Note: Use of Gideon Athanatos is approved and being used to set the scene.

"Why are you so weird?" A familiar question from a half-brother who bore little resemblance to Aamon, despite their shared bloodline. Among his many siblings, Gideon Atanatos was the closest in age, though they were connected only through their father, Thaddeus Athanatos, a name that carried weight and history in the wizarding world as an affluent celebrity in his own right. Raised as a pureblood, Aamon could trace his lineage back a millennium, with roots in Greece and a more recent claim to England and parts of Southern Europe which had become their home these past two generations. His father, Thaddeus Athanatos, the patriarch of their sprawling clan, was a man of considerable influence within the wizarding world, his ambitions set on becoming the Minister of Magic. Outwardly, Thaddeus was known for his philanthropy and dedication to equality, but Aamon suspected it was all a carefully crafted facade, hiding the selfish, stern, and severe figure he sometimes called father.

There was a level of expectation he could never meet. His days, from the earliest he could recall were centered on competition with his kin for favor, regard and to prove oneself as "worthy."

Aamon was closest to his older still brother, Vladimir. 'Was' being the intended term, Vladimir had died some time ago. Aamon remembered his death well, his half brother had malingered for weeks in a hospital bed in St. Mungos before the darkness of that black curse stole his last breath. Like many in his family, Vladimir did not remain dead for long, but he also came back wrong. Aamon found himself anxious in the presence of his brother who returned from the grave hell bent on vengeance. This left Aamon to the preening of his cousins, his cruel brothers and his indifferent and sometimes fearful servants. Strange how his father championed for equal consideration publicly, but in their palatial residence they still 'utilized' house elves.

"I'm not weird," Aamon protested as he made his order to the girl behind the counter. She was a pretty enough thing, blonde haired, fair skinned and bright eyes. He understood what 'beautiful' as supposed to be, but he did not share the sentiments of others, just a vague understanding. She reminded him of a sainer version of his Irish cousin, although he hoped that this girl did not have a bit of veela in her blood also. Diminishing their bloodlines, leaving the wizarding world vulnerable to losses - a loss of their spark, a fracture of proud wizarding lines. Aamon ordered three dishes of ice cream, all sundaes and all far too large for a single boy to consume individually, nevermind the trio.

"Then what are you doing?" Gideon, the blond-haired teen, asked as he swiped a dollop of whipped cream from one of the sundaes. Gideon was known in equal parts for his manic nature as he was for his short tooth. The only boon Aamon could think of in regards of his older half-brother is the fact that the Seer gift had skipped him over. The boy had the makings of a tyrant despite this cosic oversight.

"They’re for my friends," Aamon replied, trying to sound convincing.

"What friends?" scoffed Gideon, who, though shorter, was two years older. Aamon's eyes flickered to the side—a terrible liar.

"Uh huh, sure," Gideon said, unconvinced. "You know the drill. Make plenty of noise." With that, Gideon left without another word, not bothering with a farewell. He wasn't Aamon's friend, and it wasn't his turn to make headlines. Slipping out of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, he vanished into the bustling crowd of Diagon Alley.

Aamon's anxiety spiked as Gideon left, a familiar knot tightening in his stomach, reminiscent of his mother's dreadful cooking. There was a reason the family relied on house elves—it was practically a crime against humanity to eat what she prepared. Accepting the three oversized sundaes, Aamon found an empty table, his appearance immaculate and affluent, yet his face betrayed no joy. He sat behind a sugary fortress, a picture of misery wrapped in unease, an odd contrast to the cheerful surroundings.



To some, the scene might evoke sympathy; to others, it might stir a sense of aesthetic curiosity. But in truth, this moment was merely a prelude to something dark and terrible—a harsh reminder of what the wizarding world had forgotten.

The meager sentences of conversation between two young boys drifted from the counter back to the artist seated at one of the tables in the ice cream parlour. For once, he wasn't drawing, but his focus wasn't on the cake batter ice cream he batted with his spoon and stared unseeingly at, either. It wasn't until the question of 'what friends?' was met with no verbal answer that Kit actually looked up.

What was going on there? Was it wishful thinking? Children could be so unpredictable and illogical at times that it was very possible the brunet had merely spoken on a whim; that he had no real reason for lying so blatantly by claiming the ice cream to be for his 'friends'. Yet Kit couldn't help but feel a pang of empathy.

