#whenever i get to the point when things are supposed to get better the goalpost moves

[just-your-average-tangerine]

Doing real bad folks

[canid-slashclaw]

The Outliers - A Guildwars Love Story

Chapter 6

Two months had passed since the siege against the centaurs had begun in Kressex Hills.  During those tenuous months, Kaleb, Brad and Cynthia would alternate duties between fighting on the front line and running much-needed supplies from the lake-port town.   Kaleb's reputation as a fine cook also began to take hold.  Some of his recipes became so popular that troops from other garrisons would stop by just to sample some of his cuisine.  It was also during this time that he made it a point of volunteering for supply running duty to Triskell whenever the opportunity presented itself. 

He enjoyed the unusual rapport he had developed with the market owner's daughter.  Even though she was a charr and viewed by many of his people as the mortal enemy, he somehow found their respective differences to be intrinsically fascinating. 

Today he was scheduled to pick up a fresh supply of imported cheeses from the marketplace.  Along with the meats, soldiers discriminating tastes demanded an increasing array of finer foods.  He was well aware that all of this was his own fault.  But he simply couldn't help it - he liked to ensure that everyone enjoyed the little things in life for one never knew when all of it would suddenly end. 

The morning was overcast and the plume of smoke rising from the upstairs chimney of the meat market indicated one thing.  Amalthia was there, working away at whatever it was her kind liked to do.  But even during subsequent visits, Kaleb could somehow never work up the nerve to ask her what she was working on. 

He entered the shop and his nostrils were immediately greeted with the familiar array of scents from the spices and herbs.  As always, Ludrick the big tabby patterned charr was there to greet him the moment he walked in.

"Two-thousand pounds of freshly-slaughtered bovine are ready for pickup.  I hope you got some sturdy paws carrying this stuff.  My ankle has been giving me fits and I'm not gonna be much use to anyone today," Ludrick grumbled as he shifted his center of gravity on his crutches.

Two months of coming to these felines' shop and I still don't know either of them on a personal level.  Kaleb mused as he handed Ludrick the work order. 

"Amalthia. Get down here and help this customer.  He's got a meat wagon that needs to be loaded up," the old charr bellowed out towards the upstairs. "Just a minute.  One last spot and I'll be finished." 

Kaleb heard Amalthia's voice from upstairs.   Summoning his courage, Kaleb stood in front of the big charr and quickly asked in a rushed voice.  "So what has your daughter been working on?" Ludrick just shook his head and grumbled.  "Ask her." He then pointed towards the staircase to where Amalthia had already been present.  "Ask me what?" Kaleb swallowed as he was at a loss for words for the moment.  "I was..." "It's okay, just remember your fahrar training when learning to speak.  Or is it the Asuran School of Synergetics?  Either way, you seem to have a hard time completing sentences whenever you are around me." Kaleb looked at Ludrick then commented.  "Is your cub like this to all her customers?"

