In the morning hours, bustling traffic whirls and countless pedestrians stroll past a London flat complex on the corner of Burnes Street and Hilltop Lane. On the third floor in unit five of this complex is the new home to a very strange trio. The kitchen is ablaze with activity as Benimaru Kurogane—an eighteen-year-old boy with pitch-black scruffy hair and a tall, athletic build—stands in front of the stovetop. Frying pan handle in one hand and spatula in the other, even something as run-of-the-mill as cooking breakfast becomes a task he cannot fail.
He is so hyper focused. He does not even notice how the rest of the world continues moving faster around him. It is a habit he has been wanting to break out of for years.
He makes three plates full of scrambled eggs, sausage, and buttered toast. Placing them on a small table centered in the open floor plan that serves as the dining room between the kitchen and the living room, he then wipes his hands with the dish towel he has resting over one shoulder. Another job well done, he presumes, though it’s utterly trivial compared to his primary line of work. Still, if he never learned how to cook, they would be stuck forcing down burnt raw bits of black coal-like garbage from the stuff she always makes. No matter how much she tries, magic and cooking don’t mix.
Which reminds him, she should probably be up and in the dining room with him by now. But she isn’t. The seconds hand of the clock on the wall tick away at every instance in the background. He gets the encouragement to look at that clock and saw the time read at about seven thirty-two in the morning.
Damn it, he thinks. Does she plan on sleeping the day away?
On the most important day that will determine the fate of their next few years together?
Benimaru feels his teeth grind and his fists clench as he rushes into the hallway and stops in front of the bedroom door to his right. He knocks three times but then gets no response. He knocks again, harder this time and while calling out to her, “Hey, Felicia! Aren’t you up yet? It’s almost time to go!”
Nothing.
He decides to take a different approach. “Reynardo, you awake in there?! Shouldn’t you be getting your little mistress up for the day?!” He calls out to Felicia’s little rat of a faerie familiar.
Still nothing. His patience running dry, he goes for the doorknob, twists it, pushes the door forward and into the room.
As soon as he enters the room, it’s dark. Almost too dark. The window curtains are still shut, letting in only thin lines of sunlight from the sides inside. Even in the dark, he notices it as plain as day. Her room is a mess. Clothes, papers, snack wrappings, and books are scattered on the floor to the extent that he can barely see the carpet. He’s careful not to trip but eventually stumbles over her backpack also on the floor, cursing beneath his breath. He makes a mental note to be sure and scold her for that one, too.
Getting further into the room, he soon reaches the bedside where a lump in the blankets shows that Felicia, of course, is still sleeping soundly. Also at the foot of her bed is Reynardo in his smallish, golden fox form, curled up in a ball and snoring tranquilly. He isn’t covered by the blankets since he has got his fur to keep him warm.
“Ugh, why am I not surprised?” Benimaru quietly complains to himself, annoyed by the whole situation.
Knowing common methods for waking somebody up were meek and hopeless on her, he has to think outside the box. He first yanks off the blankets that acts as her shield even from what little morning light is seeping in. As soon as he does, Reynardo is tumbled sideways and fluttered along with the blankets, knocked off the bed, nose first, and his fox face hits the floor.
“Ouch! Hey, warn a faerie when you’re going to do that,” Reynardo snarls at Benimaru.
The black-haired boy glares viciously back at the golden fox faerie and says, “You should’ve warned me you were going to oversleep with Felicia. And you call yourself the responsible one.”
“Did I? Oh, shoot!” says Reynardo, blinking twice and jumping back up onto the bed.
Benimaru looks back at Felicia, and he is immediately exposed to a gentle heatwave along with her peaceful and graceful sleep.
Felicia is laying on her side, and her body was kind of curled into a ball. Her knees reach her chest, and she is hugging her pillow in both arms. She wriggles around on the mattress messing up the fitted sheet while trying to get comfortable again. Her very long shiny silver white hair glimmers when a ray of sunlight peeked over from the window. It spread onto her face, but she doesn’t flinch or twitch an eye, which both remain closed. With this, one can easily be fooled by her beauty and delicate form. That she is as elegantly and gracefully behaved as she appears to be. Benimaru and Reynardo know better, though.
Benimaru may have been tricked by her in the past, but in the two years they’ve come to know each other, he has learned many things on credulity, Felicia’s naturally feisty conduct, and her insolent mannerisms.
