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To be honest, even though the whole quest was Natsuo’s idea, he wasn’t completely sure if he believed that the magician of the Western mountains even existed. Rumors abounded about a man clothed in robes darker than the night sky with eyes as red as the king’s rubies and hair that framed his face with a starker white than the winter snow, but Natsuo had never been one for rumors. Magic seemed so distant, most days, ever since he’d moved to Chiharu’s hometown of Eadu with his family.
Admittedly, “town” was a bit generous. A more apt description would be a cluster of thirty or so houses tucked into the flower-speckled, emerald-green embrace of the Jakku valley and criss-crossed by crystalline creeks. It was entirely self-sufficient, and when Natsuo first unmounted his horse to see his new home in full, he was nearly reduced to joy-filled tears.
Unlike his brothers, he’d never been one for the hustle and bustle of the capital. Of course, their father hadn’t helped Natsuo’s discontent by demanding that he do the dirty work for all of his fellow noblemen, but still, Natsuo had never been happier than when he was when he helped Chiharu tend to crops and flowers in Eadu while his mother weaved clothing with deft, calloused fingers to sell in the market. Of course, he couldn’t have expected things to stay how they were.
Touya had always been… mischievous, and according to Chiharu, there were a few magicians who lived in the woods around the village that were considerably less than friendly if one was to make a poor impression on them. Natsuo loved his brother, he really did, but the fact remained that he was exceedingly, unquestionably difficult, and not exactly prone to proper manners upon meeting a stranger in the woods. So as guilty as Natsuo felt about thinking it, he had always believed that it was a matter of time before he insulted one person too many and found himself turned into a frog.
In the end, it wasn’t a frog—instead Touya found himself a scraggly, thin black cat with ice-blue eyes, incapable of doing much but glaring at his fiancé as Keigo cackled at the absurdity of the situation. The laughter promptly faded, however, when Chiharu said that in order to return Touya back to his original form, they would have to locate some other magician willing to create the potion necessary. Magicians weren’t too difficult to find in the capital, despite the whispers and insults that followed their every move, but out in the forest, it was a considerably more difficult undertaking, especially given that their mother’s health was too frail for her to voyage, Shouto had school, and Chiharu was needed to run the farm. Furthermore, despite how much Fuyumi wanted to go, she knew as well as Natsuo that thanks to countless nights of hiding in the woods when he needed a break from their father and the sword training he’d managed to snag from one of his father’s knights, he was by far the most qualified out of any of them.
Thus, Natsuo stood just a few steps outside of a rickety, ancient oak fence that thick mats of moss had long ago crawled up. The gate seemed to be in far better condition than the rest of the fence, so Natsuo prayed that the girl in the town a three day’s journey down the mountain had been right that the magician inside the small cabin surrounded by a wild, overgrown garden and mossy stones was still alive.
Natsuo exhaled slightly as Yuki huffed and shifted his hooves. “Might as well get a move on, then, right boy?”
Yuki glanced down at Natsuo with wide, amber-brown eyes that almost seemed disapproving as he tied his horse’s reins to the sturdiest-looking pole on the fence. The whole thing looked one good gust of wind from falling apart, but Natsuo was confident enough in Yuki’s loyalty that he didn’t think his horse would run away if the fence did collapse. That said, he knew that animals were always skittish around magicians, so maybe he was just being irrationally hopeful.
The hinges screamed as Natsuo pushed open the gate.
He winced, and not for the first time, began to wonder if that girl with the golden-blonde hair and blood-red dress had lied. Maybe the magician had moved to somewhere that wasn’t quite as isolated. Natsuo expected getting visitors had to be near impossible—Natsuo had spent the last day and a half wading through a waist-deep swamp—so maybe the magician had gotten tired of being alone all the time. That said, he had elected to build his home out here in the first place, so it was far more likely that the magician had died of old age. The rumors did speak of a man with white hair, after all, and based on what that girl said, the magician had been in the Western Mountains for years.
Natsuo swallowed hard. Despite the afternoon sun that beamed down onto his back, the sweat on his back now had little to do with the bright, cool spring sun. What would he do if the magician wasn’t there? No, no, scratch that, what would he do if he was dead? Was he going to walk in on a body? Should he tell the residents of the town below? The only ones who had seemed to know much about the magician besides the rumors were that girl and her older brother, the one with the scar across his forehead, so perhaps they’d know what to do.
It was this thought that provided just enough comfort for Natsuo to take a deep breath, approach the door, and rap on it twice.
The birds in the woods that surrounded him chirped happily and the playful spring wind raked a cool, mischievous hand through his white-blond hair while it rattled the dead grass that swung the height of his waist out beyond the shelter of the porch.
There was no noise from within the cabin.
“Hello?” Natsuo called out. “Are you… is anyone in there?”
He knocked again, more out of denial and desperation than anything else. “Please? I really need some help.”
It was after this revelation that the door swung open with a creak loud enough to rival the obnoxious chatter of the brook just beyond the fence.
Natsuo blinked.
Within the shadows of the cabin, a man a few inches shorter than himself glared up at him with agate and lemon-tea eyes. His eyes were half-obscured by limp, pale hair that was pulled up into a messy ponytail. Despite his sun-faded red tunic and grass-stained trousers, there was no doubt in Natsuo’s mind that this was the rumored magician of the Western Mountains. At his feet, a dog wagged its tail.
