Archive of Our Own

Chill fog below and brooding clouds above turned the lands of the Ojibwe into a winter fortress supported by columns of light from distant towns.  Snow fell thick and wet, pummeling barren trees.  The night would cool as it wore on, and yet feel warmer as it stopped trying to soak everything through.

Three comets of mist cut through the sleet.  The witches’ heat shields wouldn’t make the flight comfortable, but at least it wouldn’t be deadly.

The lead comet sputtered and puffed, lashed by hot and cold as her shield wavered.  Akko was too proud to rely on a friend’s shield, and too restless to hang back.  At least she knew that she was bringing it on herself.

Lotte followed a few meters lower, just enough to avoid her wake.  (And to catch her if she fell, but that hadn’t been a concern for years.  Old habits die hard.)

Sucy cruised further back, slowly falling behind.  She’d get there when she got there.

Their destination was a nice little house on the shore of Gichigami, the largest freshwater lake in the world.  It was a waypoint in their journey north, after a night in the great city of Niswi Ishkode.  A family friend of Lotte’s had loaned it to them, so Akko was left stamping and huffing in the cold until she caught up and started fumbling with her keyring.

“Gloomy place,” Sucy remarked as she joined them.

“I’m sure it’s nicer in the light,” Lotte stage-whispered.  She was always careful with her voice in new places.  You never knew what spirits were about.

“I wasn’t complaining.  It’s perfect for a sinister coven of witches.”

Lotte finally got the door open and stepped back to let Akko bustle in.  The house had been waiting in a low-power state, lights out, furnace low.  As Akko explored their new territory, Sucy slouched directly to the thermostat and turned it to the maximum their absent host allowed - much cooler than the non-Finns among them would like.

After taking up their host’s list of rules and diligently reading it, Lotte stayed by the door, tilting her head.

“What’s up?” Akko asked.

“I’m going for a little walk,” Lotte said, letting her voice out a bit.  “I need to listen to this place.  Something’s odd.”

“What, you’re not cold enough?” Sucy put in.

“Guess not.”  Lotte smiled distantly.  “Don’t wait for me to eat.  You must be famished.  I’ll make something for myself when I get back.”

As she slipped out, Akko and Sucy looked at each other and shrugged.  Lotte was often a little weird, and they were trying to avoid thinking about just how often that was, lately.

You’d never expect it, but Akko and Sucy were good at sharing a kitchen.  They wove about each other in silence, dividing a bag of buckwheat noodles their host had thoughtfully left.  Sucy layered on seasonings and illicit potions until the noodles were barely visible, while Akko gave hers a light glaze of sweet sauces and a few chunks of whitefish.

“Oh, wow!” Akko blurted after her first bite.

Sucy raised an eyebrow.

“They weren’t lying about the fish here!  Want to try?”

“Nah.”  Sucy ran her tongue over sharp teeth.  “I’m a gentle soul.”

That was supposed to be spooky, but it just made Akko roll her eyes.  She moved to the living room’s sliding doors and gazed out through the steam of her noodles.  The moon had finally come out, shining over a vast, rough expanse of ice.  Beyond, the black waters of Gichigami chopped and glinted.

It looked like it should be full of monsters, but Sucy had taken great pleasure in telling her all about how the lake was a monster.  When it got mad, it could throw thousand-foot ships around like toys.

“We’re gonna fly over that,” Akko said.

“Scared?”

“No!  I mean.  I’m just thinking about it.”

Sucy chuckled with an insufferable smile, but Akko let it go.  It was daunting, wasn’t it?  Even with Lotte’s emergency sea shelter at the ready.

They could have driven.  It’d take days longer, but they could have.  Could their mission have waited?

“Well,” Akko said finally.  She slurped up a big mouthful of noodles.  “We’re witches.”

“Captain Obvious,” Sucy agreed, with a two-finger salute.

They were keepers of darkness and mystery and horror, bringers of light and joy and warmth.  A great big lake, however angry, however cold, wasn’t so bad.

Lotte returned a few minutes later, shook the snow off her jacket, kicked out of her boots, and let out a big sigh.

“How’s it looking?” Sucy called from the couch, looking up from her book.  “Is the Wild Hunt gonna crash down on us?”

“Just some unruly guests,” Lotte said at a normal volume.

“Like us?” Akko asked.  She’d finished her meal and exploration, and now curled at the end of the couch in a thick blanket.

“No, the bad kind.”

