NOTES:
——-

———

After getting released, and picking up Grim from Heartstabyl, she returned to the dorm that morning and simply sat on the couch for awhile, taking in the peace of it all.

Upon looking up after awhile, she noticed the ghosts of Ramshackle around her, relief danced across their faces.

"Kid, you're back! We were wonderin' where you've been!"

"Had us real worried, kiddo."

"We thought you might of joined us in the afterlife!"

Rubbing her eyes abit, she then looked down at the blanket currently on her lap, twiddling the loose ends in her fingers.

"Sorry for scaring you guys. Has everything been alright since I've been gone?"

Phil shrugged as he fixed his hat.

"Got real boring, but nothing major."

Erza, who was seemingly quilting something to her left, piped in.

"We found us an old hatchet and some brooms, and we've been doing some dusting and cleaning, and that purple guy dropped off a ton of stuff he said was for you.
We also heard a thing or two about what happened from some Rose Guard Ghosts."

Gus floated over with a small cup of hot chocolate, placing it carefully in her hand.

"I'm real impressed you handled that situation so well, I know I would of been scared enough to die again!
Glad that magepen we gave ya came in handy too, some guy in green said it absorbed some of the magic's damage, but more careful next time, ya hear? Its not time for you to join us just yet."

Nodding, she blew on the beverage, and took a sip, surprised at how excellent the flavor was.

"I understand. Oh, by the way, this is really good!"

A certain hellcat nearly made her drop it as he jumped on her lap.

"Hey, lemme try!"

"We already told ya its for the little miss!"

Waving her hand, she got up and grabbed a second cup, pouring a bit of the drink inside.

"Thanks you guys, but its ok. He can try some for now."

"Haha! Take that!"

"Hey, be polite about it or you're getting none!"

———

The fact nothing had happened genuinely felt wrong.

No problems, no issues, no nothing for two whole days. Anywhere else, she would be delighted, but at NRC, it was blatantly concerning.

The only interaction she had besides Grim and the ghosts was Ace and Deuce visiting twice, Silver once to deliver a spare key to Diasomnia, and Crewel delivering her school schedule and an official uniform, aswell as setting up a date to decide on her dorm uniform, dorm crest, and shop for necessities.

Grim had been oddly sleepy for the first day aswell, and just like Ace had said the morning of the overblot, she apparently had become the personal napping spot and heater.

So, in the trying times where she couldn't move as not to disturb him ( and just in general out of boredom and curiosity), she'd begun reading the concerningly large books Riddle had gifted her.

Admittedly, the one she found most interesting in was the one about different Fae species, natural tendencies, and more.

Maybe it was because they didn't exactly exist in her world, and unlike Beastmen and Mermen, its not like she had real animals to base her knowledge from.

Flipping to a new page, Ophelia glazed her eyes over it, muttering the words out loud.

"Untrue to popular belief, vampiric fae are not harmed by garlic, and many quite enjoy it. Back in the day, some used to put on a show to make it seem taboo in hopes of gaining more from the superstitious attempting to poison them with it-.... I fucking knew it! Take that, Jules!"

The glee in her heart stooped upon the reminder of her friend, and that she would have to wait for who knows how long to lord it over him that the once joke theory of hers was true.

Finding her phone, she opened to call him, even if the result was obvious. Nothing, straight to voicemail.

Sparking her memory of voice mail in general, the brunette opened her own, finding several sent from him.

She clicked to the first, and the voice of her friend came through.

"Hey, Es, its Julian. You ok? I haven't seen you at school for 2 days.
With your luck, you probably got kidnapped or cursed by that mirror you found on Sunday or something equally as batshit, but call me back when you can.
Also, that first part was a joke, but if you actually did, I-".

It cut out there, so she followed up to the next one.

"Estelle, if you're hearing this before I find you, What the actual fuck happened?!
You've been legally declared a missing person! And don't you dare start singing 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 Goodbye Earl to yourself after you hear that!

His voice fell fainter, more solemn now.

"Seriously, ...Where are you? ...I miss you."

It stung. More than all injuries from the battle did, more than every splinter and scratch she had received from Ramshackle, more then anything she had experienced here.

The surreal feeling of knowing someone is waiting for you, and you can't tell them you're ok.

Wondering how one damn impulsive decision tumbled itself into not only fucking herself over, but the fact she forgot how much it was messing up the lives of the people who cared for her back home.

