Work Text:
Cursed country, with cursed creatures, that’s where Ochako Uraraka the witch lived. Being a witch wasn’t a profession, it was something you were born with, with talon-like nails, and slit pupils, and a smile like she wanted to devour anyone who crossed her path.
Which she did not.
That sounded gross.
Sure, she would often work with things others deemed “gross”, but magic needs what it needed, and if people wanted their apples to grow bigger, they were gonna have to get used to the fact that they were gonna have to use frog sweat in the potions. It was just how it worked.
The cursed country wasn’t huge, but it was still big enough to not be able to travel on foot from one end to another, so Ochako had to get herself some kind of transportation.
Sure, she could have used flying magic - but magic, as said, always has some kind of convoluted thing behind it, ingredients or spells or both, and doing it over and over again was tiring.
So that’s why she seeked out a familiar.
-
There were many possible beings she could have chosen from, she knew it. A lot of beings were fast, could fly, or teleport. But having a familiar was a two-way street - the magic user would use the magic of the familiar, and the familiar would receive protection from the magic user.
So a witch had to choose her familiar carefully, so maybe it was fate (or the guiding spell she used) that led her to a lone Anemoi.
Anemoi were wind spirits, and they rarely formed human bodies. They were usually one with the wind, hard to see and hard to catch, but they were constant, and everywhere. Sometimes they had wings, sometimes they didn’t. Often, it was hard to see either way.
Of course they were not a hivemind, so there were Anemoi who were fine with being more corporeal more, some of them were even prone to mischief, pranking humans or other creatures.
Anemoi would often wander outside of the borders of the cursed lands, to come back with news, stories, and some of them sounded wild, even for the residents of this cursed country and all its monsters.
So, running into a lone Anemoi in the middle of nothing, that was kinda unusual.
He was alone, and was wearing glasses, which was not unusual for Anemoi, the wind was hard on eyes, many of them liked wearing glasses, even if they did not need them, and he looked nervous, or almost lost.
“Are you lost?”
Ochako smiled at him, and he jumped, almost like he was facing a superior of his, or something similar - it was almost adorable, honestly.
“I am sorry, I have not seen you! I have to admit I had not been in these corners of the country before, and I am not sure I know my way out of here. Is there any chance you can be of assistance to me! I would be most grateful!”
Scratch that, he was definitely adorable.
-
His name was Tenya, as it turned out, and Ochako knew she found what she needed - of course she couldn’t just ask him out of the blue - a contract between a magic user and a familiar was something binding, something that could not be broken.
It was almost like marriage, actually.
You don’t ask someone to marry you the first day, do you?
Ochako figured that if he was the one she needed, then fate (or her guiding spells) would make their paths cross again.
She never asked specifically for Tenya - when she used guiding spells, she asked for guidance, for which paths should she take, and somehow, over and over again, she ran into Tenya, and Tenya was always eager and happy to help her out, when she needed, carrying her on his back, riding the winds together.
So Ochako invited him around from time to time, helping him out with her spells, and him carrying her around.
Then he stayed around more and more and Tenya smiled, and Ochako laughed, and Ochako didn’t really get it, but she still couldn’t bring herself to bring up the contract, not even when they huddled together in front of the fireplace, Tenya’s arms wrapped around her.
-
Then things started to disappear.
Nothing big, just small things - spoons, forks, hairties, one of Tenya’s spare glasses, a little bit of the ingredients. Not too much, never too much for it to be missed, but still noticeable, especially as Ochako kept close track of everything she had, and Tenya even more so, so they obviously noticed it quickly.
There were many things that could have been stealing - not humans though, those were kept out by the wards around their home, but there were many mischevious trickster beings who could have decided to play pranks.
“I think it’s a pixie. I had found some pixie dust on the floor.”
Tenya said simply, and Ochako hummed, tapping on the table with her fingers, counting the apples.
There were definitely less of those too.
“There are two options I think if you found that - one, some other being is playing pranks on trying to make us it’s a pixie. Pixies are careful when they steal things.”
“Then what’s the second option?”
“The pixie wants to be caught.”
-
Her name was Mei, her hair was pink, her eyes were full with unique markings, her wings spread pixie dust inside the magic circle when she was trapped, and she looked absolutely thrilled about being there.
“Finally! I thought you would never figure it out!” She clapped happily, spilling more dust everywhere. “I really needed to almost spell it out for you didn’t I? I need your help!”
“You are… stealing from us… because you need help?” Tenya obviously didn’t get it. “You could have asked!”
“Silly Anemoi, that’s not how it works” Mei shook her head.
“Why not?!”