The magician was scrawnier and far younger than Natsuo thought he’d be, but he didn’t judge.
“I’m Natsuo,” Natsuo chirped as he stretched a hand out toward the magician. “Yuuwa Natsuo.”
The magician eyed the proffered hand warily. “This is what I moved to avoid,” he grumbled under his breath before he glanced back up at Natsuo, his ruby eyes glinting with the fury of a wildfire. “Haven’t you heard the rumors? I’ll turn you to dust if you so much look at me wrong.”
“Yeah, I have,” Natsuo shrugged, his smile wide as ever, “but you could say I’m desperate.”
“I’ll say,” the magician muttered as Natsuo glanced around the garden.
“Nice place you’ve got here.” he said awkwardly.
It wasn’t quite a lie—it was ill-kempt and wild, but the flowers that waved by the bushes were gorgeous.
“Yes, I know it’s nice,” the magician snapped as he massaged his temples. “I know it’s nice because I specifically built it so I could be self-sufficient without you irritating humans in the way.”
“So?” Natsuo prompted. “Will you help?”
“No.” The magician snapped. “Now be on your way.”
Despite his relative lack of experience with magicians, Natsuo recognized words laced with magic when he heard them, so it came as no surprise when his feet started along the path outside without any prompting. “Alright, then. Goodnight.”
People had said many things about Natsuo, and many of them had changed over the course of his life. However, something that had never changed was his stubbornness. To tell the truth, he’d sort of anticipated something like this, so when he’d ridden up the smooth slope of the mountain, he’d scouted out different places near where the girl said that the magician’s cabin was. Luckily enough, there was a relatively smooth clearing near the brook just a few hundred feet from the fence, and, equally as fortunately, Natsuo had a penchant for sleeping under the stars.
***
“You’re kidding,” the magician muttered when he finally opened the door the very next morning.
Natsuo smiled tensely. “Hi.”
The magician merely sighed heavily and pinched the bridge of his long, thin nose. “Is this gonna be a normal thing?”
“Look,” Natsuo sighed. “I’ve exhausted all my other options. I’m not too keen on my brother getting married as a cat.”
“Why isn’t your brother’s partner here, then?” The magician muttered as he leaned against the doorway of his cabin.
The thin, mint-green vine that tangled along the roof swung towards his open palm and twirled around his fingers as a pale violet flower exploded into life where he stroked the vine with his finger. Natsuo watched with wide eyes as it settled along the vine before it burst into a puff of dust. The magician swore loudly and dropped the vine before he glared at Natsuo.
“Got your fill of staring?”
Natsuo cleared his throat loudly as a mortified blush crept across the back of his neck with the heat of the spring sun. “My brother’s fiancé … he’s trying to arrange a trip to visit another magician, but I… I don’t like the rumors I’ve heard about him.”
“What an upstanding citizen you are,” the magician said sarcastically. “I could curse you right here, right now, you know.”
“I know,” Natsuo said shakily.
“Then why do you keep coming back?” the magician snapped. “You’re not getting anything out of it, I’m not getting anything out of it…”
“Look, I love my brother,” Natsuo said. “And you’re my last hope. I don’t want my brother’s fiancé to find him.”
The magician narrowed his eyes. “Who’s he?”
Natsuo blinked. “I mean, you’re a magician. You’ve got to know about him.”
The magician’s nose wrinkled into a deep scowl, dripping with disdain as shadows from the leaves that danced above them were cast over his face.
“Oh, trust me, I do. He’s your last hope?”
“Besides you,” Natsuo said. “Shou wants to find All Might, but, well… that’s a half year’s journey, at least, and through the Eight Precepts’ territory, not to mention that Shou would demand to come along. And he’s supposed to be around here this time of year.”
“That he is,” the magician muttered, quietly enough that Natsuo was fairly sure that he wasn’t supposed to hear. At the very least, he pretended that he hadn’t.
Finally, the magician took a deep breath. “Fine. I’ll brew you a potion to cure your brother. Happy?”
“How long will it take?”
The magician shrugged and brushed a strand of lily-white hair out of his eyes as he shot a disinterested glare in Natsuo’s direction. “Spells like that are a pain to reverse. I expect it’ll be finished by winter.”
Natsuo’s jaw dropped. “Winter? Like… after the autumn, winter?”
“No, tomorrow morning,” the magician bit back with an intoxicating roll of his eyes. “Yes, after the autumn. I don’t have all the ingredients on hand, and it’ll take about a month to brew, not to mention the fact that I have to care for the garden, the house, the animals, and Mon in the meantime. So you go back to your village and come back with the first snow of winter. It’ll be ready by then.”
“But I… I’d have to travel through the mountains. I can’t do that in winter.” Natsuo said with wide eyes as the horror of the situation sunk in.
“You can always wait until spring,” the magician said coolly. “I’m sure your brother can handle being a cat until then.”
“Isn’t there anything I can do to make it quicker?” Natuso pleaded.
The magician opened his mouth, surely to respond with some blistering retort, but instead, he closed it with a snap before he studied Natsuo’s face with a scowl. Slowly, his eyes trailed up and down Natsuo’s body in a detached, distant manner that left Natsuo squirming.
