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She’s not meant to be a god or a demon, just a gem. What happens around her because of the way she was created isn’t her fault, but the fault is thrown at her regardless. By the people who crave pieces of her, that hunger to rip pieces away for themselves.
But the very thing she hadn’t expected was the idea of her being treated like a criminal for being alive.
Koseki Bijou is small. A tiny thing that barely knows the world around her, and being pivoted into the role of a monster hurts. She really tries to keep going, but her hunters are way too relentless for her to last.
And she fails, as usual. Her clumsy self stumbles over a tree root, her wings failing to give her enough lift in her already panicked state with all of their fluttering futility. She’s attacked from all sides with bats and chains.
---
As much as she hates to admit to anything, seeing her kid tumble into the Sanctum in a battered mess isn’t uncommon. What really gets her is the disastrous entrance, heralded with a distinct lack of time magic burning a hole through the detective coat she’s so adamant on wearing.
She’s by her side in a tick, a hundred questions burning with an answer too obvious.
Teeth tainted with spilt blood grin at her in self-hating mirth, a broken chain is all the evidence she needs. Her own link to that annoying relic has never been more of a benefit.
A curse something fierce ruptures from Amelia’s throat in a voice so rough it seems to scrape her throat raw.
“Kid. Who did this to you..?
---
Being dragged through a hallway full of stones is no fun, especially when the chains are too tight. The guards are rude as heck for no reason too, and it’s so quiet. Until there’s an alarm blaring, red lights bursting out of the walls and sudden panic from the people around her. They’re calling up whoever their bosses are, screaming for information.
But everything gets ignored as clicks echo through the hall, like heels against tile.
A heavy yawn stretches through the distance, the ones who chained her up stopping as silver flashes to slice through the air and against their feet.
The first thing she thinks is how cool that sword is, even if it’s shaped a little funny. The second is how much panic she feels from the guards around her, and their muttering don’t hide it. She looks up to see what they’re so afraid of. Her eyes meet the hall cloaked in reds, and a woman cloaked in an outfit out of this world with another sword at her hip.
She’s tossing a gold watch up in her hand, staring at the glint it gives off in the alarming lights.
The guard next to her grinds their teeth together like the woman is a curse.“What the hell is the Warden doing here?” With that kind of spite, surely they don’t mean this place’s actual warden?
The steps stop with a scoff.“Oh I’m sorry, was I interrupting something? I just had some lost property to pick up, sop I’ll be on my way.” She walks forward like she can’t hear the alarms, flourishing her hair as if she’s just taking a pleasant walk through the place. The lady snaps her fingers as she tosses the watch up again, the golden device disappearing in a black ball of light. “Next time you want to run around stealing things that belong to me, how about you actually let me know, so I can clear up whether I let it happen or not.”
“Come on, there’s no way you’ve got a soft spot for some kid running around playing detective with your magic. We were doing her a favour.”
“A favour, huh? Actually, I’ll do the same for you. For all the trouble your little organisation decided to cause me, I’ll take a bit of interest. How does that sound?”
Teeth-gritting anger levels through the head guard. They mutter towards the woman in something that feels close to heretical rage. “What more could you possibly want from us? You have your watch, you can leave at any moment. But you’ve decided to walk in like you own the place. The higher-ups won’t be happy with you.”
In a split second, she’s out of her chains and wrapped under the woman’s arm. “That’s a great thought and all, but I’ll be taking this one with me, have a great time explaining this to your bosses that they shouldn’t have messed with my kid.”
“Wait, no-”
“Eh?” Bijou wonders at the sudden re-placement. “But wasn’t I-”
And they’re gone from the cell, open sky in her eyes after such a short time in the prison. The bitter cold that’d been trying to wind itself into her like needles disappears underneath the overwhelming sunlight.
“EH?” She twists her held body to stare at her saviour, but all she gets as en explanation is a shrug that pulls her stony body with her.
“Meh, finders keepers and all that. So what’s your deal, kid?”
“I’m not a kid, I’m like...millions of years old!”
“Then why are you short?”
And they’re in a house.
“Wha-”
There’s only one person Being she can think of with this kinda nonsense dragged along with them, and with how quickly she’s been dragged around, there’s one explanation.
