most likely belonged to the one who’d just leaned back.

Wait… That one has two weird little pokey things at the top of their head, beneath the hood. What are those….?

“His magic really is incredible.” A different voice piped up, this one much more cheerful and higher pitched than the last, sounding closer to the first person who spoke’s voice. However, one of the robed figure’s leaned forward, resting their arms against the railing that blocked off the middle of the room with the floating coffins surrounding it. That voice probably belonged to that one too.

That left two on who could’ve been the original speaker, but both were sat straight backed with the shorter one between them. There was a head’s difference in height between the two though…

The straight backed one to the left of the one who’d leaned forward brought one hand, most likely to sit beneath their chin.

“Well, didn’t he steal the spotlight?” A new voice chimed, it was elegant and rather beautiful. Perhaps its owner was that one, the one whom rested a hand beneath their chin.

That’d make the owner of the original voice the other straight backed one. Huh, it was actually easy to figure out who’s voice belonged to what person…

You continue to slowly make your way towards the group of seated people, hoping to at least see each of their faces so you can recognize them later on.

“I don’t like the way he loses his temper….”

You froze at the new voice, looking around near the seated group to see who would’ve spoken. There was only those 4 there, so why was there a fifth voice…?

“It’d be best to keep staying away from him…”

This was so confusing, where did the gloomy voice come from and where’s it’s owner?!

Wait, wasn’t that boy about to be collared like Grim…?!

You quickly spun back around, making sure you didn’t jar Grim who seemed to have fallen asleep, as well as avoiding jabbing the collar around his neck into the space below your breasts.

There were sparkles falling from the gemmed stick Riddle had pointed at the boy’s face as the gem began to glow.

You were just about ready to run forward and do something to stop this before someone beat you too it. That someone not being Crowley, since he was still stood there with his feathers all ruffled from the shock that still affected him.

“Hold on a sec, Riddle!”

That voice was familiar….

You turn your head away from Riddle, who’s head turned to look over his shoulder as the glow in the gem faded down.

“Trey. Cater.” He acknowledged towards the two whom were approaching him.

You already had figured out Trey’s name from the ginger having said it earlier. Poor boy, getting named after a cooking utensil…

So, that’d make the other ‘Cater’ according to what Riddle had said.

Wait, their hoods are down… You could fully see the two’s faces now, and how anxious they looked, even with the smile Cater has on his face.

Trey’s hair was really short, but it was rather messy, in a sort of spikey looking way. Cater’s however, was almost shoulder-length, but almost the whole front of it was tied away from his face, save for two strands.

How did he tie it up?? You’ve seen others with their hair tied up but never figured out how before…

“Why don’t we just calm down and hear what he has to say?” Trey suggested, trying to deescalate the situation.

“Calm down?” Riddle’s voice was soft before suddenly raising in pitch, becoming a yell that made you jump. “You can’t expect me to be calm when he is ruining our orientation!”

Riddle’s body whipped to the side to face Trey as he flinched slightly, yet he kept his gemmed stick pointed at the boy still on the ground. “This is a serious violation of the rules!”

“That’s true but…” You can see Trey’s eyebrows furrow as his jaw tenses slightly before he steps slightly in front of the boy, shielding him from Riddle’s pen point with his hand.

“He only just got here today. So of course he doesn’t know school rules, right?” Riddle opens his mouth to answer back to Trey, his eyebrows furrowing.

“Right!” Cater cuts in, crouching down beside the guy on the ground as he places a hand on his shoulder. “And we were thinking, since it’s his first day and all, maybe we can let it slide this time?” Cater suggested, to which Riddle’s eyes narrowed at him.

Cater patted the boy’s shoulder, giving Riddle a seemingly anxious smile in hopes of convincing him.

“Stop.” The boy’s head turned se he could look at Cater, his expression holding the most neutral look you’ve ever seen. “It’s not my first day. I can’t use magic, so I’m not enrolling.”

Cater flinched at his words, slightly panicking as Riddle frowned. “Come on! This is where you’re supposed to just play along!” He whisper-yelled, although, you easily heard it, so it wasn’t as quiet as what seemed to be intended.

“Are you still prattling on with that nonsense?” Riddle questioned the boy, giving him a harsh glare. “The coach would never take on a passenger who can’t use magic…”

“The boy speaks truth.”

Your head whipped towards where the familiar voice came from, the colour draining from your face as you watched as green flames began to form in the giant mirror at the centre of the room.

The flames were quickly followed by the mask face, at which you instinctively clutched Grim closer to your body, ignoring as the edges of the collar dug into your body. You couldn’t stop your eyes from narrowing at the face, having to hold back a surge of fear but also one of anger.

It took you away from your home, which you had run from but that doesn’t matter. It brought you to a place full of people, who can use magic so you might belong here. It made you meet Grim, who almost killed you but seems like he’ll be future company…

You click your tongue as you glare at it, not liking that there were more benefits to having been whisked away by it than you would’ve liked.

“There’s a face in the mirror…!” The boy stated, as if nobody else in the room could see it, when practically everybody turned their heads in shock to look at it.

“The Dark Mirror…” Trey started, too shocked to finish his sentence, so Cater finished it for him. “It’s responding…?”

Putting his gemmed stick back in it’s holster on his fabric belt, Riddle placed a hand on his hip and turned towards the Dark Mirror, while still keeping himself facing the boy.

“What are you saying?” The question was short and precise, something you began to notice as a constant in Riddle’s speech.

“In him I sense no magic ability. In his hue…and in his form…”

Your gaze turned towards the boy, who stared at the mask face with a blank expression as he stood up. A few others were looking at him too, but you didn’t pay much mind to that.

“Emptiness is all I see.” The Dark Mirror finished, before going silent as the room entered a state of solemness, the only sound breaking it was the crackling of the green flames reflected in the mirror.

“I’ve never heard of a student who can’t use magic.” Riddle stated simply, still keeping his eyes on the Dark Mirror as he doesn’t even look towards the boy.

“I told you.” The boy started, gaining Cater’s attention on him now standing, so he quickly removed his hand from his shoulder and stopped crouching.

“I’m just a normal high school kid.” He finished, not looking at Riddle either as he kept his gaze on the face in the Dark Mirror.

Curious as to why they were all still looking at that stupid mirror, you turned back to look at it, only to make eye contact with the empty eye sockets of the mask. You jump slightly, before narrowing your eyes at it, clutching Grim a little tighter to your body as he remained in a state of silence. He probably is asleep.

The face’s eye sockets widened slightly before narrowing back in turn to yours, the green flames crackling a little louder now.

“You…”

You raise an eyebrow at the word, lifting a hand to point at yourself in confusion. “Me?”

“Thou’s soul is tainted…impure…”

You narrow your eyes at the face again, glaring at it for the rude comments. Yet, you remained oblivious to the turn of heads from the rest of the occupants in the room.

“…It is corrupted…broken…”

Your head tilts to the side in confusion. You weren’t born in a normal way, so maybe it can tell you’re born from magic?

“…Thou are an empty shell, holding only dark powers…”

Well, ow, that’s kinda rude.

“…The nature of thy’s soul is unclear. They belong to no dorm.”

Eh? What does that mean? And what’s a dorm…?

Chapter Text

“Well, this is difficult to believe.” A familiar voice chimed, followed almost immediately by the clacking of shoes on the ground.

You turned around to face Crowley, who finally seemed to have dealt with his ruffled feathers and was only now joining back into the conversations.

“Considering the monster invasion…” The headmaster began, looking down to Grim curled up against your body, his eyes narrowing at the creature. Crowley sighed, continuing his walk back to the centre of the room.

“…And this business with you…” He gestured towards the boy you still didn’t know the name of. “Today is a veritable parade of unbelievable absurdities.”

“However.” Crowley came to a stop in front of the small group in the space between the bench rows, before turning to fully face the boy. “If all of this is true…then we simply cannot enroll you in our academy.”

The bird man turned to face you, glaring at the monster sleeping in your arms. “As for you, your soul doesn’t align with any dorm, which has never been a case this school has had to face. Therefore, we cannot enroll you either.”

You merely shrug, honestly, you don’t know if staying would be the better option for you anyway.

“So,” Crowley took a step back so he could look at both you and the boy simultaneously. “Let us ask the Dark Mirror to return the both of you to where you came from.” The boy sighs in relief as you just look on with a blank face.

Crowley quickly walks to the mirror at the centre of the room, by passing the rest of the room’s occupants without sparing them a glance despite all the eyes being on him.

“Magicless boy, you first.” Crowley stated, turning around to look at the uniformed boy as he gathered his stuff.

Crowley tapped his cane on the ground beside him a few times as he waited, before beginning to talk again. “We must have you leave the school as soon as possible, those without any talent for magic cannot be allowed to attend classes here.”

The boy moved to stand beside Crowley, who dusted off the boy’s shoulders muttering stuff under his breath before raising his voice to speak louder.

“There is no need to worry. The Dark Mirror will send you directly back from whence you came.” He exclaimed, looking back at you before returning his attention back to the boy.

“Enter the Gate, and picture your home clearly in your mind…” Crowley instructed, watching as the boy hiked the duffel bag over one shoulder and the pole thingy over the other before following his order and stepping into an open coffin.

“Oh, Dark Mirror!” Crowley began, arms outstretched to the side as he raised his voice. “Guide this soul to where he belongs!” Crowley demanded, arms raising up above his head.

It looked a little like those odd ritual chants your mother would do with those triplet witches who’d rarely visit. You shivered at the memory of them, they’d always been…overly sweet to you…blegh…

The mirror was silent in response to the order, the mask’s eyes narrowing momentarily before returning to normal.

Crowley began to fret, his arms dropping to his side before he turned to the boy again. “O-Once more.”

“Oh, Dark Mirror! Guide this-!” He was cut off by the mirror.

“Nowhere…”

“Eh?”

“I searched this world and its vast space, and nowhere do I find his rightful place… I see only emptiness’s embrace.”