“Strong, but irritating,” he muttered under his breath before he glanced back up at Natsuo with a scowl that only seemed to intensify by the minute. “But you won’t like it.”
“I won’t like what?”
The magician grumbled something Natsuo could barely make out just under his breath. “It would take less time if I had someone to take care of the house, garden, and animals while I was working on gathering ingredients for the potion. It’s a time-intensive potion. Lots of steps that have to be completed in one sitting, so it would be… difficult to attempt with all of my other responsibilities here.”
Natsuo felt his jaw drop.
“I told you that you wouldn’t like it,” the magician mumbled with a roll of his eyes. “So you should just be on your way. The sooner you leave, the sooner I can get to work.”
From his feet, the dog that Natsuo had seen on his first visit seemingly materialized and curled up by his feet before he offered a quick, sharp bark.
“Thank you, Mon,” the magician said, his voice uncharacteristically warm, before he turned his eyes back to Natsuo and they hardened. “Goodbye. I’ll see you in spring,” he said as he started to shut the door.
“No, no,” Natsuo blurted out as he stuck his foot in the door. “I… I’ll stay.”
The magician opened the door slowly as a scowl stretched over his face. “You’re serious?”
“Yeah!” Natsuo said nervously. “It can’t be that hard, right? And, uh, out of curiosity, how much will this help?”
The magician’s eyes were as cold and analytical as ever, but something in them looked almost… impressed. “It should be finished by the end of summer.”
At the magician’s feet, the dog sprung to its feet and started running in a circle and barking in a way Natsuo interpreted as cheerful.
“Shut up, Mon,” the magician sighed. “I know you’re excited. But this isn’t permanent. You know that.”
Natsuo’s smile grew strained. “You can, uh, understand it?”
The magician looked personally affronted. “Of course I can understand her. Mon’s my familiar.”
“Oh!” Natsuo’s eyes widened. “Uh, nice to meet you, Mon.”
He’d heard about these from his brother. Apparently, to his limited understanding, they were more sentient and smarter than other animals, since the magic-user in question shared some of their life force with the thing.
Mon barked cheerfully and sprinted around Natsuo’s legs in a frenzy before she plopped down next to him and cocked her head in the magician’s direction.
The magician narrowed his eyes. “Mon. Come on.”
Mon whined loudly and the magician’s scowl finally flickered into resignation. He turned on his heel and retreated into the house as Mon barked happily and sprinted after him.
Natsuo shifted his weight from foot to foot before Mon turned back to glance back at him with wide, dark eyes, as if she was beckoning him forward.
“Uh,” Natsuo called towards the magician’s steadily retreating back, “should I…”
“Come in,” he called over his shoulder dismissively.
Natsuo swallowed hard and stepped into the house.
To his surprise, it was the exact opposite of the magician’s frigid nature. It was built sturdily, the ceilings lined with the same thick, hazelnut brown thick wood as the outside, but the walls were lined with what looked like a thin wallpaper, decorated with ink swirls of leaves and flowers. It was obviously homemade, and the strokes were so meticulous that Natsuo winced to think of the hours upon hours of painstaking work that it must have taken to create it. Dried plants and bolts of fabric hung from the rafters in bright bursts of color, and the spring sunlight filtered through the crystalline glass that filled up the large windows. Clay pots filled the windows, and rickety homemade chairs with brightly-colored pillows stood at attention around a table made from a slice of a tree stump that was as wide across as Natsuo was tall.
The magician was rummaging on a shelf lined with so many multicolored glass bottles that it was a wonder that none of them had fallen over yet with a spray of glass and mysterious liquids, their color obscured by the glass.
“I don’t have much of this,” the magician muttered as he pulled a small, ornate, shell-pink bottle from the shelf and crossed the kitchen to hand it to Natsuo. “So if Mon likes this, I’m gonna have to start making more for the summer.”
Natsuo eyed it nervously. “What’s this?”
“Help you understand Mon like I can,” the magician said dismissively. “You should only need a sip. It’s powerful stuff.”
Natsuo hesitantly uncorked the bottle as a thick cloud of faint, mint-like fumes washed over him. The potion was a pale, baby blue, about the same color as the sky outside. Before he could talk himself out of it, he took a sip from the bottle.
It was, to say the least, the worst thing he had ever tasted. It was as if the magician had blended rotten eggs, spoiled milk, and mud. Sometime in the middle of his choking fit, the magician snatched the bottle from his hand and placed it back on the shelf.
“That was cruel.” a strange voice chastised the magician—or at least Natsuo assumed it did. The voice was warm, welcoming, and cracked with age. “You should’ve warned him that it’s supposed to taste terrible.”
“I’ve never had it myself,” the magician said loftily. “How was I supposed to know?”
“You still should’ve warned him.” the voice pressed.
The magician rolled his eyes. “Well, he’s fine now. Not like it killed him.”
“I just hope he took enough,” the voice said worriedly.
When Natsuo finally came to his senses enough to swallow past the foul aftertaste, he peered around for Mon, who sat on the floor with her tail wagging. “Mon?”
“Oh, hello!” she said warmly. “You’ll have to remind me of your name. I don’t think I ever caught it.”
“Uh, Yuuwa Natsuo,” Natsuo said slowly. “Could I, uh, could I get some water?”
