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Ramshackle Dorm never felt so warm and cozy as it did now.
In the dorm’s lounge, your friends were either sprawled upon the cushions of the couch or lying on the floor, various textbooks, notes, and blazers were used as makeshift pillows. On the couch, you spied Epel sleepily snuggling into Jack’s stomach, while Sebek vainly tried to appear aloof and regal even while he was sleeping. While his fellow couch-mates looked rather comfortable, the half-fae sat upright, his arms crossed over his chest. Meanwhile, you spotted your Heartslabyul friends, Ace and Deuce, collapsed onto their textbooks and notes. When they awoke, you couldn’t help but think mischievously, there would be lined marks all over their faces.
Finally, you spotted Ortho hovering in the corner of the lounge, obviously in sleep mode.
Silently, you moved further into the dorm lounge, your arms filled with blankets and pillows that you had stolen from the other rooms. Before you did anything with the items that you held carefully in your hands, you made sure to clear the area of your friends’ studying materials. From the laps of both Jack and Sebek, you withdrew a potionology textbook and a binder filled with incantations that were meant to be memorized for defense, respectively; the Heartslabyul duo, a series of booklets detailing the various herbs and fungi that were supposed to be on Crewel’s next exam.
Once you gathered all the materials and placed them in differing piles on the low coffee table (carefully and without messing up the notes or else one half-fae would get really angry with you), you began to tuck in all of the boys.
For Jack and Epel, you sacrificed one of your larger blankets. It was large, fluffy, and was a dark green that reminded you of emeralds. After you made sure that Jack wouldn’t get a crick in his neck for sleeping in his particular position–that is, curled over Epel–you turned your attention towards Sebek.
Unfortunately, there was no way that Sebek could possibly sleep like that without causing undue stress to his body. Swallowing back your nervousness, you shook Sebek’s shoulder, already anticipating an onslaught of verbal warfare. However, as your fingers gently brushed his shoulder, his light green eyes snapped open. Already fearing for your life, you began to start apologizing and begging him to keep quiet, but Sebek must have already been aware of what you were doing before he opened his eyes.
To your surprise, he gestured for another blanket in your arms and when you offered it to him, he placed it around himself and went back to his upright position complete with his arms still folded over his chest.
When you didn’t move your position–you were stunned that he wasn’t going to go sleep on another couch or at least join Jack and Epel in their little cuddle pile–he opened one of his eyes and glared at you.
You mouthed a “Fine” at him before heading towards one of the first few friends that you made at Night Raven College.
For these two, you gently awoke the both of them so you could place a pillow beneath their heads. Ace grumbled a little, but still managed an incomprehensible thank you. As always, it was Deuce who colored slightly at your kindness, but eventually he quieted from his embarrassment to thank you earnestly. You told the both of them that they could relocate to one of the other couches available or go to an actual room with a bed, but they must have been too tired because they waved off your offers.
Satisfied with a job well done, you turned to the last occupant of the room.
No, it wasn’t Ortho.
(However, you did pat him lightly on the arm as a mini goodnight from you to him).
In front of the fireplace, lying on his back and his paws facing up in the air, Grim slept. A few hours ago, the boys had lugged in a few logs and had started a fire so that they could study comfortably. The fire had been stoked recently and showed no signs of dying anytime soon, so you ignored it for now in favor of gently lifting up your favorite cat beast onto a pillow. However, as you placed his sleeping body atop of it, his strange blue eyes opened wide.
He yawned, his sharp teeth dangerously close to nipping you. Blearily, he mumbled out a greeting. “Henchman? Are we done studying?”
You huffed at that, fully knowing that Grim was going to cram later, but you knew that he was still trying his best. Oddly enough, you were proud that he had been putting more effort into his studies, which was a far cry from how he had first started out.
“Everybody’s asleep,” you whispered. You held a finger to your lips to accentuate your point. “Do you want to head to our room or stay in the lounge?”
