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"Your princess is another castle” is a phrase that Hazama never, ever, ever wants to hear again.
She scowls and storms away from the twelfth tower she’s climbed.
“Kurahashi!” she screams in frustration. “When I find you, I will kill you!”
She stalks through the forest with reckless abandon. Screw this bullshit. Just because Kurahashi was born a princess does not mean that she needs to deal with the ramifications of searching for her. She herself was born into the witch class, not the prince class. Why then is it imperative that she climb all these towers in search of her? Can’t someone else be responsible for saving her? It’s been a year since she last saw the pretty princess anyways. Who’s to say Kurahashi’s still waiting for her?
“Stupid fairytales,” she hisses. “I refuse to do this the way it’s supposed to be done. I am not a prince, I am a witch!” She smashes her glass sword against a tree and rips off her stupid paper crown. Then she sighs. “I’ll find her, all right.” She unscrews the lid of one of the many glass jars hanging around her waist. “We need to rescue Kurahashi,” she says to the tarantula, Itona, inside. “And I refuse to do it in a matter befitting a prince. I am a witch, and I’m going to save her in a matter befitting a witch.”
Itona climbs onto her shoulder. “Go west.”
“If you insist, Itona.” Hazama starts to trek westward. “I must say, they make really good boots for princes. These have lasted me the entire hunt. The rest of the clothes need to REVERT!” She screams the last part, and the seams of princely garb split open and fall down into the traditional witch clothes that Hazama is used to. “That’s better,” she murmurs, running her hand down the wrinkled black fabric of her shirt. She pulls out her hat and plops it unceremoniously on her head.
Itona says nothing as she finishes reverting to a witch. Hazama takes stock of her supplies, then groans. “I don’t have anything to fly on!”
“We’re in a forest, Hazama,” Itona replies. “There are trees everywhere.”
“...right.” Hazama strides over to a large tree and picks up a decently large branch. “This should do it.” She straddles the branch and leaps into the air. “West, right?”
“Yes.” Itona jumps onto the end of the branch and makes himself comfortable. Hazama sighs as she soars out of the thick trees and breaks through into the starry sky above. The wind brushes past her face, and she leans slightly back, letting her hair be blown back. Her hat remains securely on, and Hazama relishes the feeling of freedom and flight that comes from being a witch. “Princes don’t know what they’re missing,” she muses as she shifts her branch marginally to continue the westward course. “Life is easier as a witch.”
“Can a witch be with a princess?”
“Shut it, Itona.” She grips the branch a little tighter. “I’ll shove you back in the jar and let Terasaka come out.”
“You wouldn’t.” Itona shifts slightly from his perch.
“Try me.” She pulls out the jar and carefully reaches out towards Itona. “Come on, get in the jar-”
“Noted!”
Hazama cackles. “That’s what I thought.”
She can practically feel Itona’s displeasure. He was right, though. She would never put him back in the jar. He is, without a doubt, the smartest of her familiars. Add the bonus of being the least annoying, and it really isn’t a contest among her four familiars.
“Hey. How far west?” She asks.
“You’ll know it when we get there.” Itona clambers onto her shoulder and pads around a couple of times. “Speed up the branch, though.”
Hazama curses. Stupid forest. Stupid towers. Stupid Kurahashi.
The branch cuts through the air. Hazama hunkers down and lets herself speed over the trees.
After what feels like forever, but, judging from sky, was really only a few hours, she spots a tower far off in the distance.
“There,” Itona whispers, and Hazama doesn’t need to be told twice. The setting sun makes the sky warm with oranges and reds, and Hazama is a streak of black hurtling towards the tower, desperate to see Kurahashi again.
“Slow down!” Itona shouts, and Hazama startles slightly. Right. She’s currently going fast enough to break the tower.
She slows down dramatically. The jars clink as they bump into each other. Hazama jolts forwards and grabs tighter to her branch. It’s going to take longer to get to Kurahashi, now that she’s begun decelerating. She continues flying, knuckles going white in anticipation.
“Relax.” Itona walks down her tense arms, forcing her to relax as his fuzzy feet tickle her. “It’s going to be fine.”
“What if it isn’t her?” Hazama asks softly.
She can feel the displeasure dripping from Itona. “Have I ever steered you the wrong way? If you had asked, say, Terasaka for advice, your worry would be justified.”
It’s true. She had originally asked for Terasaka for help, and he had suggested she be a Prince to save Kurahashi. Look how well that had turned out.
“Terasaka didn’t have a bad idea,” Itona mutters. “It’s just easier to do things in your way, rather than someone else’s.”
Hazama sighs. “What if she doesn’t want me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Itona is pacing up and down her arms now. “It’s Kurahashi. She was always kind to us. To you, especially.”
But she knows that her tarantula is unsure, so they continue to fly in silence.
