Work Text:
Diana was awoken by a soft knock on the door, and quiet sniffling.
She got out of bed slowly, slipping on a robe and stifling a groan. She didn’t want to come across as dismissive, but this was the third time this week Aya had woken her up because of a nightmare. Much as she did truly love her eldest, it was starting to get tiring.
“Is everything alright, Aya?” Diana opened the door, extending her arms.
Aya buried herself in Diana’s embrace, tears gently staining Diana’s robe as she sobbed gently. “No. I had a nightmare again.”
Diana lifted Aya into her arms, gently rocking back and forth and hushing her softly, a hand stroking through her soft brown curls. “It’s alright, darling, the nightmare isn’t real. I am, and I love you, alright?”
Aya shook her head against Diana’s shoulder. “No, this one was real. I had a nightmare that I was rejected from Luna Nova because I could never learn how to fly. And that will happen because I will never learn to fly, even though Emi already has, and she’s only five!”
Diana sighed, pulling Aya away from her shoulder and looking at her worried face. “Aya, have I told you before how old your Mama was before she learned to fly?”
Aya nodded a couple of times. “Kaa-chan was sixteen.”
“And you are nine, precious,” Diana said. “I know it is hard, Aya, but you work so hard and that is what matters. You’re the hardest worker I know, and I know a lot of very hard workers. And I know you will work your hardest to become the best witch you can be, isn’t that right?”
Aya nodded again, still sniffling. Diana lowered her gently to the ground. “But what if I don’t?”
Diana sighed. “You will be allowed into Luna Nova anyway, Aya. They never reject a student who is willing to learn, especially not since your Mama showed them all how silly they were to look down on those who took a little more time to fully understand magic.”
Aya seemed to mull it over, before nodding one last time. “OK. I’ll go back to bed now. Thank you, mother.” Aya inclined her head, and walked back down the hall to her bedroom.
Diana heaved a sigh of relief, and turned to go back into her room, when she noticed something amiss.
Emi’s door was ajar.
Not much, but just a little.
Diana strode down the hall, just to make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. They weren’t.
Mustering all of the imperious power of Lady Diana Kagari-Cavendish, Diana opened the door to Emi’s room. “Emi! I know you’re awake young lady—”
Emi wasn’t in her bed.
Emi wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Diana glanced around, panic shooting through her as she tried to search for Emi. Maybe she was hiding in the closet? Or under the bed? Maybe she’d—
A mouse nipped through the door in the corner of Diana’s vision.
Not this again.
“Emily Kagari-Cavendish! You get back here this instant!” Diana whispered as loudly as she could, storming out of the door to see Emi’s tiny mouse form scurrying down the hall. “Emi, I mean it! If you do not return to bed, you’ll be scrubbing the dishes all day tomorrow! And that will mean that you’ll have to miss Mama’s performance on TV!”
Emi let out a loud squeak, and disappeared down another corridor. Diana gave chase, making sure to walk quietly when she passed by Aya’s room, before speeding up again as she quickly called after Emi. “That’s it, little miss! Final warning! I’ll tell Anna to cancel all cheese purchases for a month unless you turn right back around!”
Even that had failed to stop Emi’s desperate bid for freedom. Diana rounded the corner to see Emi dashing down the stairs, no doubt towards the pantry.
Much as Diana loved her wife dearly, would it have killed her to not pass on that trait to their children? And yes, Diana knew that wasn’t how genetics worked, but this nonsense certainly wasn’t her fault, and thus Akko would receive her fair allocation of the blame.
Diana paced quickly to the edge of the stairs, and glanced down in the darkness. Only one thing for it, she’d need to head Emi off.
Diana leapt off the balcony, wand glowing as she arrested her fall and landed with barely a sound to the side of the stairs. Emi had made it to the bottom of the stairs and turned to dash towards the pantry, running almost straight into Diana’s feet.
Diana folded her arms sternly, glaring icily down at Emi’s tiny—adorable—mouse form. “It would appear that I have caught a little mouse scurrying around my house,” Diana could almost feel Akko’s sing-song voice shining through as she loomed over her daughter. “Now, whatever shall I do with her?” Diana stroked her chin, pretending to think.
Emi shrank back, raising her hands over the little waves of blonde and tea-green that were still a part of her white mouse form. “Squeak?”
“I think,” Diana leaned down purposefully, extending a hand, “it might be time for this little adventure to come to an end. Off to bed with you now, Emi.”
Emi lowered her little mouse hands, gazing up at Diana with a quivering lip.
Diana hesitated.
Emi bolted.
“Emily! No more flying lessons with Auncle Amanda if you don’t stop!” Diana wasn’t sure why she was bothering at this point, no amount of threats were ever going to outweigh a five year old’s desire to raid the pantry for midnight snacks.
Particularly not since Emi had realised that eating snacks whilst in her mouse form made the snacks last longer. Akko hadn’t even taught her that one, she’d just figured it out by herself.
Truly, Diana was blessed to have such a precociously talented daughter.
Diana chased Emi into the dining room, groaning as she saw Emi running underneath the dining table.
Fine. If she wanted to play this game, Diana would play it too. And she would win.
“Metamorphie Faciesse!”
A white weasel dove under the tablecloth, her sharp night vision immediately picking out Emi towards the middle. Diana dashed forwards, her new form allowing her to nimbly dodge and slink through the chair legs as she quickly closed the ground on Emi.
Emi squeaked in panic, and scarpered out from beneath the tablecloth, little mouse paws scrabbling on the floor as she sprinted for the wall.
Wait, the wall?