“Mistress, my Mistress! Wake up, please!” Reynardo starts shaking Felicia’s shoulder, much to the sleeping girl’s chagrin and swats at the fox fae with one hand.
“Very effective, you little rat,” Benimaru scorns.
Reynardo shows his sharp teeth while he stares at the human boy, looking about ready to take a nip at his face and manhood. “Oh, what? You got a better idea?”
“Hmph. Watch and learn.”
In his hand, he is holding a forkful of a sausage link that he had taken from the kitchen before coming into her room. He slowly waves the forked sausage back and forth in front of Felicia’s face and nose for a good several moments before she starts taking a few big whiffs. Benimaru has gotten her attention now. Moreover, he has gotten her to wake up. She doesn’t even open her eyes when she tries to snatch a bite of the sausage, following the scent of the meaty link and crawling on her hands and knees towards the edge of the bed. But Benimaru moves are much quicker. He retracts his hand, bringing the fork to his chest, and Felicia stumbles off her bed and falls onto the floor with a thud, face first.
As she gathers herself, putting her arms under her to pull herself up off of the rug, she says, “Ow, ow, ow! What was that for?!”
“You can’t keep doing this, you know,” Benimaru says looking down at her.
“Huh, what…what are you talking about?” she questions him groggily while rubbing the back of her head, messing up her already scraggly hair further, and her eyes were still closed, drawn to sleep.
“Seriously?! I know you’re lazy, but you’re not stupid,” he starts getting annoyed, but he is cut off by Reynardo.
“You need to get ready for school! If you’re late for your first day. Who knows what they’ll do to you. At this rate, your family won’t let you and me stay here in London much longer,” The fox familiar warns.
All of a sudden, Felicia’s facial expression changes from sleepy and confused to that of excitement and a feeling of ready to go. Without warning, she jumps to her feet, runs past both Benimaru and Reynardo, and goes straight to the window. She grabs ahold of the curtains with both hands and rips them open to the sides, finally allowing the sunlight to enter and banish the darkness engulfing her messy room. The window is actually tall enough that it reaches from the floor to the ceiling, so it lets in a lot of light. Despite having just woken up, Felicia Limoxberg doesn’t dare bat an eye away from the sun or the sights outside.
She has always wanted to live in the city, and now she is getting that chance. Smiling so big, the corners of her mouth stretching from ear to ear, and her bright aquamarine blue eyes wide with eagerness and hopeful anticipation.
As their flat is higher than anywhere, she’s ever lived before, she feels she could see out for miles beyond. Even if it’s only the third floor. She watches the rooftops of the buildings that were smaller and shorter, along with the pedestrians on the streets below. She gazes toward the much taller buildings in the distance with just as much joy. They all glimmer like stars. Shining, admired, resilient. To her, it’s all more magical than anything she or her family of mages or any other magic user in this crazy world for that matter can muster.
She, Reynardo, and Benimaru have arrived just a couple of days before, and this is the behavior she has been displaying ever since they first stepped foot into London.
“Uhm…Felicia?” Benimaru feels like he’s being kept in the dark about something by the way she is now.
She turns her head back to look at him and her familiar, and she exclaims with a grin, “This is going to be so great. I can’t wait to start today.”
“If that’s so, then you can start by getting dressed and eating breakfast. Who knows how long we have till we really have to get going,” says Reynardo.
“We have like five minutes,” says Benimaru.
Reynardo gasps.
“Yes, yes, right! Just a little bit longer, okay?” says Felicia.
“For what, to look out the window? You did that just most of last night!” says Reynardo.
“That was nighttime! This is daytime! Daylight gives you a better perspective, you know.”
Reynardo shakes his head from side to side. Benimaru sighs, puts one hand on his hip, and tilts his head to the side. They are both unbelievably frustrated, considering how much of Felicia they’ve tolerated over the years. For Reynardo, his love for his mistress runs deeply, and he would do absolutely anything to keep her safe and happy. For Benimaru, he has already learned that he cannot change her, no matter how hard he tries, but he has learned to put up with it. She is as stubborn as she is impulsive.
And so Felicia keeps looking out the window in awe, whilst Benimaru and Reynardo stay ten feet behind her, waiting for her to be finished. Benimaru closes his eyes impatiently and munches on the sausage on the fork still in his hand, sticking the entire link in his mouth.
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