The magician sighed heavily and rummaged on another shelf for an empty glass before he poured the contents of a pitcher filled with water that he kept on the counter into it. He thrust the glass towards Natsuo with a scowl, and Natsuo tossed it back with a sigh of relief. He didn’t think he’d ever had anything so refreshing in his life.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Natsuo,” Mon said. “It’ll be nice to have some company.”
“You know this isn’t permanent.” The magician reminded her.
Mon made a motion oddly similar to a shrug. “Still. It’ll be nice.”
The magician rolled his eyes. “Just don’t get attached to him.”
“So, uh,” Natsuo said awkwardly. “What am I gonna do here?”
Mon and the magician exchanged a glance before the magician sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.
“I’ll show you around,” the magician muttered.
“I’ll set up the guest room!” Mon chirped. “Natsuo, you can sleep on the extra hammock and I’ll put the blankets next to it, ‘kay? Since I can’t climb up.”
“Kay,” Natsuo nodded awkwardly as he followed the magician into the garden.
Somehow, it took him barely a week to settle into a routine. He woke with the blinding bursts of sunlight that streamed through the thick glass windows at dawn, choked down a cup of the most bitter tea that he had ever had the misfortune to taste, went out to go care for the animals, and then ate breakfast with Mon and the bleary-eyed magician. He spent the majority of his days doing the chores the magician had outlined, from pulling the weeds and tending to the herbs and flowers in the garden to feeding and cleaning the small flock of animals the magician kept around. Through it all, he traded conversation with Mon and the magician.
Well, he didn’t quite converse with the magician—he mostly just talked at him while the magician squinted at him and occasionally muttered a response, but it wasn’t talking to a dog, so Natsuo counted it as a win.
He usually spent the rest of the day exploring in the woods, fine tuning his cooking abilities, and composing letters to his family using a flying envelope that Mon had persuaded the magician to give him. He was a little iffy on how exactly the thing worked, but the most important thing was that messages only took a day or less to go back and forth when sent with the letter in contrast to the weeks it would take otherwise. He usually ended the day with a heaping bowl of steaming stew as the magician ground up ingredients for the potion while he poured over cracked, dust-coated books that he only handled with the ginger soft touches of a lover. By the time the moon rose overhead, Natsuo was usually curled up with a blanket in the hammock in the spare room.
Sometimes Mon spent the night curled up with him, but Natsuo suspected it was only because he had spent a few nights here and there tucked under a blanket and sobbing near soundlessly, though whether it was because of homesickness or night terrors of his father varied each time. Regardless of the motivation, Natsuo appreciated it, though he did pity the poor magician, alone in his bed after being used to curling up in thick furs with his familiar.
Just like this, as sure as the storm clouds passed over the mountains, another two weeks passed. But in the three weeks Natsuo been in the mountains, he hadn’t learned the magician’s name. Every attempt to ask was met with a scowl or merely a stubborn silence. It was admittedly fairly awkward—he managed to avoid using names, and when he talked to Mon, he merely referred to the magician as “he”.
That all changed one on one hot, misty morning.
Well, to call the morning hot wouldn’t be quite correct—the morning was cool, as mornings went, but the promise of stifling heat clung to his legs and arms, and the humidity in the air made it hard to breathe. Mist washed over the valleys and slumped through the trees that shot up from the shadow-filled haze that leered out from beyond the fence of the magician’s house.
It was just the sort of morning that threatened an oncoming danger, between the silence of the birds and the way that electricity seemed to ricochet in the thick, muggy late spring air. It was just the sort of morning that would have sent Natsuo speed walking to the market in order to wrap himself in his blankets and the ever-present, bird-like chatter of his family in order to drown out the voice that muttered frigid warnings in the pit of his stomach. But for reasons he didn’t quite understand, here a few steps from the magician, he felt safer than he ever had.
Natsuo scratched the top of Waddles’ head as he put the still-warm eggs into the wicker basket that scratched his arm. The magician had laughed at the name, and yeah, it was pretty ridiculous, but Fuyumi had suggested it in one of her letters, so of course Natsuo had to choose it. A few feet away, the magician was rummaging through the garden for some sort of flower that apparently only bloomed before the light of dawn.
“Is Mon still sleeping?” Natsuo said as he placed the basket on the grass and stretched his arms far above his head.
“Probably,” the magician rolled his eyes. “Lazy as hell.”
“How’d you meet her, anyway?” Natsuo said.
It was getting dangerously close to untreaded waters, he knew—he’d spent nearly a month in the mountains, and the magician had never asked about Natsuo’s past nor offered any details from his own. But as far as Natsuo’s wonderings, it was a fairly innocuous question.
Still, the magician froze before he went back to picking small, jewel-like flowers even more quickly than before. “She was my mother’s,” he muttered. “She didn’t have magic. But my grandfather did, and he gave Mon to her when she was a girl. And when she… died, I took Mon in.”
“You’ve always been able to talk to her?” Natsuo said as he finished gathering the eggs.
The magician tensed again. “To my father’s disgust.”
“Well, I think it’s really cool,” Natsuo shrugged. “And Mon’s nice.”
“Naggy,” the magician said as his shoulders relaxed just slightly.
“She just wants the best for you,” Natsuo said warmly. “Sure seems nice to have a familiar. Someone to help you out way out here.”
“I guess,” the magician attempted to smother any affection in his voice, but he was only partially successful.
