{The Next Afternoon}
~Darius POV~
"Now everyone's here." Alador said as we went into his house.
"Raine's here already?" I asked.
"They've been here an hour." He shrugged.
"Ah." I said, a little embarrassed.
We went into the living room. Raine was on the couch. I noted a few of Alador's projects in the corner. He really has been working on abomination themed technology.
"So, what are we supposed to animate?" Alador asked Raine and I.
Right, we didn't discuss that.
"I brought a doll." Raine said, taking a doll out of pocket.
It's a small doll, not much bigger than the palm of their hand.
"That works." I said.
Alador nodded.
"The moon won't reach position for a few hours so we could all just get to know each other." Raine said. "I'm curious how the two of you met. Your 'platonic' relationship intrigues me."
"Why did you say platonic like that?" I asked.
"No reason." They replied.
"It's kind of embarrassing." Alador admitted.
"I wanna hear it." Raine stated.
"You aren't going to stop bringing it up until we tell you, are you?" I asked.
"Nope." Raine answered.
I sighed.
"Fine." Alador started sheepishly. "We were 7 and we both were trying to get into the advanced class at Hexside."
[Flashback To Roughly 10 Years Prior]
~7yro Alador POV~
That couldn't have gone worse! None of my spells worked! I embarrassed myself in front of the principal! I'll never get into the good classes!
To avoid getting rejected, I hid in an empty classroom.
{Half An Hour Later}
~7yro Darius POV~
My abomination blew up on stage. If I can't make a simple abomination correctly I'll never get into the older classes.
I went inside an empty classroom.
"Stupid! Darius! Stupid! Can't you make a simple abomination!" I snapped at myself.
In my anger I kicked the teacher's desk. A yelp came from it and I stopped. Did...did the desk just yelp? Desks don't normally yelp. I walked to the other side and looked under it. A boy my age was hiding there. Did he yelp?
"Did you yelp?" I asked. "Did I scare you?"
He just pulled his knees to his chest and held his arms around them.
"Boys aren't supposed to get scared." He said.
"Your parents tell you that?" I asked.
He nodded.
"My mom does..." He mumbled
I knelt down.
"My parents say that too. Well it's nonsense! My uncle says boys can be scared!" I said and he looked up. "'Boys can't be scared.' 'boys can't cry.' 'boys can't be blah blah blah.' it's nonsense."
He laughed and I crawled under the desk next to him.
"Why are you hiding?" I asked.
"I messed up in a test." He said. "I want to be in the big kid class but I messed up the test. No one in class likes me so I thought if I got in the big kid class someone finally would. Maybe I'd make friends. I wouldn't be a weirdo anymore."
"You seem pretty cool to me." I said. "I'll be your friend."
"Really?" He said, letting go of his legs and looking at me.
I nodded.
"Yep. Us weirdos have to stick together!" I said. "I'm Darius. What's your name?"
"Alador." He said.
[Flashback End]
~Darius POV~
"And that's how we met." I said.
"Told you it was embarrassing." Alador said. "We were really dramatic 7 year olds. We had nothing to worry about, we got into the advanced classes."
"That wasn't embarrassing, that was wholesome." Raine said.
"You're too easily impressed." I said.
"I'm a sucker for a good backstory." They shrugged.
"I wouldn't call that a good backstory but okay." Alador shrugged.
"We told you how we met, now how about you tell us how you met Eda." I suggested.
"Sure." Raine said.
{A Couple Hours Later}
"It worked! It actually worked!" Raine exclaimed as the doll stood up.
We all stared at it for a minute.
"This is...underwhelming." Alador stated.
"Yeah." I agreed.
"We can make it so stupid things." Raine suggested.
"Why not." Alador and I said.
{The Next Day}
"See you at school." I said as Raine and I left Alador's place.
"See ya!" Alador said.
He went inside and closed the door. Raine and I started down the road.
"You successfully passed the gay test." Raine told me.
"The...what?" I asked.