"Only to the ones who act like fools.  Which, I might add, seems to include everyone."   "Whathaveyoubeenworkingonupstairs? There!  I asked it!" "Is that some sort of lost Orrian gibberish?  Ohh... now I get it.  I think you were trying to ask me a personal question.  Something along the lines of what I do with my time while I'm upstairs.  Am I right?"  Amalthia conjugated her thoughts aloud.   "Well, the acrid smell of burning coal does pique my curiosity.  I can't help but to be curious." Amalthia gazed in his general direction with her amber eyes then replied.  "I am not in the business of forming personal relationships with customers.  If there is something business-related you or your people want to discuss with my sire, or me then by all means, do so.  Otherwise don't pester me with personal questions." Human or not, Kaleb could tell that she had her defenses on high alert. Like the Seraph army he served under, he wanted to strategically break them down.   "Business question." "Okay. Shoot." "How does your shop produce such a large volume of market cuts in such a short amount of time?  And please don't tell me it's a trade secret, cause I know you people have commonplace technologies that our people don't even possess." Amalthia looked at her father who gave his silent nod of approval.   "Did you bring anyone with you this time?" "No.  Just me." "Good. Now take off those filthy shoes and socks," Amalthia said as she pointed her clawed finger towards Kaleb's boots. She led him down the stairs and into the basement cutting room.  For the moment, the room was pitch black.  But with the flick of her hand, a series of gaslight propane lights came to life.   "Tada!  Welcome to the cutting room.  Or as I like to call it, the slaughter shack." The plucky charr beckoned him to tread carefully across the freshly mopped stone floor.   She reached up and pulled back a chain-mail curtain revealing a row of cattle quarters dangling on a series of hooks.  "The cattle are gutted just beyond that doorway over there.  Once they have been dressed, sire and I bring the carcasses here to be cleaned up and ready for quartering." "What do you use to quarter them with... a tree saw?"  Kaleb asked. Amalthia walked him over to a giant fearsome-looking machine that sported a giant saw blade.   As he got closer, Kaleb could hear the high-pressure rushing sound of water that was coursing through the complex array of pipes.   "Steam-powered quartering saw.  Charr trade secret.  You are to keep this mum under sever pain of a horribly gruesome death," she said laconically.  "How charming.  I suppose some of the meat I saw may have very well been the remains of customers who foolishly betrayed your secrets?" "Well, those and the ones who ask too many stupid personal questions.  But other than that, you needn't worry.  The chances of you inadvertently eating your dead uncle are practically nil," Amalthia quipped as she began adjusting the controls of the saw blade.  "Amalthia!  Customer with two little ones." "Great.  Well that's it for now.  I gotta put on the charming routine and help those pesky humans." As Kaleb and Amalthia emerged from the downstairs cutting room, a young mother and her squealing kids greeted them.  "Mommy.  Another charr!" The mother had a brief look of terror on her face as Amalthia kneeled down to make eye contact with the youngster.  Without any sense of fear or trepidation, the little girl started to run her fingers across Amalthia's large horns.  Within moments, the child was playing with her whiskers and ears, apparently being delighted by their twitching movement.   "What's your name, little one? Mine is Amalthia.  Can you say that?" The little girl tried to mimic Amalthia's feline muzzle phonemes as she attempted to sound out her name.   "Ah.."

"..mall.."

"...thia!" Kaleb was utterly stunned.  He was amazed at how patient she was with the human child.   "You are really good with kids.  I didn't expect that from someone like you," he said off-the-cuff. "What is that supposed to mean?  'Someone like me'?" "What I meant to say was, I didn't take you for the type to be so good around kids.  I thought they would push your buttons and drive you crazy," Kaleb replied humbly. "There is a lot about me you don't know or want to know about.  And for your sake as well as mine, it's for the better." Kaleb noticed the other child, a boy, clamoring over one of the displays. 

"Be right back."

He gently picked up the arrant boy then promptly returned him to his mother.  "There ya go fella.  Just keep off of high places, yea hear?  Otherwise you might fall and break something." Without Kaleb noticing, Amalthia witnessed the interaction as a wide grin came over her face that caused her ears to flatten with a sensation of happiness. 