“So like me,” Sucy said.

Lotte giggled.  “If you say so.”

Sucy looked peeved at that, but just went back to her book as Lotte wandered into the kitchen, patting Akko on the head in passing.  

A few minutes passed in companionable silence.  Akko was doing her best to look miserable, but Sucy wasn’t buying it, so they were both content.

Meandering back, Lotte added, “Oh, Bizaan said we could use the fireplace, so if you’re–”

FWOOMP

“A-Akko.  More carefully, please?”

But Akko was already mesmerized, cross-legged on the floor and leaning into the heat like a puppy.  Sometimes… sometimes her torrid relationship with fire was a little unsettling.

Sucy set the book on her chest and turned her reading lamp off, leaving them with only the fire’s warm, dancing light.  A creaky sigh eased out as she stretched into the space Akko had left.  Someday, she would be a stately crone.  Someday, a kindly, creaking tree.

Lotte moved to the doors with a cup of cocoa.  When Akko had finally warmed up, she turned to see her gazing out over the lake pensively, eyes wide and calm behind her glasses.  The soft curve of her cheek and the delicate blades of her chin and nose were lit from below by warm firelight and above by cold moonlight, making a colorful maze of her windblown hair.

Sucy smacked Akko’s forehead, rocking her towards the fire.

“Yawp!   Hey, what–?”

“Get over there,” Sucy said.  Her voice was even flatter than her usual monotone.  “See to your girlfriend, already.”

“Now?”  Akko tensed to rise, then hesitated.  “I dunno.  It feels like… uh, like I shouldn’t.”

“That’s why you should, stupid.”

Akko frowned in confusion.

“It’d be one thing if she wanted you to stay away, but that’s not it.  She’s just drifting.  So get in there and be an anchor!”

“An anch–?” Akko staggered to her feet from Sucy’s shove and hissed, “Okay, okay, fine!”

She took a few short, hesitant steps, and looked back over her shoulder.  Sucy frowned mightily and pointed at the fire.  With a sigh, Akko took a long step to Lotte’s side and set a gentle hand on her far shoulder.  “Whatcha thinking about?” she asked, too brightly.

The answer was soft, distracted.  “The lake.”

“It got me, too, earlier.  I’ve never flown over something like that.  It’s exciting!”

“Intimidating, too.”

“Is it?” Akko asked, as though the idea had never occurred to her.  “Well, don’t worry.  We won’t let anything happen to you!”

Sucy scoffed.

Lotte twisted to give her a crooked smile, briefly, then settled back into her.  Akko gratefully enfolded her.  “You’re so cold!”

“Not for long, now,” Lotte replied, rubbing her fluffy head against Akko’s cheek.  She could smell the wind and the cold in her hair. “Thanks, Akko.  I don’t know what I was…” she heaved a deep sigh.

Akko didn’t know what she was, sigh, either.  A little bead of anxiety settled in her chest.

“I missed this place,” Lotte murmured.  “I didn’t even realize it.”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Once, visiting family.  There’s a lot of Finns around here, did you know?”  Lotte drew a deep breath like she was going to sigh again, inflating in Akko’s arms, but then just continued.  “Here, and especially on the Keweenaw Peninsula, to the west.  Copper miners, stump farmers… when this place was industrializing, a lot of the workers came from Finland.”

“Huuh?  Aren’t we already on a peninsula?”

“Keweenaw’s a peninsula on a peninsula.”

“This place,” Akko grumped.  That little bead of fear flared and refused to let her settle into silence.  “So that’s how you met Bizaan?”

Without moving her head, Lotte slowly raised an arm and tapped one of the pictures on the wall.  

When Akko’s eyes managed to focus through the firelight, she saw a much-younger Lotte posing cheek to cheek alongside an Ojibwe girl with long, shining black hair, hands joined above and below, opposite feet popped into the air.  To cover an absurd surge of jealousy, she said, “Aww, there she is!”

“Don’t worry,” Lotte said with a hint of humor.  Sucy was right; she was pretty perceptive, emotionally speaking, but only when it was annoying.  “She was… my first best friend, but you know I can’t rank them.  And it’s different with you, of course.”

She playfully bumped her hips back, and Akko chuckled awkwardly, blushing.

“I got jealous that everyone was watching her sing, so she invited me to sing with her, the sweetie.  That’s how we learned that I could talk to spirits.  And then Bizaan got jealous, so I stopped singing, but the spirits kept listening to her.  So… it was a big summer for us.”

