Chapter Text
After the party had wound down and everyone from outside Diasomnia had left, Lilia found himself still wide awake. Silver had unsurprisingly started falling asleep while the party was still ongoing, but eventually Sebek had gotten too tired to keep poking him awake, and Lilia had waved them both off to their own rooms, promising to keep an eye on their liege for them. Malleus himself had bid Lilia goodnight scarcely an hour after that, leading a barely conscious Yuu to a guest room they could stay in overnight. It was still his birthday, so Lilia decided not to rib him for not just sending them straight back to their own dorm with magic. Well, not too much anyway. Malleus had, alas, decided he was too old to be tucked into bed sometime in the last century, so he left him at his door to go make sure Silver had actually made it to bed. He found him standing asleep in his room in his sleep clothes, so he carefully manouvered him into bed, and drew the covers up over him, just as he had ever since his son was just a little boy.
And so, with all his usual charges safe and sound in their rooms, and one temporary charge in a guest room, Lilia decided to log on and see if Gloomurai was up as well. It would be far from the latest that they had been online, though they might have decided to turn in early with both Yuu and himself unavailable. He spawned in the guildhouse, taking a curious look at the large section of the main hall that Yuu, under the direction of Gloomurai’s brother, had partitioned off. Over the past few weeks, Yuu had spent hours on preparations. Additionally, word had gotten around to the rest of the guild, and Gloomurai the Younger’s enthusiasm was proving incredibly infectious even through Yuu as a proxy. Everyone seemed oddly excited about the whole affair, even though this was hardly the first Forever Promise ceremony, even within the guild. Lilia kept getting messages of congratulations, and a quick perusal of the comments on Gloomurai’s avatar fashion blog showed much of the same. Lilia was starting to wonder if there had been a misunderstanding somewhere and everyone was under the impression that he and his friend were getting married for real.
All this was to say that there was a lot of buzz about the whole thing, and Lilia hadn’t gotten a chance to see what Yuu and their friend had put together yet, and here he was, in the guildhouse, without anyone who might distract him from taking a look online at the moment…
[Gloomurai] is now online
<Gloomurai> ur still up? arent u in TWST -8 too? its like 2am here
<Muscle Red> I could say the same to you, you know. In any case, I was unable to sign on at our usual time today, so I thought to try to run my dailies now before they reset.
<Gloomurai> same here. some1 asked me for a favor and it took almost all night. glad i got delayed if it meant i wouldve missed u earlier tho
<Muscle Red> The feeling is mutual. Now, how about we see about those daily quests?
<Gloomurai> aaaand thats the reset. glad we got everything done first
<Gloomurai> i gtg do in person things in a few hrs so im gonna catch some zs
<Muscle Red> Of course, don’t let me keep you. Sleep well!
<Gloomurai> u too, k?
[Gloomurai] is now offline.
Lilia leaned back in his chair and looked out the window. This time of year, the sky was only just starting to lighten up at the very edge of the horizon, and the sun would not be up for hours yet, but soon Sebek would be waking Silver up for their morning spar, and he liked the chance to watch their progress. Though this morning his joints didn’t seem eager to haul him downstairs. Ah well, the boys surely didn’t need him hovering over them every morning, perhaps he could take Gloomurai’s advice and get some sleep before the day really started. He’d get up in time to surprise them with breakfast before they ran to class. There was some ground beef in the fridge, that would be good protein to put in their oatmeal, especially with some melted blue cheese for the calcium. Putting a plan together in his head he rolled into bed.
He woke reluctantly to the beeping of his alarm, set to go off a few minutes before the veritable cacophony that Silver scheduled in case he fell asleep after his morning spar. Checking the time in case it was somehow not already 6:45, he sighed in disappointment. No time to cook anything for breakfast now. The rest had done him some good at least, and he was able to get through his morning calisthenics before he went downstairs. Malleus and Silver were enjoying the remains of their morning coffee, while Sebek scraped the last helping of scrambled eggs onto his plate. When he noticed Lilia entering, he looked at the eggs, and then pushed half of them onto a fresh plate, putting it at Lilia’s place before grabbing himself a bowl of cereal.
“Good morning, Fa-Lilia,” Silver half-mumbled into his mug, “you just missed Yuu, they had to get their school supplies from Ramshackle and make sure Grim was up.”
“Oh well, I was gonna make you all breakfast this morning but I slept in too late. Tell them I’m sorry I missed them if you see them today.”
Malleus muttered something like “Well that’s just as well then” , but met Lilia’s raised eyebrow with an entirely-too-innocent expression.
