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abloginnameonly · 1 year

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Birthday

@oc-tober2023

Tenjin was worried. It was, by all accounts, an easy birth. Both the child and his Aurilia survived in good health. They were away from the Empire’s borders. Finally, after over two centuries of fruitless fighting and the countless losses that came with it, they could rest. It wasn’t giving up, it wasn’t, they just had a child to take care of now, a family. There had been no discussion yet about when (if) they would return to the resistance effort later on, but that was only because they had new priorities. A child. A family. And maybe Aurilia hadn’t spoken since Ponfaerin was laid on her, even when they fussed, but this was often normal. Tenjin wasn’t a follower of the life domain, but he was familiar enough with the process from his early life in the temple to know that birthing was an incredibly difficult process even when it went well, and time as needed to recover not only the body but the mind as well.

But he couldn’t shake the expression on her face. Or the lack of. Smooth and cold like air like rock like steel. Tenjin was a light cleric and all the aspirations that came with it, but she was a ranger, intent on more earth-bound concerns. And while he admired her strength of character, he’d seen this expression more and more often as years went by, bringing to mind an expression about immoveable maple trees and bending willows.

So he wouldn’t bring up the resistance fight. He would help carry his wife through this difficult time, and only well after would they go back to their plans and networks and effort.

Ponfaerin woke and began to make small whimpers for their mother. Aurilia didn’t move, and the whimpers grew into cries until Tenjin reached out.

“Here, Aura. Why don’t you let me take them while you rest-”

“What have we done.” Cold like night. Tenjin took a steadying breath and placed his hands under hers to help cradle their child. They had downy white hair, taking just a bit after his rock gnome genes, though their complexion favored the forest tone of his wife. They were so small and delicate in her arms, it made him nervous in a way that was difficult to describe.

“Just close your eyes for a bit. You’ve had a long day-”

“What have we fucking done?” Her lips twitched, animating her face into some acute expression of horror or disgust. “This is a life sentence.”

“It’s not. We don’t have to get into this now, but this isn’t forever. We’re taking this time for ourselves and then we’ll be back out with new momentum to beat them back like we…have…”

Aurilia’s laughter grew into cackles, joining her child’s cries in a hysterical chorus.

“No,” she gasped. “We will not.”

“We will-”

“We won’t.”

Tenjin wasn’t sure if that was pessimism or hope in her voice.

“The Empire is surviving - thriving - in the complacency of people,” she rasped. “And our numbers are so weak, so spread thin, so susceptible to Empire spies, and this is what we have to show for it. A prisoner.” Aurilia looked up into his eyes and she looked so worn that he suddenly felt as though he was seeing her on her deathbed.

“No. They’re not.” He finally extracted Ponfearin from her arms, but he sounded weaker than he meant to, shaken from what he’d seen. “This is hope for the future, one more person that’s not in the Empire.”

“Neither are we.” Cold like death.

Both parents slipped into silence.

And Ponfaerin wailed until the sun set on their birth.

#oc-tober #oc-tober2023 #ponfaerin #you can tell how much i like character by how much i write about their parents/family #in their defense #they've been kind of going through it

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olivia-anderson-fanfic · 1 year

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Yuu can do it!

Part 22

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Masterlist

The brand new side-shenanigans fic has come out so I'm going to plug it HERE

Enma wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he went to go pick up Kuroki and Grim from their class on yagujen, but it certainly wasn’t to find Ito with them.

He raised an eyebrow. “Weren’t you supposed to be in…” He trailed off, his eyebrows furrowing as he struggled to remember what their schedule was.

“Religion. And, yeah, I left. Professor Frollo’s vibes were off,” they said, their nose scrunching.

Kuroki mouthed that Enma shouldn’t ask and, for once, Enma decided that maybe there were questions he didn’t need the answers to.

“Can you transfer out?” He asked instead.

They shrugged. “Doubt it. Those contracts we signed seemed binding. But I saw – uh – B…B… letras… Vanrouge-senpai before I left, so I’ll just get the assignments from him.”

Enma nodded. There had been an empty seat next to him in his art class and the teacher hadn’t seemed concerned nor surprised, so it probably wasn’t a big deal to skip here.

But… he fought off the smirk threatening to play across his features as a terrible realization came to him. Enma sniffed and pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “Wait, you could go anywhere and you went to hang out with him?”

“I’m Ito’s favorite,” Kuroki caught on quickly, grinning.

“You’re Ito’s favorite,” Enma nodded along.

Ito rolled their eyes. “It’s ‘cause, out of the two of you, I trust Enma to not get his ass kicked on the first day a lot more.”