“Anyway” Mei ignored him, turning to grin at Ochako. “Will you help me little witch? Help for help, that’s how it goes isn’t it?”
-
Mei needed a simple enough spell, it turned out, and Ochako was actually suspicious that it was just an excuse and Mei had some other agenda, but turning off a pixie’s offer for an exchange of help would have been foolish. Pixies had magic Ochako had no access to, so of course she accepted.
She did need some unique flower though that only lived in swamps, and close to graveyards.
There was one such place she knew…
“Problem is, it’s guarded” Ochako muttered, clinging to Tenya’s back as they flew, Mei also accompanying them. “We gotta make a deal, because unlikely we could sneak around that guard.”
“Can’t you do a cloaking spell?” Mei asked, her voice blurry in the wind, but still chipper.
“It wouldn’t help with this.”
-
“So you only need the flower?”
The church grim didn’t actually look as scary as Ochako thought he would - he actually was shorter than Tenya in his human form, had a lot of freckles, and messy hair, he didn’t look like he belonged in a graveyard.
“There are others around” Tenya whispered, and Ochako could feel it too, the way the swamp moved around the graveyard, and a smaller figure also running around.
Ochako wondered what other creatures lived with the church grim.
“That’s all we need, yes.”
The church grim smiled.
“Alright. You are free to take it.”
“We are prepared to…”
“Oh no, I don’t need a deal” The grim shook his head. “You only take the flower. That is the deal. Steal anything else, that’s when we will have problems.”
With that the grim turned away, and his shadow moved, and took the form of a huge dog as he walked off.
“Please Mei, don’t take anything.”
“Don’t need to remind me” Mei squeaked. “I don’t want to be eaten by him. In the not fun way at least. The fun way tho---”
There was a splash mud splashed out of the swamp, covering Mei, which made all three visitors jump and squeal, the grim to yell about you are mudding up the graves, Kacchan, and as Ochako turned around, she saw a snake tail disappear under the swamp again.
“We need to hurry” Tenya whispered, eyes wide, and Ochako agreed.
A grim was one thing, a possessive naga was another, and she still did not know what was the third thing around.
They just needed the flower, after all.
-
Mei stuck around, and her smile was radiant, she would always make up small things she needed help with, and Tenya was confused more and more, but Ochako was happy for her endless energy, and just as she asked for help, she gave it too just as simply, and then it was the three of them together.
One time, Ochako saw Mei weave tiny flowers into Tenya’s hair, which wasn’t easy, as his hair was short too, but pixie fingers were quick and nimble and Tenya simultanously looked hilarious and amazing by the end of it, especially as he got covered by pixie dust by the end of it.
“When will it be my turn?” Ochako asked teasingly, and Mei’s face lit up.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
Probably Mei didn’t need to sit into Ochako’s lap to do her hair, but she did it either way, and Ochako didn’t mind it.
-
The banshee, the goblin and the raiju was an even weirder group when they wandered around, and only the goblin was talking.
“We could probably help them talk again” Ochako offered, with a smile, as Tenya and Mei peeked out from behind her shoulder. “All you need is to make a deal, and I can help.”
The goblin looked at the other two, who were poking each other on the sides, almost childishly, and the goblin just slowly shook his head.
“No… I think… Magic can’t solve everything, but I do think one day they are going to talk again.”
Magic can’t solve everything.
-
“So, Ochako will you be my familiar?”
It was Mei who brought it up, and Ochako almost choked on her own breath and Tenya was blinking rapidly.
“...huh?”
“I have magic, we can make the deal. You being my familiar. How about it?”
Ochako’s mind blanked.
“I… uh.”
Tenya only looked with wide eyes from one another.
“Don’t look like that, wing-boy, you have a place in this too!”
“Huh? Me?”
“I mean… isn’t it obvious? We all have magic to varying degrees” Mei was shining bright, practically glowing, her pixie dust flying around. “Witchy-witchy will be my familiar. Wing boy will be Ochako’s. And I will be Tenya’s. That works, right?”
“But a familiar bond is…” Tenya stuttered. “It’s a very important and deep bond, it can’t be just decided on a whim!”
“It is not on a whim” Mei rolled her eyes. “The three of us had been together for a while. And I know it perfectly how important it is, that’s why I wanted everyone to be involved. Because it’s so binding, it’s almost…”
“...it’s almost like marriage” Ochako finished, slowly looking up.
Then she took Mei’s hand, and just reached out towards Tenya, with a bright smile, and Tenya did take her hand, and Mei’s as well.
“See? This works, doesn’t it?”
Yes, it did.
Well, probably.
They won’t know until they actually do it, but…
Cursed country, coursed beings or not, Ochako had good feelings about this.