Kaleb walked back over sans the child.  "I disagree.  With your last statement, that is.  Because I would like to get to know you better." "Do you have cubs?" Once again, Kaleb was caught off guard.  But he learned to recover from the initial shock of her bold questions.  "None at present.  You?" "Nada." "Havarti is my favorite cheese.  Okay, that one was pure randomness," Kaleb said in a relaxed tone.  "Goat cheese for me. The harder ones clog me up something fierce.  Randomness back at you," she chided.   "More fiber will fix that issue.  You've been served," Kaleb said gleefully. "Rebound - charrs don't consume fiber.  Two and zero, with Amalthia in the lead." "You moved the goalpost.  That's cheating!"  "Accusing an Iron Legionnaire of cheating is an insult worthy of a duel... to the death!" Amalthia gnashed her teeth at Kaleb.  "Match accepted.  But first - may I treat you to some refreshments?  You know, the kind outside this slaughterhouse?"  Kaleb said with a wink.   The little boy tugged on the hem of his mother's dress and pointed.  "Mommy, that man and that charr are really talking weird to each other." The mother looked apprehensively at the odd bantering between the two then quickly decided it was best to pull up her spawn and leave.   Ludrick planted the palm of his hand over his face as he shook his head. "You cubs are giving me a splitting headache.  Would the both of you be so courteous as to take your jabber-jawing somewhere else? Preferably somewhere far out of my earshot?" "Oh crap!  Where has the time gone?  It looks like the dessert thing will have to wait another time.  I was only supposed to be here for no more than an hour and now look at the time.  I'm going to be in deep dolyak doo with my sarge if she finds out I've been goofing around," Kaleb said with a sigh of disappointment.   Amalthia flicked her ears as she looked over the young soldier.  "Then I wouldn't want to be the one to keep you from your appointed rounds. Meet me by the bay door and I'll help you load up your supplies." As they were working together in stocking up his cart, Amalthia couldn't help but notice Kaleb's bulging biceps as he helped her heft the large hunks of rations.  But she immediately averted her gaze the moment he turned his head towards her.  Once the necessary cargo had been loaded aboard the wagon, Amalthia proceeded to close and latch the receiving bay door.  "That's the last of it," she said with a raised clawed thumb.   "Thanks for everything.  I couldn't have done this without your help.  And next time, I promise there will be desserts," Kaleb replied with a smile.  "Then I'll hold you to your word, Kaleb."

Her ears twitched upon saying his name.  And for his part, he couldn't have felt happier when she said it too.

[squisherific]

Shokugeki No Soma Chapter 275

I really wanted to review this chapter because I’ve been seeing an awful lot of hate for it, which I think is absolutely hilarious. Now, just a disclaimer, I’m not saying this current plot line is fabulous writing by any means. However, I honestly don’t understand the hate for this specific chapter. After the events in the two previous chapters, I felt like what happened in this chapter was an obvious conclusion?

Of course Souma lost. I would have been really shocked if he had beat the guy who beat his dad. It’s clear Asahi was being set up as a new goalpost for Souma. Souma is the first seat. He clearly is in a very comfortable position. But in that position, there is little, to no tension. They needed to bring in someone who could challenge him. 

What I do have a problem with, is a teacher-figure being that challenger, rather than a new student, or a foreign student, or a student from a different prestigious school in a different setting outside Tootsuki, which would have been more believable than this current setup. Because the biggest problem with this entire storyline is that it completely undermined Souma’s original (and what people assumed was his ultimate) goal of beating Jou.

Asahi should never have beat what was arguably the final boss in the series, and certainly not so decisively (5-0). By all means, introduce a character who has been Jou’s apprentice. That scenario is actually not unbelievable IMO. Jou is a really secretive guy, who travels a lot, so I can totally see him having taken a kid under his wing. And by all means, have the kid want to challenge Jou’s true son. All of that could have been done without Jou being defeated. That was the major mistake in this plot thread. But I’m hoping Jou’s defeat was not what it seems to be. I’m hoping he let himself be beat for whatever reason. We’ll see, though. Otherwise, it totally minimizes Jou’s place in the story, and that’s a shame.

That being said, I do understand what the author was going for. He wanted to really break Souma, and one way to do that, was to have Asahi defeat his dad, setting him up as not only this HUGE threat, but also, give him something important to fight for, which in this case, is his dad’s knife. He needs to get it back. I got that. That’s fine. But I also think it was unnecessary.

This situation, though, also gives Souma the opportunity to finally develop as a character. I’ve been dying to see him really upset and struggle. We never see that side of Souma. He’s too carefree and he shrugs things off too easily. He needs something to really devastate him, so he can build his way back from that, and grow as a character. Were there better ways to do that than this? Oh God yeah, but it is what it is.

The other problem with this arc isn’t necessarily a “problem” at all. It’s just cliche writing, that’s all. Actually, not just cliche writing. It’s a shoujo plot. Now, being a shoujo fan, and also being someone who’s been waiting quite patiently for the romance portion of this series to kick in, I think this current plot line is, as I said, hilarious, because Shokugeki is just not that kind of manga. So, the tone shift with this development is so striking that it’s funny. Asahi is essentially a giant plot device created to bring romantic feelings to the surface. Not Souma’s. That’s why his dad’s knife is involved. Souma is going to have other things to fight for besides Erina.  