After everyone was breakfasted and had their things together was a largely uneventful school day. He did get the chance to talk to his clubmates at lunch though, and brought up wanting to thank Idia for helping with the setup. “He’s in your class, right, Cater? Do you know where I’m likely to catch him?”
“Ooh, tough question. He barely shows up to class in person, let alone hang around campus. We have an exam in Ritual Magic today though, so you might be able to- Oh, right! He’s in the Board Game Club, and they meet today, you can just go there after class.”
Lilia thanked him for the information, and after the rest of his classes were finished made his way over to the classroom where the Board Game Club held their meetings. They were setting up to work on their Culture Fair booth, some students gathered around a pile of papers and a holographic screen discussing something to do with the frequency of different types of spaces, while the rest were watching a different screen, showing a first-person view of a boat sailing across a sea next to Azul, wearing some kind of headset and holding a pair of controllers, as he turned his head side to side to direct the camera. Idia was with that group, taking notes, so Lilia stood back and waited until Azul pulled the headset off, shaking his head to clear it.
“We’re going to have to cut the naval combat challenge, even calm, smooth sailing is too unnerving. Players will definitely get motion-sick.”
“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Idia grumbled, “Ignihyde Student B is gonna complain though, he’s gotten really attached to the sea monster model he did, I even overheard him babytalking it while working on the death animation.”
Lilia crept up to them, waiting until he was hanging right behind Idia to speak up, “You know, you should really learn your dorm mates’ names.”
Idia let out a delightful little ‘Eep!’ of surprise and jumped in his chair, before twisting around to spot Lilia. “Sir Lilia!? What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I just wanted to thank you for helping out with the sound system last night. The performance went splendidly, especially the last song!”
“Splendidly!?” Azul protested, “I could feel my rib cage vibrate! ”
“That’s the best part!” said Idia, “When the bass line goes so hard your heart and lungs have no choice but to pump in time to the music, that’s when you know the song’s captured your soul! It’s one of the reasons I wish I could see a Premo concert live, plugging subwoofers into my PC just isn’t the same .”
Premo? That sounded familiar, Lilia cast about his mind for a moment. “Ah, you mean the band Precipice Moirai?”
“Wait, do you actually know them?” Idia raised a skeptical eyebrow, not quite hiding his earnest excitement.
“A friend of mine is a fan. I’ve seen a few of their music videos, but I’m afraid I can’t claim to be an ardent follower.”
“Pfft, he can’t be that big a fan if he hasn’t even made you listen to any of their albums.” Idia rolled his eyes and rummaged through his bag, pulling out a CD in a thick case. “Here, this one came with a random order bonus so I bought a bunch in order to get them all. I was gonna give most of these to Azul, but I guess you can have one, since your friend is clearly slacking on the job.”
Lilia took the proffered album, noting the figures of three women, holding a skein of some fiber, a spindle, and a pair of shears respectively, silhouetted in black against a brownish-orange, reminiscent of ancient pottery from the Land of Heroes. As he put it away in his bag, he heard the telltale hum of Ortho flying through the doorway.
“I got the extra holographic monitors from the dorm, where should I- Oh! Lilia Vanrouge!” Ortho quickly offloaded the small black projectors onto one of the club members and flew over to Idia, Azul, and Lilia.
“Hello Ortho, I was just thanking your brother for helping out last night. And thank you too, for whatever you said to convince him.”
“It was no problem at all, we had fun, right Idia?”
Idia stammered but did not contradict the sentiment.
“Anyway, I’ll be on my way now, you all seem very busy.”
“Yep! Idia’s club is making a VR board game.” Ortho’s face lit up. “Actually, that reminds me, once we’re ready for proper playtests, we might need someone who hasn’t been staring at the game for weeks to try it, would you like to help us out then?”
“Of course, if I could borrow one of you boys to help with the speaker set up again for the Pop Music Club’s booth?”
Ortho nodded, “Sure, we’ll be setting up the SDC first, but I can come over once that’s done.”
“That’s perfect.” Lilia wrote his phone number down on a handy sheet of graph paper (most of which had been dedicated to a map of some kind of forest), and turned to face Idia, who looked like he wanted to object. “Text me if you want me to come and help. I’ll listen to the album later today, and tell you what I think next time we see each other, okay?” Idia cut off whatever he’d been about to say and nodded.
Lilia turned and left the club. Once he was out the door, he heard the faint sounds of Azul trying to convince someone to let him look at a notebook, followed by a minor scuffle. He chuckled to himself, and started planning what to make for dinner tonight. Barley pilaf sounded good, and he could add sardines and the blue cheese he didn’t get to use at breakfast to round it out, nutritionally. Maybe tomato sauce too, to make it look more colorful and appetizing.