Grim’s three pronged tail swayed from side to side as pondered the offer over in his mind. While you waited, you sat beside him, your legs sprawled in front of you as your toes were warmed by the heat of the fireplace flames. As the wood burned, you were aware of the crackling and snapping as the logs eventually succumbed to the greedy hunger of fire. Fully warmed now, you found yourself steadily leaning backward until you were fully supine with your face angled upwards and facing the ceiling.
The ground was hard against your back, but you dismissed such discomfort. The warmth was easing you into a lull that would latch onto you until you had no choice but to fall prey to Morpheus and the Sandman.
A paw gently stroked your cheek. Although you kept your eyes closed, you made a humming sound to let Grim know that you were still awake.
For some odd reason, Grim remained silent and you found yourself frowning. Opening your eyes, you expected your cat beast to be actually asleep, his paw resting on your cheek a mistake that he hadn’t rectified.
And yet–
When you gazed at him, you found that his sapphire blue stare was mirroring you.
“Grim?”
The cat beast hesitated. As a way to soothe this sudden bout of nervousness, you began to pet his fur. As always, he wasn’t exactly fluffy like most normal animals, but there was comfort in pressing your fingers in his weak spots and watching him melt into your embrace. As a result of the aforementioned melting, his head smooshed into your shoulder and that’s when you heard him speak.
“You looked sad today.”
You blinked and felt your face warm. To calm yourself, you continued kneading the fur around his neck and in between his ears.
Voice measured, you replied, “Really? I guess the stress about the upcoming exams has got me feeling blue. Heh.” You poked him in his cheek, careful not to press too hard or else he’ll claw at you for insinuating that he was cute enough to irritate like this. “Get it, blue?”
Grim rolled his eyes and you could have sworn that the bright blue flames from his ears turned red for a second.
Okay. He wanted to be serious with you.
That was new, but you could oblige.
You withdrew your hand from his fur, silently lamenting the loss of contact, before you answered him in full.
“We have less than two weeks left, Grim.”
He nodded absently, his eyes never leaving yours. What was going on in that brain of his, you couldn’t help but think. It wasn’t like him to be this concerned over just a random mood change.
“Yeah, and? Henchman, if you’re worried about failing, don’t worry! You’ve been studying so much with these guys–” He waved his paws in the random direction of your fellow Night Raven College first years. “–that I think if given the chance, you could actually teach the subjects by yourself!”
Almost as if you wanted to remove yourself from the situation, you faced the ceiling again. It was true. Way before the end of year exams were announced, you had long since started documenting and taking notes of what should appear on the tests. It wasn’t out of pride or the ambition to be at the top of the first year student list. No, it was because…
Well…
Only you and Grim knew what it was like to be stuck in this particular situation and even then, it seemed like you were fighting this battle alone despite your shared title as one student.
“It’s not about the exams,” you whisper into the red tinged darkness. “It’s about what comes after.”
The Headmage had only offered you room and board for the school year only. You had asked around and while summer classes were available (for students who needed remedial lessons), what use were they of to you? Sure, you could probably skip ahead in some classes and lighten your load for the next few years, but what then? What came next? After nearly a year stuck in a world where magic exists and with no hope of ever going back to your home world, you were tired.
Studying for exams was the only thing that kept your head above water.
It was a red herring for the real thing that caused you stress: the need to find a place to stay.
“I…” And that’s when you realized that your eyes had become wet and your throat had become tight and scratchy. Even breathing, a task that should have come naturally to you, had become laborious and hitched the longer you thought about your situation. “I don’t want to stay here forever.”
At the same time, you didn’t want to be cast out into the world without a safety net. For all of his grand platitudes about kindness and benevolence, the Headmage did little to reassure you that someone would take you in when he knew that you had come into this world with nothing and that while it had been almost a year, you still had nothing to your name.