“I miss Eadu,” Natsuo commented after a few seconds too long of silence. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy to help, you know? But it’s nice, you know, being somewhere where I can be around the rest of my family and… well, you don’t want to hear about that,” he amended quickly as he busied himself with speed walking the basket that bounced around his arm to kitchen floor and grabbed the large cloth bag of seeds on the floor.
When he finally emerged from the house’s bright, fierce cinnamon-and-firewood atmosphere, the magician was still standing upright and studying him. Finally, the magician inhaled quickly and turned back to the mat of plants that twined up to the sun in front of him.
“I don’t… mind.” the magician said slowly. “You talking about yourself.”
Natsuo sighed heavily and tossed a handful of feed on the ground, just inside the chickens’ fence. “I mean… I was going to say that it’s… nice. Not to have to worry about my father.” he said simply.
“I see,” the magician said slowly.
Natsuo waved his hand dismissively. “But the point is that my mother finally managed to leave him. Fell in love with a farmer who visited the capital to sell her wares. Brought me and my siblings to Eadu with them.”
“You agreed to it?” the magician said with a raised eyebrow. “You could’ve stayed.”
“I mean, I guess,” Natsuo said slowly, “but I never liked the capital. Or big cities. And I didn’t have anyone but my family, not really. But all’s well that ends well, I guess, and I really do like my life now. Or—well—you know what I mean.”
“Tell me about it.”
Natsuo blinked. “Eadu?”
He kind of assumed that if he started talking about his past, maybe the magician would feel safe enough to offer some details of his, but this he hadn’t expected.
“I guess,” the magician muttered as he pulled what looked like a spined, fur-coated weed from the garden with a grimace.
“Well, um…” Natsuo said, “We have a nice house. We had to live in Chiharu’s cabin, at first, and there were only two bedrooms and six of us. But the next summer we managed to buy a house with three bedrooms from a family that was moving away to the capital. So now Mother and Chiharu, Yumi and Shou, and Tou and I share a room.”
“That doesn’t sound much better,” the magician grumbled.
Natsuo shook his head. “Nah, you weren’t there to see our rooms before. They were maybe… oh, half the size of the spare room I sleep in here. Imagine three people in that. And besides, soon Tou’s gonna get married and start traveling with his fiancé—Keigo’s a merchant—and honestly, I expect Yumi’s engagement to Ryuko any day now.”
“Tou’s the cat?”
Natsuo huffed out a laugh. “Yep. There’s Touya, then Yumi, then me, then Shou.”
“I see.”
“You got any siblings?” Natsuo grinned over the magician, who froze.
“Hana,” he forced out. “Dead.”
“Oh,” Natsuo managed. “I—sorry for bringing it up, I’m… sorry for your loss.”
The magician nodded jerkily and turned back to his garden.
Natsuo sighed heavily and turned back to the chickens until out of the corner of his eye, he caught a pale, scarred hand waving him on.
“Oh. Well, uh... well, usually I help Chiharu with the crops and such. Occasionally the weaving. I used to want to be a doctor, you know, and maybe someday I’ll go back to the capital and learn so I can be a doctor in Eadu.” he said.
“Someday?”
“Yeah,” Natsuo sighed. “I mean, that’s… years of work. A couple months away from my family is hard enough. Maybe I’ll think about it more after the wedding.”
“I wouldn’t have moved out here without Hana, before,” the magician said coolly. “So… I understand.”
“Hey, uh, do you mind me asking why you moved out here? I’ve been wondering since I got here, so…”
“To get away from him.” the magician admitted bitterly.
Natsuo whirled around to gape at the magician. “You mean… you know. Him?”
All For One? Natsuo didn’t say. The magician who managed to kill the old empress without so much as a second thought?
The magician sneered, though the fear behind his expression was clear to see. “You gonna run away?”
“No, I—how did you get away?” Natsuo blurted out. “I heard that he—well—”
“Hana helped,” he muttered under his breath. “Hana and Kurogiri. We were supposed to leave all together.”
Silence, not even punctuated by the chirping of birds, swept through the garden.
“I’m sor—” Natsuo managed lamely.
“He can’t track me anymore,” the magician interrupted. “But it’s safer here.”
“He’s still looking for you?” Natsuo said with wide eyes.
The magician laughed bitterly. “I know too much.”
“But—why don’t you go find All Might, or something? Someone who can stop him if you work together—”
The magician rolled his eyes. “Sure. If I even knew All Might was still alive. He’s an urban legend, now. Nothing more. Not unless I see him with my own eyes. And besides, people have tried. Just… don’t seek him out. You’ll be fine.”
“What about you? You said he can’t track you, but—”
The magician hesitated. “He’ll find me again. Eventually.”
“Well, I can tell you that if he ever comes while I’m around, I’ll help you fight him off.” Natsuo said firmly.
The magician’s nose wrinkled. “You’ve got a death wish.”
“Well, we’re friends,” Natsuo shrugged. “I’m not just gonna sit by if I can help it.”
The magician stared at Natsuo for far too long.
“You don’t know my name,” he said with a tense frown.
“You keep avoiding the subject,” Natsuo pointed out. “But if you wanna tell me, you can.”
The magician gaped at him again before he glared down at his mud-coated boots. “You want it?” he forced out.
“Sure would be easier,” Natsuo shrugged. “I’ve been calling you ‘the magician’ in my head for a month.”