Kuroki sputtered. “Hey! That’s only because of Grim!”

“And you’re the one that wanted him,” Ito reminded him, reaching over to poke his nose.

Grim gave them a look that would be more fitting if they had killed his child right in front of them. Since they did not, as far as Enma was aware, he thought the monster might be overreacting a little. “Everyone wants me.”

Ito hummed and patted the monster on the top of the head. “Very true. My mistake, Grim-sama.”

Grim nodded, easily placated.

Now this just wouldn’t do. Enma sniffed. “You don’t have to make excuses, Ito. Just say Kuorki is the favorite. I won’t hold it against you, promise.”

Ito groaned. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait to go to work for Crowley. Fuck you guys.”

Kuroki gave them a disgusted look. “I’d rather not.”

Ito gave him a tiny shove. “I hate you both. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“No promises,” Grim said. At least he was self-aware.

“Yeah, I figured that was too much to hope for.”

“There really are chestnuts all over the place!” Grim said.

Which, thank you for stating the obvious, Grim. Enma hadn’t noticed. Honestly, you’d think they were playing a visual novel where the graphic designers hadn’t had enough budget to create another background. They could see the chestnut trees.

(Which, as far as he could tell, were perfectly normal. The chestnuts didn’t even seem to be larger than normal. Sad.)

Deuce grinned, pushing himself up from where he and Ace had been waiting under a tree. He held out a hand to help Ace up as well, but Ace ignored it.

“Took you guys long enough,” Ace teased. “Weren’t your guys’ classes closer than ours?”

Kuroki shrugged. “We were tormenting Ito.”

Deuce and Ace nodded sagely. Enma and Kuroki nodded back. An understanding had been met.

But, sadly, this couldn’t go on forever; Enma had work soon, so he reminded them all that they needed to get a move on at some point.

“So, 250, right? So divided by the five of us, that’s… 50 each, right?”

“Yeah,” Ace said. And then his eyes strayed to Grim and he grimaced. “Er… actually… it’ll probably be closer to 60 each, if we’re gonna be honest with ourselves.”

“The more the better! If we get enough, maybe we can have all-you-can-eat chestnut tarts! Let’s get to picking!” Grim launched himself from his usual spot and curled around Kuroki’s shoulders

“Wait,” Enma said, pulling a branch down to inspect it closer.

Kuroki’s hand shot out just in time to snag Grim by the tail. The monster squeaked and bounced back towards him like a rubber band. The four humans tuned out their friend’s complaints with practiced ease.

“They have thorns,” Enma pointed out.

Deuce frowned, leaning closer. “Didn’t know chestnuts had those… we should probably get some gloves. I don’t think we can pick those up with our bare hands.”

“You can do it if you’re not a coward,” Kuroki said. He pulled one from the branch, and Enma watched as his friend experienced all of the stages of grief in real time. Tiny beads of blood spilled between his fingers. “... I have made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgment.”

Deuce and Kuroki had to go find a first aid kit, so that left Ace, Enma, and Grim to search the botanical gardens for a tool shed – or, at the very least, a caretaker.

And then they split up. A terrible thing to do when your life is ruled by no Laws other than Murphy’s.

‘It’s just a few minutes’, Enma had thought. ‘I have Grim with me so he will not be able to cause any trouble. And Ace is sometimes competent on his own. What can happen in five minutes?’

He can step on a tail. That’s what can happen.

In his defense, the area around him was gorgeous. Colorful, magical, plants surrounded him on all sides, even hanging from the ceiling. Signs with glowing script poked out from between the leaves, telling him what they were all called and what their magical properties were, and he couldn’t help glancing over every single one. How could he not get distracted? This place was practically heaven for the nerdy part of him that wanted to know everything there was to know about the new world he was in.

And, so, he stepped on what one would assume was a vine in a place like this, and jolted back in horror, thinking he had trodden on one of the plants that had so effortlessly caught his attention… and found a tail. It pulled itself away from him, slinking into a nearby bush, and Enma frowned as he started to follow after it.

A disgruntled face popped out of the bush. Their hair was a bit messy, what one would call a literal bedhead, and there was a few pieces of grass stuck to one of the man’s tan cheeks.

“Sorry,” Enma said, backing up so the man could leave his bush prison.

He did so with what was either a practiced ease or an uncaring attitude. Assumedly the first one, as the man brushed away the leaves sticking to his school uniform without even sparing them a glance.

“What are you doing in my garden?” The man asked, fixing Enma with a glower.

