Chapter Text
“This is a tale passed down through my family, one of many, and although many details were lost to time, I shall do my best to share it with you…”
So the tale was woven as this…
“A time long ago, there was the Sun. The greatest light that shone upon the earth all humans claimed as their home.
“The Sun was beloved for the light cast on the earth every morning, forever dancing in the sky with her sister Moon.
“Dancing since the beginning of their creation for the rest of eternity. Immortal beings of the sky. Celestial sisters accompanied by the world below them.
“The Sun embraced the world with her light. The first light of the world, and the being that inspired the creation of the stars afterward. All the stars, both those that dwell in the sky among them and the earth below.
“Just as the people in her care had companions they were close to, so too did she have friends that kept her company. One of the few creatures willing to venture so close as to keep her conversation.
“The people respected the white birds that were beloved by the Sun. Her dear ravens. The most intelligent of birds, capable of flying in the sky and telling tales of their adventures and the sights they beheld.
“The Sun never lost sight of her ravens, although the ravens could never get too close to the Sun for fear of being burnt.
“Although, there was one raven. One raven whose heart was shattered with the horrible loss of the one held most dear to her. Her dearest and her mate for the eternity afterward they would never have ever had the chance of experiencing together.
“'O Sun, hear my plight and grant me rest!'
“The white raven cried pitifully to the sun. A bird born from the only tear the sun had ever shed, she was forged of the same sunlight that forever watched over the world and therefore would live for as long as the light existed.
“Taking pity on the raven that flew beyond what any other raven would, the sun watched the raven’s white feathers char and turn black from the intense heat, and wrapped that dear bird of the sun in light as the sun weeped for the raven’s misfortune.
“And so the now black bird fell from the sun once again, falling with the sun’s blessing to finally rest.”
•
–Our memories of that specific part differ quite a bit. Do you not believe so, O Sun? Thy tale shan’t remain twisted in the truth.–
–Wait, how dost thee possess even the vague knowledge of what once transpired? It is not a matter known beyond the Sun.–
–No matter. We shall mend this fragmented tale, and weave it anew with the bones of thy past, O Sun.–
•
The Sun was indeed closest to the ravens that flew close for chatter and companionship. Even going so far as to be referred to as Sun Birds by some. That was how well known their relation to each other was.
Every so often, the Sun’s darling ravens would tell of interesting people or animals that they encountered, whether good or bad. The Sun longed to find one of her own, to share stories with the only ones capable of communicating with her.
It wasn’t often that situations such as these happened, and perhaps this was the first, but one day she became intrigued by a certain individual that rested beneath her light. Maybe there had been a time before. Long ago. Definitely not a time she had cried.
After all, it was not only the humans that dwelled on the earth below. One of those other beings was that someone that piqued the interest of the Sun.
He slept peacefully in the fields, basking in her warmth as the time trickled by. He was alive, and so very strange.
Unlike his kind, who were among the more… powerful of species, he chose not to use his strength for darker intentions. He listened and respected all those he interacted with, and the Sun found herself curious of what actions he would take. He was so very different, and he basked in her light so very often.
She found herself growing fond of this character, one who would surely not last as long as she would. She found herself wanting to hear him speak his mind, wanting to listen to what he had to say, wanting to converse with him and cherish him and forever stay at his side to know what he may do throughout his life. Beside him.
She wanted to speak to him, but had no mouth. She wanted to see his features and his expressions, but had no eyes to watch with. She wanted to hear the kind words he spoke and hear his voice, but she had no ears to listen with. She wanted to comfort him when he was hurting, and cradle him when he needed rest from pushing himself too hard for others, but she had no body to hold him with.
This incorporeal body of the Sun was limited in regard to the physical. Her sight could not discern the details of the surface her light covered. Her sight was different from what her ravens and all the peoples of the earth had.
The Sun felt for the first time, for this was the first time she felt at all, this feeling she had always seen from the mortals she always watched over. Frustration boiled up in the Sun, and melted out in the first heatwave the world had ever felt.
He had nearly collapsed that day, and the Sun felt her frustration blend into guilt for causing him more struggle. There was no rain to aid him with, and so she sought to make her own. Somehow.
The Sun, for the first time throughout her entire existence watching over the earth, wept in her agony and inability to help him. Crying to herself as she wallowed in her helplessness. She wanted a form capable of helping him better than her current one.
Then, before it fully registered to her, a single tear streaked down her face. A single tear made up of her light in liquid form and her rare display of emotions.
