The Little Crow

Chapter Forty Three - [Childlike]

Hi everyone!

So sorry for the delay in posting!!! I had a crazy busy week with barely any sleep LOL hopefully it gets better this week! Thank you for your patience, and here's a nice long chapter to make up for the delay!

Also, thank you so much for all your kind words in the previous chapters and the messages on my profile! I can't wait to reply to them all!!! <3

Just wanted to add a bit of a content warning for this chapter while I'm here. There are a bit of heavy conversations in this so please be mindful :)

Thank you!

Love, luckycharms <3

CONTENT WARNING!!

This chapter contains triggering content such as violence, racism, trauma, and abuse/harassment. Please be mindful of these triggers if you wish to read this chapter.

---

Thea and Niall were back in Achlis by a little past noon the next day and though Thea expected the four hours they spent together in the train alone to be rather awkward after the events of the night before... it actually wasn't.

Their commute was consumed mostly with Niall updating Thea on what had been going on in Achlis while she was gone. Thea also spent some time showing him what she had done in her time back at Abureth, letting Niall flip through all the poems she had typed out.

Niall liked her idea, nodding in agreement as she explained her plan to him. "I can create three volumes," she said. "Before the war, during the war, and after... of course, the after part will only work out if Rue agrees to get back to work on writing once he's awake again."

It was a good idea, according to Niall. And the best part was, if Rue agreed to all of this, both Julian and Milo had contacts with publishers that they could take advantage of. Putting the work together and distributing it would therefore be the easy part... the difficult part would be getting Rue to agree to this.

But that was an issue for another day. Right now, her priority was making sure Rue woke up and despite him still being unconscious, she was excited to see him. But once the train pulled into the Capital, Niall made it clear that he had not gotten the opportunity to do the paperwork required to give Thea access to Rue, and seeing as he was supposedly a high risk criminal who currently was in a hospital rather than under lock and key, the paperwork was a little more extensive than usual.

So, the decision was that they would part ways in Achlis, Thea to her office with Milo to check on things and Niall to his office to complete the paperwork, and once they were ready, Niall would come get Thea.

When Thea arrived in the office, she smiled to see the lights were on, happy to know that Milo was there and she could give Milo a tight hug and apologize for worrying him. However, after she shut the door and looked towards his desk, it was empty.

She assumed immediately that he might have gone for lunch, though it was odd that he would leave the lights on, but before she could think more about it, she was startled by the presence of someone else... someone sitting in her seat, his feet up on her desk. She found herself standing there, frozen and staring, surprised by his presence as he looked back at her.

"Thi," Adrien smiled lazily as he spoke. "I saw you walk in with the General. I thought I'd drop by to say hi but you weren't here yet, so I stuck around."