“That can’t be right!” The boy demanded, stepping out of the still open coffin and moving to stand before the Dark Mirror.

“I was somewhere a few minutes ago! Just put me back there!” He demanded, swinging an arm out to the side in disbelief. “If that place didn’t exist, how could the coach have found me to begin with?!”

Crowley turned his head to look at the boy, peering at him from over his caped shoulder, looking much like a bird. “Might I ask… From what country do you hail?”

“Japan!” The boy answered easily, only for Crowley’s head to knock to the side in question.

“Ja…pen?” The headmaster rolled the word around his mouth a few times, seeing how it felt on his tongue, before bringing up a hand to his chin and cupping it in the space between his finger and thumb. “And where might that be?”

His question earned a shocked step back from the boy, his eyes growing wide in surprise as Crowley continued.

“Our students come from all over the world, and I am well acquainted with many of their homelands. But I’ve never heard of that name before.”

He turned to face the boy fully, crossing his arms over the bird handle of the cane in front of him. “Young man, I certainly hope you are not lying to me.”

“You’ve never heard of Japan?” A bead of sweat runs down his forehead as he looked around, turning to look at every other person in the room.

Poor guy, he looks like he just discovered his entire existence was fake and his whole life was a lie.

At a silent response from everyone, with them either looking away or not even responding at all despite looking at him, his lips thinned into a tight line. “Not even one person here has heard of Japan?”

You ever so slightly shook your head, giving him a response nobody else in the room was giving him. He sighed, his shoulders slouching slightly before he straightened his back, adjusting the two things he carried on either shoulder.

“In that case… I’ll just have to find a way home myself!” He stated aloud, despite it seeming like he was speaking to himself more than anything.

The boy took a couple of strides away from the mirror, who’s mask-face surrounded by green flames, still remained in the reflection, before stopping.

“Ugh! Where’s the exit…?!” He looked around the room, surveying all the possible exits before finally spotting it. “There!”

He quickly resumed his strides, intending on leaving through the double doors, but before he could reach them, someone spoke up.

“I recommend waiting before you leave, after all, our feminine fellow is without a dorm assignment, and it’d be best to send them home.”

The boy stopped in place, turning around to look back at the room’s occupants.

You quickly whirled around to face Crowley, a confused look on your face as you hugged Grim a little closer.

Spinning his cane in his hand a few times, he continued, “This is the first time such a thing has ever happened since I became headmaster, so it would be best for us to venture to the library after our fledgling has been sent home.”

The name he used felt off, like he displeased having to use such a thing on me.

“Housewarden’s, if it isn’t too much, may I request that you gather up your fled dormitory members and return them all to their dorms?” Crowley said, turning towards Riddle before the other robed figures all seated near the Dark Mirror.

A group of different acknowledgements of his request came from the 6 (plus the bodyless voice), yet there was grumbling from one of them and a deeper voice groaned in annoyance.

They all proceeded to leave the chamber one at a time, another robed figure moving to join them as they left through the double doors, walking past the boy with a glance. A small, floating thing that looked like a piece of paper floated away from the bench.

You jumped in surprise, nearly dropping Grim in disbelief from what you were seeing.

What in the world is that….?!

You turned to look at the few remaining occupants of the room, hoping to see some sort of answer in their faces. The boy looked just as confused as you, while Crowley was just spinning his cane around as he waited for everyone else to leave.

That’s when you realised Cater wasn’t in the room anymore. Trey and Riddle still were, well, they were moving towards the double doors, but Cater was nowhere in sight.

Huh?

Once everyone else had finally left the room, not including the boy who was stuck waiting for Crowley now, Crowley let out a sigh of relief. Stopping the spinning of his cane, Crowley turned to face you once more.

“Come and enter the Gate, the Dark Mirror should send you home.” He answered, barely managing to hide the annoyance in his voice at this whole situation.

You began to walk towards the Dark Mirror, who’s green flames still crackled in the reflection as the face waited. Grim was still in your arms, the collar digging into your abdomen as he stayed curled against your chest.

“Ah!” Crowley was quick to raise a finger as you moved, signaling you to stop. You froze, stumbling slightly from the step you were about to take. “Without the tanuki.”

You clutch Grim closer to your body, frowning slightly. Crowley already knew Grim wasn’t your familiar, there wasn’t much you could really do. Hesitating, you move over to one of the bench rows, gingerly placing Grim down on the wood. After you managed to unhook his claws from your robes, which took a decent bit of effort.

You gave him a small scratch between his ears, before standing back up, walking over to Crowley.

“Good.” Crowley gave a small nod before gesturing towards the open coffin the boy had entered previously. “If you may, enter the Gate now.”

Moving towards coffin, your back being to Crowley, who began to take tiny sidesteps towards where Grim lay on the bench. Entering the ‘Gate’ you turned back around to the headmaster, ready for your next instructions.

Crowley froze in the middle of a step, quickly fixing his stance and posture, attempting to be inconspicuous. Clearing his throat, he continued.

“Picture your home clearly in your mind, eyes closed as you do.”

Your vision went dark as they closed. You pictured every little detail of your home, doubt nibbling at the corners of your mind on whether you could even go home or face your mothers’ body.

While you were busy picturing all the tiniest details of your home and its suspiciously innocent exterior, the Dark Mirrors flames grew in strength. However, Crowley paid no attention to that, wanting to act on his ideals while he still could.

Hurrying over to Grim, the headmaster picked him up, dangling by the collar once more. Yet, Grim remained fully oblivious to what was happening around him in his state of unconsciousness. Crowley dashed to the double doors, going straight past the boy who watched with a mixture of confuddled expressions, as the headmaster threw the creature outside.

Hoping to avoid having been caught removing the liability from school grounds (since the security ghosts would properly remove Grim), Crowley hurried back to the centre of the room.

 “Oh, Dark Mirror!” He began, you could practically see him raising his arms in your mind’s eyes. “Guide this soul to where he belongs!”

He?

The Dark Mirror’s flames crackled louder, the face frowning as it seemingly looked towards you.

“The place they call home is gone.”

“What?” Both you and Crowley’s words synced.

You opened your eyes, hurriedly exiting the coffin to look back towards the mirror with a glare. Whereas Crowley’s expression was one of confusion, concern etched onto his face. The boy stayed out of the whole thing, keeping back. Which honestly, is probably the smartest idea.

But the mirror had said your home was gone, while it said the boys’ didn’t existent. You knew your home existed, just like how he knew his did.

“Consumed by a trio of three, all of whom sleep with glee.”

You bit down on your bottom lip, stare hardening in anger. Crowley however, seemed exceedingly confused on how a house could’ve been consumed.

The flames begin to swirl across the mirror’s reflection, concealing the mask. It began to darken, before other colours began to peak through the swirl of green. Within moments, the reflection was clear, revealing a sight you wish you’d never witnessed.

Your home was just a pile of cookies, gummies, lollies, and sugar. All the metal items that’d been inside gone, along with your mother’s corpse.

You sprinted up to the mirror, pressing a hand against the glass in disbelief. You couldn’t have been gone for that long, could you…?

Tears pricked the corners of your eyes, as you squeezed them shut, balling up your fist against the pane of glass. You could hear the other two come up behind you, seemingly to get a better look at the picture shown.

After a moment, a voice that wasn’t Crowley’s cut through the silence. “Is that a lion cub??”

Opening your eyes, you blinked a couple of times to try and clear your vision. Once you could see again, your brows furrowed, despite the tears that still pricked the corners of your eyes.

A small group of three animals were laying on the ground beside one another. One a warthog, but with a very large stomach. Another, a sandy coloured creature around a similar size to the warthog, also with a large stomach, lay on one side of it. That’s probably the ‘lion cub.’ On the other side of the warthog, was a small creature, thin and a dusty colour, with muddy coloured stripes along its body. It too, had a very large tummy.

“How strange…” Crowley reflected aloud, taking a step back from the mirror as the reflection began to swirl in green flames once more.

No. This isn’t fair.

This can’t be happening. It can’t…

She promised she’d always be there. Now she’s dead. Your home was demolished. You’d lost everything. The only person who cared for you.

Tears trickled down your cheeks again, despite the amount you’ve already cried today. Hell, you didn’t even know how much time has passed…

You were lost. No one left. No home to return too.

She’d always said there’s consequences for your actions. What had you done to deserve this…? You’d never done anything wrong…. You’d always been a good daughter…. Alone with just your mother and the food she’d hold captive….

Your legs felt like jello as they stopped supporting your weight, letting your body slip down to the ground.

Crowley took another step back in distaste, yet you weren’t even paying attention anymore. You just wanted to go home… See your mother’s eyes crinkle with a smile…. It was pointless, you’d never see any of that anymore….

“This is unbelievable…” Crowley murmured to himself, looking down at your sobbing form on the ground then back to the magicless boy. “Well, the unbelievable has been on parade today…”

Ignoring your sobbing self, Crowley turned his full attention to the boy. “You said you hail from ‘Gipen’ correct?”

“Japan,” The boy corrects, face blank as he looks at Crowley who waves a hand in dismissal. “Yes, yes. Let’s go do some research in the library for such a land.”

Crowley began to leave the chamber, not giving even a single glance back at you. Whereas, the boy came over, crouching down beside you to pat you on the shoulder.

“Hey, there’s no need to cry, we’ll both be home before you know it.”

Looking up at him through your blurry vision, you merely shook your head, looking away from him again.

He didn’t understand. You didn’t have anybody to return to. Nothing to come home to…

He shifted so he was in front of you, a hand on either of your shoulders while he was sat on just one knee.

“That’s not the kind of spirit you need. If you believe you can do something, who’s to say you can’t?”

You looked back up at him, vision still affected by the tears slowly falling down your cheeks. He could have easily left, with Crowley, but he hadn’t.

You wiped your eyes and cheeks with your sleeve, trying to rid them both of your tears. Wet trails stained your cheeks though, refusing to rub off like usual.