A single drop of Sunlight.
That drop fell to the earth while wrapped in her light, and from the landing sight emerged a golden-haired girl with clear blue eyes like embers. She was not a raven. She stared at her hands before studying her clothes forged of her sunlight. She disregarded the fact that her body felt slightly… off. As if her form had been disrupted midway. But this was only her first time becoming a person, so definitely not. Even though her mind felt strange and oddly foggy, it didn’t matter in that present.
She could see. She could hear the rustling of the plants around her, feel the wind on her face, smell the scent of everything around her. She had a body, a form of her own.
She examined herself with her connection to the gaze of the new version of the sun—for this new sun did not feel the same way that the original Sun did, but a shorter distance would let it tune in to her emotions, perhapsand was surprised to discover that she was human. Completely physically, ordinarily human. A race of the same species as him.
She had not become a raven, like she thought she might if she took a form, but a human. This hadn’t been what she had pictured this form as. One capable of communication with that interesting hybrid that so captivated her mind.
Her body instinctively knew how to move, and so she stood with a body forged by the sun’s light itself…
•
–O Sun, how we knew not of the true acts that ensued whilst hidden from our light.–
–We need not involve this portion. It would be far wiser to progress without it.–
–…The both of us do not wish to dwell on the past.–
–Especially not on… them.–
–Sun. It would perhaps be better to… progress towards the end of that.–
•
The Sun did not know about the existence of that… those… them before that… incident. She could not refer to them by their name. A twisted and mocking version of her own title, turned into the name of their species. What they were. They lived hidden from the sun’s light.
As she gripped the lifeless body of the one that had so captivated her—sand stubbornly clinging to her in the same places where his blood hadn’t yet dried on her skin—once always so bright, she weeped. Crying in the cactus ring on their mountain in the desert, their castle and home in ruins at her back. Their desert now stained with his blood, the red sands taunting her of her loss. His once comforting presence turning haunting in that obvious absence of all that had drawn her to him from the start. He was gone. Firmly and undeniably. She sobbed in her human body, shoulders shaking her sharply and the motion bringing pain from where she had been bruised by the few punches he landed, an act much easier with a function made for it, although could she truly still be human after what they did to her form? Her stark white wings were limp at her back, the same white that their wings were, her sun-made clothing changing shape to accommodate the change. She felt perfectly at home with them, but they almost looked wrong to her. As if they weren’t how they were meant to be. Her wings were that of her beloved ravens, not them—they didn’t deserve that honor and recognition—and so she had become a raven hybrid. An avian. A raven avian. She denied her identity as one of them. Her appearance had changed after that event.
He never got to meet the form she had arrived with. They had snatched her away too fast for that. This was the only form he knew. This form that felt more natural than her original, almost.
She just couldn’t bring herself to think back on what happened back then. She would never think back on it. She couldn’t think about it. She didn’t want to.
Her darling vex, her friend, whatever more they might have been to each other, had died during their twisted game, having been sent into a piece of the earth that they had separated from external interference, limiting her ability to help anyway else.
Three lives? Hah. Only one really mattered in the end. The winner’s. Hers. She would not give them the satisfaction of ending the game by their terms.
There was only one player left, so the borders had now crumbled to nothing. She had wings too. A fitting plan came to mind with the current situation.
They had lowered the borders on purpose, curious about what she would do now that she had the last life. What she would do to end this wretched game.
They didn’t know her true nature. As far as they were aware, she had appeared on the face of the earth suddenly. An existence that had slipped past their vigilance. There was a perfect way to bamboozle them.
She released the body she had held for too long, her tight grip leaving marks on his skin that she couldn’t linger on. She ignored the scars littering his skin and that most of them were because of her. She couldn’t think about it. Not what she had done to her sunshine.
She picked up the poppies he had kept on his person, the red flowers the same kind as the ones he had given her back when their alliance had been shaky from the first red. These ones’ petals weren’t just red because of nature, but she held them tight nonetheless. The only things she could bear to bring with her.
Tears streamed down her face as she spread her wings and stood at the edge of the cliff. She stepped off, holding those poppies in her hands.
A strong flap of her wings had her dashing upwards and toward the sky. Using her wings before was against the rules, but now that she was alone, she would give them a show they could never forget. Immortal beings such as them would not forget, but just because age would not take them didn’t mean nothing else would. It was the same principle that they had implemented into the game, while limiting the capabilities of her original abilities without knowing.
