Our Beginnings [Fantasy AU]

Intermission: First Meetings

'What time is it...?' A small crow lifts itself off the ground, opening its eyes for seemingly the first time in days. 'Where... Where am I...?' The crow looks around, staring at the scenery around it. It seems to have remembered something. 'That's right... I...'

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A girl lazily walks up to her friends, bringing up a suggestion. "Let's go explore the forest~" A bold suggestion, really, considering every adult in the village constantly reminds the kids never to enter the forest.

A black haired girl with a red streak in her hair agrees, followed by the tallest of the group. The pink haired once agrees after the tall one, and the brown haired sensible one goes along with them to prevent any trouble.

They go forth and enter the mysterious forest and at the start everything is fine. Until the voice showed up. "Over here~" said the voice, and the curious gray haired girl followed, wanting to figure out the owner of the voice.

The girl is met with a lake, and leans down to see her reflection staring back at her. The next moment, she notices another reflection showing up. Unclear but there nonetheless. She panics, turning around.

But it's too late, the other reflection pushes her in the lake, and her vision fades.

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'Stupid! Why did I even do that?!' The crow thinks to itself. 'Oh well... there's no use regretting it now, huh? So this is the forest... Why does it look so much bigger than before?' She looks around again and spots the lake. She walks over to it, finding much difficulty in doing so.

She looks into her reflection, surprised to not find a cute girl in her reflection but instead a beaten looking crow with messy feathers covered with mud and dirt. 'Wh... Is that... is that me?' The crow stares at her own reflection in shock, her beak gaping back at her reflection. She can feel the forest laughing at her. The rustling of the tree's leaves, the gentle breeze sounding too much like the mockery of a child-

"Hello? Are you okay?" She snaps back to reality. The crow turns around and finds a cute girl with bear ears crouching down to look at her. She jumps back in surprise, almost jumping directly into the lake when the demihuman sticks her hand out to catch her. The demihuman succeeds and pulls her back to land. "Please be careful!"

The crow blushes in embarrassment, not that the demihuman could see it. "So, what's your name little crow?" The crow turns back to the demihuman, considering how to reply. She opens her beak to attempt to respond.

"My name is... Moca. You can call me Moca." The crow, Moca, was surprised that she had so easily said it in the crow's language. She'd never even thought there were different languages for different species. 'Wait, how did I know that?'

"Oh, Moca? That's a pretty name. My name's Misaki. I'm not the best at the language of crows so bear with me if I mistranslate sometimes." The demihuman, Misaki, scratches the back of her neck awkwardly. "You're lost, aren't you?"

Moca stops to think for a moment. 'So, I've been found in the forbidden forest by a total stranger and turned into a crow for mysterious reasons... Not the best idea to go this alone, I think~' She turns to Misaki and nods, hoping the simple action will convey her answer.

"Oh, then how about you come with me? I have a house not too far from here. It's a bit small, but I hope you don't mind..." Moca nods again. She's glad Misaki understands her, considering the fact that she's pretty sure not many else would. Misaki turns and starts walking in the direction of a denser section of the forest, and Moca trails after her.

She found following Misaki plenty difficult, attempting to trail after Misaki purely on her talons. She falls over for the 10th time within the last 5 minutes. She caws at Misaki, "Um... I might need a little help~"

Misaki turns around, finding the small crow lying on the ground, exhausted. "Can't you, I dunno, fly?" Moca caws again of frustration, and all that comes out is a groan.

"I don't know how to~" Moca comes clean with the truth, finding no reason to hide it.

"Oh. Well then." Misaki crouches down and extends her right arm, "Hop on, I'll take you to my home."

Moca gets back on her talons and hops up onto Misaki's arm, trying to grip hard enough to hold on but not too hard so as to not hurt Misaki. She caws, "Is this alright?"

Misaki replies with a simple smile and a nod, and they head off to her small home together.

Word Count: 799
A/N: Here's a short intermission before the next chapter! I'm probably gonna focus a lot on the bond between Misaki and Moca because I love them,, The next chapter is also gonna be about them but I swear this fic won't just be about Afterglow and Misaki!! It's just that I love them the most hdhdjd I'm planning on putting short intermissions between kind of main chapters sometimes?? Maybe.

Posted: 18/10/2019