“C’mon, we can both get through this.”

He released your shoulders, holding out a hand to you as he got up a bit more, so he was crouching in front of you now.

Your eyes dropped to his hand, knowing what was intended with it. But you hesitated.

“I’m Yuken Enma,” The smallest smile played on his lips as he looked at you, seeing something in you you couldn’t see yourself.

You were silent for a moment, just looking up at him, before you finally spoke. “…Y/N”

His eyes widened slightly at your voice, not having expected it to sound like that. Honestly, he didn’t know what he thought it’d sound like, but he wasn’t expecting it to be so smooth and hypnotising. Perhaps that’s why you hadn’t spoken earlier on…?

Gingerly, you reached out and took his hand, since it was still held. That seemed to snap him out of his thoughts.

Enma pulled you up, yet you stumbled forwards, crashing into him slightly. You let out a small squeak at the impact, however he didn’t even seem all that fazed, just mildly surprised you were so light.

Crowley, having noticed he wasn’t followed out, walked back in through the doors to witness you two so close together.

“Sevens, why is the student body always so lascivious…?” He mumbled to himself, completely exasperated.

Clearing his throat, he caught both yours and Enma’s attention. “Can you both supress your libido for the time being?”

Your head cocked to the side in confusion, whereas Enma hurried a couple steps away from you, seemingly embarrassed about what Crowley had said.

What’s libido?

Enma opened his mouth to explain, but Crowley waved his hand in dismissal once more.

You didn’t even get to voice your question…

“We must be off to the library, presumably you both desire to return home.”

That was all it took for Enma to move towards Crowley, intent on finding a way to return back to his home. You however, hurried over to where you set Grim down, only to see him missing.

Huh? Maybe you’re just misremembering what’d happened. He’s probably fine.

Crowley was already through the doors again by the time you looked back up, so you took off sprinting to keep up with the two boys. Completely missing the two pearly coloured beings floating away with Grim carried between the two as they headed towards the front gates.

Chapter Text

Honestly, you’d lost track of how long you’d all been in the library. The moon was still up in the sky, so you knew it couldn’t have been too long, even still, your head hurt from all the words.

Crowley had been busy at the desk, writing down key words or locations Enma said to see if they could locate his homeland. The few books that flew towards the trio had been assigned to you to read through.

You’d let them know whenever something stood out or seemed important, but it wasn’t very often it happened.

Closing the book in front of you, you added it to the pile floating beside you. That was the seventh book now and still basically no information. Elbows on the desk, you dropped your face into your hands. Letting out a sigh, you rubbed your temples.

Having fully filled the search scroll, Crowley swept his hand over the parchment, clearing it instantly. He fell back into the plush chair behind him, letting out an unamused hum.

“There really isn’t anything.” Crowley stated, crossing his arms as he swiveled in the chair to face the younger male. “Not only the world map, but the name of your home isn’t written in any history.”

Enma’s brows furrowed, despite having been helping try and search for any information regarding his place of origin.

“Are you truly from where you say? You aren’t lying to me by chance?”

Enma looked down at the uniform he was wearing, namely the chest pocket of his uniform blazer. A crest was embroidered there, with weird figures and shapes around it.

“I’m not lying.”

Crowley gave a slow nod at this, letting out a sceptical hum as he proceeded to grasp his own. “Looking at all this,” He gestured towards the small pile of floating books beside you that hadn’t any key relevance towards Enma’s place of origin. “You may have somehow been brought here from another planet.”

Your head popped up in interest at that. There’d never been much talk about that kind of `thing from your mother, although a few of the children you’d met had brought such a thing up before.

Hands moving to his hips, Crowley gave Enma a sceptical glance, not seeming super confident in his words. “…There’s also the possibility you’re from another world.”

Your interest was definitely peaked by now. Is Crowley insinuating Enma came from the land of dreams, or someplace similar? Or is he saying that this place is basically a land of dreams and isn’t reality…?

Ok. No. Shut up. Stop overthinking this.

Enma just seems entirely taken aback by all of this.

Unwillingly getting up from the plush seat, Crowley wraps his fingers around your upper arm. The robe sleeves crinkle up under the hold as he hikes you up, before moving you to stand beside Enma.

“What did either of you have on you when you arrived here?” The bird man questioned, folding his arms over his chest as he kept his eyes on the both of you.

Enma simply gestured towards the two bag things he’d been carrying since the beginning, whereas your hand slipped into the robes sash. Your fingers curled around the cold iolite, finding comfort in it, before you took it out.

“This is all I have…” You whispered, holding your hand out to Crowley, the iolite cupped in your palm.

He proceeded to pick it up, holding it up to the light as he examined it. You opened your mouth to protest, hand moving towards him a bit.

“This isn’t a magistone…?” He seemed confused, tapping on the crystal’s surface with one of his pointed fingertip rings.

Then he shrugged, pocketing your iolite.

“Do either of you have any verification, like a license for a magic car, name on a shoe?” Crowley easily asked, not at all seeming to notice the disheartened curl of your fingers as you brought your hand down to your sides.

He’d just taken the last thing you had left of your mother….

Your eyes remained on the ground, not paying attention to anything that was happening between Crowley and Enma. Which, you probably should’ve been, considering you would’ve seen a device alien to you.

Enma had searched through his pockets for a few seconds, before pulling out a small rectangular device.

“Ah” Crowley brought both hands to rest on the bird handle of his cane, “Could you try phoning a friend?”

Enma perked up, smiling as he flipped open the rectangle, its length being doubled. “Of course! Koito and the guys…!”

Crowley’s eyes narrowed slightly at the name, unsure of its origins and disliking the strange feeling it left in his ears.

Enma’s excitement quickly dissipated as his eyes met the screen, “No signal…”

While Enma put the device back away in his pocket, you remained zoned out of the conversation. Arms moving to hug your body for comfort as you kept your gaze on the ground.

Grabbing onto his wrapped stick, he squeezes it in his fist, keeping himself from clenching his teeth too hard. “Guess I’m not making it to the tournament…” He whispered to himself, disappointment etching its way across his face.

“We worked so hard to build the kendo team.” Enma looked to the ground, emotions dancing in his eyes as he spoke. “We were finally ready to start entering tournaments. But now…”

He trailed off, swallowing hard as he began to shake. Crowley wasn’t able to pertain what emotion was making Enma tremble like that, but he brought a hand to his chin, adjusting his posture.

“I can see from your demeanour that you are not lying…. But dear, dear, dear.” Crowley shook his head lightly, leaning forwards on his cane. “We cannot keep people at the academy if they cannot use magic.”

“No. That’s okay.” Enma stated, grabbing his bags again and beginning to walk out of the library. “I’ll just have to take it one step at a time. If I ask around, I might find some clue to help me get home.”

Crowley recoiled in surprise at the mild display of defiance, mixed with perseverance and hope. “Wait!” He cried, hoping it’d stop Enma in his tracks, yet it didn’t, so he tried another tactic instead of just a simple ‘wait’ to get the boy to remain in the library.

“It’s not safe to wander around aimlessly when you are unfamiliar with the world and its workings!”

Enma continued to leave the library.

“There must be some other way…” Crowley mumbled to himself, hand coming back up to clasp his chin in a panic as he hurried to figure out a way to make him remain.

“Of course!”

You were brought out of your head with the sudden yell, flinching slightly at the volume you were previously blind too.

“There is a vacant building on campus that was once used as a dormitory.” He called out, swinging his arms out to the sides as he announced it. “I can allow you to use that building as lodgings for the time being!”

Enma stopped in his tracks and turned back to look at Crowley, whereas you just stared stunned at the birdman. “Are you sure…?”

Enma’s question was answered with an over-enthusiastic response from Crowley, one that seemed to be a bit out of character for him from what you’d seen of his personality so far. “It would pain me to simply leave you out in the cold.”

He clutched the stick part of his cane as he brought it to his chest, hugging it closed as he closed his eyes in bliss. “Ah, what a kind man I am! A model for all educators!!”

You took a step back from him, put off by the familiarity you got from that self-centred praise he gave himself. Where had you heard something like that before….?

“Now, we must strike while the iron is hot. Let us make our way to the dormitory!” Crowley hurriedly began to leave the library, leaving you stood there beside the pile of floating books you’d looked through.

Well, the pile of floating books that’d previously been beside you. They probably put themselves back away on the shelves while you were distracted.

Enma didn’t follow after the headmage immediately, instead looking back to you as you stood in place.

Crowley turned back around soon enough, having realised he wasn’t being followed. Noticing you stood there, he let out a small huff, bringing his hand to his head before hurrying back over.

“Ah, I completely forgot about our femininely troublesome companion!” He explained in disbelief, trying to play it off as a simple slip of his mind despite it having happened multiple times already.

Crowley gave you a quick look over, mumbling to himself as he did, “You appear to be empty handed…” Wanting to double-check if it was true, as it was hard to tell if any of the student body was carrying anything on them when they were dressed in their ceremonial robes.

Bending down slightly, Crowley began to hurriedly pat down your body, checking to see if he could feel anything possibly hidden in the robe’s folds. You jumped at the sudden touch, before tensing up, unsure of what to do in this situation.

He couldn’t feel anything out of the ordinary at first, but soon as he patted over your chest, he stopped.

His eyes narrowed, but you couldn’t tell if anything else happened with his expression, other than his lips thinning, due to the bird mask covering most of his face.

Gingerly, he patted your chest once, confirming if his senses had just been tricking him for a moment there or not. Realising that it wasn’t a trick of his mind, he pulled his hand off, hurriedly backing away a bit, eyes wide in surprise.

“Were you perhaps birthed with the female’s chest but the male genitals…?” He questioned you quietly, keeping his voice down low enough that Enma probably shouldn’t be able to hear.

You blink in confusion a couple of times, not understanding what the word ‘genitals’ means. “What?”

Crowley sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose over the bird mask as he closed his eyes for a second. “Forgive the mild vulgarity of this, but you have testicles, correct?”