She was still within the confines of the territory, and thereby that law of the third life… and she was on her last life. If she was to end this wretched game, she would end on her own terms.
She soared toward her original identity, the shell she had left behind to watch the world. She could feel herself begin to burn as she flew closer than any other raven or bird would or could comfortably go.
|O Sun, why doest thou torment thyself? Thine mortal shell cannot take it.|
It felt like she was asking herself that question. Telling herself something she already knew plenty of and was already questioning.
The answer was simple. He was dead. That would not change by simple questions. It wouldn’t change the scars on his corpse and the pain she had made him endure. It wouldn’t change at all. Not the pain, not the blood-soaked desert, not the place she abandoned and had once called home.
She flew to the sun as tears fell and immediately vaporized on her face. She was burning herself to death, and her feathers were turning from their brilliant white to a black similar to charcoal or ebony. Fitting since it was her new eye color. Even her hair was darkening under the intensity she was forcing herself through.
All of a sudden, the pain stopped, but she did not fall to the ground. Not yet.
The sun enveloped her in the same substance that had cocooned her body the first time. Liquid sunlight.
Maybe it was the remnant emotions she had left behind in her shell, or maybe it was the sun feeling her pain, but the sun had shed a tear for her. That tear had fallen atop her like melted candle wax. Hot and burning, but oddly… familiar.
She didn’t want to think anymore. Thinking was unbearable because having a thought meant she continued to replay her last moments by his side. So she didn’t think. She couldn’t. She let her mind still as she felt the light begin to engulf her whole.
Her eyes, unbidden, closed as her wings wrapped around her in a black, feathery shell as the light condensed into the more liquid form her body was familiar with.
Its light was invisible to the eyes as light typically was. If anything, from the outside she resembled a mere star in the sky at night.
|Rest well, O Sun.|
She couldn’t think anymore, and for the first time, the original Sun slumbered.
Just like the first time, the sun’s tear began to fall. It wept for its original’s turmoil.
For some reason, this tear fell slowly. Ever so slowly. Falling gently and softly, as if she was a feather in the air.
Minutes passed. Days, then years. Decades. She was still falling as the world changed outside of her sleep and strange dreams came to her.
Dreams of other games. Glimpses of a life she could’ve lived with him. But she could never ally with him again. Not after what she did in the first game. She would just… quietly mourn the memories he never seemed to remember. Although every single one of his deaths was somehow related to her. It just… felt like they were. Though more scars continued to mar his skin with every death.
She never won again, but that was fine. No one else seemed to remember a thing other than a couple moments where emotions ran hotter than usual. Maybe after affects of being in the presence of the Sun for too long, but she wasn’t exactly thinking all that much.
They were just dreams, and she was deep asleep. Sleeping inside the drop of the sun that felt nothing for the world it continuously guarded fiercely. Slumbering inside the tear of light from the sun that only felt for its original.
The tear fell slowly, holding the original Sun that remained in her slumber.
For over one thousand years, she fell.
“Nhgh…”
Sounds of car horns and chatter and barking dogs sounded loudly in the outside landscape. If anyone had been paying attention, they would’ve noticed a faint glow deep in a small nook in a less crowded part of the big city. There weren’t many true alleyways unless people found it convenient.
Tucked inside one of those alleyways—the one with the faintest of glows that not a single soul in the city had even noticed—deep in the shadows where only a thin crack of sunlight could reach, a barely visible wisp of something beyond mortal comprehension finally gently tapped the concrete walkway of the alley. The inconceivable wisp melted into a pool of light as thick black feathers unfurled from around the figure they had been sheltering. The feathers had long since healed, but they remained that dark color that all of those types of birds had adopted to commemorate her affliction.
The light stuck to the figure as makeshift clothes, solidifying into a red jumper and dark trousers and modest grey boots. The feathers on those large wings tingled with a sense of unease as the avian fully awakened from her long slumber. Habitually, she tucked her wings in and her jumper easily shifted to form holes to slip her wings through, hiding them from view. The wings on her ears slid neatly through her thick curls that had grown fairly long from her lengthy slumber.
She groggily yawned as she wiped her eyes, dazedly observing her surroundings as the fog of sleep gently lifted from her. In her hand was the only poppy that stayed, still as red as those days, having been conserved somehow by the endless light. Or maybe her leaking magic.
Her surroundings looked strange. Gone were the forests and the fields and the mountains and the deserts and the colorful variety of nature. Now all that encompassed her were grey walls and steel building and a large concrete jungle she didn’t know how to even begin navigating.