But Erina’s feelings towards Souma need to grow from the friendship levels they currently are, to blatant romantic ones. There is a hint of romance there already. The way she thought of Souma in the last arc felt very much like a girl on the cusp of falling for a guy. But they weren’t there quite yet, and that’s ok. Considering how very slow burning the Souma x Erina ship has been over the course of the series, it was actually a positive thing that Erina didn’t just fall hard and fast for him after just becoming friends. But now there’s been a 4 month time skip, and they are second years. They have likely been interacting far more often now, since she’s headmistress and he’s the first seat (who barges in on her whenever he wants, apparently lmao). So there’s a foundation there to build off of in a natural way… but that’s the issue.

Everything that is happening now, is not natural. That’s why it’s funny. It’s as if the author got impatient with his own story, and wanted to inject that romance element into it at last, and he wanted to do it IMMEDIATELY. So that’s why we just got an EXPLOSION of shoujo cliches in the form of Asahi lmao.  I’m not mad at it, because it only helps my preferred ship. But it’s not ideal, to say the least.

I think the author did things this way, because he was really trying to do a lot of things at once, which include really bringing Souma to a very low point, rile him up, tear him down, take away everything he wanted: beating his dad, his pride as the first seat, pleasing Erina’s god tongue. And he wanted to do this, because giving Souma the first seat at the end of his first year, was a very tall pedestal to put him on, which is very dangerous for storytelling, because you trap your main character into a tiny box. You need to give him room to grow, but there’s no higher position to take him when the story’s setting is a school, and he gave him the highest position in that school. 

So, in comes Asahi in all his overdramatic glory to strip everything away from Souma, and give him a new, more immediate goal to strive for.  But the author also wanted to (thankfully, IMO) keep Erina involved too, and, again, get that romance plot finally moving. Hence, the shoujo cliche of a guy coming in out of nowhere, and declaring his romantic intentions for the hero’s likely love interest.

There’s also the possibility that the author might be trying to tie in Souma’s backstory through this connection to Jou and Asahi. That is something I’m not sure about at all. I still feel like Souma, and whatever happened to his mom, is still being saved for later, but maybe not. Maybe it’ll be introduced here, too, through all this drama. But, if so, that’s an awful lot of things going on in just one arc IMO.

Now, again, this chapter did not make me mad at all. This was very in keeping with what should logically have followed the last chapters. Souma lost badly. The trashcan thing was over the top though IMO. Wow. ^^’ But the princess carry portion at the end made so much sense in shoujo terms. Of course that happened hahaha. Now, this isn’t a shoujo though, so I’m not sure what will happen next. I don’t know how Erina will react to any of this. She’s never been put into the position before of having someone trying to romance her. So, whatever happens, I personally think it’ll be fun, because as I said, this will likely lead to Erina having romantic feelings for Souma, instead of Asahi, and it’s going to be interesting to see how and why things develop that way.

I do also think it’s intriguing that the author kept Erina very conveniently unconscious throughout the actual food match. He obviously does not want her tasting/judging their food yet. I don’t know if he’s saving it for a final confrontation where Souma comes out on top (probably), or he wanted Erina to taste Asahi’s food on it’s own, away from Souma, because this isn’t supposed to be about pushing Souma’s feelings forward, but about pushing Erina’s to the surface. But I honestly don’t know, and that’s good. I like surprises haha.

So yeah, this chapter just set up what we all assumed would happen, which is that Souma now has to beat Asahi to get his pride (and his dad’s knife) back. And Erina has to deal with this dude wanting to marry her.

I’m having a good time. It’s not great writing. Not by a long shot, but I do see the logic there. Asahi not being foreshadowed ages ago as a character waiting in the wings to take on Souma is not anything I have a problem with. Shounens do this type of thing all the time, where they produce new villains out of nowhere. And as I said, it makes sense that secretive Jou had an apprentice he didn’t mention to Souma. My only other issue, is what the whole midnight chefs plot thread has to do with Asahi’s current actions at Tootsuki. That I don’t get at all. And that’s kind of annoying. And again, the undermining of Jou. DO NOT LIKE.