You stayed silent, head cocking slightly to the side in confusion at the new words you’re learning without knowledge of their meaning.

Starting to panic, Crowley grabs onto your shoulders, staring intensely into your eyes, almost as if he can see into your soul with the glowing yellow orbs inside the dark eye sockets of his mask. “Are you a man or a woman…?!”

He didn’t keep his voice down, Enma started to move over due to confusion at the scene unfolding before him.

Completely unaware of why Crowley was panicking, you answered slowly, trying to figure out what he was asking. “Mother always referred to me as her daughter…”

Crowley instantly let go of your shoulders, recoiling back to bury his face in hands with quiet sobs that seemed to be fake. Yet, both you and Enma flinched at the sudden movement, not expecting such a display from an adult.

“Sevens, why did such a day have to come?!” He cried, earning a concerned look from Enma and just pure confusion from you over what’s going on.

“The financial loss I’ll go through to supply safety to the school store because of this…!” He continued to sob, not seeming to be stopping anytime soon. “And the raise Divus and Sam are going to demand to help keep it hidden from the student body…! Not to mention the requests the other teachers are going to inquire about!”

You looked over at Enma, entirely confused about everything being mentioned. He just gave you a small shrug, entirely unable to figure out why Crowley was acting like a child.

What was so wrong about you being a ‘girl’ according to Crowley?

Letting out one last overdramatic sob, Crowley wiped at the underside of his eye with a gloved finger, slipping it beneath the mask for a moment to clear his hidden skin of the tears.

“As you have no home and seemingly no guardians along with a lack of identification and items of monetary value, you shall remain in the dorm with the magicless boy.” He decided, rolling his cane in his hand once before returning it back to the ground.

“As the Dark Mirror was incapable of dictating the dorm you belong to by reading your soul, you shall remain at the school until it can decide where you belong. I shan’t toss a penniless teenager out on the streets with no form of communication as an educator anyway. Isn’t my graciousness limitless!” Crowley threw his arms up at the self-praise, his voice turning musical for a moment before he placed both hands back upon his bird cane.

“Let us depart for the dormitory!” He turned away from both you and Enma, making his way out of the library, aware that the both of you were following due to the sound of shoes on the wooden flooring.

“Ah,” stopping, Crowley turned back slightly to look at you both from over his shoulder. “The dormitory may be a bit old, but there is a certain charm to it you may prefer.”

You blink, not entirely understanding what he meant by that. Yet, Crowley moves once more, leaving the library with a flourish and Enma close behind, while you’re left to pace yourself with speed walking to keep up with the two.

⁂

“Honestly! This year’s orientation was terrible!” A certain fuming redhead cried out, face tinged red in anger as he moved through the corridor to the hall of mirrors.

“Now, now.” Trey patted Riddle on the shoulder slightly, the vice-housewarden walking just behind his lower classman. “We got everything under control, thanks to you, Riddle.” He added on, watching as the boy’s ahoge flattened back down to its natural heart shape.

Riddle turned slightly to look at Trey over his shoulder, making sure the corridor remained in his vision so he wouldn’t crash into anybody.

“Who did that boy think he was?!” Riddle fumed, still not entirely over the mishap from the ceremony.

Trey sighed; Riddle was sometimes quite tiring to look after.

“It was his first day, although I’m not sure if he’ll be remaining on school grounds since the Dark Mirror said he can’t use magic.” He responded, hoping that condoling his housewarden would get him in a better mood so he wouldn’t be as strict with the new students in the welcoming party. But he also needed to drag out keeping Riddle away from Heartslabyul while Cater fixed the roses.

“Not that one, the pink and blue haired one who refused to answer me!” Riddle stated, stopping in his tracks to fully turn to face Trey. “And nearly tackling the Headmaster too, why I ought to collar him!”

Trey flinched slightly, a small bead of sweat forming on his brow. He hadn’t expected Riddle’s fuming to be about that student.

“I’m sure Crowley’s sorted it all out by now, they’ve most likely been sent home by now and the monster removed from campus.” He suggested, feeling a little calmer as the redness of Riddle’s face dwindled.

“The cat is removed from the campus, as I can sense the collar has been removed from his neck.” Riddle responded, turning away from Trey. “I just have a ba-“

“Riddle! Trey!”

Riddle was cut off by Cater as the ginger rounded the corner, waving a hand at the two.

“The new students are all assembled for the welcoming party.” He hummed, a grin on his face as he faced the two.

“Thank you for the report, Cater. Has the venue been prepared in accordance with the laws of the Queen of Hearts?” Riddle questioned, a hand coming to rest on his hip as he faced his taller upper classman. “I assume the roses have been painted in an alternating pattern of red and white?”

Cater propped a hand on his hip, his other hand out in front of him as he gestured with his phone while answering. “Of course! It’s all set.”

“Very good.” Riddle nodded in acknowledgement to the response, walking past Cater to resume his trek to the hall of mirrors. “Then let us hurry back to the dorms.”

Riddle froze after a few steps, turning to look over his shoulder at his upper classmen.

“If I see anymore trouble, your heads will roll.” His voice was stern, eyes narrowing at the two older boys. “Remember that.”

“Yes, Housewarden.” The two answered in sync, staying still as Riddle turned back away from the both of them and continued to walk.

Cater let out a soft sigh, shoulders slouching as the smile slid off his face. “Good thing we finished repainting the roses in time…” He whispered, reaching up to fiddle with one of the two loose strands of ginger hair that framed his face.

“You’re such a tough leader, Trey.”

Trey glanced at him from the corner of his eye, giving the ginger a small smile. “Thanks for your hard work, Cater.” He responded, keeping his voice low enough that the younger boy wouldn’t hear the two conversing.

“What happened to that other freshie?” Cater inquired quietly, having left much earlier than the rest of the student body that’d remained in the opening ceremony before Crowley had sent them all out.

“Crowley should’ve sent him back home by now, considering what the Dark Mirror said about their soul.” Trey’s answer was flat, his eyes focusing on the path in front of him but lingering on the back of Riddle’s head in concern.

“Aww… I was hoping I could’ve gotten a pic with him for Magicam…” Cater pouted, shoulders slouching over a bit more in exaggerated disappointment. “We rarely get freshie’s who look like girls, especially ones with bi-coloured hair…”

Trey’s lips thinned slightly, used to Cater’s constant chatter about Magicam and attempts to be more popular on the platform.

“Riddle didn’t seem very fond of them,” He whispered, a bad feeling settling in his stomach over how quickly Riddle took a dislike to the ‘corrupted’ boy.

Cater gave the green-haired boy a look, putting an arm around his shoulder for a moment. “Chill out, Trey. Riddle’s uptight about everything, it’ll be fineeee.” The ginger hummed out, glancing over at Riddle to make sure the redhead hadn’t heard him.

“Plus, we got a party to get too, so have some fun and relax for once.” Cater suggested, giving his dorm’s vice-housewarden an easygoing grin.

“Or you could always bake some more photogenic dishes…” He suggested, giving Trey a little shoulder nudge to see if he could pull out a couple more pics for his Magicam.

Cater just received a small grin in response, Trey adjusting his glasses as he responded. “I thought you said all the new Heartslabyul students were gathered and waiting.”

Cater flinched slightly in surprise, eyes widening the slightest bit as his eyebrows furrowed, but that expression remained for a mere few seconds.

Trey grinned at his classmate, a rather smug look forming on his face. “I don’t think you’ll be taking many photos this year, since you’re babysitting all the freshmen.”

Cater’s expression fell to the ground, a guilty look spreading across his face as he fiddled with a strand of hair again.

“I thought you forgot about that…” He complained, earning a small chuckle from Trey.

“You’re the one who suggested the guessing game,” The smug expression remained on Trey’s face as Cater groaned in defeat.

The sound of Riddle’s heels against the tiling came to a halt, making both pause their conversation and focus back on their housewarden who’d turned to face them.

They received a hard glare before the redhead turned back around, a warning to keep it down.

The two stayed quiet, following along behind their housewarden, one focused on the redhead while the other was focused on his phone.

Chapter Text

Crowley eventually brought the both of you to the dorm he said you’d remain at during your time stuck here.

It did not look safe in the slightest way.

The trees were bare of leaves and the branches were jagged and pointed. The grass was overgrown, almost the same height as your chest from what you could tell, although other plants seemed to be in the mix too. The stone stairs leading up to the dorm were cracked and looked unstable, whereas the jagged iron gate that surrounded the area was covered in rust.

You could make out the outline of the dorm in the darkness of the night thanks to the moonlight, the dim lanterns seated upon stone columns lining the path did little to show the surroundings.

But you could hear the old creaks of the wood and groans of age as the light wind brushed past its walls.

“This is…” You couldn’t find a word to describe it without possibly offending Crowley. Yet, you shrink when his attention turns to you, starting to fiddle with some of the free folds that hung loosely from your robes.

“…. Too much charm…” You quietly finished, anxious from being the focus of the birdman’s attention for some reason you’re not entirely sure about.

Crowley opened his mouth to respond to you, but Enma spoke up before the headmaster had a chance to speak. “Well, it definitely has atmosphere.”

Crowley spun around to face the boy, a smile spreading across his face. “Right, right. I knew you’d agree.”

Pushing forwards, the headmaster placed a gloved hand upon the rusty iron gate, before quickly recoiling it. He pulled out a black handkerchief from somewhere on his person and wiped off the cobwebs that’d caught on his sharp finger rings.

Folding the handkerchief back into a neat square, he tucked it back into his clothing. Yet, instead of touching the gate once more, he used his cane to open the gate.

It let out an ear-splitting metallic screech, it’s hinges not agreeing with the movement after being left alone for so long. You grit your teeth at the sound, hissing in pain as your hands clapped over your ears to try and muffle the sound, while you squeezed your eyes shut.