‘Where… am I?’ She mutely stared at the walls as if they had offended her, her dark onyx eyes glinting in the weak sunlight as a bitter frown crossed her features.
‘…I thought I would go home. Back. This is not home. This is not back. I thought…’
She had thought that death would finally consume her just as it had consumed all that she knew as a human. As one of them. As a hybrid. As an avian.
She pulled her hands back to brush through her hair as she usually did when her mind was spinning, before she got her hand tangled in her too-long golden-brown locks. No longer was her hair a light gold like sunshine. She had to investigate the setting she had found herself in, but that could happen while she focused on a more pressing matter.
‘No use dwelling on unhelpful matters. First order of business: get a haircut. This is beginning to irk me.’
She held her hand out, gently gripping the edge of her sleeve. With a soft tug, she managed to pull her diamond sword out of her inventory. So she still had it. That was interesting.
The inventory was a system put in place to make fighting simpler without all the running back and forth. She didn’t think she’d still have it even after the game, but her own magic probably kept it going. It existed very rarely in some places outside of the games, but most typically forgot about it since it required some sort of magic to even access.
It was why he brought flowers in his hands instead of in his inventory.
She tucked the poppy deep into her inventory and maneuvered her blade slightly lower than the nape of her neck, swiftly and easily cutting her hair to a more desirable and definitely manageable length. The original length went longer than her various wingspans combined. Absolutely insane.
She stared at the pounds of hair on the floor at her feet, and with a sigh, opened her inventory to store them. She still didn’t know much about what changed in however long she was asleep, but she didn’t want to chance someone stumbling upon her discarded hair.
With a spare ribbon—this one was a black color reminiscent of her wings and eyes—she managed to tie her hair up into a decent ponytail after brushing her fingers through it. Her main hair out of the way, she had to deal with her bangs that needed less of a trim than the rest of her hair, at least. Somehow, it hadn’t grown as much as the back.
She brought her sword to her face and lifted her hair over the edge before gently tugging her locks into the blade. Another brush through made her bangs curl again, and she nodded with satisfaction that the situation was over for the moment.
While she had been dealing with the top priority of the moment, she had also been using another ability to investigate the new world around her. So far, all she had found out was that there weren’t any hybrids around. At all. It was day and the only people active throughout this strange jungle were humans.
The best place to search for information on the odd absence of hybrids would be to search the nearest library. Fortunately, there was one a little ways away. Only about less than an hour to travel on foot, and less time if she flew. Both things she shouldn’t exactly do in an unfamiliar environment.
Just brilliant.
She released a sigh and quietly adjusted her attire slightly before letting her hands drop to her sides as she sent her diamond sword back into her inventory. If she didn’t stark walking, it would only take longer. With that in mind, she finally took her first steps towards the outside world.
‘Huh.’ The sunlight felt the same as she stepped out from the alley. Still the same soft and comforting feeling that it always gave her.
It felt like the sun was greeting her, so she felt compelled to send a greeting of her own. She had left the poor thing alone for an amount of time she still didn’t fully know, so she felt bad. Weird that it felt like it happened twice.
“Good seeing you again, little sun.” Her eyes did not burn when looking at the sun, for she herself was made of light.
She felt the air hum pleasantly as something akin to a voice softly and joyfully rang in her ears. It wished her a peaceful sleep and a wonderful day. There were no words, only feelings that it would only ever convey to the Sun.
It felt strange to think that the interaction felt familiar. She had never done this with the sun before. Not in her memories, at least…?
The sun’s consistent friendliness made her smile slightly as she began her walk to the library. She tried to appear as inconspicuous as possible, but it felt like people were going out of their way to look at her. Wasn’t she just minding her own business?
That prickling feeling of eyes following her finally lessened as she got to the building designated the library, although nothing really happened along her way. People just glanced at her then continued on their own ways. It was so weird and unsettling.
She only slightly relaxed when she entered the strangely shaped building. It was oddly uniform with all the others, just tall rectangles in rows and rows for however large this city was. Was it a city? It was definitely packed with people.
Quietly, she wandered deeper as her thoughts arranged themselves for the situation. History books would perhaps be of better use, but those could be vague since she didn’t know what exactly she was searching for. Worse yet, she couldn’t actually decipher much of the signs or anything. Had the language changed that much?
She overheard a few snippets of conversations here and there, all of them speaking of things she couldn’t comprehend, but she could somewhat understand the language. Which meant that the language was indeed the same by root, but the written and spoken versions had twisted from time.