Akko found herself smiling.

Lotte’s voice grew dreamy.  “And ever since then…”

Akko’s smile faltered.

“They’re everywhere.  Everywhere.”  Lotte sounded more like she was talking to herself, now.  “Sometimes I just want to… to go, and live in the song.  Someday, I think… I don’t know.  On nights like this, I get thinking about it.”

Was she straightening up, or actually getting lighter?  Akko clutched her harder.

“There are these spirits that live between the stars.  They’re always there, but I can only hear them singing on cold, quiet nights.  It’s like seeing the northern lights.  When I’m out there, listening to them, I feel like I could just float away and…

...Akko.  That hurts.”

“Oh!  Sorry!  Sorry.”  Akko loosened her grip.  “I just, I mean, you–”  Her voice shot up.  “Are you hearing yourself?”

Lotte fell quiet.  From her angle, Akko could only see her eyelashes flicker in a sudden blink.

“That does sound scary, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”   Instead of clutching, Akko just tensed her arms in a ring around Lotte, and swallowed a spike of annoyance as she appreciatively caressed a bicep.  Not the time.   Her heart bounced from her girlfriend’s shoulders like a basketball.  “I mean, you sound happy, so fine, but I just–”  Her throat clenched her next words into a croak.  “Don’t want to lose you.”

Lotte lowered her head for a long moment, then turned in Akko’s arms and returned the embrace.  Her arms still felt cool, but her warmth was returning.  She lightly kissed Akko’s jaw and said, “I wouldn’t leave you.  I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise?” Akko asked, then cringed at her own voice.

“I promise.  There’s too much down here to love.”

As Lotte said that, her hand had drifted down Akko’s back, and now rested on the top curve of her butt.  How to respond?  She only ever meant it as an innuendo when Akko didn’t catch it.  And now she was chuckling a little, perhaps guessing what Akko was thinking.

So, screw it.  She tossed the whole thing aside and gave Lotte a kiss.

Watching from the couch, Sucy smugly put her hands behind her head and said, “Disgusting.”

Despite Akko and Lotte’s relationship, Sucy often ended up in the same bed - especially when cliche struck and there was only one.  Covens were weird like that.

Being Sucy, she stretched her long body across the bed diagonally to see what the others would do about it.  She wasn’t much of a cuddlebug, but sometimes she made it hard to avoid.  Lotte curled up in one corner, and then Akko carelessly body slammed both of them.

“Blaaagh!” Sucy cried, then went limp.  “That’s what I get.”

Akko fluttered her feet in the air.  “Yup!”

Between them, they twisted a sheet into a shape that mostly covered them and let everyone get air.  It was a delicate art, but they had lots of practice.  The blankets stayed bunched at the foot of the bed; even here, Akko would turn more than a sheet into a furnace.

“Just one thing, both of you,” Lotte said.  “I should warn you before I fall asleep - don’t trust any spirits who try to talk to you here.  The local spirits warned me that there might be troublemakers out.  Oh, and you might have weird dreams.  Let me know in the morning, okay?”

“Got it,” Sucy said.

“Sure,” Akko added, half-asleep.

Lotte rested her head on Sucy’s tummy, reached out to thread her fingers through Akko’s, and the three drifted off.

Akko rarely remembered her dreams, so she had no idea how common it was to find herself in the living room, in her pajamas, clearly thinking, This is a dream.

The curtains over the sliding door were wide open, and it was perfectly dark outside.  Wait, not perfectly.  Two mellow golden eyes opened at the level of her forehead, and muscular shoulders shifted, letting in a sliver of moonlight.  Something enormous was crouching just outside.

“Hello, Akko,” it said. 

“Hi?”  Akko tilted her head.  “How do you know my name?”

“Your little friend asked for protection.  She didn’t give your name, of course.  I intuited it.”

“You can do that?”

“Indeed.  I am Pääpiru.  Piru, for short.”

Akko snorted a little, covering her mouth.  “Sorry!  Sorry.  Lotte just told me that that’s a swear word.  It’s on purpose, right?”

“Heh.  Indeed!  I’m the reason the name is a curse.  I make mischief - something we have in common, yes?”

“I dunno,” Akko said, smirking.  For some reason, talking to a giant fairy creature felt totally normal.  Probably because this was just a dream.  “I’m mellowing in my old age.”