Enma and Crowley didn’t seem too affected by the noise though, probably used to things as loud as that. You only rarely had to deal with noises that painful, and normally for a few minutes, since it happened whenever a child would end up in your mother’s oven.

Feeling sick in your stomach, you opened your eyes and let your hands drop. You didn’t want to think about stuff right now.

Crowley tapped the bottom of his cane on the ground a few times, clearing it of the rust particles and cobweb that’d transferred from the gate. Clearing his throat, he stepped onto the uneven path that lay beyond, staying away from the edges where the worst of the overgrown grass resigned.

“Please, come inside.” He suggested, beginning to walk down the path towards the dorm. Enma followed along behind, sticking to the same path as Crowley.

Gingerly, you moved through the gate, getting goosebumps as you began the walk down the uneven stone path. It was dark. Not scary dark thanks to the moonlight, but dark enough it was a little difficult to see the ground because of the shadow the overgrown grass cast on the path.

A rustling sound came from close behind you and you spun, heart starting to thunder in your chest. The wind hadn’t blown. What was that…?!

You whirled back around and tried to run to the other two, not wanting to be lagging behind, with whatever that was. Yet, you barely made it a few steps before your foot snagged on a plant that’d grown through the cracks in the path, sending you tumbling forwards onto the stone.

You hissed in pain as your knees and hands collided with the concrete. Your knees were at least ok, but your palms felt like they were screaming from how much they burned. You forced yourself to stand back up, bringing your hands close to your face.

Squinting, you tried to make out the damage in the darkness, but you were only able to make out a few thin peeled parts of skin that’d been caused by the fall. Thinning your lips, you gingerly wiped your palms on your robes, flinching at the fabric touching the inflamed raw flesh.

Glancing back up at Enma and Crowley, they’d practically already made it to the dorm door. Your eyes widen and you hurriedly start to move down the old path once more, more carefully this time.

From where your further back, you can make out Crowley’s silhouette use his cane to do something to a thing conjoining two doors together. The wooden doors protested as they were nudged open by his cane soon after, releasing a creak that could rival a ghost in eeriness.

Enma peeks through the doors, whereas you finally catch up to the two. Glancing up at the building that you’d be about to call home, you grimaced. Able to make it out better due to being closer, it was easily classifiable as rundown.

Holes in the roofing and chunks missing from the walls, windows boarded up whether there was cracked glass or none at all. One of the stone columns that supported the porch covering had crumbled, now just something resembling a sharp tooth with tiny stones all around it looking like crumbs.

Enma starts to move inside, followed by Crowley, whom you hurriedly followed behind, still spooked by whatever had been in the overgrown plantation.

“It is a little run down, but I believe it will provide shelter from the wind and rain.” Crowley commented, stepping to the side as he continued further into the main room, a cane length behind Enma.

Yet, him swerving out of the way led you to walk face first into a massive spiderweb. Spluttering, you hurriedly stepped back, rubbing and wiping your face to remove it of the silk. Ewww….

“It’s more than enough, thank you.” Enma stated, stopping after entering a more open space within the massive building. Turning to Crowley, he continued “Are you sure you don’t mind letting us stay in this big house?”

“Not at all.” Crowley answered, giving you an unnoticed side eye as you glanced around at the state of the room.

There were picture frames that’d fallen off the walls, or looked like they were about too. There were holes in the wooden flooring, and the paint was peeling. There were big plush seats, but their fabric was all scratched up, white stuff spilling out of holes and little bits of silver things peeking through. The massive window was covered in cracks and coated in layers of dust. The curtains were ripped and torn, whereas a stairwell near the end of the room seemed to be the only thing left in better condition than the rest.

The only thing you had for light, was a candle chandelier that’d lit up upon the three of you entering the room. No one had touched them, and none of you could reach it to light them, and it didn’t look like Crowley did any magic to light them, so is it just enchanted…?

It was kinda easy to see all the cobwebs that decorated everything, and the dust that flew up in the air with every step any of you took, that barely compared to the coatings that were on everything else.

“The Dark Mirror summoned both your souls here…” Crowley turned back to Enma, “…And as its owners, we at the college are partly to blame for the mishap.”

“So, for the time being…” Crowley turned his gaze to the ground, eyes narrowing at it. “...We will provide these lodgings free of charge.”

“Wow, thank you…!” Enma seemed surprised at the kindness, which honestly seemed more like reluctance in your opinion.

Crowley glanced back up at both of you, hands moving to his hips. “I’m going back to do more research and gather things for our gynecian companion. Make yourselves at home.”

He proceeded to start walking away, before stopping and speaking over his shoulder. “Don’t go wandering around the school! Goodbye!” And with that, he actually left the both of you alone in the rundown building that you’ll both be living in.

“We need to clean just to be able to sit down…” You mumbled glancing at Enma, watching as he placed his bags down against the wall. A flurry of dust flew up in the corner, only to slowly fall back down in what could be mistaken for a little dance.

“Oh, the dust looks like snow…~” You commented, watching as Enma gave you a small smile.

“Ready to start cleaning?” He questioned, at which you nodded in response, only to have something wet fall on your head.

Your brows knit together in confusion, so you look up. Only to have another wet drop fall straight onto you, this time right on the tip of your nose.

Your head quickly tips back down in surprise, hand coming to wipe the droplet off your nose. You barely have time to open your mouth to speak before a flurry of patters resound from all over the roof, all out of sync as they sound from every space along it. The liquid began to trickle onto your face quicker now, causing you to step out of the way as a small puddle begins to form on the wooden flooring.

You hurried over to the window, rubbing at the clouded glass with your hand to be able to see out through the cracked glass easier. Outside, rain was pouring down, making it almost impossible to see through all the droplets in the darkness.

“It’s raining…” You mumbled, ignoring the slight sting in your palm, where the irritated flesh stung from the contact against the dust clouded windowpane.

“Seems like that, doesn’t it.” Enma commented, from beside you, looking through his own pane of the window.

Sighing, you step back from the window, looking back around the room and taking note of all the little puddles starting to form on the floorboards. “We’re gonna need a lot of buckets…”

“I’ll go and grab some,” Enma offered, rolling up his sleeves.

You nod in response, “I’ll see if I can find anything to help clear up all the dust.” You offered, watching as Enma nodded in response to that before leaving the room.

Once he was gone, you turned back to the window, looking back out through the cracked panes. Crowley hadn’t left very long ago, so he should still be out there, but he isn’t…?

Sighing, you glance back down at your palms, looking at how the irritated skin was peeling in some patches, while other parts showed pink flesh with white scraps nearby. One patch right at the bottom of your palm had peeled so much that there were little pinpricks of gold visible against the raw flesh.

You grimace at the sight, flexing your thumb slightly to watch as the skin moved about and the pinpricks of gold grew a little larger.

“Hyiii!”

You jump at the noise, hurriedly squeezing your hands shut and forcing them to your sides.

“It’s really coming down!” The familiar voice comments, resulting in you hurriedly trying to spot the grey bundle of fur the voice belonged to.

A small grey figure pushed out the front half of its body, stretching out in a child’s pose to relax his muscles after being curled up in a square shape for a while.

“Being a pillow is much harder than it seems.” He mumbled, pushing out his backside as he kneaded the torn seating in the plush seat beside the window.

You could feel your mouth dropping open at how casual Grim seemed in this scenario. He went missing from where you’d left him in the room before getting taken to the library, and now he’d rocked up here acting like nothing had happened?

Unfurling from the stretch, Grim leaned back, doing a strange backwards stretch while his tail stuck out straight from between his legs. Soon as he finished being in that pose for a few seconds, he slipped down off the couch, landing on his hind paws so he was stood up.

He started laughing soon as his blue eyes landed on your face. “Gyahaha! You’ve got this stupid look on your face like a spider being attacked by a water gun!”

You blinked at him in surprise, having no idea what a water gun is, but it sounds bad.

“I’ll have no trouble sneaking back into school.” He stated, entirely sure of himself as he began to march past you, bringing his knees up and swinging his arms as he moved.

Breaking out of your state of surprise, you reached down and grabbed the scruff of his neck, not really paying attention to the fact that the strange collar was gone from his throat.

Kicking his hind legs in the air now that his paws were off the ground once more, Grim batted at your hand with his front paws, trying to get you to let go, but not using his claws.

“Come on, come on…!” He whined, flaying about more as he squirmed about in your grip, tail lashing about slightly.

You start to move toward one of the hallways, looking for Enma. It’d be best if he knew Grim was back.

This resulted in Grim slightly pushing his claws into your hand, enough so you’d notice and stop what you were doing, but not hard enough that it would injure you.

You almost dropped him when that happened, but instead you pulled your arm up, bringing him higher up off the ground so you could glare at him for that. Grim just glares back, a smirk on his face.

“If you think getting thrown out is gonna make me, give up on getting in, you’ve got another thing coming!” He states, tail lashing about below him.

Deciding to be a little annoying back to him, considering he’s part of the reason your iolite was taken away, you turn away from the direction you were heading and instead begin to move towards the entrance.

“I’m not throwing you out.” You said, moving Grim back down a little. “I’m just taking you to Riddle.” You added on, watching as Grim’s eyes widened and what looked like tears appeared in the corner of them.

That was the angry red-haired boy’s name, right…?

“No!” Grim yelled, ears flattening on top of his head as he writhed about, almost breaking out of your hold.

You blinked, stopping your movement as you changed your grip so you could hold him with both hands. You ignored the slight pain that shot through your palms because of his fur touching the raw flesh.

“Sorry, sugar, I was only joking…” You apologized softly, watching as Grim calmed down from panicked flailing.

The creature’s arms crossed over his chest as he gave you an unimpressed look, “Not funny, human.” He stated, tail swinging from side to side slowly in annoyance.

“And it’s the Great Grim, not sugar!” He added on, glaring at you slightly for the name.

Your face blanched as you sucked in your lower lip, the nickname a force of habit from being around children so much.