Space, or maybe Time?
She’s let go from a loosened grip. There are tears threatening to rip her eyes apart, running own her face like an incandescent tide of incomprehensible hope.
“Kronii? What the heck are you up to this time?” A voice sounds out.
There’s a feeling she can’t contain, an unstoppable sensation ready to flow out of her in rivers. But before she can act on it, she’s picked up again and tossed towards the new arrival. She’s caught in arms that are just as thin as they are strong. Her unsaid words burst out in a sob that threatens to crush her chest inside and out.
“Kaela, can you deal with the feelings? I’ve got some...errands to run.”
The sob she can’t contain drips out in a river of tears, her arms like a bone-crushing hold in its intensity.
“Thank you.” She says, almost like it’s a prayer. “Thank you.” Her throat crumples out, hoarse in how her own will to live is revitalised from the split-second decision of Time being too aggravated to stand being slighted. She doesn’t even know if the woman is even there anymore, but the person she’s been handed to must have some kind of connection, if there’s even a little bit of faith.
Strong arms wrap around the gem.
“It...will be better.”
---
Looking back, Bijou thinks it’s just weird; something she can’t actually understand even a bit with how Kronii’s objectively odd intervention was,
Because why would she get dragged out here by one of the favourites of the gods that wanted her locked up?
What she does know is that she got given a chance to be...mostly? Mostly free, even if she got saddled with a human that’s somehow immune to her whole...aura. She’s stuck her for better or worse. Almost like she’s a prisoner, but being able to go outside is a novelty she’s never taking for granted again.
But with some lanky arms holding her tight, she’s almost starting to feel alive again. Like the lady’s trying to unfreeze her.
It’s just...what did she do to deserve getting chased down like that? Like she wasn’t allowed to live, like-
Knuckles knock against her rocky temple, a hum rumbling through them both. It shocks Bijou out of the spiralling thought like a switch being flipped.
“Any better?”
“Not really. But I guess I’m...getting there.” It’s still a little monster eating away at her in her dreams, a threat in the day that nips at her shadow. But in a place like this, where she can just breathe? It’s starting to get smaller, bit by bit.
Kaela’s red glove ruffles her hair, sending the hair she just fixed back into a ruffled mess. “You shouldn’t stay in your head so much, I can tell there’s too much going on in there.” The woman huffs a laugh as Bijou struggles against the oversized glove, not that she’s actually trying to shrug it off.
When that hand disappears from her head, she falls back to Kaela’s shoulder with a shrug. “It’s not like I can help it. That place wasn’t exactly a vacation.” Her arms hazard a hold around Kaela’s waist. It hasn’t been long enough to get enough trust out of the blacksmith, but she’s banking on some kind of faith if Time of all people does too.
The whistle of a kettle boiling resounds with a small gasp from the kitchen.
Kaela ignores that too, even if the blacksmith went rigid when stony hands met pale skin. “...What about you, Kaela? You okay?”
There’s a small shift under her arms, “I’m fine.”
A wisp of dishonest grey curls around the blacksmith, twisting through blonde curls and the twinge of tired eyes. “You don’t have to lie, Kaela.”
Bijou knows that they’re both not alright. It’s harder to not know, with how much she can feel. There are downsides to it, sure. But when it’s just her and someone else, there’s not exactly much to get overwhelmed by. Or overwhelm.
It feels like it’s enough to crush her sometimes; a weight on her lungs making it difficult to breathe through the worst times. The fact she can sit and eat up warmth like she’d been cold forever makes the world around her feel just a little bit better. She’s grateful that those worse moments are few and far between, now.
The Jewel feels the woman’s shoulders tense tighter than a coiled spring.
The exhale that follows is heavier, practised. “I’m just surprised that it’s my home Kronii keeps coming back to. I don’t know what I did for her to decide to have an interest in me.”
“Are we just being picked on for fun?”
“I don’t think so. I think she might enjoy the attention.”
Eyes peer into Bijou’s from out of the blue. “Well, those aren’t the worst theories.”
