#my stuff's a liiiittle stockpiled now because i don't have as much time/energy to write u-u

[serenescribe]

Day 5 of ficlet requests~

Do you like time travel shenanigans? I hope you do because uh oh! General Vanrouge is in the present!

What’s that? His friends child is here, at NRC? Weird. Baul has a HALF HUMAN GRANDCHILD? Weirder. There’s himself with a *human* who he’s speaking to so casually and kindly? UNACCEPTABLEEEEE

[✐] ficlet frenzy

As of a week ago, all NRC students have been barred from entering the woods behind campus. All except a select few, at least — namely a select number of students from Diasomnia, of which the group includes its housewarden, vice-housewarden, and a few others.

The reason for this? Well, it was astoundingly obvious to anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear with. A week ago, there had been quite the explosive commotion, a spell gone horribly wrong. And what had entailed but utter chaos, and the sight of a much-younger Lilia Vanrouge rampaging around campus grounds?

Any attempts to quell the man’s panic and rage fell utterly flat, his scathing words striking fear into the hearts of countless students — from the meek and introverted of Ignihyde, venturing out to survey the commotion, to the bold and brash of Savanaclaw, who’d actively picked a fight with what they perceived as an easy target.

That, in the words of the older Lilia Vanrouge, his ancient age now revealed to the students around him, was “a horrible, senseless idea.”

“Are you sure you’d like me to accompany you today, Father?” Silver cannot help but voice his concerns as he trails after Lilia, the two of them winding through campus grounds, making a beeline for the throng of woodland behind the school.

“Why do you say that, hm?”

His brows knit together. “It’s just… the General—” as he’d learnt to call him, a way to differentiate the two, “—does not seem fond of me in the slightest. Would it not be more prudent for Lord Malleus to follow, given how he is the only one he can tolerate?”

At that, his father merely laughs. “Well he’s going to have to get used to you someday, dear!”

There’s a fire going in the woods, contained by a thick circle of magic, constantly crackling and never growing nor dissipating. The figure seated near it glances up as the two of them approach, and Silver feels his throat dry at the sight of those cold eyes, the same crimson of his father yet lacking the warmth that has been there throughout all of Silver’s life. Not for the first time, he wonders what must have gone on in the past to warrant such callous coolness from his father’s younger self. To a similar extent, Silver wonders what must have occurred to mellow him out into the man he is today; together, they are like night and day.

“Good day, little me!” Lilia greets, beaming cheerily even as his younger self’s lips curl into a frown. Dumping the basket that has been swaying from his arm onto the ground, Silver’s father rests his hands on his hips, merry as ever as the General eyes the basket warily. “It’s merely a peace offering,” he explains, when still regarded with suspicion. Lilia arches an eyebrow. “Do I truly look like the kind of person to poison my younger self?”

“If you feel anything like I do towards you, you would.”

Silver grimaces, but Lilia only laughs. “Oh, you! I do forget how serious I acted back then…” Still, he gestures at the basket, at the cloth covering it. “Why not take a gander, hm? I guarantee you that you’re certain to enjoy what I’ve brought.”

Different as the General may be — cold and dismissive towards Silver, outright startled and disbelieving towards Sebek’s entire existence, constantly annoyed and frustrated by his older self, and only ever satiated by being around Malleus — there certainly are some things that remain the same. Silver recognises this well when the General slowly pulls off the cloth covering to reveal, to Silver’s utter horror, a heaping pile of rodents and lizards.

“See?” Lilia preens, smug and satisfied at the sight of his gobsmacked younger self. “I told you you’d enjoy it!”

Abruptly, Silver turns to shuffle away, to escape from this forested clearing where the General has made his home before he can get roped into this.

If there was anything else he wishes changed over hundreds of years… it would definitely have to be his father’s… acquired taste in what he considers food.