Only used garments from previous Ramshackle tenants; ratty, tattered notebooks that taught you things that were of no consequence to you; and a dorm that was empty except for ghosts.
If you were looking at this optimistically, Night Raven College would house you for the next three to four years all through the school and summer terms. Once you got your internship (hopefully something that didn’t require innate magic), you could finally come into your own.
On the other hand, maybe the Headmage would finally tire of you. The Overblots had long since ceased after Malleus’ meltdown, but you hadn’t heard from the Headmage since. Common sense warned you that it would be best to set up a meeting with your warden so that you could be on the same page and map out a route on how you should proceed, but you couldn’t do it. You procrastinated.
You didn’t want to be confronted with the reality that the Headmage could just as easily throw you out as let you stay on the grounds when most of the student populace had gone.
And, a traitorous voice in your head whispered, what if the Headmage actually found a way for you to return? What if all of your worrying and fretting was useless?
All you had to do was ask…
You closed your eyes tightly–a vain attempt to stifle your tears. It was useless, though, a few tears escaped and you felt them trail down the creases of your closed eyes and down the slope of your cheeks. Absently, you felt Grim rest his paw on you again.
“You’re gonna be a great mage one day. You know that, right?” A smile split your face open; it felt painful and out of place as you began to sink into despair. “I’m gonna miss you.”
Silence.
And then–
All of a sudden, you felt a weight drop onto your chest at an alarming velocity. Spluttering with disbelief, you found yourself suddenly face to face with Grim. His ears were blazing fiercely, the fiery red at odds with the exact same fire mirrored in his sapphire blue eyes.
“G-grim–?”
“Why are you talking like we’ll never see each other again?” You felt the full weight of his body press down on your chest, nearly suffocating you as you tried to regain your bearings. “Do you think the Great Grim would actually abandon my henchman?”
“N-no? That’s not what I–”
“Exactly!” His paws pressed deep into your cheeks, forcing you to look only at him. There was no escape from him. “If the Headmage kicks you out, he’s also kicking me out! Where you’ll go, I’ll go!”
Oh.
So, Grim had actually been paying attention to you.
“But that’s not gonna happen,” Grim continued. He removed his paws from your face, but remained seated on your chest, his eyes defiant and his body language demanding that you pay him attention. “Because we’re a team and if that stupid Headmage knows what’s good for him, he’ll keep us both because we’re gonna be great mages! Just you wait!”
He stood above you, his ears finally returning to their electric blue color. In amazement, you could only gape at how mature and confident he sounded. Could it be really that easy? Or was it that foolish optimism you were feeling?
Regardless, you managed to huff a disbelieving laugh as you reached out and scratched the fur in between his ears. The heat welcomed you like an embrace as Grim followed suit. Without so much as an invitation, the cat beast burrowed into your neck as he flung his forelimbs around you.
“Didja hear me, Henchman? We’re gonna be great mages and you’re gonna find a way to cross worlds so I can see how much of a dump your old home was, ‘kay?”
Playfully, you pinched his cheek at his dig at your home world, but ultimately let it pass.
“You do realize that I still don’t have magic, Oh Great Grim.”
“So what?” He held you even tighter as if it were possible. “That’s why we’ll be both the greatest mages in the world! You’ll be the first to not have magic!”
You didn’t question his logic, your mind was still frazzled from the roller coaster of emotions you felt and the snot and tears that were building up at the back of your throat was not helping matters either. Perhaps in the morning, when you were well rested, you would tease Grim for such a weird thing to say, but for now–
You could only hold him closer so that he could use you as a pillow.
As his breathing slowed down in slumber, you blindly reached around yourself until you finally picked up the last blanket. It took some maneuvering, but you managed to drape the cloth over yourself and the very first friend that you met in Twisted Wonderland.
Tomorrow, you promised yourself. Tomorrow you will corner the Headmage with Grim in tow and finally settle the summer arrangements.
Whatever happened next, you knew that you wouldn’t be alone.