She can’t help but scream as Ouro Kronii herself sits beside them without warning. She’s gone again—She’s turning the corner to the kitchen, a mismatched tray of drinks held like a butler.
“Sorry I’ve been gone; I had to make sure Ame was alright.”
Kaela just stares, eyes narrowed enough that Kronii can’t help but start to sweat, somehow. Red eyes flitting to Kronii’s and back to Bijou. A conversation without words that makes the Warden’s shoulders slump. She may have thrown the Gem towards Kaela, but the responsibility is still hers.
“Kronii. It’s been two days.”
Time clicks against her teeth. “Damn it, again?” With an eye roll that threatens to drag her along for the ride, she moves slow to drop herself to the couch. Kaela’s shoulder an ever-heated comfort as she settles in. Koseki Bijou’s eyes tracking her approach. Even if she’s frankly awful at this emotion thing, she can see how scared the kid is. Kronii takes a deep breath.
“I’m...sorry. I’m still not used to having a constant...present to come back to.” She meets Kaela’s eyes once more, before blue orbs meet purple. “And you don’t have to worry about being a prisoner here, either. I didn’t bring you along to be your warden outside of that place. It was a whim, sure, but I wasn’t trying to make you feel like it was another punishment for being yourself.”
Kronii curls closer to them, to the grasp Kaela has of the gem, and the face she cares about in such a dear, quiet way.
“Better, Kaela?”
“...A bit.”
“I’m glad.” Kronii pushes herself closer, resting her forehead against Kaela’s and pressing her nose against the blonde’s. There’s a moment of quiet, of unquestioning connection between them in the eyes of a jewel that feels the unflinching wave of emotion. Bijou sits in Kaela’s lap, a spectator almost white with paled realisation. The bubbling feelings of the woman so muted before and the Warden of Time herself speaks to her in whispers, like bubbles of a lake threatening to burst.
There’s...not even another word for it. That’s just love.
The emotion colours the room around her like art, paints her gem in confused blues but understandingly embarrassed reds-tinged-pink. It doesn’t feel real to her, to see the Warden of Time herself nuzzle with a human person is...it’s dangerous. Bijou had wished she’d been able to see these moments all along; to feel the kind of connection burning through two people so bright, untouched by her own disastrous aura of insanity. She’s so glad to be here, to be out and about and breathing real air and seeing this. Feeling this.
The...greeting, meeting, disastrous love in front of her stops just as quickly as it started, a weight settling over her like a soft wave. Kronii only pauses as Kaela’s face brims into a soft, quiet smile before she takes a loose hand and grasps it tightly. “I’ll be back soon. I mean it, this time.” Kronii pauses to stare at the jewel, a curious but presently pensive thought running underneath blue eyes laden with duty. “And we will talk more when I get back. I won’t just leave you floundering out here, considering we may be a few years further than you think.”
“Wait, wha-” But before Bijou can voice the question, Kronii is gone.
She stares; eyes snapping to Kaela and back to the Kronii-shaped hole in the room. A moment passes of Bijou’s staring contest with empty air, before she finally turns to Kaela, neck creaking like a tree in a whirlwind.
“That’s really the Warden of Time, right?”
“...Yeah.”
“Why is she so normal? I didn’t think a concept would be—uh…”
“Like a person.”
“...Yeah.”
“It took her a long time to adapt to anyone, me included.”
“But if she’s been around for so long, how could she even know where to start?”
“...A child changes a lot of things, Bijou. A lot of things can happen when you suddenly want to have a legacy. To want someone to make a legend with.” Kaela’s hand moves to her stomach on instinct, and the single motion means everything.
“You-”
“Just once. Just one. You might see her soon.”
---
Later, when she’s told to get some rest, she’s tossed towards a gust room.
Yeah right.
This room isn’t just for guests- it’s basically tailored to her.
And underneath the covers, shades try to crawl over her in a mimicry of her solitude; but Kronii is there to stop them, even startled.
“Mm. Late again. Better this time, though. We will talk tomorrow. Just...get some rest. It’s been a long week for you I bet.”
Bijou can’t comprehend much beyond the feelings in her re-exhausted state, but she tries to give anything. Anything to the Warden who wanted to give her a chance.
“...Thank you.”