‘What exactly are celebrities? Those other words are being used with strange context. The wrong phrasing. What?’
Her head was spinning and she decided to just head deeper into the library for some quiet. Then she felt eyes on her again. Fewer than outside, but there was someone definitely intensely staring at her.
She tilted her head to get a better view of the location where the person staring at her was, but she kind of immediately spotted the human. Taller than her and wearing funny-looking clothing that felt out of place in a library setting, with short black hair and tired eyes above an almost comedic mustache.
If she had had her wings out, they would’ve twitched at the odd situation, but, alas, she didn’t and she wasn’t exactly sure she should. She didn’t know if her words or even her old accent would be properly understood in this age, but a simple enough question should be. “Uh… may I help you, Sir?”
She wasn’t much of a listener, and she didn’t know if that was the proper wording anymore, but it wouldn’t hurt to be polite. All of a sudden, he turned beet red and began to ramble at a rapid pace.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry! I was staring, wasn’t I? I’m sorry I was staring so rudely! Have I made you uncomfortable? Oh gosh, I’m terrible at this…” He sounded as if he was spiraling and the situation looked as though it would soon get out of hand, so she did the only sensible thing and attempted to snap him out of it.
“Sir, are you alright?” Her hands gripped his shoulders loosely after she had very strongly shook him. He definitely seemed rattled, but no longer whirling. What a strange man…
He seemed to have finally caught his breath at last. She was very used to handling people taller than her, which this man undoubtedly was. Come to think of it, no one was as tall as the people she used to encounter. Even this guy was on the shorter side, compared to others she had met before who were way taller.
Yes, it seemed people had shrunk over time. Although she remained small anyway. Birds were typically small.
The man took a deep breath to level his head, and weirdly enough, he reminded her of one of the players she met in the games. He cleared his throat and she slowly released her tight grip on him.
Before she could move to leave, he stared at her with shining eyes and burst out with a question that he seemed to have been trying to ask for a while.
“Are you a celebrity?” He was mindful of their location in the library and kept his voice low.
‘…No? What is that?’ Judging solely on the context she had vaguely heard from somewhere, a celebrity is supposed to be a fairly well-known individual or something. She would go with that definition for now.
“No, I’m not.” She answered him before she immediately tried to think of coordinates to teleport to instead. If only she could access the interface, she could figure out where she was located. ‘When in doubt, go a couple hundred blocks into the air for good measure.’ She didn’t know why she couldn’t access these things when she still had her inventory.
“You’re not?” She heard the stranger distantly as she tried to mentally calculate the approximate distance, but then he began to ramble. “Oh, that’s incredible. I mean, I work in an agency for models and I’m gonna get fired if I don’t bring in a new face for the agency by tomorrow, and I need to work as their manager, too, and so I was really panicked today about how to find someone who wasn’t a model but had a good face for it and so I complained to the sky very loudly but moderately because I didn’t have a back-up job lined up in case and then I came to the library to clear my head because reading a book in the quiet of the library is just so peaceful, you know?—and then I saw you and you have a very good face for modeling—like too good—and I thought you were a celebrity because you just look so dashing and maybe I just haven’t heard of you, but you aren’t and so I thought maybe I could introduce you to my agency and so I can be your manager and keep my job, and I could be super busy and stuff or something, but I don’t know since I think I’m too awkward to be a very good manager—like, why was I ever hired? But I don’t know. For some reason I am very comfortable with speaking to you, although usually I’m not and I’m a nervous wreck about social interactions. Would you be willing to consider working as a model?”
She hadn’t the faintest idea what he had even said. There had been a few compliments? The overflow of words had thrown off whatever she had been thinking. ‘Slow it down.’
There had been a few words she had managed to catch that she was curious about. Agency, model, and something about a manager. Manager obviously has something to do with managing, and it was a normal enough occupation for shops and such, but for a specific individual? How would that work?
While she thought of a response to this hyper-energetic man, she sent out a wave of her magic to learn more about the other terms more specifically.
Her silence unsettled the would-be manager and he once again began to speak. “If you’re wondering about the salary, it differs for a variety of reasons. For new models, it could be around fifty something thousand and some such annually. Famous models make way more than that. About eighty thousand a year if they’re popular enough. Uh, take your time about answering.”
‘…Thousands of what? Diamonds?’ That was the only currency she really knew about. If it was diamonds, why so many?
