#I caught him two crows and he felt bad about killing them bc “they're so intelligent” 😭

[pleaseinsertwittyurl]

I dreamt that someone hurt Louis (badly 😡) while we were staying at a very big, very lovely family's house. They saw him hurt and instantly understood what he was and we all, literally every person, offered him their wrist.

Even in my dreams everybody loves him to a point of self destruction.

[bitchfitch]

Lavi art fight resource

hrrrg. cat boy. causes problems on purpose and loves his wizard. is sometimes a lion

an excerpt bc i pulled one for the others and id feel weird not doing it for him (its fjord in the pictures, not anta)

The second to last match ended in a draw as the gathered crowds cheered the two young mages and their familiars on. 

Team one, comprised of the superstar evocationist, Anta, and his lion familiar Lavi, had broken through the conjured hoards of beasts with sheer and near unimaginable brute strength. They cleared the hoard the fastest, though points were deducted for their near complete lack of teamwork and frequent communication failures. 

Team Two, the summonor Fjord and his crow familiar Rook, took only a few moments longer, but worked in near perfect tandem, as was the goal of this competition. 

In the small waiting room between matches Lavi's deep amethyst mane caught gold streaks from the sunlight that dripped through the window he was dosing beneath. He stretched splaying his massive paws as he cracked a glimmering red eye open to watch his master pace about like a caged animal. 

Lavi knew Anta could probably use a hug, but they were trying to conserve magic between matches so Lavi had to stay a lion. It did hurt to watch Anta tie himself up in knots like this, both in the sense that Anta was his friend so Of course Lavi didn't like seeing him in distress, and in the much more physical sense that Anta was accidentally letting so much negative energy seep through their connection that Lavi was starting to get a headache from it.

"They're cheating," Anta declared, his shaggy black hair a mess from the wind and him running his fingers through it as he pulled his thoughts together, "That's the only reason Fjord could have ever made it this far. They Are Cheating," 

"A little more elaboration would be nice, darling," Lavi sighed as he stood plodding over to Anta and plopping down in his path. If Anta didn't chill out Lavi was going to have to break out the big guns.

"Fjord is No where near as good of a caster as me, and Rook is nowhere near as powerful as you. They shouldn't be winning!" Anta huffed tapping his foot as one hand strayed to pet the massive feline before him. his fingers brushing over the smooth golden fur on Lavi's snout then forehead before tangling with the hair at the base of his mane, 

"They're winning because they work better together," Lavi sighed,leaning into the touch for a moment before headbutting Anta's hip just enough to knock him back a step "Litteraly the only critique we ever get is that we don't communicate well," 

"But we do! We do, we always get what ever need done, done. We've never failed an assignment, We're the better duo, Lavi" Anta took the hint and sat down on the old wood floor, pulling his show jacket off and tossing it up onto one of the tables before lying down,

"I'm not denying that we're better, we are, but… We work well together despite each other. I never know what you're planning before it happens and I just have to roll with it. You don't know what I'm doing, so you just keep pushing power through. It works, but Barely,"  Lavi settled down on top of him with a sigh, careful to make sure he wasn't putting too much weight on Anta, 

"I still think they're cheating," Anta says after a moment, his hands going to braid a section of Lavi's mane. 

"Then look for evidence during the last match. but do you really think Rook would let Fjord cheat?" Lavi closed his eyes again, ready to get a little more nap time in before they had to be on the field.

"Rook can't tell Fjord no anymore than you can tell me no. And I absolutely believe Fjord would cheat," Anta said with the up most conviction.

Round three began with the announcement of the trial, a simple test of connection.

Lavi and Rook would be facing off in a game of capture the flag, completely separated from their casters and unable to hear or see them. Fjord and Anta would however be able to see the entire field and could pass spells to their familiars as needed.

This should be easy, Anta reasoned with himself, he and Lavi were used to this lack of direct communication while Fjord and Rook weren't. They could win this and take the competition. 

The countdown began and Fjord was already starting to try and focus, his spell book open on his lap with one of his own sigils already prepped. 

Anta couldn't say he knew what it did, Fjord's sigils were always such a jumbled mess that trying to parse them out was fools errand. 

The game began with a thunder clap. Lavi didn't wait for Anta, and was already storming through the maze that filled the field. the low shield overtop the whole thing kept Lavi from jumping the hedges, but an admittedly over powered blast of fire sent through him by Anta was more than enough to deal with the lush greenery standing between them and their goal. 

Cloaked in flame Lavi ran on, as Rook began laying the protection wards Fjord was sending his way, before darting down the path that Lavi was coming up. 

Anta grit his teeth as the pool cracked open across the path right before Lavi made the final turn. Unable to stop in time Lavi skidded into the water, firmly putting out the fire. He launched up after Rook, his jaws snapping at thin air as the bird darted out of his grasp and back towards his own flag. 

Anta tried a different approach, Lavi was going to go at this head first like he did everything, and Rook was going to stay on the defensive until the last moment, so a quick invisibility spell cast over Lavi should be more than enough to let him stalk closer. 

One of the wards Fjord had passed through earlier cracked that plan open a second later. Lavi stood from where he had been stalking, a second away from launching up to grab Rook. There was a moment between the two familiars before Lavi shrugged, shaking out his mane before turning and heading back into the maze. 

A new strategy. Anta loaded a ventriloquist spell, if it worked it should fill the maze with duplicated sounds, making it impossible to tell which way Lavi was coming from. Then another spell to silence Lavi's footsteps, and a final one to amplify his speed. Lavi could probably see Rook's flag, this would be more than enough to give him the cover and boost he needed to grab it.

It wasn't. 

Before Lavi had even made it around the corner Rook was laying another trap in his path. 