Enma smiled despite it. “Oh! You’re the caretaker, then? Could you help me find something?”

“He seems kinda young for that,” Grim pointed out.

“I mean, he’s older than any of the other students we’ve seen so far,” Enma reasoned. “And he could be an apprentice or something, not the caretaker, I suppose.”

The man ignored them, pulling his tail upwards to inspect it. “And stepped on my fucking tail, too…”

“And he’s more vulgar than you’d expect from someone on the school staff,” Grim added.

Enma conceded on that point.

“And I was in the middle of such a good nap. This sucks,” the maybe-not-a-caretaker continued to complain to no one.

Oh. Wait.

Enma dipped forward in apology. “I’m really sorry about that, I should have been paying more attention.”

The man’s nose twitched as Enma got closer, and he raised his eyebrows at him. “Aren’t you the herbivore from the ceremony? One of the ones that doesn’t have any magic?” He leaned closer, and Enma realized he was being sniffed. He went stock-still, unsure what to do in this kind of situation. Was this something that all yajugen do? Is it a cultural greeting? Would it be wrong to stop him? And, really, Enma had stepped on his tail, so maybe he could let the weirdness slide…? “Why do you smell like…?” The man trailed off, confused.

“I showered this morning,” Enma said, more self-conscious than he had ever been before.

“Earth,” the man decided. “That’s what you smell like. Earth.”

Enma reeled back, no longer concerned about the potential social ramifications as he looked at the man with wide eyes. “Holy – you know what Earth is?”

The stranger looked just as confused by his reaction as Enma was by the entire interaction they were having. He nodded slowly and pointed downwards.

“We’re on… Earth?” Enma said slowly, confused.

“Yeah…?” the man said, looking at him like he was stupid.

But he wasn’t, was he? The mirror had said that Earth didn’t exist in this world, it was a whole thing, kinda the whole reason they were still in this world –.

And then it clicked.

“Oh, you mean ‘earth’ as in dirt,” he said, groaning internally because he had never felt quite so stupid before.

“Yeah? What the fuck did you think I was saying?”

“Wait, you think I smell like dirt?” He ignored him in favor of sniffing himself aggressively, but he couldn’t detect any of the supposed ‘dirt’ smell. Was it so entrenched in him that he couldn’t smell it? How would he get rid of it then? And where did it even come from? When did it start? Why did no one tell him? This interaction was making his self-esteem plummet. He was about to meet Kuroki down there.

Grim bristled on Leona’s shoulders, his fur standing on end. “Hey! No one is allowed to be mean to any of my Henchmen except for me! Who do you think you are to judge us, anyways? What, are you king or something?”

The man’s mild confusion wiped itself off of his face, and the yagujen bared his teeth at them. A low growling sound began to rumble in his throat. “Alright, you know what? You insolent whelps better prepare yourselves to lose a tooth –.”

Enma jerked back to himself, holding his hands up in a way that he hoped looked placating, but he was really just preparing himself to get into a defensive position. “Wait! What? Nonono, I’m sorry about your nap and your tail and – uh – whatever Grim said to upset you, but I’m sure there’s a better way to go about this?”

The man cocked his fist.

“Leona-saaaaaan!”

‘Leona’ flinched in surprise. The lion ears atop the man’s head flicked and he turned just in time to see another person rush into their part of the greenhouse.

This one was far shorter, but also a yagujen. Enma wasn’t sure what animal, exactly, he had traits of, but it was something furry. Besides that, though, the boy wasn’t the type that would get a second glance. Dirty blond hair and sharp blue eyes were hardly surprising in a world where approximately 1 in 5 people had white hair. His clothes were too large on him, too, which didn’t help him stand out.

The blond raced over, far faster than Enma had thought possible. Was it because he was a yagujen or a unique magic or something else? “So this is where you’ve been hiding out,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve got remedial classes, y’know.”

“I know.”

The new stranger stared for a moment, expectant, before seeming to realize that he shouldn’t have held his breath. “You need to go to your classes.”

“You need to stop annoying me.”

“It’s ‘cause you keep failing that I gotta keep bothering you, y’know,” he said. “If you fail another year we’re gonna end up being classmates.”

“Lay off, Ruggie,” said Leona. “Why can’t you annoying people just leave so I can nap?”

“If you think… er… Ruggie-senpai is annoying now, then you might want to graduate before he ends up being classmates with you. Then you’ll never escape,” Enma pointed out.

Leona looked horrified at the very prospect. Ruggie, in turn, didn’t seem to know whether to be offended or relieved, which was fair.