The magician’s brow furrowed. “Seriously?”
“As death,” Natsuo shrugged. “I mean, that’s how I thought of you when I was making my way up here and it kinda just stuck when no one told me your name.”
“I don’t like it,” he said bitterly. “And the other one I haven’t… used.”
Natsuo shrugged. “I can help you think up a new one if you want. Or I can use the other one you’re not used to. And you can tell me whether you like it or not.”
The magician squinted in Natsuo’s direction.
“I’ve tried out names too, I get it,” Natsuo shrugged. “I was Hisao for awhile, then Kichiro, then Nobuo. But my sister suggested Natsuo, and I liked that one the most. I’ve met a lot of people, so I bet I could help you think of new ones if you want.”
The magician’s eyes softened just slightly, but he shook his head quickly. “Tenko.”
Natsuo suppressed his grin, shifted the bag of feed in his arms, and extended a hand for the ma—Tenko to shake. “Nice to meet you, then, Tenko.”
Suddenly, Tenko sprinted towards the house just moments before the first rays of sunlight shuddered over the water-logged horizon, the trees by the fence concealed by the mist before it burst alight in a blaze of morning light. He held a hand over the flowers in his basket to shelter them from the light, and Natsuo did know what he was trying to do and why—the flowers would instantly die in the sun’s light, and he hadn’t gotten up early enough to pick them in weeks—but he still couldn’t suppress his laughter as he followed the magician into the house.
***
The next two months floated by like the clouds that raced through the pine trees at dawn. Somehow, in cruel contrast to the first month that Natsuo had spent in the mountains, as soon as he and Tenko started to talk, it seemed that time began to skip along with the fury of the biting wind that shook the house whenever a summer thunderstorm rattled the foundation.
Those days were some of Natsuo’s favorites—they spent them inside, usually at the kitchen table with the window above the countertop cracked open just enough for the cool wind to whisk through the house. Tenko usually worked on the potion or mending some odd little trinket, and Natsuo spent his time pouring over Tenko’s collection of ancient books or trading casual chatter under the conversations of the rain and thunder outside.
Somehow, between cool mornings spent in the mist-coated garden and tending to the animals before the cruel summer sun opened its eye, sweltering afternoons spent spent wading waist-deep in the crystalline, ice-cold brook just outside of the fence as Mon barked at the fish that tore through the lazy waters, and evenings spent trading snarky comments and stories on the back porch as they watched the sunset, something about Tenko… changed. What it was, Natsuo couldn’t quite place, not at first. Perhaps Natsuo was getting ill. Perhaps it was just his monthly cycle—that would explain his sudden bouts of nausea, after all. But it took a few more days and brief, knowing glances from Mon before Natsuo finally understood.
He had spent the night before chatting with Tenko on the porch, like he usually did, but when he awoke, he was caught up in a tangle of limbs with a throbbing face, arms, and legs as the sun beamed down on him.
Mon licked his face yet again and barked loudly as Natsuo groaned blearily and tossed his hands over his sunburnt face as Tenko buried his face in Natsuo’s chest, despite Mon’s best efforts to wake him.
“Why’d you let us stay out here?” Natsuo yawned with a scowl as Mon blinked her large brown eyes in his direction.
Natsuo narrowed his own eyes. “I don’t like that look.”
Mon barked innocently as she pawed at Tenko’s face and started to bark again.
“Shut up,” Tenko bit back blearily as he pulled himself upward. “What the hell, dog?”
Mon barked cheerfully as Tenko’s ears flushed a bright scarlet, far fiercer than his sunburn. “Shut up.”
“Come on, Mon, now it’s hot,” Natsuo lamented. “I’ve still gotta check on the chickens.”
At least Mon had the decency to look sheepish.
“Expect a familiar to look after you,” Tenko muttered under their breath as they pulled themself away from Natsuo, “not leave you out to burn on the porch. Disgrace.”
Mon whined loudly as Tenko rolled his eyes. “Nuh-uh. I’m gonna go make breakfast, you go help Natsuo with the chores.”
Natsuo sighed heavily before he wandered into the kitchen, tossed back a mouthful of the potion, and stomped back out into the sun. The potion had never tasted any better than it did the first time—in fact, Natsuo was pretty sure that it tasted worse every time that he drank it. To be honest, he considered just refusing to take it to spite Mon, but he wasn’t about to do chores with someone who couldn’t understand him. That wouldn’t end well.
“Sorry, Natsu!” Mon apologized frantically as she ran in circles around Natsuo’s legs.
“If you were sorry, you wouldn’t have done it,” Natsuo grumbled. “Did you just wake up late or something?”
That wouldn’t be the most unrealistic thing, but it had to be near noon, now, and Natsuo had never known Mon to sleep in so late.
Mon turned back to the house with what looked like the dog equivalent of a grimace as Natsuo hoisted a cloth bag of chicken feed over his shoulder.
“Well, um… no. But I just didn’t want to interrupt you guys! I was so happy you finally got together!” she said as her tail wagged.
Natsuo nearly tripped. “What?”
“I mean, you were cuddling when I went out to check on you to make sure you were okay, and you stayed up all night talking, and you like him, and he—”
“What?” Natsuo forced out.
Mon stopped short. “Oh, boy.”