Anta watched as Lavi was caught up in the snare, his massive body crashing down as his legs were pulled out from under him.

His chest ached with a sympathy pain, but his heart thundered with excitement. There. That was it. There was no Possible way for Rook to have been able to guess with that much certainty which path Lavi would be coming down. Fjord had already used his illusion dispell, and they could both still hear the rumblings of a hundred phantom lions.

Fjord and Rook were cheating, they had to be, some communication relay if Anta had to guess. 

And there was a very easy way to prove it.

Lavi was going to Eat That Stupid Fucking Bird. Screw the flag! This was personal now. First off, the water had been So Uncalled for, what type of fairy dunked their friend like that? and now all the damned snares that kept catching Lavi off guard were driving him Mad. 

Anta was also to blame for this, he needed to chill out on the high power spells, because while Lavi could handle them, channeling all that power was starting to make him feel fuzzy around the edges. He wasn't reacting as fast as he should be and it would only take one good hit to dematerialize him if he had to guess. 

He felt a spell well up in his chest, something burning and offensive that he didn't fully recognize. Whatever, this felt strong. He crouched and watched the air for the black soot stain the was Rook. Anta didn't hand out spells earlier than was 100 percent necessary, so Lavi didn't have to wait long.

As soon as Rook was in sight Lavi lunged as hard and fast as he could, the trigger on the spell was tripped as his fangs clacked together around air, Rook having managed to dodge just out of his grasp.

A blast, of pure hot magic tore out of Lavi, nailing Rook dead on and knocking them both back down to earth with a heady thump from Lavi and a fluttering crash from Rook. 

Lavi stood first, his legs shaky and his vision blurred as a sickness racked him. A deep ache in his very blood that even he could recognize as magic poisoning. Anta had pushed everything he had through Lavi, and if Lavi had been any weaker it wouldn't have just banished him back to the fae relm, it would have killed him.

The realization hit Lavi like a letter alerting a newly made widow to the tragic news, and the competition was forgotten as he sought out Rook.

He was still, a mass of scorched black feathers that shuddered and cracked with too much magic.

Rook would have been banished if it actually was as bad as it looked. Lavi told himslef that as he gently picked up his friend betwen his teeth and ran for the emergency exit he and Rook had been queued into before the match started.

The school's healer was already there, taking Rook from Lavi with steady hands even as Lavi stumbled. The crowd that had been watching murmured as Fjord ran onto the field to follow after the healer as she hurried away. Worry clear on his young face as he demanded to know what was happening. Lavi couldn't hear the answer.

Anta was at his side a moment later, a bruise already starting to darken over his left eye.

"Lavi?" Anta knelt down to look his woozy friend in the eye, "Hey, Lavi?" he sounded so scared, his voice tight as tears welled in his grey eyes,

Lavi didn't have the capacity to answer, instead he just rested his heavy head on Anta's shoulder, leaning into his master as he let himself drift off. 

Lavi woke back in their dorm room, with Anta sat at his desk accross from Lavi's bed. His eyes were red and puffy, his thin face pale and stricken and he poured over text books, 

"Anta?" Lavi asked as he stretched, still woozy but feeling much better than he had imeaditly after the game, "You don't look to hot," 

Anta jolted at the sound of Lavi's voice, turning before throwing himself at the lion, wrapping his thin arms around Lavi's neck and burying his face in the thick hair of his mane. 

"I'm so Sorry," he sobbed, "I- I thought I had proof. but I was wrong and-" 

"Shh, sh, Hey, it's ok, we all make mistakes, Darling,"  Lavi tried to comfort him as best he could, but he never knew what to do when humans cried, "What happened though?" 

"I thought- I thought they were using a communication relay of some kind, and I thought I had proof. So I- I overloaded a spell and told Fjord what I was doing. If they had been using the spell Fjord would have been able to warn Rook, but I was wrong and- Lavi I'm So Fucking Sorry," 

"Is Rook ok?" Lavi asked quietly, Anta shakimg his head and sobbing harder was all Lavi needed for an answer, 

"The Healer said I broke his connection back to his real body, but since his mind was here, when his vessle died He-" 

"Oh," What was there left to say? Rook was gone, not banished temporarily, but dead. Fully and truly, and it was Anta's fault.

Anta sobbed, "I was so scared you weren't going to wake up, I didn't mean to hurt either of you-" 

"I know, Anta," 

Anta never really calmed, but the tears stopped eventually as he threw himself back into his research. Necromancy wasn't Anta's specialty, and Lavi knew that even if it was, there was no other to bring Rook back from. The energy that made up his soul would have been returned to the fey world the moment he died to allow it to dissipate back into their home lands.

Lavi was pretty certain Anta knew how this worked. But it was an admirable show of denial that he still he searched for a solution to his mistake. 

The pounding on the door made them both jump as Fjord's voice cut through the quiet "Anta,  Get Out Here Now,"

Lavi was on his feet before Anta, he already saw where this was going, and he couldn't let it happen.

"Lavi this is a direct command. Lay down in your bed and stay there until I get back," Anta stood like a man going to his execution as Lavi moved to follow his orders without a will driving him, 

The pounding continued.

"Anta, Please, no. Just give him time to calm down," Lavi could feel the panic rising even as he could do nothing about it, "Please just use that big brain of yours to think this through-" 

Anta ignored him as he stepped up to the door, with a final sigh he spoke over his shoulder, "Be good while I'm gone, ok? and thank you, for everything." and with that last statement he left. the door clicking shut behind him as the shouting started. 

Lavi could do nothing as panic turned to grief.

He could do nothing as he felt his connection to Anta sever. 

He could do nothing as he found himself back in his cavernous home. Once again alone.