The Heartstone Saga, Archibald Bradford [the snowy day read aloud TXT] 📗

I guess it has been kinda rough.”

It was an enormous understatement, but the beautiful monster girl accepted it without complaint.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, she extended her hand, a coy smile spreading on her face.

“I’m Grace.”

He took it without thinking, introducing himself almost reflexively.

“Adrian Shaw.”

“Nice to meet you... Adrian Shaw.”

He opened his mouth to say the same, but paused when a pair of rounded ears poked out from behind the cat-girl’s hip, soon joined by two yellow eyes set in an adorably rounded face.

Noticing his attention, the Katje reached behind her to pull a cautious Dormaus into view.

“This is my daughter, Mishka.”

There was a joke there somewhere about a cat raising a mouse, but Adrian couldn’t find it, instead he plastered a smile on his face and strove for politeness.

“Nice to meet you, Mishka.”

After the briefest of handshakes, Mishka sniffed and rubbed at her noise, then spoke with all the tact of a child.

“Your face is too hairy.”

Grace rolled her eyes, but her daughter’s rudeness was exactly what the unshaven Adrian needed in that moment, the fake smile he wore becoming genuine at the cheeky girl’s complaint.

“Yeah, I guess it is huh? I’ve been out of town for a while.” He explained.

Learning much about him from the short interaction, the former whore pulled her daughter to her hip and squeezed her tight by way of chastisement.

“We were about to have lunch, if you’d like to join us?” She suggested with vulnerable hope obvious in her tone.

Adrian opened his mouth, but closed it again just a second later.

He was going to politely refuse, again out of reflex, but some faint spark of life inside of him prevented him from doing so: a voice in his heart woken by Mishka’s endearing temerity and screaming at him not to blow it with her mother.

A voice that sounded just like Cheri’s.

He swallowed the familiar lump in his throat at the memory of his deceased Truffle, but nodded at the kindly Katje’s offer.

“I think I would like that very much.”

A short while later they were enjoying a pleasant walk together through the rubble strewn Divinity Square, their bellies full and Mishka chattering between them with one of their hands in each of hers.

Theirs was not the only meeting in the city either.

Amongst the Ogres that Nina fought was Tora’s mother, and it was a small mercy that she survived the conflict with relatively minimal injuries.

Their emotional reunion was so raw and poignant that those that witnessed it had to turn away.

A scant few days after the battle, the survivors of the Ogre clan left the city together. At Volka’s urging they had decided to settle in Wayfelt and lend their strength to the foundation of Escrya’s colony.

After much internal debate, Kriss opted to accompany her friend Tora, ostensibly to keep the Ogre out of trouble, but also so that she could get her head straight about Nameless.

While their initial entry into the city had been under the worst imaginable circumstances, the Ogres’ dedicated sincerity and hard work in helping the residents recover meant that there were a great many tearful embraces when they left Garland, their days of ostracization for their centuries-old sin against the Aegis hopefully over with.

__________

“The trick is to not show any fear.” Jezebel insisted; “Even if the guy is bigger and meaner looking, just be like. ‘Watch it buddy! This sandwich is mine!’”

She had her legs wrapped around Rebecca’s waist, her ass essentially sitting on the bemused bunny’s pelvis, while her little green hands were interlocked behind her neck to hold the Gripau in place in front of her.

“That’s… good advice?”

The frog didn’t weigh much, but she wasn’t made of feathers, so the Lapine had to constantly lean backwards to keep from toppling over from the way Jez had hold of her.

It was something she would have to get used to.

“I’m serious! The cafeteria here is a battleground! And if you don’t stand up for yourself, you’ll starve!”

Along with Miranda, Jan, and Kala, they were standing in front of the Aegis academy, the four of them seeing Rebecca off before she started the first few notoriously hellish weeks of her training.

Given that they wouldn’t see her again until she came out the other side of them, they were lingering perhaps a bit too long.

“I’m going to be alright Jez.” Becks promised; “And if anyone tries to take my lunch, I’ll drop your name to make them think twice.”

“Oooh! Good idea! Because if anyone messes with you, I will kick their butt!”

“Alright froggy, my turn.” Jan insisted, pulling her bond-sister off to hand her to Miranda before kissing Becks by way of farewell; “You take care of yourself. And enjoy the mud! There’s gunna be a lot of it!”

“I will think of you every time I’m coated in it.” The Lapine swore before turning to face Kala.

The Amazon kept things a bit more composed; kissing her newest bond-sister and gripping her ass tight without saying a word.

Mostly composed.

Then all that was left was Miranda, Jez seamlessly hopping out of her arms to land on the Amazon’s shoulders.

The grey-haired woman’s advice was as useful as it was succinct.

“Make your bed neat, do as you’re told, and try not to talk back to the instructors. You’ll make it through kiddo. I told you before, you’ve got the stuff.”

After she spoke they shared a lingering kiss; the Lapine’s pierced tongue exploring her bond-mate’s mouth for a good long while before they finally broke apart.

With nothing more left to say, Rebecca turned away from her loves and, spirit bolstered by their embraces and their words of encouragement, promptly marched into the wrong building and got yelled at by the instructor inside.

Everybody had to start