Ruggie settled for neither. He just adapted to the new situation, grabbing a stunned Leona’s arm and starting to drag him out of the garden. “C’mon. It’s not like you’re stupid, you’d pass if you just tried. Let’s go.”

Leona clicked his tongue and jerked his arm out of Ruggie’s grasp, but followed along resignedly regardless. He shot one last glare Enma’s way, and Enma wasn’t completely sure which of the long series of events Leona was currently mad at him about.

But whatever. It probably wouldn’t matter, anyways. What were the chances they would see each other again? They weren’t even in the same year.

So, he sighed to himself and turned to go back

Grim frowned as he settled back down on Enma’s shoulder, his furry face tucked close to his neck. “Man, that caretaker was awful, we should file a complaint.”

Enma laughed so hard that Grim almost fell off.

Picking chestnuts sucked, regardless of their gloves. Not because it hurt, the gloves that Ace had found were so perfect that Enma was pretty sure they had to be enchanted in some way…

No, it was awful because Kuroki spent the entire time complaining about his hand despite the fact that it hadn’t taken all that long for it to stop bleeding, and Grim gave up once he reached the expected 10 chestnuts and curled up in the shade of a tree, and Deuce and Ace argued about whether or not Deuce was secretly a delinquent (Enma was willing to bet good money that he was, but when asked to settle the tie he had decided remaining neutral was probably the best for his health, something he came to regret when the argument did not finish), and Grim had gone on a rant about how terrible their experience with the caretaker was, and then all of them had had to explain the dorms again because Grim called Savanaclaw ‘The Banana Dorm’ of all things...

Needless to say, Enma was glad when he realized that it was about time for him to start heading to work. He pulled the last few down hastily and tossed them in the general direction of the basket before tearing off his gloves and making a break for it.

Ah, work. Everyone’s least favorite responsibility, outside of all of their other responsibilities. Enma was regretting running there. Especially since he hadn’t forgotten the way he had reacted to the shop the first time he had approached it. The way it felt like his skeleton was about to rattle its way right out from under its skin and try to make a break for it. He wasn’t eager to have a repeat of that, and he was even less eager to do so when he didn’t have his emotional support idiots hanging off of him.

But, surprisingly, as he made his way closer and closer, his feet picking their way along the stone paths covered in knickknacks he couldn’t make heads or tails of (and some things he thought might actually be heads and tails)... he couldn’t seem to find that weird feeling from before. Maybe it was a fluke? Or maybe he was just allergic to shady people and having both Dire Crowley and Azul Ashengrotto in the same place had given him a very adverse reaction.

Haha, funny, but also what the heck?

He brought his thumb up to his mouth to bite it, considering everything. This world was interesting, and he wanted to know more, but there was something eating away at him. Something was wrong.

The door swung open before Enma could open it, and he jolted into awareness.

“How’d you know…?”

“I have friends on the other side that tell me everything I need to know, little ghoul!” Sam said, smiling at him.

Enma continued to stare.

“There’s a window.”

Oh. Enma glanced over at the tinted glass windows. He had noticed them earlier but had forgotten about them because he was busy being vaguely unsettled by the lack of unsettling feelings.

A flush crept up his cheeks, but Sam didn’t give him all that long to dwell on it. He looped an arm over Enma’s shoulders and led him inside.

“Now, since it’s your first day, and because I’m sure that that Crow didn’t give you much, I’m going to make things easier for you.” Magenta eyes flashed. “So, I will be allowing you to shop around today – all on my dime, of course – and familiarize yourself with the placement of all of the items.”

Enma’s eyes widened. He looked up at Sam with stars in his eyes. “Really?”

“Yup. Go ahead. You have until the store opens in half an hour to look around.”

He ruffled Enma’s hair with a smile.

His smile lessened somewhat when he realized that Enma had been quietly making mental notes to himself the entire time he’d been in the magical world and, in fact, had a very detailed list of things they needed already thought up. Tinted shower curtains, blankets and pillows that hadn’t been eaten by moths, enough tuna to feed Grim and enough Coke to tide over Ito, cooking supplies, a couple of outfits for different occasions, every nonperishable food he could think of, and actually decent soaps… yeah, no, it was very clear that Sam hadn’t expected the bill to be quite as large as it was, but he learned one very crucial lesson that day: never underestimate Enma Yuuken.

“Well…” Sam said, staring at the pile of items so large that were almost falling off the counter, his eyes crinkled at the corners in something that was either pain or pride or a mix of both. “At least I know you’ll be able to handle being a customer service worker.”

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