“I know just what to do about that.  But first, I have something to show you, if you’re interested.  It’s just a dozen meters or so into the woods.”

“I don’t know…”

“This is just a dream, isn’t it?  And you’ll be able to show Lotte your discovery in the morning!”

“Oh, yeah!”  It was odd that Akko experienced the whole walk across the room to don her boots, but the loose, floaty feeling reassured her that this wasn’t real.  Without a care, she crunched out into the cold in her t-shirt and boxers, and almost snapped awake.  “Oh!”

“Brisk, isn’t it?  Let me help.”

Warmer air swirled around Akko; still chilly, but endurable.  Nodding her thanks, she set out after the fairy’s great, loping form.  He looked like something between a panther and an ape, though he was hard to make out in the moonlight.  A troll, Akko guessed.  That wasn’t so bad.  Lotte’s dad was part troll, and he was a peach.

She was still shivering, and it was strangely hard to walk, but the air just felt like a nippy spring night…

“Here it is,” Piru said proudly.

“A shack?” Akko asked.

It was an abandoned structure of some kind, about a third the size of Bizaan’s house.  It stood strong against the elements, but the outside was weathered and caked with snow and frozen mud.  No windows, Akko noticed, but a chimney.

“A sauna,” Piru said.  “When the Finns built their villages out here, they started with a sauna so the workers could shelter in the cold nights.  See how the trees are younger here?  Nature reclaimed the houses when they moved away, but their sturdy little sauna remained.  Would you like to try it out?  I can light it.”

“I’ve used a sauna before,” Akko admitted.  “I didn’t like it much.”

“Think of how nice and warm it will feel,” Piru replied.  “Aren’t you chilly?”

“Yeah.  Well, my feet feel warm… weird, huh?”

“That’s normal.  Come, now, give it a try!”

Akko seemed to recall Lotte warning her about… parts of her feeling warm in the cold?  She couldn’t remember.  Her head was full of rattling ice cubes.  There was a warm sauna right there for her, anyway!

And indeed the hot air felt heavenly as she stepped in.  Piru oozed through the wall and crouched alongside the fire, extending a finger through the door to pull it shut.  Akko sat on the cedar bench and winced - a brief icy shock, there and gone - before settling into drowsy contentment.

“Now, then,” Piru said kindly.  “It’s been so long since I’ve met a human from far away.  Tell me about yourself, Akko.”

And so Akko did.  Of course she started with Shiny Chariot, and the parasocial love affair that brought her to the study of magic.

Somehow, her breath misted in the sweltering air.  Lost in her story and the fairy’s mesmerizing eyes, Akko didn’t notice.

Lotte blinked awake.  There was a harsh, musky scent in the air, something like a wet dog, but also like a fish, but also with a hint of sweet smoke, but also…

It was complicated.  Unearthly.

“Sucyyyy,” she groaned.  “Are you mixing potions in here?”

No, her head was still resting on Sucy’s toned belly.  She pulled an arm free and sat up, blinking muzzily, scanning the dim room.

A tall, slender creature sat in the middle of the floor, silhouetted in the night light.  Her first confused impression was of a much-too-big serval, but it resolved into something much more imposing.  That lashing tail, like a serpent’s.  The gleaming scales down its limbs.  The spikes above its stark green eyes.

Royalty had risen from Gichigami, stalked over ice and snow, and slipped into her humble shelter.

“Muh–Mishi–” Lotte sputtered, hand flapping for Akko but finding only still-warm sheets.  In her panic, she couldn’t remember how you were supposed to greet a Great Lynx.  She lowered her head, bit her lip, and hoped for the best.

The Lynx growled with the voice of crashing waves, forming words in the spirit tongue of the Halti mountains.  (Only a slight accent!  Maybe this one was an ambassador.)  She was informed that her arrival had riled up the guests from her homeland, and one of them was misbehaving.

“I’m sorry,” she gasped.

It wasn’t personal, the tides assured her.  But if the worst happened, it would not be wise to fly over Gichigami in the morning.  With that, the beast twisted about, tail lashing above her head, and shot from the room.

“Sucy, get up!” Lotte cried.  She snatched her wand from the side table and hit the lights.  Fairy friends fanned out, discovering that her girlfriend was indeed gone from the house, but her coat and gloves were not.

“Gnuh?”

Lotte delivered an open-handed slap to Sucy’s chest and sprang to her feet.  “Get Akko’s coat and wand, and follow me!  Move!”