The only thing she could think to do was push away the tears trying to escape, and lock them back away in that tiny jar in her mind.

Luckily (or not), she felt as Grim stretched in hazy awakening, curious blue eyes peeping up at her.

"Who the heck are ya talking to?"

Glumly, she looked down at her old device, trying not to sound all too weepy.

"Oh, its just my friends voice mail, I wanted to see if I could call him, even though I knew it was kinda hopeless. "

Grim climbed to sit up on her lap, blanket still on, and tiny brain trained on her phone.

"It sounded like a buncha gibberish to me."

"That's probably because you don't know English. Its one of my worlds main languages."

His tail swished a bit as he huffed.

"Thats impossible! The Great Grim knows everything! I know what an Alien sounds like, and that ain't it!"

Amusement overtook her desire to correct him, so she kept going.

"Then what do they sound like?"

"You, duh!"

Kicking down all the questions in her mind that bubbled up at the sound of that, she mimicked pondering about what he had said.

"Well, what if I perfected your language in a single day, found a translation spell and or potion, or someone blessed me with instant fluency? Doesn't that mean people in my world could sound like that?"

"No way! We've been a two for one package since you—"

The hellcats looked down as if questioning everything he knew, then snapping his head back up with wide eyes.

"Wait a second, when ya came out of the coffin, you said some gibberish too. Then you said something in ...Spinach?"

"You mean Spainsh?"

Crossing his tiny little arms, he nodded.

"Yea, that. Then ya said more gibberish, then we ran into the horned guy, and thats when you started randomly speaking normally!
I thought ya just were intimidated by the aura of the Great Grim, but maybe its got somethin' to do with him."

𝑯𝒐𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒉𝒊𝒕.  𝑾𝒉𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒅𝒊𝒅𝒏'𝒕 𝑰 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕?! 

𝑻𝒊𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈? 𝑪𝒉𝒆𝒄𝒌! 𝑪𝒂𝒑𝒂𝒃𝒊𝒍𝒕𝒚? 𝑪𝒉𝒆𝒄𝒌'

𝑵𝒐𝒘 𝑰 𝒈𝒐𝒕 𝒂 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒅 𝒐𝒏 𝒇𝒊𝒈𝒖𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒐𝒖𝒕, 𝑰 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒏𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒊𝒓𝒎 𝒊𝒕....𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒉𝒐𝒘.

———-

On the third day of "very nice inside don't have to talk to most people" time, Grim had begun bothering her to go outside, the traitor.

This development lead to the semi-joke debate they were currently having, one in which the brunette attempted to view the manga she had been sent digitally while the hellcat pawed at her tablet for attention.

"I don't get it, whats so great about stayin' inside all day?"

"Because we have everything we need for the time being, right? Why go outside at all?"

Flumping down on the bed and rolling over, belly up, he grumbled, tail swishing about as she began listing.

"We have a roof."

"Yeah, a leaky one."

"A TV.."

"It's broken!"

"Fresh-ish food..."

"We don't even know where it came from! And we're almost out'a tuna!"

"Ok, well...It's nice and cold in here."

"So?"

"—Theres books to read.."

"Your books are boring!"

"Boring is relative. Anyway, theres no people we have to deal with.."

"We have dead people floatin' around here all day!"

"Fine. No physical people. But we—ACK!"

An obnoxious amount of fur suddenly covered her sight, momentarily stunning her.

"Guess who?"

Falling backwards onto the bed as a failed attempt at escape, she gave an attemptive angry pout at the attacker when she sat back up.

"Che'nya! I thought you were with Riddle and Trey!"

"I was, and now I'm not. I will be again someday. Now I'm here with mew."

Grim took multiple attempts at trying to successfully jump on the Cheshire, all for naut, however.

"You never make any sense! How didja become the Great Cat King like that?!"

"I am the cheesiest in all the land. They worship the cheese."

"The heck does that even mean?"

Watching the plumette flying in circles, Ophelia looked on in confusion.

"Is there something you need?"

"Nope!"

"Then why are you here? "

"Why not?"

"Because now that Riddle and Trey are pretty much safe from now on, and on a logical premise, I would think you would prefer to hang around Heartstabyl with them."

The Cheshire plopped down on the bed, tilting his head slightly at her comment.

"Is mew're logic "because he's known them longer?"

"Yea, pretty much. Plus, you've got alot of lost time to catch up for with Riddle."