You moved back into the center of the large room, placing Grim down on the longest plush seat before taking a spot next to him. You ignored the strange sharp object that poked at your under thigh and another that poked at your lower back, instead resisting the urge to cough from the cloud of dust that erupted from the impact.

Grim let out a cute little sneeze, rubbing his eyes with the back of his paw. Yet, as soon as his little sneezing fit was complete, you decided to satiate your curiosity.

“Why do you want to get into this school so badly?” You questioned him, watching as he gave you the most condescending look his furry face could muster.

“That’s simple!” Grim stated, tilting his face up as he looked down his nose at you once more, despite being at a lower level. “I’m a genius who is destined to be a great magician!”

You raised an eyebrow at him, watching as his paws fell to his sides and the massive grin on his face fall.

“I’ve been waiting for the Ebony Carriage to come pick me up. But…but…” Grim’s words trailed off as his ears flattened against his head once more. You were tempted to rub the patch of fur between his ears in an attempt to comfort him, but the slouched shoulders and teary eyes made you hesitate.

Yet, you hesitated the slightest bit too long as his ears returned to their normal position.

“Hmph!” Grim quietly huffed, blue eyes becoming lidded as he gave you an unimpressed look, almost as if he was disappointed in you.

“The Dark Mirror just doesn’t have an eye for this.” He stated, gesturing at himself with a paw, as if he was the most spectacular creature in existence.

You raised an eyebrow at him, eyes flickering away from a moment. You really wanted to say something, but you didn’t want to accidentally insult him in case he burned down this place.

“So, that’s why I came here myself.” Grim continued, smirking as he crossed his paws over his chest.

You thinned your lips, biting down on your bottom one. Grim was making this really hard not to comment upon. You didn’t want to be rude to him in case he started breathing fire again, but you did NOT want him here.

“Not letting me in would be a loss for the world,” He just kept on blathering, smiling wide as he spun in a circle, arms thrown out and eyes closed in non-existent bliss. “Humans just don’t get it.” He finished, stopping his spinning in a direction you weren’t stood in, causing him to hurriedly whirl back to face you, fur prickling slightly before settling right back down.

You two just stared at one another, holding eye contact. You could practically cut the almost silent tension with a meat knife. Although, the loud rain and old creaks of the building made the stare down a little less tense.

After another moment of all this, you just sighed, exasperated by this. You didn’t have the energy left to deal with all this, you were already drained in the library when Crowley originally found you. How you still had the mental, emotional and physical energy to not collapse right now was beyond you.

Bringing your hands up to your forehead, you let your head drop slightly, pressing your fingertips into your skin. Closing your eyes you groaned. By your mothers roasted glazed children, when will this day end?!

Yet, an overly loud creak resounded from one of the roof’s wooden beams before a harsh crack resounded in the room. You and Grim both jumped as a tiny shower of splinters barely missed.

“Wha-?!” You didn’t even get to finish your panicked question as a harsh stream of freezing water dunked the both of you.

You grit your teeth, feeling chilled to the bone as you shivered slightly, feeling your robes clinging to your body as they dripped with rainwater.

“Nyaa! So Colddd!” Grim complained, sprinting back from the now slightly powerful trickle, rainwater that spilled from the small hole in the roof seconds before.

He hurriedly shook his body, trying to get all the water off his fur, spattering you with tiny droplets that didn’t help with your drenched state. He held his breath for a moment, making the blue flames in his ears flare back to their normal intensity, relighting them with whatever from the small flicker they’d been turned into.

“The roof is leakingggg!” Grim whined, looking up at the roof before shaking his head as another droplet fell on his nose.

That specific droplet was followed by another loud groan before another crack was heard and once more, a massive torrent of water collapsed upon you both.

“Fgyaaa! It keeps comingggg!” Grim cried, dashing to hide beneath the dusty, spiderweb covered table.

He hurriedly shook himself dry and refueled his ear flames, a pout on his face as his pronged tail drooped.

“My adorable ear flames are gonna go out at this rate!!” He complained, clinging desperately onto the table leg, ignoring the spiderwebs that stuck to his sopping fur as he wrapped his tail around one of the other table legs.

You just stood there, getting more and more soaked through as you stared at Grim. Was he seriously that scared of a little water? Well, it is numbingly cold, and you had to suppress a shiver but, it’s not that bad.

“Where’s Enma with those buckets…?” You quietly questioned, looking back at the passage Enma had passed through to look for those buckets. You could feel the small layer of water forming on the floor, before it trickled into the cracks in the flooring.

Grim gave you a blank stare as you stood in the small stream of the water, not understanding how this ‘strange’ human worked.

“Magic should fix this up real quick.” He quipped, causing your attention to turn back to him.

You stayed silent for a moment, feeling the chilling rainwater run down from your hair and make a trail down the side of your face, neck and then through your pretty new robes.

“…I don’t think I can do that.” You murmured, glancing down at your hands.

You’d never tried doing any proper magic other than a few little lessons from your mother on how to make things levitate for a few minutes. Then you had your little candy production boosting thing. You’d produced it yourself and practiced when your mother wasn’t around, but you had no idea what it was.

“….Wha, you can’t use magic? Pfft! You’re useless!” Grim cried, snickering at your expression.

You frowned, not liking how he verbally jabbed at you.

“Why you…” You silently fumed; you were at your last straw with this creature.

You stalked over to Grim, bending down and grabbing onto the scruff of his neck. You yanked him off of the table leg and shoved him beneath one of the small streams of leaking rainwater.

“Mrahh?!” Grim cried, squirming in your hold before hurriedly covering his ears with his paws, trying to keep his flames from going out.

“It’s colddd! Human stoppp!” He whined desperately trying to keep his ear flames from going out, while also trying to get out of your hold to escape the chilling water.

“Stop being sour and help, then.” You stated, shaking him slightly beneath the still running stream of water.

Grim froze for a moment, paws still covering his ears by holding them down.

“Huh? Help you?” He questioned, blinking at you with wide eyes in surprise at the simplicity of the request to be let down.

“No waaay!” Grim stated, frowning at you, keeping his ears down on his head to avoid the water from putting out his ear fire. “I’m just a regular monster staying in a rainy place.”

You frowned at him, still holding him beneath the running trickle of rainwater as he smirked back.

“You better get a can of tuna ready before I do any work.” Grim demanded, before looking away momentarily. “And take me out of this water…”

You tilted your head to the side in confusion, pulling Grim out from beneath the water stream, to which he let out a relieved sigh. You still kept ahold of his scruff though, not wanting to put him down yet, so he just dangled there.

“What’s ‘tuna’?” The question slipped from your lips with only innocence and curiosity behind it, yet the most offended gasp came from Grim.

“How dare you!” He cried, pointing a paw out at you in shame. “Tuna is only the most well-known delicacy!” Grim’s eyes closed as his mouth began to water.

“Gutted fish that gets cleaned the filleted…Then canned in brine or sauces…! And the blood being canned separately…!” He mumbled to himself; eyes closed in bliss as he drooled.

Why did he know so much about it and what even are half of those words???

“Okay…” You gingerly say, carefully placing him back on the ground as he fantasized about the flavorless bliss tuna granted his tongue.

“Sugarplums, that’s a lot of leaks…” You commented to yourself, noticing how many more leaks had appeared while you were dealing with Grim.

“Hopefully Enma’s found enough buckets…”

Chapter Text

The creaks of the moldy wooden flooring were overly loud in your ears as you moved through a passage beside the stairs. Grim was sat on your foot, paws and tail wrapped around your shin as you walked so, he wouldn’t fall off. You can’t believe you agreed to let him ride on you, so he didn’t get his fur sopping wet from the puddles. Not as if he wasn’t getting damp from the droplets falling from your robes already. Grim was making it really difficult to walk.

You groan, slowly making progress through the hall. Out of nowhere, little bumps your mother always referred to as ‘jimjams’ began to form on your skin. You could feel them rubbing against the soft fabric of your sleeves, the water soaked into them making it feel uncomfortable and heavy.

“I don’t like this feeling…” You mumbled, shaking your arms out a bit as you continued to shuffle down the hallway, in search of Enma, but you’ve barely made it past the second doorway.

There were plenty of other leaks in the roof down here too, and you couldn’t help but feel like the building was moving, distorting before you. You felt yourself stumble, Grim digging his claws into your leg to keep himself from falling off. Barely managing to catch yourself, you felt overly dizzy, a sick feeling set in your stomach.

It was overly similar to how you felt whenever mother had you join her for dinner. You never liked having those rare meals she delighted in. Honestly, you’d always preferred eating her slug soup over children.

Leaning against the wall, you covered your mouth, vision spinning as you felt your stomach flip. You could hear Grim whining to you about this, but you couldn’t make out his words. The rain battering against the roof, the little plops of droplets falling into the puddles on the ground, the wind shaking the walls and trees’ branches whipping against objects suddenly seemed much too loud. The wooden walls groaned in protest, against your weight, but you could’ve sworn you heard something else mixed in beneath all the suddenly overwhelming sounds.

“Did you hear that…...?” You couldn’t think straight, barely able to slip out the question. You felt horrid; lightheaded, dizzy, sick to your stomach, overstimulated.

You couldn’t even make out Grim’s response, or even him for that matter. Everything was going blurry, making it even harder to see with your vision spinning.

…What’s happening…?

Something white began to form in your vision, contrasting greatly to the darkness of the hallway. Three different deformed blobs of white in the middle of the passage, a large one, a small one and a long thin one. They looked like marshmallows…

You felt Grim’s claws dig into your leg once more, followed by his weight hurriedly shoving off from your foot and scrambling up your leg. You felt him scurry up onto the loose parts of the robes, his weight nearly pulling you off the wall. Yet, what he clung onto wasn’t very stable, which led to him scurrying up the rest of your body and into your hood, curling himself around the back of your neck.

It wasn’t the most comfortable position he could’ve gone into, but you couldn’t really complain at the moment. Grim was surprisingly warm though, but his fur stood on end.