Around the time Akko got to the nuclear missile in her story, she realized that she couldn’t gesticulate.  She strained and shifted, but her body was full of lead.  “Uh… I can’t move.”

“Isn’t it restful in here?” Piru said happily.

“Yeah… no… hey…” Akko gazed up as a puff of mist emerged with each word.  “Why is my breath doing– DAAAH!”

The illusion shattered.  She was in a frigid cedar shack, in front of an empty furnace, and her scream had emerged as a weak little groan.  Akko wanted to rise, but she was shivering too hard to even try.  Her bare arms and legs were blue.  This wasn’t a dream, and–and any other realization was lost to the ice.

“Damn,” Piru said carelessly.  “I wanted you to die peacefully.”

Rage crashed through Akko’s body, but couldn’t move it.  Tears froze to her cheeks.

“For what it’s worth, it was a good story.”

Magic surged up after the anger, with no outlet.  There was no wand to focus it.  Her mind was splayed like a beached squid.  Panic joined the magic and rage, and somehow, between the three of them, they compressed a bit of her into a tiny, glittering gem of will.  Coursing with adrenalin, her hands finally flexed, her teeth clamped shut, her eyes flared, and–

Poof.

She transformed into a seal.

“What,” Piru said flatly.

Akko wobbled and flapped awkwardly.  She was still chilled through, still miserable, but maybe… maybe now… she rolled onto her side and started slapping her tummy at Piru. 

Whapwhapwhapwhap.   

A walrus would have been better.  But if she couldn’t crush him, at least she could taunt him.

Piru had dropped his friendly facade.  “Do you think the cold is the only way I have to kill–?”

Akko didn’t even hear the scream.  The voice was green light burning through her mind and filling her senses, devouring the world for a split-second.  Suddenly, she lay beneath the open sky and the sauna’s top half was a shotgun blast of splinters slashing through the trees.  Piru’s forearms flopped to the stone floor, and his lower body followed a moment later.  The rest was gone.

“There–that’s her!” Sucy snapped.  “Hold–hold on, dammit!  Stop!  Quiet!”

A croaking, broken voice replied, unintelligible.

Sucy appeared and threw a coat over her.  “I think you’re in trouble,” she said, grinning.

Akko grunted with her seal voice.  As soft bands of magic lashed her to Sucy’s broom, panic, rage, and magic all melted away, taking consciousness with them.

Healing magic was never pleasant.  It tingled and throbbed.  It made pain flare and shift.

Akko awoke feeling like she’d been microwaved.  She was alone in the bed, though a green sprite sat on the headboard watching her.  It made a little trumpeting sound and vanished.

She tested her feet gingerly and found that they could mostly hold her.  Next, she took a ponderous step for the door.  She hadn’t fallen yet.  One, two, three, step.  Step.  As she kept moving, it got easier.  She wasn’t especially strong as witches went, but she was freakishly tough.  

Thanks, Sucy.

Early morning light painted the living room in gentle colors.  Steadying herself on the doorframe, Akko eased in, met Lotte’s eyes, and wanted to fall unconscious again.

“Hi,” she said timidly.

Lotte was breathing slowly and evenly.  Deliberately.  The telltale glistening lines of healing magic coursed over her throat.  She’d obviously been crying, and she was just as obviously furious.  “How do you feel?” she asked in a careful, toneless voice.  Despite the healing, there was a wet rasp to it.

“Um.  Great.  I mean, you know, considering.”

“Considering,” Lotte said.  “Yes.”

Sucy was stretched out on the couch.  She looked between them, but instead of schadenfreude, her face showed genuine concern.

Now Akko was terrified.

“How could you be so stupid?” Lotte asked in that same flat voice.  “I told you not to trust any fairies.  I told you!”

“I… I, um…” Akko said.

“Why are you so reckless?  Why are you always doing this?  Everywhere we go, you’re getting shot from cannons, or attacked by monsters, or flying through fireworks!  Why can’t you just–?  Why?”

Akko took a step towards her, reaching out, but Lotte stepped back.

“Don’t touch me!”

“I don’t… I’m not trying to be reckless, I just…”

“I thought you’d learn, sooner or later!  I thought you’d stop running at every dangerous thing you see!  I thought–I–I’m sick of worrying about you!  I’m so sick of being afraid that you’ll do something stupid and die!  Every time it hurts more!  Every time!"  She coughed out a bit of blood, then flinched back from Akko.   "I said don’t touch me!”

