"Why does everyone else have so much money except for me?" Aleister complained, shoulders slouched.
"No, the question is actually what I just asked. Why do you actually have no money?"
"Master La—" Myra coughed right at that moment, "Sorry, I seemed to have accidentally swallowed my spit."
"Accidentally, huh? Come on, you were so close! In fact, I'm seriously surprised that no one has messed up and said her full name yet."
"Master La?" Kyoko pondered to herself.
"Most people don't know her entire name in the first place," Myra added.
"At least I know her name starts with the letters La. That only narrows it down from infinite to still technically infinite if it's completely unique."
Kyoko's eyes widened, and she slammed the bottom of her fist into her palm. "Oh, you mean Aunt Lavinia!"
Myra swallowed her own saliva for real this time.
"It's true, she tells no one her name, and when she does, she refers to herself as Master Laag, which is actually the middle name of my godfather, believe it or not," Kyoko said in a very everyday tone.
Aleister stopped walking, too. This revelation reminded him of the one he learned about around a month ago.
Kyoko seemed oblivious to their reactions as she continued to talk. "I didn't realize you two were students of her's. That doesn't explain why you wouldn't have any money though, you should have even more than me."
"Alright, slow down. Just wait one second." Aleister took in a deep breath. "Okay, you may continue."
"I have nothing else to add," she said. "Wait, no, one more thing. I just remembered that Uncle Gilmore returned to Osetia recently. That would mean you're his adopted son, no?"
"What a small world we live in, huh?" Aleister said. Thinking about such things made him think about what would have happened to him if Gilmore wasn't the one who found him? There was no chance for it to have been better, only worse.
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"That technically makes me your cousin, huh?"
"If that's the case, as my older cousin, you should give me money."
"I don't have any on me, and why did you already conclude that I'm older? You're probably older than me!"
"I'm still only seventeen," he said.
Myra finally shook out of her daze as she wrapped her head around the situation. "Really? I thought you were older than me for sure, but you're like, the same age as me."
"Then, that really does make me older," Kyoko said with a sigh. "I turned nineteen a few months ago in Transus."
"My birthday is at the end of Trium," Myra said. "That is when I will turn eighteen."
"Thirteenth of Unius over here," Aleister said. He remembered his birthday thanks to his now lost and destroyed book of fairytales. In it, he would make small marks that counted each passing day. "I turned eighteen back then, which makes you the youngest here."
"Ah, to be a young again," Kyoko said as she placed the back of her hand on her forehead.
Aleister rolled his eyes. "You're barely older than the two of us."
"Yes, but I feel old compared to you two."
"How?" he questioned. "You have a younger sister, don't you?"
"Oh, you actually remembered Nana?" Kyoko asked, surprised that he would remember her from their less than brief interaction.
"Only vaguely, I didn't even remember her name, just that she called you older sister.""
"The term sister is just how we all refer to one another, though."
"I know, but you two looked alike."
"Humph! We do not look similar at all!"
"I would need to see her again to refute that."
"All of you have, like, same look with the weird clothing you wear," Myra said.
"You dislike it too!" Kyoko took her hood off and unwrapped the black cloth around her head. This exposed her long black hair hidden underneath it. "It gets really annoying sometimes."
"I just realized, aren't you supposed to have fox ears and tail?" Aleister asked. "Where are they?"
"Us Kitsune have three different forms," Kyoko started to explain. "The first is our fox form, which you will never catch me in. It's too small and cute and awkward and embarrassing for now. The second is our human form, which is exactly what it sounds like. Then we have our hybrid form, which is also exactly what it sounds like."
"How do you change between them?" Aleister asked. "Do you just think about it and it happens?"
Kyoko brushed her head with her hand. Two black ears folded up in such a natural manner that it appeared like they were there the entire time. "So the answer to your question is yes. I just think about it and it happens. But it looks silly. That's why I did the whole hand motions, to take your attention away from this." She stroked her fluffy black tail forward.
"You only have one tail?"
"I almost have my second, just, give me a few weeks," she said, voice excited. "We grow an additional tail with each increase in our rank, which is why I only have one and my mother has seven."
A Rank Seven Weaver, huh? Aleister couldn't even fathom how long it would take to reach the peak. Especially when he still hadn't broken through. "Oh, we're already here," he said, waking up from his deep rumination, not realizing how long they had already walked for. He knocked on the door. Phisvaelte opened just a few moments later.