Leaves of Dawn

In the end, Astrid was WORN OUT from the party. She wasn’t much of a party girl, but somehow the atmosphere of their private little gathering had become very festive. Their initial reunion stretched all the way past midnight and... well, they had really partied hard. 

At some point, Solomon had pulled out a speaker. Now, on its own, that wasn’t too bad. It allowed Astrid to discover Rainier was a big classical music guy—which did make sense given how elegant he was. 

What didn’t make sense though, was Solomon revealing he was very into EDM. In fact, post-dinner, he had pulled out a set of strobe lights somehow... 

Following a night of dancing, chatting, and just hanging out, Astrid did get to know everyone a lot better though. Estelle was always goofy, but she still was charming. Any time Estelle began dancing, Astrid felt her jaw drop to the floor as Estelle took absolute control of the dance floor.  

Plus, they had all done some impromptu acting and Estelle really could be seductive, mature, and cool whenever she wanted... 

Too bad she was busy praising herself as the star of the world all day. 

Yet, if Estelle could be mature, then Sylvia just... was. 

If Solomon and Joanna were like cheerful grandparents, albeit with very youthful sides to them, Sylvia was like a stern, but warm mother. 

Valencia, as always, was her chaotic self, but if Astrid had to say, she felt like the no-f’s-given aunt... 

Astrid felt her descriptions alone spoke to how unique the friend group dynamic was. It was weird. Not in an alienating way, but in an “I’m amazed these people even exist” type of way. 

Having exchanged her phone number with everyone though, Astrid was excited to hang out with them more! She had already decided to go clothes shopping with Estelle after the latter leaned into her ear with a “devious plot.” 

It was just to surprise Valencia with a couple new dresses—and Astrid had no qualms about those types of plots! 

Valencia too, had reassured Astrid that each and every one of them were strong, so there was no need to worry about not being safe as long as she went out with anyone among them! 

Hearing Valencia’s reassurance, Astrid let out a sigh of relief. Even though Marcen’s Cliffs was a great city, it was... dangerous. The fact a (pseudo)war broke out spoke for itself! Thus, Astrid was happy to have more people who were safe to go around with. 

She didn’t want to burden Valencia all the time and having some more independence never hurt. 

As Astrid had waved goodbye to everyone though, Estelle stayed behind. Doing an idle shuffle dance, Estelle just hung around for a couple seconds until Joanna, Solomon, and Rainier had all left. 

“By the way, I know it’s not the best time to make plans like this, but I thought I’d mention it.” Estelle grinned while leaning forward to get a little closer to Valencia and Astrid. “A certain birdie told me that you two wanted to go visit the academies.” 

“Yeah, but we don’t want to ally ourselves with them,” Astrid sighed as a yawn climbed its way out of her mouth. 

“Well, you know how Solomon and Joanna work for the Library of Truth?” Estelle teased, spinning on one foot. “I help them out as well on occasion, and they have a certain assignment for me to do an audit on all the academies after the little plaza incident. I have some other stuff I need to do first, but I’ll be carrying it out in a couple months. I’ll let you all know, mkay~? You two can tag along for one of them.” 

“W... Why thank you,” Valencia murmured, pulling Estelle in for a rare hug. “How did you find out anyway?” 

“As I said, a little birdie told me,” Estelle sang as she spun on her heel before motioning towards Sylvia. “Let’s go, Sylvia. You can crash at my place tonight.” 

Linking arms with Estelle, Sylvia turned back towards Astrid and Valencia before winking and whispering. “I’m the little birdie by the way. Don’t mind it, I have my ways~.” 

Baffled, Astrid watched them walk off into the night until Valencia hugged her from behind. Raising her arm to cradle Valencia’s head, Astrid turned and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Yes?” 

“I just don’t want you to worry about it too much. It was probably a literal bird that overheard us talking. Sylvia can talk to animals after all.” Valencia reassured while returning Astrid’s peck with one of her own. 

“Oh. I see.” Astrid stood there with a blank “Oh” expression. 

That would in fact explain it. 

Heading back into the store, Astrid just shook her head as it rebooted. Doing some light cleanup with her lovely girlfriend, Astrid was amazed. The powers everyone had were all as amazing as Valencia’s... 

Well, technically Astrid’s powers fell into the category of “amazing” too, but it just wasn’t every day that someone could meet so many people with such... cool powers.

Basking in her residual adrenaline and happiness from the party, Astrid spent the next half an hour or so enjoying a quiet cleanup session with some light conversation. Then, before they even knew it, the cleanup was over and they headed off to bed. 

And so began a peaceful period. 

In the blink of an eye, several months had passed as Astrid and Valencia fell into a routine. Valencia focused on running the shop as the store gained an ever-growing consistent customer base. 

