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Golden leaves scattered across the soft, slightly rubbled face of the pavement. The huge, impending doors of the school stood behind the pair. The fall wind brushing lightly against their faces. A monster and her human friend.
“Well damn, guess we’ve gotta put the detective work to rest for a bit.” The monster said, a little miffed. She turned over for any comment from the human.
“Didn’t take Ralsei for a carpenter.” They said, voice a little shaky. They looked up, and then down, looking as if they’d misplaced part of their brain. Then they chuckled, the monster looked a little surprised.
“Well, I don’t think Ralsei could have fit every last one of the Pippins in that courtyard. Especially if he’s gonna be fixing the castle.” She nodded. “Maybe he’ll add some cool shit to our rooms too.”
“Nice, meats and fruits?”
“Heh, hell yeah.” She paused again, stepping forward a little bit, out into the sun as it bounced off her frazzled yet fluffy hair. Nodding, she looked down at the deck of cards in her claw. “Besides, with everyone we were taking back. It was kinda inevitable that we’d need to make the place bigger.”
“We?”
“Yeah dumbass! The Fun Gang or whatever. Me, you, Ralsei. Uhhh-”
“Lancer?”
“Yeah!”
“Noelle?”
“Ehh, maybe.”
“... Berdly?”
“Kris.”
“Aaanyway. Where are we going first?”
-
The library was a small whisper of a place, Susie would usually turn up her snout at the idea of going there. Nowadays it wasn’t so bad.
“It’s weird, Noelle loves to invite me up here a ton to study.”
“Ooh, solo?”
“Yeah, I’d ask about bringing you along. But she’d always excuse you.”
“Damn, to study?”
“Eh, she’s smart. But I dunno if I’d consider staring competitions to be studying.”
“You stare at each other?”
“Uhh, forget I said anything.”
Kris simply nodded, snickering a little as they slid across the shelves, pushing off the wall to shift the ladder around. They’d stop at a random point in the shelf, picking up a random book.
“Whatcha’ got?”
“Egg Parenting 101: A new owner’s guide to caring for a boiled egg.”
“Eyy, a classic. Put one in.”
They nodded again, pulling the pack of cards out of their pocket. A random page in the book was selected for a card to be slid between, before they’d place the book on the table next to Susie.
“Do you think they can like, read from the Dark World?”
“Maybe. I thought that was why we were putting them in books.”
“Yeahhh.”
Susie looked over the collection they’d made, books about Hometown, a few entries into “The Hammer of Justice”, even a couple video game guides that Berdly must’ve taken out a few times. She lifted up a few of the guide’s pages, seeing the circlings and scribblings that annotated the paragraphs of a Dragon Blazers’ walkthrough. It all seemed to hone in on one particular puzzle.
“Huh, hey Kris.”
“Yep?”
“Isn’t this like the floor lights thing you did in Queen’s mansion?”
The human scooted over, the heels on their boots still positioned on the ladder. They peered down at the pages, the screenshot showed the familiar problem, an image on the floor, and a set of shapes that filled it.
“Yeah, it is. That’s weird.”
“The fountain didn’t reach here though. Wonder how it carried over.”
“Maybe it magically sensed Berdly’s gamer rage!”
“We should get him to kick the Knight’s ass for us.”
“I’d pay to see that.”
“Heh, you’d need to stop kissing his damn beak first.”
Susie snarled, chuckling as she punched their back. Kris’ ears burnt a little with colour, they chuckled back.
“Pff, maybe I'll try a staring contest!”
“Yeah! You can kick his ass with that.”
Kris nodded, climbing down and stepping over to sit with Susie, she rested her chin on their head.
“Hmm, Kris.”
“Susie?”
“Do you think Berdly like, actually enjoys being smart.”
“Didn't we literally hear him go on that tirade about this exact thing.”
“Yeah but, that’s the thing. He said all that, and he's still smartboy.” She shuffled a bit, yawning. “And Noelle's still, uh.”
“Noelle. She's still Noelle.”
“... Yeah.” The monster paused, speaking uneasily. “Do you think we should tell them?”
“Them?”
“Huh, oh, Noelle. Just Noelle.”
“Uhh, maybe. If you want to.”
“Hm?”
“I'd ask her out first, personally. Get the bigger shock out of the way!”
“Oh my god. NOW I'll kick your ass.”
“Gotta clean up the cards first!”
“... Yeah. Should prolly get to that.”
“Nah.”
“Nah?”
“Yeah! Nah. Just give it a sec.”
“Pff, love you dumbass.” Kris chuckled. “HEY-”
“Chill! Almost thought Susiezilla went soft for a sec.”
They both laughed, sharing the quiet, soft moment.
…
“Yeah, let's clean up.
“Uh huh.”
-
“so, what are you kids up to?”
“Heh, we're walking our pet cards.”
“neat. do you keep them in their packs?”
“Yep, gotta play em’ right.”
“i'm guessing you hold them all.”
“Uhh, sure.”
“cool, what’s kris doing?”
“They're categorising your eggs.”
“oh nice, i meant to do that.”
“Cause you're the janitor?”
“nah, i’m the egg categorising guy.”
“Checks out. Wait, wouldn't that be Kris’ job?”
“nope, kris doesn't fit the criteria for egg categorising guy.”
“Damn, of course.”
“yup, they're the egg categorising kris”
…
*You were content with this