This was something I was thinking about making into a multi-chapter on ao3, but idk, if I do, I'll add the name of it in. It's inspired by James Cameron's Avatar movies, or the Na'vi sort of. Spoilers btw
Finral laughed a little, Asta was searching over his body like he was something entirely new. And in a way he was.
Finral wasn't human, well, not fully. His mother wasn't human, in turn he wasn't all human.
His father forced him to hide his non-human side, after finding out about how humans tend to treat their own kind, Finral was grateful for his father's distaste toward him.
Other than his father and lady Vaude, along with a hand full of servants sworn to secrecy.
"I can't believe I'm saying this-" Noelle said, looking over the other. "You're kind of cute like this."
Kind of?
Yami and Vanessa thought at the same time.
Finral smiled a little at her, his pointed ears twitching cutely, the movement of his cat-looking tail catching everyone's attention.
"YOU HAVE A TAIL TOO!!!" Asta screamed.
Yami caught the way that Finral's pointed ears seem to move with his feelings, they would twitch and fall dependent on what he was feeling. It was cute, to the dark magic user at least.
His tail seemed to be the same, but more under control. The feline shaped tail was light green and black colored, with light stripes that were nearly impossible to see. As Yami took a closer look at the younger man he saw that his neck and arms, the bits showing at least, had similar stripes that were hard, almost impossible to see.
"Your eyes are pretty." Asta said, it made everyone look at the man's eyes.
They changed from their usual light brown to a beautiful golden, his pupils were wider than before as well, like a cat's almost.
Yami found that he was starting to like this look on the spatial magic user. He seemed happier then he's been in a long time.
It made sense.
Yami looked down at the earring that Finral had always worn, the magic coming from it stung the hand he had it in, and the longer he held it, the further up his arm it started to sting, and the more intense it started to get.
Yami's pain tolerance was high, but to think that Finral could walk around like nothing was wrong with this on his ear everyday, even when he was on his deathbed... it made Yami want to kill the Vaude's.
"Okay, okay, look, I'm only letting you all see me like this because it was Liebe who asked." Finral smacked Asta's hand away from his swaying tail. "I'm going to need that back." the brunette pointed at Yami's hand.
The raven couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from the golden pair staring at him.
"No." Yami forced himself to look away.
"Yami." Finral whined, his ears moved straight out and his tail started to thrash a little behind him.
"Nope, this-" He held the earring out so Finral and the others could see it, "counts as a self harm item, can't let you have it back."
Finral huffed out at him, pouting clearly.
"If I don't wear it it's going to start a fight wi-"
"Don't care." Yami cut the shorter off, earning a glare from him. "If you don't want to fight with them then I'll gladly argue with them. But you're not getting it back."
Before Finral could argue any further, Yami used his mana to break the earring. Ignoring the offended and angry noise that Finral made as he walked away.
The dark magic user avoided the huffy special magic user for the rest of the day, he expected to be met with the same pouty face the next day, but instead, he was met with the half human curled up with his four pets.
"Wait, one, two, three... four?" Yami looked at the three monsters that towered over even him, and then the fluffy blue, four legged owl looking thing that was curled up on Finral's chest.
Yami took a step towards the sleeping beauty, stopping when his three pets growled at him. He made an offended scoff, glaring at the three.
"Captan?"
Yami watched and Finral slowly woke up, his golden eyes blinking awake, as they did his pupils switched back and forth between slits and wide, he really was like a cat, Yami always thought that he was cat like, but now he looked the part. His ears twitched every way they could, like he was listening for something. And as he stretched out, his tail followed his back as it arched. Yami also caught sight of the sharp claw-like nails that weren't there yesterday, but as Finral fully woke up, they seemingly retracted.
"You really are a cat." Yami mumbled, watching the owl-thingy stretch out and yawn on the ground before crawling onto Finral's shoulder.
"Why are you down here?" Finral asked, his head tilted and his ears twitched.
It was going to be hard for Yami to focus, Finral was always twitchy, but his new look was too complex and foreign for Yami not to notice every little twitch and movement, it was as bad as when the boy joined the squad.
"Could ask you the same."
Truth was, Yami had no idea why he came down this way. He guessed just went straight to where he felt Finral's ki, like he did every morning.
"They kept fighting last night so I came down to tell them to knock it off and they caught me off guard, before I knew what happened I was too comfortable to move." The brunette explained, he looked over at the smaller creature, "Guess Kiwi got worried and came to check at some point." Finral mumbled a little, petting the fluffy thing on his shoulder.
Yami hummed, he was going to check out Finral's room at some point now.
Finral asking what Yami felt about animals in the hide-out when he first joined made more sense seeing that he had a secret pet, or pet's.
"You still mad at me?" Yami asked without thinking fully.
"Not sure really, I mean, I know why you broke it and said no." Finral and the fluff ball, Kiwi, nudged each other a little. "But I've never really been..." He gestured to himself, "Even when I was with my mother's people, even when I went through their trails to be one of them fully, I've never been-"
"Free?" Yami finished, lighting a cigarette before walking over and sitting next to the half human.
"Yeah." Finral said in a whisper.
They sat in a calm silence, at some point, Finral's tail wrapped itself around his stomach and he all but passed out, falling on Yami's arm. It worried the man, but nothing his Ki was fine, so Yami let the tired man sleep.
After everything the brunette had gone through back to back since early childhood, he deserved to have a peaceful sleep for once.
"It's okay," Yami mumbled under his breath, moving the green tinted hair out of the others face, "You're free, and you won't be caged again. Not while I'm here."
------
"Asta."
The shorter boy looked over at the witch, her expression soft and loving.
"Don't tell anyone about this, okay?"
Asta nodded, looking back over to his captain and friend. Both sound asleep, with three magical beast behind them, keeping them safe as they could.
"Come on, let's leave them alone. We'll save them some food."
The witch swung her arm around the boy, dragging him away from them.
Asta looked over his shoulder one more time, a soft smile on his face, the fighting was over, and his family could finally rest.
Seeing them like that, it made everything worth it.