“What?” Natsuo repeated. “What? No, I don’t… no. I don’t—we’re friends.”
But he was intelligent. Practical. Determined. Kind, though he avoided acknowledging it as if such an acknowledgement was the plague. He was sarcastic, too—snarky comments had become so commonplace that Natsuo barely hesitated to fling one back, now. And his eyes, well—Natsuo had never deviated from thinking that they glimmered with a richer, more breath-taking red than any of the king’s rubies. And the way his hair fell around his face, well—
“Oh,” Natsuo forced out as Mon plopped down at his feet.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I really thought you guys figured it out by now.”
“Thanks, Mon,” Natsuo’s voice was strangled.
Mon studied her paws. At least she had the decency to look ashamed, because what was Natsuo supposed to do now?
“Are you gonna confess to him now?”
A startled laugh burst out of Natsuo’s throat. “What? No. I—know. It’s just us, I’m not gonna ruin it.”
Mon whined. “I’m here, too.”
Natsuo sighed heavily before a slight smile crept over his face and he bent to scratch behind her ears. “I know. But it’s… not the same.”
“Makes sense,” Mon said. “When I lived in the city, there was this poodle next door, and I—”
Natsuo sighed heavily and stood up. “Okay. You can chat, but we’ve gotta do the chores—”
“For what it’s worth,” Mon interrupted. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but familiars are good at judging peoples’ emotions and auras. That’s why I liked you so much, even when Tenko didn’t. I could tell that you were a good person who didn’t mean us any harm.”
Natsuo stopped short. “You… you know how he feels about people?”
“Sort of,” Mon said slowly. “It’s a little more complicated than that, but usually I’ve got a pretty good idea. Like… I’ve got the strongest feelings, usually. Like ghosts of them. So when I’m around you, I feel really, really happy. Safe. At peace. Now, I won’t annoy you with the musings of an old dog, but the point is, I really think that he likes you, too.”
Natsuo sighed. “Oh.”
“Think about it,” Mon said solemnly. “And you’re friends, anyway. When that duck from across the way was in love with the goose, she told her how she felt since they were friends, and they stayed friends.”
Natsuo furrowed his brow, but he didn’t ask. “I.. okay. Thanks.”
“He kind of deserves to know, right?” Mon said casually.
“I guess,” Natsuo sighed.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Mon said warmly as she jumped up. “He’s really awkward, but he’s not gonna lose you over something silly as a crush. He likes you a lot, even if he pretends he doesn’t. He’s weird like that.”
Natsuo didn’t even attempt to suppress his grin. “He is weird. Good weird, obviously.”
“Exactly!” Mon barked happily. “He’s good weird, and he loves you a lot, platonic or not.”
If things had been different between them before, after that morning, they had clearly stumbled past the point of no return. There was no ignoring it, now—it was impossible to pretend not to notice the eye contact held for far too long, pregnant pauses in conversation, and faltered starts of conversations and muttered “neverminds”.
And to Natsuo’s credit, he swore to himself that he would tell Tenko the truth. Every night as he swung in his hammock and glared up at the oak ceiling, he promised that he would tell Tenko the truth the very next day. It would be simple. He would just open his mouth, tell Tenko how he felt, insist that it was perfectly fine if Tenko didn’t reciprocate and remind him that, no matter what, they were friends, and Natsuo loved him like that first. However, as soon as the dawn’s light splattered over the horizon and shook Natsuo awake, all of his courage evaporated. In the rare occasions that it lasted long enough for Natsuo to make his way to the kitchen or the garden, it all evaporated faster than the morning dew when faced with the sweltering late summer sun as soon as he met Tenko’s eyes.
The weeks raced along, each day punctuated with the bitter tang of guilt and a longing that made Natsuo ache down to his bones, the sting of sunburn when he forgot to apply Tenko’s poultices practically a relief in comparison. Before he could summon the courage, the fateful morning came.
The potion was complete.
Natsuo missed his family so much it ached—he was too far for them to visit, so the extent of his interactions with them over the summer had been his daily letters. True, he really did appreciate them, but it was nowhere near the same thing as talking to his family in person. Despite this, when Tenko slumped with a scowl into the kitchen one morning and muttered that the potion was ready, the first thing Natsuo registered was a bout of sudden, debilitating nausea.
Despite it, even as he packed his bag, readied Yuki, and avoided Mon’s large, sympathetic eyes, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. At least, not until he found himself out in the garden.
“So…” Natsuo adjusted the strap over his shoulder just slightly as he shifted from foot to foot. “I should… probably go.”
The brisk autumn air raked across his skin as the leaves above his head, all rubies and topaz when they were caught in the light of the bright, sunflower sun, drifted lazily to his feet.
Mon dipped her head before she hit Tenko’s legs with her tail. “We’ll certainly miss you.”
Tenko inhaled quickly. “It was nice having you here. And your help was… useful. And you weren’t awful to talk to.” he blurted out, quickly enough that Natsuo could barely make out what he was saying.
Natsuo blinked once before his face split into a wide grin. “Well, you know, I could come back.”
“The winters are lonely,” Mon said smugly as Tenko glared down at her. “It would be nice to have someone to talk to.”
“Well, I can’t make the journey in the winter,” Natsuo admitted. “The weather’s too poor to make it.”