"Logic is not logic if your logic is too logical.
Then logic isn't the answer anymore because the answer is always changing purr person.
Mew and Riddles are going to be hanging out togethpurr more often anyway. Two jabberwocks with one crown."

Rubbing her temples and giving up entirely on deciphering his nonsense, Ophelia shifted on the bed, sighing.

"Theres not much to do in Ramshackle, unless you have any genius ideas that don't involve going outside in broad daylight."

"Wha—You just said we had everything we needed! And Books!"

"Thats called necessities, Grim. I just think staying inside is better for now."

"Why? Its not like purr going to disintegrate if mew do."

"But I might fuck things up. Again. So much is happening that I wasn't ready for, I don't want to take anymore risks to add to it."

"You can't hide away from interacting with other people purr ever you know. Face it whiskers first. Might not be as bad as mew think."

"But it might!"

Che'nya stared at the ceiling a moment, then slowly began to disappear , leaving her groaning in slight agitation as she threw herself back down on the bed, Grim sauntering over to lay down on her stomach.

"I think I might go insane at this rate."

"You better not, Henchhuman!"

Stifling a laugh, Ophelia looked down at the direbeast getting comfortable on her with a small smile.

"Are you insanity blocking me, Grim?"

"Yea! Now be quiet! I wanna nap!"

After a while, they both fell asleep, Grim having moved from her stomach into her arms.

———————-

——————

On the last day before her first real school day, Grim went from sleepy to mildly being okay with her lazing nonsense to rabid energetic rocket, and was no longer willing to be contained inside, to the dismay of her newly developed Hobbitness.

Warning nobody should need: Grim Zoomies involve alot of fire. And mass destruction.

This lead to him being chased twice, food theft, several crispy uniforms, nearly getting attacked,  and the now current issue, which was attempting to sleep on the adrenaline that all gave her.

Grim was out in four seconds, but, even with her exhaustion, Ophelia couldn't sleep.

With the revelation of yesterday in mind, she stared at the front door, squinting in contemplation.

𝑵𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒐 𝑰 𝒈𝒐 𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒔𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒚 𝒕𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒆 𝒊𝒇 𝒉𝒆'𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒔, 𝒐𝒓 𝒅𝒐 𝑰 𝒂𝒗𝒐𝒊𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒘𝒌𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒓𝒚𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒌 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒉𝒊𝒎 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒓𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒂𝒔𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒑 𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒊𝒏?

Taking a few steps forward, she gave the door a second once over.

𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒂. 

𝑭𝒖𝒄𝒌 𝒊𝒕. 𝑾𝒆 𝒃𝒂𝒍𝒍

She momentarily ran back to grab the book she had been reading the day prior, as to not feel like her actual motive for being outside was obvious, took an extra one aswell , then ran back and turned the knob.

The door clicked open easily, and she took two steps outside.

All was silent, for the most part. The porch light was no longer with us, but all else was the same as the time of the night before the overblot, when she'd last gone out so late. 

Cautiously, she placed the books down and waddled off the porch, scouting for any signs of him.

In the beginning, she spotted a single firefly, tailing it to see if it lead her further to any clues.

Ok, yea, she may have ended up following a now growing group of fireflies further then she could tell where she was actually headed, but curiosity got the best of her.

There was also the fact she was wearing no shoes, just socks, in the dark with no handheld light source, and could no longer see Ramshackle, but her brain had skipped around that.

Not many thoughts occur in the brain of a tired boarding school student at 2 am.

At some point, the cluster of fireflies finally stopped, and gave light to where she had accidentally followed.

It was an beautiful abandoned stone building , decaying beyond recognition. From where she stood, she could make out quite a few gargoyles along the roof, and two grotesques by the doors.

Trailing the fireflies up the stairs, Ophelia glanced at one of the two grotesques, dusting off a few leaves to read the engraving.

Which she discovered she couldn't. No tablet. But a deep voice from behind her read it out, as if from memory.

"The grotesque on your left is Dedicated in memory of Evangeline , the one on your right in memory of Ray, it reads : "He spoke of you each time he saw the stars, so now you may watch them together forevermore." "

Trying not to jump out of her skin, Ophelia turned around slowly, doing anything possible not to show her nervousness as she faced him.

"Are you interested in architecture, Child of Man?"

——————————

—————

NOTES:

GUESS WHOS BACK FROM THE DEEEEAAADD

Just kidding, Writers block had me in a chokehold, but I still have come out victorious!

Shorter Chapter, but we are finally FINALLY back on track, huzzah.

See y'all in the next!