The physical touch was surprisingly helpful in working towards getting yourself back together mentally, though. You weren’t as dizzy and lightheaded anymore, and you were feeling a little less sick to the stomach.

You blinked a couple of times, vision slowly clearing. Those three different shaped blobs of white you’d saw with blurry eyes weren’t there anymore. You reached up with a hand, rubbing your eyes.

You’re starting to see things now, great…

Quiet, eerie laughter began to ring in your ears.

You tensed up, feeling a cold chill shoot down your spine. You could feel Grim bristle, his claws digging into your collar. As much as you wanted to unhook him from inside your hood right now, you couldn’t.

“We haven’t had guests in so longgg….” A raspy voice came from somewhere, the words carrying an emotion that made you feel sick once more.

You pushed yourself further into the wall, ignoring a broken piece of wood that dug into your back. The protest from the wall didn’t matter. What mattered was that if you were like this, whatever was here couldn’t get you from behind.

“I’m itching for some action~!” A more rounded voice cried out. This one sounded a little more friendly but disembodied voices are not the best to be around. From what you’ve learnt from your mother’s teachings that is.

That voice began to laugh, the rounded-out reverberation of their voice making it more eerie. You dug your palms into the wall, ignoring the pain from the wood digging into your scraped skin.

Closing your eyes to try and figure out the direction it was coming from might have been a horrible idea. It sounded like it was from above and behind you…?

Opening your eyes, you brace yourself before pushing off and turning around.

You barely managed to keep yourself from screaming as three white things phased through the wall. They looked like giant marshmallows, but they couldn’t be. Their faces moved, they were wearing fancy hats, and they had capes.

HOW DID THEY DO THAT?

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!” Grim screamed for you, claws locking into your robe’s fabric and the edge of the skin on your collarbone. You flinched at the small prick of pain, along with the pain from having someone practically scream into your ear.

“G-g-g-ghooooooooooooosts!!!”

Oh, so that’s what they are, ‘ghosts.’

What even are ghosts?

“The people living here got scared of us and left.” The middle-sized ghost said, bobbing in the air as it moved in a circle around the both of you.

How is it moving without touching the ground??

“We’ve been looking for more ghost pals.” The larger one said, joining into the floating circle. If it was a child your mother would’ve delighted in having that one…

“How about you guys?” It added on, at least you knew who the owner of that rounded voice was.

You hadn’t even noticed Grim had unhooked himself from you until he was stood on your chest, front paws holding your cheeks. You’d been too distracted by these new things.

“Help me! I’m gonna be killed!” He cried, using his paws to slightly nod your head in what you’re guessing would’ve been an attempt to shake you.

Grim began to whimper slightly, but your nose scrunched up from his breath. He really needs a mint…

Reaching up, you hooked your hands beneath his shoulders and carefully pulled him off you. Now that you didn’t have to deal with that rank stench of Grim’s breath, you took a deep breath.

“Aren’t you supposed to be some ‘Great Magician’?” You couldn’t help the question, the patronizing tone unintentional as you looked him in the eyes.

Grim blinked up at you, before pouting, eyes narrowing as he crossed his arms over his chest. “Grim the Great Magician isn’t scared of some ghosts!!!” He cried, starting to squirm around in your arms.

You dropped him, watching as he didn’t react to the small burst of water that splashed up when he landed in a puddle. Hurriedly, he turned to face towards whatever ghost was closest to him in the floating circle.

“Fgnaa!”

He spat a small ball of blue fire in that general direction, completely missing the tall, lanky ghost.

“Where were you aiming?” It questioned, pausing its floating circling for a moment to stare at the monster.

The big one began laughing, disappearing for a moment, only to pop up a second later near Grim. “Over here, over here! Heeheehee!”

Grim spat another blue fireball, this one at the large ghost, only for it to miss it by a few steps, but it disappeared anyway. Then it popped straight back into sight on the other side of him.

“Shoot! Stop disappearing!” Grim yelled, starting to shoot his blue fireballs all over the place.

You hurriedly ducked as one nearly hit you square in the face, the small ghost cackling as it floated above the chaos. You weren’t too worried about this place catching fire currently, due to all the water on the floor and the drips still coming from the roof. It was too wet for anything to catch alight, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t dry soon due to the heat of Grim’s fire.

Where’s Enma…? He’d probably know what to do in this situation…

Watching Grim, you stumbled to the side, barely avoiding another random fireball. He seemed to blink every time he spat out the flames…

“Are you closing your eyes when you breathe fire!?” You questioned, utterly exasperated and shocked by this. If he opened his eyes, he’d be able to hit them without turning you into a roast.

“Shut up!” Grim whirled around to face you, paw pointed at you like he could blast you into a wall with his glare. “Don’t try to give me orders!”

You merely blinked, crossing your arms over your chest as you raised an eyebrow at him.  He whirled back around, resuming his attempts to blindly hit a ghost with his flaming blue balls.

Sighing, you merely watched as one of the ghosts poofed into existence beside you, cackling with glee at the fuming monster. An idea popped into your head.

Carefully, you took a step towards the ‘ghost,’ feeling your stomach drop as you did. It didn’t seem to notice your slow progression towards it as it continued to laugh at Grim failing to hit its buddies.

Then you lunged, attempting to grab the chubby ‘ghost’ in your arms. A surprised noise escaped it as it noticed at the last second.

Yet, it failed, you went through its body as if it wasn’t there, crashing into the floorboard’s hands first. It shot upwards when you were part way through it though, bringing a freezing sensation through your bones that made every hair stand on end.

You squeaked as you felt your palms get further scraped, struggling to hold in any louder noises as the rest of your body quickly fell atop your hands. Thanks to whatever stopped you from floating like the untouchable ‘ghosts,’ you fell over the top of yourself, rolling forwards and crashing into the wall with a thud.

The world was spinning around you as you fell backwards, a hand coming up to your forehead. The warm, sticky feeling of something thick starting to slowly come down your face made you grimace.

Great.

Gingerly standing back up, you barely managed to miss another fireball that shot towards you. You were just about ready to smack Grim upside the head.

“I’ll give you a can of tuna if you win.” You stated, dodging yet another stray fireball.

Grim tensed, turning to face you with wide eyes. “Wha…?!”

“I’ll give you a can of tuna if you win.” You repeated, arms crossed as the ghosts gave a pause to their game to hit one another’s hand.

“Mmmgmm, I-I’m a genius.” Grim mumbled to himself, drool starting to slip from his maw. “I won’t let one…”

It seemed your attempt to get Grim to stop backfired as the lanky one tugged his tail, making him jump. Whirling back around to face the ghosts he hissed, the ghosts cackling in delight.

“Bunch of cowards ganging up on us!” He yelled, spitting more fireballs in random directions.

Is he not aware they’re only going for him…?

“Please take care NOT to burn the one giving you your prize.” You added on, giving Grim a look.

You do NOT want to be a hungry wood witches next meal. Nor do you want to be a human roast! Not that you could be, anyway…

With a judging look, you observed as he missed yet another of the ghost trio with his fireballs. You pinched the bridge of your nose, closing your eyes as you groaned in annoyance.

Why is it that you’re the one stuck in this situation. Surely the heavens should’ve taken pity on you by now. Your mother was cooked alive, you were whisked off to a random location, your home was eaten by animals, the last thing you have of your mother was taken from you, your stuck living in an unstable location that doesn’t seem very safe, you have to deal with an arrogant monster, and now ‘ghosts.’ Whatever the strange creatures are anyway.

You’ve only ever looked after children, and the occasional injured wildlife your mother took her ingredients from. You’ve taken care of plenty of birds and amphibians, along with the occasional mammal, but this was past your knowledge.

What did you do wrong to deserve all this…?

“Hey, you!” You were snapped out of your little train of thought by the yell, opening your eyes to see Grim pointing at you with his paw.

You blink at him in surprise, watching as he jumped out of the way of one of the ghosts before hurriedly turning back to face you once more, with his paw raised. He wasn’t spitting fireballs in random directions now…

“Tell me where the ghosts are!” He demanded, throwing his arms out to his sides as he glared at you with wide eyes.

Grim seemed angry with himself and you, considering how he was glaring. Or he might just be irritated by having to rely on you to deal with the ghosts tormenting him.

You just shrugged to yourself. It’s at least better than getting hit by stray fireballs.

The smallest ‘ghost’ popped into existence not too far off from Grim’s side, but far enough behind the monster he couldn’t catch it in his vision. Quickly, you checked the shape of your hands, making sure one of them formed an ‘L’.

“On your left!”

Grim whirled around to his left, spitting a fireball flat into a wall.

It wasn’t the side with the ‘ghost.’ Whom having been missed, burst into giggles and tugged on Grim’s tail before phasing out of existence before Grim could scratch at it.

Whirling back to you, Grim bared his teeth, pointing his paw at you.

“Are you stupid?!” He accused, tail lashing about behind him. “Swap the sides around!”

You sucked in your bottom lip, slouching slightly in embarrassment. Your mother never bothered to teach you basic things; focusing on how to read, speak, cook sweets and meat, identifying certain plants, and persuasion. You really only know small things from some of the children who were nice enough to help you learn some things before your mother ate them.

“Sorry…” You muttered the apology, biting down on your lip.

The long lanky ‘ghost’ popped up near Grim, floating closer while the monster was occupied with yelling at you about your lack of basic directions.

Your eyes widened as you quickly checked your hands, before hurriedly pointing with the left one.

“On your le-!” You cut yourself off, shaking your head before hurriedly fixing your words. “Right! On your right!”

Grim didn’t even give his mouth a break, still yelling at you as he whirled around. He only shut up when he spat the blue fireball at the ‘lanky ghost,’ hitting it square it in the face.

“Hotttttt!” Both you and Grim blinked at it as it yelled, hurriedly rubbing at its face to put out the blue flames.

Huh...That actually worked…?

“I hit it!” Grim shoved his paw up in the air, a massive smirk pulling at his lips that almost matched the small smile you couldn’t hide.