Before she could ask how such a large amount of diamonds were obtained, a voice cut into her thoughts. As familiar as her physical body.
|The currency used in the modern era is commonly referred to as ‘cash’ in some form. Its form ranges from oddly colored strips of paper to specially formed metal coinage. Diamonds are extremely rare and considered a commodity of the wealthy. They are no longer used for anything other than small accessories.|
Of course the sun only answered her about this. Everything else could easily be discovered using her abilities, but a topic like currency could only be explained by someone with knowledge of the subject, which the sun would have instead of her since she had been asleep for most of this.
‘If that’s the case, how much can the annual salary buy if I work for the entire year and save everything? Wait—can't you answer me about where all the hybrids are? Or what happened to them?’
|No.| Well, wasn’t that an abrupt denial? How… abrupt. ‘Well, instead of price ranges or something, what occupation should I go with? This economy seems to run on less trade than before.’
|…The modeling occupation would be an excellent opportunity. Perhaps it would be the only high-paying occupation you will receive an offer for.|
‘Hm. You're conversing a lot more than usual, little sun.’ She sighed and focused on the physical at present. The man was still waiting for an answer and she would have to oblige.
“Sir? Are you doing alright?” No way. There was absolutely no way. Even the sun sounded astonished in the little flickers that came through by the window.
There was no way that this man thought she was male, right? Not again. The thought made her sigh again before she shook her head and looked directly at the man.
“I would like a brief overview of what being a model pertains, and, if possible, to work anonymously.” She finally answered the man’s question from earlier. He should already have some sort of outline for a contract prepared, but if not, she could put her expertise of paperwork to use for the first time in a long while.
“A model, anonymous? When faces are how the industry functions? How would that even work?” He sounded positively dumbfounded by her terms.
“Hm. I will show you something, and you can inform me if I’m still ‘dashing’ even with it.” She had noticed that many people had been drawn to mysterious characters, including the man in front of her that was flushed from embarrassment.
“I said that out loud?!” He squeaked out, but she only smiled eerily and covered her face with her hands. From the upper part of her face to just below her nose.
She could hear him exhale loudly, almost like a kettle, and she uncovered her face to see his reaction more clearly.
“Wow. Definitely dashing, and mysterious. What a combination. That is absolutely brilliant and works well with your appearance. My goodness, that would be perfect. A mysterious character would definitely draw attention.” He looked amazed past his flushed face, and she smiled slightly at that.
“I’ll draw up a draft contract then? You can review it with your agency, Sir.” She could feel the sun going down outside, and wanted to bid it a good rest from watching over her.
“Ah, I never introduced myself? That’s absolutely mortifying! I thought I did! Ahem. My name is Mumbo Jumbo, and this is my card. Please contact my number within the agency to register confirmation of your participation.” He sounded like he hoped he did that right… but ‘Mumbo Jumbo’? That was the name of her teammate in one of the games. He had died extraordinarily early. As in, a few too many sessions early. What a coincidence.
Mumbo handed her his card and a piece of scrap paper to write her terms for the final contract. She definitely had to write about the anonymity, and housing since that seemed like it would become an issue later on, and she would have to include giving her a set of time off for research purposes and flying practice. Not that they had to know that specific detail. During their conversation, she had adjusted to the writing style of the language using her species-specific magic instead of her unique magic.
She passed him back the paper with the words he could read and decided that she should now introduce herself in return. The same name she always used, much to their dismay.
“Nice to meet you, Mumbo. As a model, I would like to be referred to as Cuteguy, but my name is Grian.” With that, she quickly turned away and vanished the moment he blinked. She had to process all the information she had gathered, from both her conversation with the sun and with Mumbo, and then what she hadn’t managed to gather.
It was all so much, but she would get through it easily. She always did, anyway.
“I’m telling you, Sir! He will definitely be a big hit! You have not even seen this man yet!” Mumbo immediately stormed into his boss’s office the moment he got back to the agency. He wasn’t usually excited to be at work, but right now, he just wanted to share about the dazzling person he’d met in the library.
“Uh huh. And that’s from this mystery potential model?” He pointed to the piece of paper in Mumbo’s hand, not at all impressed by the lack of a description he was giving. Anonymous model? That was asking for a lot. Cuteguy as an alias? That was over the top.
Mumbo’s eyes were sparkling like he’d never seen before. Whoever this mysterious person was, Mumbo was absolutely committed to recruiting him.
Little did they know, Grian just hadn’t bothered to correct Mumbo.