Emi disappeared into a small hole in the wall.
Diana’s blood turned to ice in her veins.
That wasn’t a mouse hole. That was a hole that had been deliberately made for Daryl’s snakes to traverse the manor.
And her daughter had just run into it, while transformed into a mouse.
Adrenaline flooded through Diana’s system as she blurred across the floor, squeezing through the gap instantly.
Weasel Diana sped through the network of spaces and pipes within the walls of her own home. Moulted scales carpeted the ground as she ran. This was the snakes’ domain.
Fortunately, the darkness was no obstacle. While she wasn’t as well-versed in metamorphosis magic as Akko, Diana was certainly no stranger to this form, and knew how to use its many senses to her advantage.
Her sensitive whiskers alerted her to every narrowing of the tight space, every low pipe or outcropping from the wall, accommodating for anything that even her impeccable night vision couldn’t make out. Most importantly, the smell of Emi’s mouse form was like a beacon to her sharp nose, allowing her to follow it through every twist and turn.
Emi was navigating towards the pantry, if Diana’s tracking was as accurate as she knew it was. How or why Emi was able to figure out where the pantry was while running through the small space between the walls? Diana had no clue. At this point, all that mattered was reaching her before Daryl’s snakes did.
And then she could ground her for a year.
Despite the gloom, Diana spotted Emi a few feet ahead. She was gaining on her. See what happens if you mess with Weasel Mama, silly mouse!
…Diana really needed to stop letting this form go to her head quite so much.
“Emi! Please, darling, you need to stop, it’s dangerous!” Diana called ahead. “I will get you all the brie you want, I promise, but you need to exit this space right now!” Should she warn her about the snakes? The fear would certainly get Emi to listen to Diana, but the last thing she needed was for Emi to panic.
Emi ignored her, and kept running.
Diana made a loud weasel shriek of frustration.
That only made Emi run faster.
Damn it.
Diana scarpered after her, grateful that at least they were near the pantry and hopefully this mess could all be resolved without inci—
Emi screamed in terror.
A large python had descended from a nook in the wall, so well hidden that even Diana’s incredible weasel vision hadn’t come close to spotting it. It coiled around Emi once, twice, hissing all the while. Emi was frozen, too paralysed by fear to even struggle to escape.
Without even a moment’s hesitation, Diana launched forwards, teeth bared ready for a feral assault. Did she have time to change her form to a mongoose? Or should she just hope the similarities were enough to instill the absolute terror she wished to inflict upon this python that had dared to touch her baby.
The snake dodged back, pulling its neck just out of the way of Diana’s fangs and claws. Weasel Mama did not like that. Weasel Mama was going to get her Mouse Baby back or this entire manor was going to be engulfed in flames.
Diana dove in for another attack, leaping off the ground so she could try to catch a glimpse of Emi. As her jaws sank into the python’s neck, panic spiked through her entire being as she realised she couldn’t see Emi. The python had moved her somewhere.
Diana glanced around frantically, straining her nose to smell that Emi was—
Above her?
Diana looked up—a difficult feat when you had your teeth stuck in a snake—and saw that Emi had been neatly deposited on a ledge well above their current position, a tiny crack of light shining through from the kitchen.
Directly in front of the shelf with all the cheese.
Oh.
Diana opened her mouth, suddenly glad that she hadn’t managed to sink her teeth in deep enough to draw blood. She glanced up into the snake’s eyes, trying to communicate her apologies and gratefulness.
…Or alternatively, she could remember that she was a witch.
Diana shapeshifted into a large cobra. “My apologiesss,” she hissed.
The snake’s tongue flickered. “None necccesssary. Protecting an egg. I underssstand.”
Diana bowed her head. “Nonethelesss, my thanksss.”
“You are welcome, massster of thisss houssse.” The snake bowed back, and slithered back into the darkness.
Diana slithered her body up the wall, pulling herself up onto the ledge. Emi’s terror had apparently abandoned her for long enough for her to skitter through to the cheese. Diana hissed in frustration, and transformed back into a weasel. She squeezed through the gap, and emerged into the pantry to see exactly what she expected to.
Emily Kagari-Cavendish, still in disguise as a mouse, literally inside an already half-eaten block of cheese.
Weasel Mama strode forward purposefully, and lifted Emi by the back of the neck with her mouth, hauling her away from her prize. Emi wailed and struggled, but was powerless against Diana’s grip.
It was time for somebody to go back to bed.
“What do you mean it’s my fault?”
“Well she certainly did not learn the concept of pantry raiding from me.”
“Yeah she did! You kept complaining about how I used to sneak out to the pantry at school! I never brought it up!”
“I brought it up as an example of the type of conduct that would not be befitting of either of our children when they themselves attend Luna Nova!”
“Yeah but it’s Emi! She always does the opposite of what you say, you gotta use reverse psychology!”
“Is that so? Why is it then, that you yourself never use such a strategy with her?”
“Cause she listens to me.”
“Must you be so insufferable about the fact you are her favourite?”
“Nahhh, Amanda’s her favourite.”
“We both know that makes matters significantly worse.”
“Look, you got it sorted. And the snakes were actually helpful! And they respect you as master of the house! I’m pretty sure they still think of me as that elephant they bit.”
“I do wish you would not be so blasé about life-threatening danger occurring to our daughter.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? She could never get hurt with the world’s best Weasel Mama there to look after her!”
“You’re adorable.”
“I know.”
“We’ll see you in a week, yes?”
“Six days! See you then!”
“I love you, Akko.”
“Love you too, Diana!”