Akko fell back, raising her hands.  In a small voice, she admitted, “I don’t know what to say.”

“I don’t know what you could say, either,” Lotte said thinly.  “I really don’t.  It’s just you, isn’t it?  This is just what loving you is like, isn’t it?  I don’t… I don’t know if I can…”

Akko felt a pit opening beneath her.

“Lotte, you need to chill,” Sucy said.

Lotte rounded on her, then jolted like she’d run into a wall.  “What?”

“You’re gonna say something you’ll regret.”  Sucy sat up slowly and rested her elbow on the back of the couch.  She sounded totally relaxed, but Akko could see the tension in her slender neck.  “Besides, Akko’s the one who almost died.  Maybe give her some time to rest before you let her have it?”

Lotte sagged.  She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.

Akko was still teetering over that pit.  Maybe she’d just explode and die.  That would be a nice alternative to this.  She looked to Sucy for reassurance, but she was on her blind side.

“You should’ve known not to hold that in,” Sucy continued.  “You should’ve known that it’d come out at the worst possible time.  But you were a coward.  You let it simmer until you were angrier than you were afraid.  And now look.”

“I get it,” Lotte said.  “You can stop now, Sucy.  But… Akko.  Please.  Why?”

“I thought I was dreaming.”

“You thought… what?”  Lotte blinked slowly.  Now she looked dazed.  “Oh… it’s a kind of trance trolls can put you in.  I even said you’d have strange dreams.  Oh, no.  Oh, no.   I assumed…”

“But I still took Piru’s word for it.  So I was still dumb.”

“Is that what he called himself?”

“Said his name was Pääpiru.”

Lotte suddenly barked out a laugh.  It was a sharp sound, like the delicate blown glass of her voice had broken and stabbed into the world.  “He claimed to be the devil?  I should go back and thrash him again!”

Akko had never heard her sound so aggressive.  Now that it wasn’t aimed at her, she kind of liked it.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” Lotte said, wilting.  “I… I can’t…”

“See?  You always wimp out,” Sucy said.

Lotte ignored her, covering her face.  “I’m so sorry.  You’re hurt, and probably scared, and… and…”

Akko took a faltering step forward.  “Um, can I…?”

Lotte lunged into her arms, headbutted her chest, and started sobbing.  That made Akko tear up, but she refused to cry in front of Sucy.  She just stood firm and stroked Lotte’s hair.  There were little crystals of ice in it; she’d probably gone walking to try and cool down.  How many times had Akko made her do that?

“You have to promise,” Lotte said into her chest, between racking sobs.  “You have to promise, too!”

“Huh?”

Lotte pulled back and glared up at her with a red, puffy, determined face.  “I promised you I’d stay, remember?  That I’m not gonna disappear!  You have to, too!”

“Um, that I won’t go to the…?” Akko finally caught on.  “Oh!  Oh.  Yes!  Yes, I–!”  Her mind went blank for a moment, but the words spurted out.  “I promise to be more careful.  I mean, I know I say that every time, but–but now that I know, I’ll try really hard.   No, shit, I’m not promising to try, I’ll do it!  I’ll keep myself safe!  I’ll stay here for you!”

Finally, a cautious little smile tugged at Lotte’s mouth.  “That voice…”

“What?”

“You sound just like you did when you’d talk about becoming a witch like Shiny Chariot.  You really mean it, don’t you?”

“Yeah.  I mean, I wanna do it faster, this time, but yeah.”

Lotte sighed and slumped into her arms.

They just stood for a little while.  Akko had never imagined she could be content standing still and holding someone, but she had a lot to think about.

“So, you transformed without your wand,” Sucy said.

“Guess so.”

“Hmm…”  Her smile would have made Akko uneasy, years ago, but now she was just curious about their next impromptu experiment.  “You keep getting more and more interesting, Kagari.  Anyway, what are we doing now?  Resting another day, right?  You two look like roadkill.”

Lotte laughed unsteadily.  “That’d be nice.  I’ll just check with Bizaan.”

“And I’m betting you’re gonna have some hot makeup s–”

“Sucy!”  If she was red before, now Lotte was incandescent.  But then she paused, gazing at Akko.

Akko nodded eagerly.

“Well, maybe you should stay out here for a bit, to be safe,” Lotte conceded.  “Ack!”

Akko slung Lotte over her shoulder, threw Sucy a salute, and marched off to their reconciliation.