"Gay test. It's not a real test, it's a joke I use when someone falls for their same-sex straight best friend." They explained.
"I'm sorry, what are you on about?" I said.
"While I now know Alador's straight, it's still obvious you're into him." They explained again.
"I am not-" I started.
They raised their eyebrow.
"Fine." I sighed. "But don't tell anybody. Not Eda. Not Lilith. Not anybody."
"Okay, okay." Raine laughed.
Alador's house is off the main path so Raine and I have to go through the woods to get back to town. I still don't know why his parents moved out here but at least the woods are nice. We talked as we walked.
{2 Hours Later}
I'm pretty sure Raine and I are lost but I haven't mentioned it yet. It should only take an hour to get from Alador's to the market but we've been out here for 2 and there's no end insight.
"Then Eda flipped out and started casting random spells." Raine said. "Spells flew everywhere! Lilith and I had to hit the deck. It was crazy. I thought we were gonna die!"
They kept going on about how the other day Eda, Lilith, and them got cornered some wild beast demons.
"Sounds like you guys had fun." I laughed.
Whimpering came from nearby.
"What was that?" I asked.
"I don't know." Raine answered.
The whimpering came again. We followed the sound. There was buzzing and a light flickered from a clearing. Fire bees.
"There's something there...the bees are surrounding it though." Raine said.
I squinted. A small orange and red creature lay cowering in the middle of the clearing. There's too many fire bees, it can't escape.
"We have to help it." I said.
"Obviously." Raine said.
They summoned an instrument. They strummed a wind spell and I cast an ice spell. Our spells combined and created an isolated snow storm. Most of the fire bees sizzled and got buried under snow, while some buzzed off to avoid the fate of the others in their hive. We released the spell and slowly approached the creature. It growled.
"Let me approach it first." I said to Raine.
Raine nodded. I knelt on the ground and ever so slowly crawled over to the creature. It growled and I reached my hand over. It sniffed me. It whimpered and I got closer.
"Are you hurt?" I asked it.
It whimpered again and nodded towards its front paws.
"A cut." I said. "Not a small one either."
I cast a spell to summon my sewing kit. I don't have any thread the healing coven uses for stitches but I have some regular thread.
"Raine, do you have any hand sanitizer or alcohol wipes on you?" I asked.
"Yeah, here." Raine handed me a mini hand sanitizer.
"Can you hold it, this is gonna hurt." I said.
They crouched and held the creature. I put some hand sanitizer on then tried my best to use a little hand sanitizer to clean the cut. The alcohol in hand sanitizer should do the trick. The creature howled and tried to escape Raine's grasp but they held on tight. I grabbed a brand new needle, attempted to sterilize it, and threaded it.
"The worst is over but this'll pinch." I told the creature.
I sutured the cut. The creature struggled but Raine held it as still as they could.
"And...done." I said. "That wasn't too bad, now was it?"
Raine let go of the creature. It started to walk around, testing its leg.
"Be careful. The stitches could rip." I told it, though it obviously didn't understand me.
It made what sounded like an approving sound then ran off.
"How did you know how to do that?" Raine asked.
"My uncle's in the healing coven. He taught me a few tricks." I said. "By the way, do you have any idea what kind of creature that was?"
"No, not really." They said. "It's new to me."
"Oh, it said 'thank you', by the way." Raine told me.
"How did you know that?" I asked.
"I'm a bard, we can understand music but also sounds. The demon's approving sound was a 'thank you'." They explained.
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(Those of you who saw the episode last night, you will understand my excitement at these images.
Shipped. Heavily shipped. I've shipped them for awhile now and this fucking scene has me more excited than Luz when she became Eda's apprentice in Season 1. IT LOOKS LIKE DARIUS WANTS TO KISS ALADOR BUT GOT TOO FLUSTERED! THIS SCENE IS SO CUTE! Never have I been more excited over a ship than this one. I love them. They deserve happiness with each other. Anywayyyyy, Happy Easter if you celebrate it.)