But the overdramatic shoujo stuff is great. Much amused. 10/10 for the lols alone. xD

[mockwrites]

⚡ for a muggle au (cassiel x abaddon)

year one.They look a strange bunch, she’s sure — just a small bunch of children and a single father, so she supposes that’s pretty eye-catching, but it’s also the first day of Hogwarts, so she can’t be bothered to care too much about the looks they’re getting. Lucien ruffles his hand through her hair, smiling in that enigmatic way of his, a little worried, a lot sad, and she gets kisses from him and all her other siblings before she boards the train.

It’s hard, finding a place to sit on the train, because children are cruel, because she doesn’t have a mom, because her family has ties to dark magic, because, because, because. She holds her head up high even when they snicker about how she’s named after a demon.

She finds an empty carriage, and tries her best not to cry.

Someone finds their way into it, and they tilt their head at her, curiously silent.

Abaddon snarls at them, because of course she does. “And what the hell do you want? Come to see a death-eater for yourself? I’ll have you know admission is ten galleons at the door, so if you want to keep staring, you better pay up,” she says viciously, like she has any modicum of control, like her cheeks aren’t burning high with shame.

They raise an eyebrow at her and take a seat next to her. “Can’t I just be here for a place to sit?”

She scoffs a laugh. “Sure,” she grins, snapping her teeth together.

Sure enough, they sit down and act like she’s not there at all.

It makes her restless — sure, it sucks when everyone hates her, but she’s not used to no reaction at all. “Hey. Hey,” she emphasizes, pouting.

“What?”

“Are you just going to sit there?”

“Yes.”

“Not even going to try to talk or something?”

“I’m sure you talk enough for both of us.”

“Well,” she says, mulling it over. “That’s fair. Can I at least get a name to go off of?”

They regard her carefully. “Cassiel,” comes the eventual answer.

She grins. “We’re going to be great friends, Cassie. I know it.”

“It’s Cassiel.”

“I know. But Cassie is so much more fun to say. Cassiel is too serious.”

There’s a long suffering sigh.

She keeps grinning, resolves to do everything in her power to keep them.

—

The sorting hat barely grazes her head before it yells out Slytherin, and no one’s surprised. Her robes flash velvet green, and her tie bears silver streaks through the luxurious emerald.

Cassiel gets sorted into Gryffindor, rich reds and golds adorning their robes, and she waves from her seat at the Slytherin table; this makes it even better.

Conflict is so much more fun.

year two.Hogwarts is funny in the way that they purposefully foster vicious house rivalries and proceed to have paired classes. Cassiel has to put up with her in potions, care for magical creatures, and transfiguration.

She’s really quite good at potions — but gets written up nearly every class for “too much flair” and “Abaddon don’t toss your silver knife like that”. Transfiguration is all about pretending you’re something when you’re not, and by any stretch of the imagination, fits her very well.

She’s terrible with magical creatures, though; they all hate her.

In stark contrast, they love Cassiel — something something calming presence, something something respect. Whatever.

She figures 3 classes together isn’t enough, especially because Cassiel hangs around Shibah more often than not… so she decides to start poaching their friends.

Adele is easy to befriend, and Abaddon likes to think that she oft gives the girl a much needed walk on the wild side.

Grace is next, and they get along great because everyone loves Grace, and Abaddon loves the spotlight. (Isaiah just seems like a kind of package deal thing, but he’s fun too. She coaxes him into tickling the giant squid for the hell of it, and he gets a row of tentacle mark bruises. She laughs for a week over that, but expresses remorse to get back into Grace’s… well, good graces.)

The Hufflepuffs are easy to hang around.

Unsurprisingly, Cassiel’s Gryffindor friends don’t like her much.

Either way, they start hanging out more because Abaddon went ahead and inserted herself into their friend group.

She supposes this is the last time Cassiel knows true peace.

year three.“Cassie,” she calls after messing up a spell, snickering. “Cassiel. Cassiel. Look.”

“What?”

“Darling, you’re so hot, I’m burning up,” she grins, brandishing her flaming sleeve like a trophy, nearly burning her cheek.