“Obviously we wouldn’t ask him to risk his life,” Tenko said with a sharp glare to his familiar. “Dumbass dog.”
“But I’ll visit in the spring, if you want,” Natsuo said quickly. “I can spend a couple weeks with you, spend a couple weeks back home, in the spring?”
Tenko nodded stiffly. “Sounds alright.”
Mon glanced up at the sky with those large, dark eyes of hers that had always seemed to know far too much.
Natsuo took a deep breath. If he didn’t take a chance now, when was he going to? A lot of things could happen between now and next spring, so—
“It might be kind of odd, though. At least in the eyes of the village. Visiting so often with someone I’m not even courting.”
Tenko scoffed. “It’s your life, not theirs.”
Natsuo was silent for just a beat too long before he sighed and adjusted the leather strap digging into his shoulder yet again and shifted to turn down the pebble-lined path to the forest. “Well, I…”
“Would you?” Tenko blurted out.
Natsuo turned around, an eyebrow raised. “What?”
“Would you want someone to court?” Tenko lifted his chin and tried for that familiar, distant tone that he had used with Natsuo during their first meeting, but he knew better by now.
He could barely suppress his grin. “I would, yes.”
“I suppose…” Tenko started, just shy of nonchalant before he glanced down at Mon and the back of his neck burned as red as the leaves above and his confident air wavered, “I suppose… that… could be arranged.”
Natsuo’s grin widened as he leaned on the fence gate. “Could it?”
Tenko huffed and rolled his eyes, though his apparent annoyance was betrayed by the clear fondness in his eyes, as red as the sky cut with swatches of rosy dawn light. “Stop smiling, Natsuo.”
“No, I’m confused,” Natsuo forced his grin down for just a moment, just enough to press his mouth into a thin line and raise his eyebrows as his eyes glimmered with mirth. “Could it? Did you have someone in mind?”
“I… no.” Tenko muttered under his breath as his eyes darted down to his boots.
Natsuo’s smile dissolved into a frown. “Well, I could… describe my ideal partner, and you could tell me if you know anyone?”
“You know it’s only me up here,” Tenko muttered under his breath.
Natsuo inhaled slowly. “Well, I’d like to court someone who’s very… independent. Determined. Loyal. Intelligent. Very sweet, but they’d deny it to the grave. Maybe… hm, white hair? Red eyes? Just thinking out loud here.”
Tenko made a strange, strangled noise and glared at the sky. “Natsuo—”
“Just thinking out loud!” Natsuo repeated with a wide grin. “But… would you know anyone?”
“You’re not serious,” Tenko muttered under his breath.
“As death,” Natsuo said somberly before he grinned yet again. “So would you know anyone?”
“You’re gonna be the death of me.” Tenko muttered under his breath before he crossed to the gate with a huff.
Natsuo shook his head. “Nah. I like you too much.”
“You’re gonna annoy me to death,” he muttered.
“Yeah, but you’d like it.” Natsuo chirped.
“Probably would, damn you,” Tenko said, quietly enough that Natsuo could barely hear.
“Anyway… you know anyone?” Natsuo tilted his head with a grin. “Think they’d be interested?”
Tenko sighed heavily. “Maybe. If a certain someone doesn’t kill him first.”
If Natsuo wasn’t pushing his luck before, he really was now.
“You think maybe he’d ever kiss me?” Natsuo attempted to smother his anxiety with false bravado, but it only sort of worked.
Tenko glared down at the toes of his boots. “If you ever wanted a kiss.” he said awkwardly.
“And if I did? Want a kiss? Would he kiss me?”
Natsuo stood still for what felt like an eternity before Tenko reached up to cradle Natsuo’s face with shaking fingers. Natsuo’s eyes flickered closed as Tenko inched close enough that Natsuo could feel Tenko’s breath on his face. Adrenaline skipped through his veins as Tenko’s lips barely brushed against his—
Mon barked excitedly. “It’s happening, it’s happening, it’s—”
Tenko pulled away with a groan. “Mon!”
“Sorry,” Mon pouted.
“Inside,” Tenko rolled his eyes.
“Bye, Natsu!” Mon sprinted over to Natsuo with a cheerful woof and circled around his legs before she sprinted back into the house.
Natsuo grinned as her tail was swallowed by the empty doorway as Tenko grabbed his hand. “See you soon, Mo—mph!”
Natsuo’s goodbye was cut off by a kiss.
Tenko’s lips tasted like spring, like crystalline morning dew and the flowers that bobbed along in the sky’s cornflower blue grin. Natsuo ran a hand through his hair as Tenko cradled Natsuo’s face against his own.
“Stop smiling so much,” Tenko grumbled under his breath.
Natsuo’s grin only widened. “Aw, will you miss my smile?”
“Absolutely not.” Tenko scoffed with a scowl before his eyes darted down to his boots. “Fine. I’ll count the days until you’re back,” he muttered reluctantly before he glared back up at Natsuo. “Happy now?”
“Oh.” Natsuo swallowed hard as a wave of longing swept over him. “Well, uh, I’ll miss you, too.”
Tenko’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll be back next spring. Don’t get pouty about it.”
Natsuo swallowed a comment about how just a few moments before, Tenko had asked him to stop smiling, and merely waved before he started down the path.
It was fair to say that he certainly had a story to tell when he got home—as well as plenty of time to make plans for next spring.