The beast before her lunged, and the weight of him nearly knocked Belle on her ass. Again. And it certainly knocked the air out of her. She couldn’t even reprimand Kitten for all her wheezing.
While she struggled to breathe, Kitten continued to be unhelpful by attempting to clean out her nostrils with his absurdly long tongue. Then again, she wasn’t being much help either—she couldn’t stop laughing.
“Mama Belle!” Julius shrieked.
“H—,” she finally wrestled Kitten’s very large mouth away from her face. “Hello, Sweet Julius.”
The graveyard had signs of a little-but-not-for-long nightbeast all over it. The trees were covered with claw marks and there was a little cozy hole dug under Julius’ favorite tree. Shattered bones of small creatures littered the grove where most of Belle’s monster friends lived, and each of those monsters, clustered around her, wore a general air of annoyance.
In Xo, Belle greeted her friends. Tater, who hopped gently toward her, the beast’s glowing orange eyes blinking out of stony skin. Olive, the great, iridescent beetle with her pincers that could cleave Belle’s leg in two. Emmit, the bone-white tree in the shape of a large buck, moss hanging off him like a shaggy coat and great, pale, swirling antlers—
Alarm rippled through Julius’ magic first, and spread swiftly through the grove until all the beasts, including Kitten, whipped their heads around. Olive buzzed and clicked as she flew off to hide in the brush, and Emmit darted over to hide behind Belle. These beasts, deadly as they may look, were not the bravest souls—if they were, they certainly would have chosen a life outside the walls.
Belle swung an arm out, sending her magic in a wave through the forest of a graveyard, searching for whatever it was that the monsters sensed.
But before she found it, Julius announced, “HUGE MAN!” and disappeared into the trees with a flap of his leathery wings.
Belle and her magic froze. She clutched Kitten, who was really too big to be carried at this point, to her torso and watched the cool, smoky tones of Julius’ magic flit about until it came to stop before…
She must be hallucinating. Or dreaming.
A genuine scream of terror sliced through the night, making Tater swell in protest. Belle clamped Kitten even closer and dashed after Julius.
“Fuck you, sir!”
“Mother fucking Light!” Pait shrieked.
“Quiet,” Daivad growled.
“Tell that to him!”
“Fuck you!”
“Fuck you!” she shot back. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“I told you to wait outside the gate.”
“So I could get mugged?”
Whatever it was Daivad muttered next was lost in a growl.
Belle didn’t know what she’d expected to see when she finally got to the source of all the commotion. But she certainly hadn’t actually expected to see the two of them standing there, Daivad with Julius bouncing happily on his shoulder and Pait with both her middle fingers aimed at the delighted Julius. Or perhaps only one was for Julius and the other was for Daivad.
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Kitten squirmed and thrashed, wanting to investigate these guests, but Belle still couldn’t comprehend why or how this could be happening so she kept an iron grip on him and simply stared. Her mind worked furiously trying to make sense of this.
Unhelpfully, Daivad said nothing.
Beneath his hood, Belle could barely make out more than just his bright eyes, but his magic was swirling, shimmering stars rushing around a midnight sky. Pait’s magic, which Belle was pleasantly surprised to see was a bit cleaner and more lively than it had been when they’d parted at Luvatha, though still somewhat muddy, was roiling with nerves and embarrassment.
Instead of explaining himself, Daivad simply pulled from within his cloak a slightly smushed green-brown apple, which was snatched up by one long-toed foot the moment it was revealed.
“HUGE MA-UGHG!” The celebratory exclamation was mangled as Julius smashed the apple into his mouth.
“No, Julius—!”
Belle reached for Julius as he wedged the whole apple in his jaws and immediately began to gag, and Kitten took the opportunity to wiggle free of Belle’s arms and leap at Pait. Pait screamed again, and ran, which of course only made Kitten chase her.
“Kitten!”
In an attempt to dislodge the apple, Julius flapped his head around, hitting Daivad hard enough that Belle heard a distinct thunk as their skulls connected.
“Agh!”
“Julius! How many times will you take this lesson,” Belle said, confused, exasperated, and a second away from bursting into hysterical laughter-tears, “before you finally learn it? Just smoke and it will fall away.”
Still flailing, Julius cracked Daivad on the head again.
Smoke! Belle commanded in Xo, and Julius went still. He blinked once as if thinking, Oh, right, and dissolved into smoke. The apple fell and bounced off Daivad’s chest as Julius smoked over to Daivad’s other shoulder. Belle would have caught it except that Daivad had also reached to catch it and his hand hit hers.
Pait screamed again, and somewhere in the dark came Kitten’s delighted growl.
Kitten! Belle snapped, and the growl cut short.
A moment later, the little (big) beast came loping out of the darkness, grinning. His brilliant eyes fell on the slobber covered apple that now lay on the ground. He dove for it and snatched it up.
“No—!”
Julius shrieked “Fuck you, Small Cat!” and dove off Daivad’s shoulder, but Kitten was already zooming into the dark.
From some yards away, Pait’s exasperated voice shouted, “I’m going to wait outside the gate!”
And so it was only the two of them.
In silence.
Staring.
“What…” was the only word she could find.
Daivad finally knocked back his hood, but his face was still lost to his swirling midnight magic, at least in Belle’s eyes. She was still having trouble reconciling this. Believing he was really here. She had the strange urge to punch him in the chest.
“You alright?” was all he said.
She started to scoff “Yes,” but only got the yeh out before her heart lodged itself snug in her throat, cutting the rest off. Why were her eyes burning? She had to swallow her heart back down and try again, “Why the hell are you here?”
“You sounded…” He left it there.
Belle’s vision blurred. Just seeing those hints of him around the city was dangerous enough. Each time she used his magic to break open those bars, it broke the bars inside her a bit too. The ones that kept all her Chaos, all her broken edges safely contained. The ones that kept her together. But this wasn’t traces of magic a decade old clinging to rusty, stinking drainage grates, this was the very large man himself, standing before her. Here.
It was too much.
She punched him in the chest.
“Ow. Wh—?”
And then, against her better judgment, she fell against him, into his magic and let it swallow her up. His cloak was rough and thick, but even so heat radiated through—or maybe it was heat from his magic, washing all over her like the warm shallows of the ocean. His magic smelled as fresh and wild as Silvax Forest (even if his cloak smelled vaguely of sewage). She could almost imagine she was out at sea, galaxies reflected on the waves that washed over her, warm salt water tingling all over her skin. Sizzling down her cheeks.
Daivad did not move. Or say anything. Because—