“Wh- Abaddon, why are you literally on fire?” Cassiel asks rhetorically, quickly summoning up some water and putting it out.

“Well,” she sighs happily, examining her smoking sleeve. “I think I’m a little burned. Kiss it better?”

Cassiel glares at her.

“God, it’s just a joke. You Gryffindors really need to touch up on your humor-“

Cassiel reels her in by her tie and kisses her solidly, pulling back with a self-satisfied “there”, and walks off before Abaddon can get her brain functioning again.

—

For the most part, nothing changes. Abaddon’s still an outrageous flirt, talking herself into and out of sticky situations in equal measure… and Cassiel endures.

But something must’ve changed, because they get looks when she maybe says things that are deemed a little too much and Cassiel just purses their lips in amusement and annoyance.

Grace notices something different, and seems to take it upon herself to set them up as much as humanly possible, because Abaddon starts noticing she gets more invites and definitely gets coincidentally squished as close as possible to Cassiel.

Grace Lowery, you really are a force of nature.

Abaddon steals a Gryffindor tie and a Hufflepuff tie so she can sit at their tables whenever she so pleases.

Yes, both Cassiel and Grace have to buy new ties.

year four.She joins the quidditch team and is one hell of a chaser. Something about being unpredictable in nature makes the whole predicting and saving her shots really quite difficult.

Cassiel joins the Gryffindor quidditch team as a keeper and she preens, because it’s inconceivable that the decision wasn’t influenced by her. (It really isn’t, but her ego is big enough to ignore that.)

—

Grace holds up Slytherin banners at her games, so Isaiah gets roped into doing it too.

—

“Hey there darling,” she greets, doing loop-de-loops near Cassiel’s goalposts.

“Abaddon,” comes the terse greeting.

“You’re looking good in your quidditch jersey,” she remarks off-handedly.

Cassiel doesn’t deem her with a response.

“Yeah,” she says, grinning, catching a nice pass. “You look like a real keeper.”

The line is so bad she scores off of it, and Cassiel’s glare promises a thousand retributions.

—

It’s always pretty even between them: Cassiel blocks just as many shots as Abaddon makes.

Evenly matched. Perfectly opposed.

She doesn’t know what else she expects.

year five.She takes up commentating on the matches she doesn’t play in. Professor Thornton probably laughs over and regrets it in equal measure. (In private, of course.)

Well, she’s quite good at commentating Hufflepuff vs. Ravenclaw.

Any matches Gryffindor plays in is a different story.

—

“Hogwarts,” she greets merrily. “What a beautiful day today! Incomparable to Gryffindor keeper, Cassiel, of course, but it really is lovely today,” she says, and Professor Thornton arches a brow at her in silent warning.

“Anyway, today’s match is Gryffindor versus Ravenclaw — and those blue chasers are something mean, which means Donny is benched. Allstars only, today, Donny boy, sorry. Plus, it’s downright criminal to bench Cassiel’s ass - I mean, it is top shelf.”

A pointed throat clearing gets her back on track.

“We’re off, and Gryffindor chasers lose possession immediately… nice going, Gabriel,” she says, receiving a pointed middle finger from said chaser.

“Sinclair to whoever that is,” she continues. “Streaking down the field… and a magnificent save from an equally excellent keeper. Sorry girls, only I score with — score against — them.

“Have I mentioned how excellent they look in their quidditch reds today? I’m of the opinion those jerseys would look better at the foot of my b-“

“Abaddon.”

“But that’s just me. Play continues with Gryffindor chaser Gabriel making a shot… for once. Surprising. Someone check the sky and tell me if pigs are flying. Actually, I can see for myself, and holy shit, they are. Wait, no, sorry, that’s still Gryffindor chaser Gabe. An honest mistake, Professor Thornton. Promise.”

—

She sneaks her way into Gryffindor’s celebration party afterward, studiously avoiding Gabriel while mixing dangerously colorful drinks all night.

—

People snicker at the oversized red robe she has on the next morning, but she’s too busy nursing a hangover to care. She groans when Cassiel dumps a green one in her lap unceremoniously.

year six.Whoever thought that she should be made a prefect should probably be fired. Or really, promoted, in her opinion.