Eventually, they come to complete stop just underneath the window. Hazama grabs the window ledge and hauls herself up.
“Kurahashi?” she asks, gazing around the small room. Orange hair litters the floor. “Kura...” Her voice trails off as she comes face to face with a brunette witch.
“You’re not Kurahashi,” she says dumbly.
“Who are you?” the strange witch demands.
“I’m here for Kurahashi.”
“You shouldn’t have come here,” the witch snaps. “Kurahashi left about a week ago.”
Left about a week ago.
She’s too late, then.
“Said she was going to find someone called Hazama and vanished,” the witch seethes. “Just climbed down the tower saying she wasn’t going to wait anymore! If you’re her prince, then you should’ve brought your slow ass here way earlier.”
“I’m Hazama.”
The witch’s eyes widen. “Oh. OH. Well.” She takes a moment to collect herself. “I’m Yada. You shouldn’t have come here, though. She’s already left to find you.”
She has to climb down the tower manually. When Yada had told her that Kurahashi had already left to find her, she had felt her tenuous grip on the branch snap, and the stupid branch had broken free of the magic keeping it hovering underneath the window. Right now, all four of her familiars rest on her shoulders. The tarantulas had gotten along decently with Yada’s finicky feline familiar, a rather spoiled Persian named Okano.
“It’s kind of nice that she decided to find you,” Muramatsu comments.
“Shut up.” She is not in the mood for this. All that searching, of acting like a prince, and when she reached Kurahashi’s tower the girl had vanished. Chopped off her hair and disappeared into the forest, according to Yada.
“It shows she still remembers you.” Terasaka turns around on her shoulder. “Once we get back home, you can just use your scrying bowl to find her.”
“I don’t want to hear from you,” Hazama retorts.
She finishes her climb in silence. None of her familiars say anything as she picks up her branch and prepares a course for home.
Home, huh. A wry smile crosses her lips. She has yet to return to her small cottage. Everything is covered in dust, probably, and she wouldn’t be surprised if the animals had ravaged her garden.
For Kurahashi though, it was worth it.
Or at least, if she’d actually found the stupid princess, it would have been worth it.
Hazama sighs as they soar through the sky. What a waste of a year. She’ll have to start over.
It’ll help keep her mind off of the wasted time spent searching for Kurahashi. She can reassemble her life while Kurahashi goes off on whatever adventures she had planned.
She circles around the overgrowth that surrounds her cottage, surveying the damage. Weeds have overrun her plants, and her plants have grown wild and broken free of their original spaces. The roof is covered in leaves and dirt, and she thinks there’s a bird nest on the chimney. She groans at the mere thought of how much work she has to do.
Her feet touch the ground and the branch clatters harmlessly on the stones that form crude pathways. Moss covers certain areas, but Hazama is pleased that the smooth grey rock is still mostly visible. She strides up to her front door and pulls out the old key from her belt.
“It’ll be fine,” Yoshida says, sensing her nerves.
“Don’t worry. Nothing will have broken,” Itona adds.
“I’m not nervous,” she lies, shoving the key into the lock and pushing open her door. She steps foot in the still darkness of her cottage, her foot disturbing the layer of dust that coats the floor. Muramatsu hops off her shoulder and scuttles across the dusty floor, his tiny feet leaving small disturbances wherever he goes.
“Let’s get to work,” Terasaka says, and her remaining familiars hop off her shoulders and vanish into the cottage.
She sighs. “Let’s get to work,” she murmurs, and throws open the curtains to let some light in.
Dusting is tedious, and Hazama thinks she would be content to never touch a dust rag ever again.
Currently, she has enchanted a mop to clean the floor while she takes the dead plant husks outside for compost. The dirty windows have been wiped to better allow light to stream through. Her books, despite being dusty, appear to be in good condition still. The door is open to allow for fresh air, since the place smells musty and old. She scowls as she wades through the sea of plants that scratch at her skirt. Inside first, she reminds herself.
“Hazama!”
Her head whips up, and leaning on the fence, gazing at the overgrowth, is a certain redheaded princess.
“Kurahashi.”
Kurahashi laughs. “What happened to your cottage?”
“I went looking for you, dummy,” Hazama replies, slowly making her way to the fence. “I spent an entire year searching and searching only to be told that you’d left a week ago!” Tears are gathering her eyes, and she wants to bang her head in frustration over the display of weakness.
Kurahashi climbs over the fence and opens her arms wide. “I should’ve known you were looking for me. But I missed you so much; I grew impatient. I wanted to see you again, and I decided to take matters into my own hands.”
Hazama yanks Kurahashi into a fierce kiss. “Don’t ever disappear like that again,” she murmurs once they’ve pulled away.
Kurahashi smiles, those jewel green eyes glittering with mirth and fondness. “I missed you.”
Hazama kisses her again.
“I missed you too.”
She can feel Kurahashi smiling as they kiss again and again.