Astrid, on the other hand, enjoyed the months beside Valencia. 

Throughout her life, Astrid had dealt with something called ‘immensely bad health.’ It left her gasping for breath at any exertion, home alone, and in a toxic relationship with ‘pain.’

Yet, over the months, Astrid wasn’t sure why, her health improved by leaps and bounds! Her strength was increasing by the day! Even running became possible without sacrificing the next few days of her life to bed rest!

Astrid’s skin was taking on a healthier tone, and, in general, things were just... peaceful. She was content! She, with all her heart, wished the future would be filled with similarly lovable days. 

Astrid helped with the shop every day, went to the artist’s gathering every weekend, and dotted her life with various other small activities. 

As for some notable ones, Astrid couldn’t help but remember a handful of... interesting moments. 

Tatiana, Jarace, and Eugene, the three artists she had met from the first artist gathering, had begun coming over to the cafe on a semi-regular basis. Tatiana and Jarace quite liked the aesthetic too! So much so that they mentioned wanting to redo a section of their “palace” back home to match it... 

Them mentioning a “palace” clued Astrid in on them two being uber-rich, but she didn’t ask any more questions. 

She didn’t want to seem like a friend who was only there for their money after all!

Even Eugene liked it! He even brought a date to the shop once!

On the topic of Eugene, Astrid just felt a little bad for him... It was like the heavens used him as a comedic device! 

She, Tatiana, Jarace, Valencia, Estelle, Sylvia, Adelyn, and Elyse all tried to give him advice! 

He was a great guy! But somehow, he only ran into the most problematic women. They weren’t even sure how he was finding all of them! There was the whole common saying with troubled dating of “maybe you’re the common denominator,” but all of them agreed: Eugene had the most hellish luck there was... 

Anyhow, putting Eugene’s funny existence aside, Astrid had also had some fun with hosting small community events at the shop! 

She had hosted a yoga night, a finger painting night, and a karaoke night!

Feeling a smile blossom on her face as she reminisced on the events, Astrid couldn’t help but hum a little tune as she washed her hands. 

Astrid, however, was completely unaware of how blissfully ignorant she was. 

Each and every one of her events had sent Valencia’s jaw through the floor... 

The yoga night? 

Well, among the attendees was THE ENTIRE PANTHEON of the Cerulean Dynasty. 

Valencia almost had a heart attack when they all showed up!

Turns out they were doing a “pantheon bonding night” and decided Astrid’s yoga night sounded like a great activity... 

Valencia was amazed though as she watched a literal god of war start doing yoga. Listening to him begin going “My back feels good as new!” Valencia could only raise an eyebrow. 

Somehow Astrid was blessing each person with healing as they copied her yoga technique.

After all, Valencia knew that his back was going to need some miracle healing to feel “good as new” because, well, she was the reason it wasn’t good at all. Two hundred years prior, she had been the one shattering his spine into grains of sand... 

Then, there was the finger painting night where the entire pantheon from the Church of Eternity had shown up. 

Just... how? In the end, like before, it was another “pantheon bonding night.” 

Whatever that meant.

However, Valencia did get immense enjoyment from watching a now-reformed and disciplined Ignatius finger paint a basket of oranges. Even the supposed ‘dignified’ and ‘untouchable’ twins, Aelius and Luna, weren’t unaffected! 

Their aloof dignity disappeared once the chaos began. By the end of the finger painting night, Aelius had a white-paint handprint on his left cheek—one suspiciously Luna-sized. Luna, herself, courtesy of Aelius, had a bright green dot on both her forehead and her nose. These few decorations, along with a number of other paint splashes from other church members did wonders for dispelling their ‘I’m better than you’ image.

As for the karaoke night, Valencia wasn’t even surprised when the entire pantheon from the Federation of Obsidian showed up doing their own “pantheon bonding night.” 

Valencia was sure they were doing it on purpose, but they all swore it was a coincidence... 

It was very interesting though to see Casimir singing his heart out. Who knew he could sing one of those super cute songs?

Sure, it was a dare by Cyril and Tessa, but he sang it nonetheless. In general, Valencia and Astrid had both been surprised at how nice his voice was. His renditions of popular love songs had some of the other attendees of the karaoke night swooning... 

All in all, it had been a fulfilling handful of months. Valencia, as always, was over the moon spending so much time with Astrid. What was there not to love? 

Now, with their anniversary less than a week away, Valencia had also prepared a gift. Along with the gift though, was the confession she had prepared for months on end. 

It was... well, time to tell Astrid. 

She had psyched herself up and was ready! Nothing could stop her! Not even the tensions brewing in the city once more. 

It seemed their tour of the academy was going to skate some agitated waters... 

Crossing her fingers, Valencia just hoped it boiled over after her anniversary. Not before, and definitely not during...