Whirling back around to face you, Grim shoved his paw out, beckoning you over with a curl of the limb. “Alright, let’s chase them all outta here!”

You nodded back at him, feeling some of his confidence transfer to you, despite the chilling feeling that flowed throughout you. But that was quickly counteracted by the surge of energy Grim received, starting to dance around while spitting out plumes of blue flames.

“Phoo! Phoo! Myah-yah-yah! PHOOO!” The noises he made were…strange to say the least, although they weren’t the main cause of your concern.

Grim was spitting fire all around the interior of an unstable structure. He was basically asking for it to just collapse in on itself.

One of the blue fireballs missed a ghost by a long shot, in which it burst out laughing. “Heh heh heh! Missed by a county mile. Heh heh heh!” Grim jumped, something wet dribbling down from his eyes and nose before he spat fire at the ghost.

It dissipated in thin air, easily dodging the fireball as it cackled at the monster’s pitiful attempts. Grim just bared his teeth, tail lashing about with claws out. He looked angry, despite the pitiful expression on his face.

“RRRGH! Hey, human!” Grim grumbled in a yell, closing his eyes as he complained. “You gotta be more clear with your directions! I can’t hear you!”

You crossed your arms over your chest, the sudden confidence switch in Grim rather pitiful. You didn’t even alert him of that ghost, or the direction he should’ve shot in, since he was just spewing blue fireballs all over the place.

Grim still had his eyes closed when the big ghost popped into existence beside him, poking him in the shoulder. Grim yelped, jumping back and landing on all fours with eyes wide.

“OoOOoh, secret talk? I want in, c’mooon!” The ghost whined, although it seemed more playful teasing than anything considering they could hear all of it perfectly fine.

“MYAAAH! NO! You stay way, WAY back!” Grim cried, rapidly starting to shoot his fire all over the place once again. The ghost quickly popped out of existence before a fireball could hit it.

It was honestly tiresome calling directions for Grim to shoot in, a decent chunk of the time failing to hit though. But every time he did manage to successfully make a ball of blue flames collide with a ghost, he’d cheer and do a small victory dance before either getting spooked by a different one or shooting off more fireballs in whatever direction he so desired.

You’d finally decided to sit down on the hole-riddled wooden floorboards, your legs feeling all stiff and sore from being used so much today. Your cheek was pressed against your palm, from where you’d propped your arm up on your knee. You weren’t even bothering to yell anymore, just gesturing in the direction with your free hand while saying the (hopefully) correct way for Grim to turn. But the monster seemed to have figured out how to deal with the ghosts by himself now, considering how his paws were now on his hips.

“Now THAT’S more like it!” The grey furball yelled, striking a strange pose as he smirked, completely ignoring you. “I knew I was a total whiz with magic!”

What’s a ‘whiz?’ Ugh, you couldn’t care less right now. You’re tired and bored, and your energy’s been entirely drained from the past hours of your consciousness.

“The great Grim can handle more than a few ghosts without some humans help!” He added on, throwing his head back as he spun around, paws flung out to his sides. “MYAHAHAHA!”

Ok, so he’s not entirely ignoring you. Just not bothering to acknowledge your existence. Eh, you’re used to it anyway.

Rather bored, you let your gaze drift away from the self-proclaimed ‘amazing magic user’ of a grey bundle of fur and blue flames. In doing so though, Grim failed to realize the small ghost had appeared behind him.

But the moment the monster opened his blue eyes, he recoiled out of his proud spin, jumping back and landing on all fours. “MYAH?!”

The tiny ghost burst into laughter at its success, clutching its abdomen as it wheezed. “Pfft! Hahahaha!”

Grim did not seem to be enjoying this in the slightest anymore, sniffling as his tail curled up around his body. Gripping the ends of it, he turned to you, yelling through a sob. “HUMANNNN!”

You jumped in your seated position as Grim shot towards you, burying himself in the small gap that formed between your crossed legs. You blinked at the creature with wide eyes, trying to process why he was attempting to climb beneath your robes to hide.

“You gotta tell me if you see a ghost’s bouta spook meeeee!” He sobbed; shaky voice muffled by the fabric of your robes.

You stayed frozen for a moment, feeling the warmth the blue flames in his ears provided to your sopping wet robes, slightly starting to dry the sections near his face that weren’t submerged in the small layer of water the floor refused to release. It’s kinda surprising how he isn’t complaining about getting even more wet, but then again, his paws are dripping water from their time submerged.

After a couple seconds of him still trying to burrow into your wet clothing, you hooked your hands beneath his forelegs, untangling him from the almost bundle he’s rolled himself into. Gently tugging him out from between your legs, you held him up, so he was face-level. Grim tried to glare at you, although the runny nose and teary eyes didn’t make it look as strong as it was probably intended, especially with how his body was slightly stretched out from the position.

Huh, he’s got a bit of a tummy… Cute… WAIT, no, you can’t be getting distracted.

You quickly shook your head to get rid of the impulsive idea to start petting Grim’s stomach, hurriedly stopping as you heard him sniffle.

“Hey, you shoot your fireballs at them, and I’ll make sure you don’t get spooked.” You offer, knowing he already knew the whole gist of this, but repeating it in hopes of providing the monster with even a bit of comfort.

As he sniffled again, you placed him down on your crossed legs, so he didn’t try to immediately hide in between them again. Grim rubbed his face with a paw, messily wiping his nose as he blinked up at you with teary eyes.

“I’ll move, and you just need to make sure you shoot in that direction, ok?” You hold out your hand in a closed fist. It was a gesture you were taught a few years ago by a child who you tried to help escape. Sadly, you never succeeded in that escape plan working out for them…

Sniffling, Grim nodded, swiping at his nose with a paw to get rid of the snot and water dribbling from it. After, he shoved the paw out, wiping it on your knuckles. You grimaced. That is not how the action was meant to go.

You wiped the back of your hand off on your robes, the soggy silks doing little to remove the excess fluids Grim had wiped on your knuckles. With a sigh, you hooked your hands back under his arms, hoisting him back up off your legs. Gingerly you stood back up, almost falling over due to being unable to use your hands to help with balancing.

The ghosts stopped whispering among themselves, turning to the two of you with laughter. Your eyes narrowed as some of them disappeared from view, ready to pop into existence from any direction nearby. You positioned Grim in front of you, ready to aim the fireballs he’d shoot at any moment.

Turning your head left and right, you listened closely to the ambience, ready to catch the ghosts. The creaks and groans of the building’s structure were muffled beneath the pounding rain. The faint chirping of crickets barely infiltrated the horrid acoustics of the dorm, making it all the more eerie.

A small giggle behind you caused your body to whirl into action. You spun. Shoving Grim out in front of you. He yelped, spitting a blue fireball within seconds that immediately collided with the face of a ghost. It screamed, dissipating into thin air and reappearing further away. It dunked its head down inside the water that pooled ankle-high on the floor, putting out the flames.

You grinned, proud of the small achievement as Grim laughed. Yet, while distracted by your mini celebration, the tiny ghost began to slink up behind you. You only just caught it out of the corner of your eye fast enough to whirl Grim around and blast it in the face with blue flames. It cried out, the ghost’s entire being lit up in flames before it plunged down into the water by your feet.

Grim was laughing now, enjoying blasting the ghosts at face value with his fire. Throwing a paw up in the air he smirked. But a chill ran down your spine. Turning to look behind you, the long lanky ghost was slinking towards you both. He flinched back at being seen, but you didn’t hesitate, directing Grim towards the ghost.

The monster let out a startled cry at the sudden movement that jarred him from his laughter. But soon as he saw the ghost didn’t hesitate. “Phoo!”

Blue fire spewed forth from the furry muzzle blasting the last ghost flat out in the face. “Yeowch! That burnsss!” It cried, diving away from us and into the water.

You blinked, staring at the now empty hallway. “Breadcrumbs on a lollipop…” You couldn’t hold back your surprise, you’d both genuinely managed to get rid of them.

“Nice! That actually worked!” Grim yelled, paw up in the air before he wriggled his way out of your hold. He fell with a splash into the water, before starting to dance around. He didn’t seem bothered by the water anymore, too proud of himself.

“Hey, human! What should I do next?” The monster questioned, a wide grin on his face. You shrugged, it’s up to him to decide after all. “Myeheheh…I’ll give ‘em the works then!”

As he began to rub one paw up his arm, sweeping the sopping grey fur in the opposing direction to how it usually lay, you hurriedly picked him back up. He squawked in surprise, writhing about to try and slip out of your hold, yet simultaneously keeping his claws away from you and not blowing any blue fire.

“Maybe don’t, they’re already gone.” You advised holding him eye level. It was actually starting to be a little tough on your arms, holding the heavy creature up so much.

“Myaawww….” Grim complained, stopping his writhing to go limp. You almost dropped him at the sudden wait increase, stumbling slightly on the rotting, waterlogged wooden floorboards.

“C’mon, let’s go back and see if Enma returned while we were dealing those… ‘marshmallows.’” You quipped, pausing to rename the being to what you think fit them the best. After all, they did look like sticky sweet treats, depending on the sizing of the kinds your mother brought home.

Just as you began walking back the way you came, you paused. “Oh, gumdrops, I forgot we went looking for something to help clean up all the dust…” You mumbled, hugging the sopping wet bundle of fur against your chest.

“Eh, it doesn’t matter all that much human, you still owe me a can of tuna after all.” Grim quipped, front paws coming up to rest on the curve of your breasts faintly displayed through the robes.

He went silent, eyes drifting down to where his paws now sat before his claws pricked out from them, lightly digging into the silks. He began to pull and push his paws along them, repeatedly doing the action. You raised an eyebrow in curiosity at his behavior but didn’t comment on it, nor did you stop him. He was quiet for once, which was honestly a relief.

So, you just returned the way you came. Hopefully Enma had found a broom while looking for the buckets to deal with the leaks.