She laughs so hard she cries when she sees the shiny prefect badge Cassiel bears.

So maybe she messes with the patrol schedules a little, but in her defense, she pleads preemptive self-defense, because she’s 90% sure that Cassiel is the only one who can last through patrols with her without actually hexing her.

Turns out, the patrols they end up on together are a little less productive than they should be.

They get locked into a classroom by Peeves, and no matter how many unlocking charms Cassiel casts, it’s no use. (She wonders if Grace bribed him.)

She, instead of helping, lines up a bunch of desks and lies across them and slings an arm over her eyes.

She can’t actually see what they’re doing, but it’s her personal opinion that they’re probably glaring over at her.

“What?” She asks after an extended silence. “I’m tired.”

“Then sleep.”

“Different type of tired. I’ve been chasing this whole time, Cassie. It’s your turn to think of some fun quips and interesting mischief to get ourselves in.”

“We’re locked in this room.”

“Improvise.”

There’s scraping along the floor and she peeks over curiously. Cassiel lines up some desks and lies there as well.

“Are… you sleeping?”

“I have a test tomorrow.”

She sighs. “We have a whole classroom to ourselves. No one can come in or out.There are so many more interesting things we could be doing right now, honestly.”

“Buy me dinner first, and we’ll see.”

She chokes.

“How’s that for witty quips? I’m going to sleep; don’t talk anymore.”

Abaddon agrees meekly.

—

Professor Thornton is, understandably, not amused to see them in sleeping in her classroom in the morning.

Abaddon leaves like a million cat pictures pilfered from Umbridge in her office later and hopes Professor Thornton gets a kick out of burning them, at least.

year seven.In the last quidditch match of the year, Gabriel gets a particularly vindictive knock on her mid air, and she can see Cassiel taking a nosedive on their broom as she falls. She passes out, but not before seeing them leaning over her, concerned and saying things she can’t make out.

She wakes in the hospital wing, and knows things are broken and still healing, but she storms out in her anger anyway, making her way to the astronomy tower, huffy and violently angry. There are a motley of bruises on her back and her shoulders ache, and every breath she takes only serves to make her angrier.

A fuss is kicked up once the nurse realizes she’s not in the infirmary, and it’s Cassiel that finds her, because of course it is.

She snaps at them when she hears their footsteps in the entrance of the tower. “Get the fuck out of here,” she says, back turned to them.

They settle next to her, instead.

She shoves back at them, ribs and back flaring up in agony when she does. “Why are you still here? Who says I want you here?”

Cassiel doesn’t say anything, but she can see their jaw clench.

“Oh,” she says coldly, laughing cruelly. “Don’t tell me you actually thought there was anything worthwhile between us. Sure, I had fun, but let’s not kid ourselves here,” she hisses, eyes narrowing, tone and words saying leave but every fiber of her being hoping they’ll stay. She can feel their anger at those words, and she shoves at them again because she knows she can’t actually keep them — and figures it’ll hurt less to just make them leave first. Seven years down the drain, but it’s not like they’ll keep contact after they stop being required to, right?

Cassiel punches her.

She instinctively cries out in pain and bites into her tongue, cutting it short, before grinning crazily, bloodily, over at them. “There it is. Finally had enough, right? Stop fucking holding back. Everyone leaves, so just leave now before you actually make me think you’ll stay,” she says weakly as her vision swims.

—

She wakes up in the hospital wing again.

Cassiel is standing guard this time, probably to insure she doesn’t leave her bed again.

“Why are you still here?” She asks, practically begging.

“Does there need to be a reason?”

“Yes,” she breathes. “I’m awful. I’m the worst. Everyone tells me this at least once a day. So why-”

“Yes,” Cassiel cuts across her. “You are something awful, but I’m staying anyway. It’s been seven years; when will you realize I’m not leaving?”

“I hate it when people make promises.”

“It’s not a promise.”

“Then what is it?”

“Just a fact.”

“Our seven years at Hogwarts are gonna be over soon,” she says tentatively, finally getting to the root of the problem.

“Improvise, then,” they shoot back.