On the merest chance that the situation was actually what it looked like and the claim had been a result of wishful thinking, the ex-caretaker could not ignore the boy. He knew all too well what it was like to want friends; real ones, not just the ones that stuck around to use one for one's wealth or to gain a reputation by association or even just seeking entertainment. Far too few people in the world cared enough to really see anyone outside of themselves; to reach out without reason or someone else initiating first. And, thus, far too few realized how many other people in the world were like them, going through the same pain and turmoil without understanding how much more tolerable their suffering could be simply by knowing they weren't alone in their misery. That someone shared in their struggles and could potentially care about them as much as they might have cared about themselves; perhaps even more. Not enough people connected with one another. Which was a particularly terrible shame considering how easy it was to do if someone had the mind to.

Fortunately, Kit happened to be someone of such a mindset. He spent the remainder of the boys' conversation with each other contemplating their relationship. They couldn't have been friends if their conversation had mentioned the term like a third party. Still, they clearly knew one another. Family, perhaps? They didn't look very similar in appearance, but with how diverse Kit's own family was aesthetically and how little stock the metamorphmagus placed in superficial looks in the first place, the artist knew better than to judge by that alone. Whatever the case, it didn't seem to matter too much, because the blonde boy soon left with practically no warning, leaving the brunet to carry his three sundaes to an empty table all on his own.

By then, Kit was already running through a number of appearances that he thought might have been best to approach the miserable-looking young man with in his head. Despite his affluent air and the confidence he had to not only order at the counter but sit at a table with three ice cream sundaes all on his own, he couldn't have been more than 11. Perhaps he was simply so used to being invisible to the world that he didn't worry about what others might have thought of him. Well...invisible to those who didn't seek to mock or make use of him, at least.

The American thought back to the times when he had attempted to pose as a student in Hogwarts. He thought about how that had worked against him on occasion because of the lack of trust that his relationship with others was founded upon in that regard. At least, that was what one student had told him during his office hours. But it had made him re-consider his actions then just as it had now.

Perhaps trying to befriend ice cream sundae boy as a peer wasn't the best way to go. No matter how confident Kit might have been to slip into the mindset of any age, that wouldn't change the fact that he wasn't actually a peer. That fact of deception alone could have undermined any friendship they might have developed had Kit chosen that path of interaction. No, it was best to pick a different shape. So...how to be oneself enough to remain trustworthy, but different enough from his current self to encourage building that trust in the first place? Simple: a gender swap.

Girls seemed to give off a much less intimidating demeanor when approaching strangers. Sure, Kit might have still been older, but he had shrunk himself down to 5'4" to be at a closer level to the 5'1" of Aamon Athanatos. It was much easier to get someone to talk to you when they thought they might have been able to relate to you, either physically or mentally; that you might have been at their level in some form or other. And even if in his new form he might not have been able to relate to the boy as a guy, the way the blonde boy had treated him just a few minutes prior suggested that merely being a guy wouldn't have scored too many more points with the brunet. So for all those reasons and more, changing his body to become female seemed like the best course of action to him at that moment in time.

Though Kit admittedly made a few other alterations here and there to his usual self other than gender differences - longer hair, shorter stature - he remained, for the most part, the same. So it was with his same ethnicity, demeanor, accent, and Cheshire grin that he slid into a seat across from the lonely-seeming brunet as no longer a 'he', but a 'she'.

"Hey, kiddo," she told him with a concerned smile, resting her propped-up cheek against her palm as she regarded him, "I don't think I've ever seen a kid look so sad with that much ice cream in front of him. Going off of what you said earlier...is this 'friend bait'? Are the sundaes to attract potential friends to you so you can tell your blonde buddy just how many 'friends' you've collected after all?" Then, noticing something, she leaned a little closer.

"Whoa," she murmured, peering into his irises. "Your eyes...they have heterochromia like mine."

@Aamon Athanatos

Aamon shifted uneasily in his seat, his gaze fixed on the door his half-brother, Gideon, had just bolted through. He made a face, sticking out his tongue and pulling down the skin beneath his left eye—a childish gesture, but one that felt oddly comforting given what was coming. "Naaaa," he muttered, too quietly for Gideon to hear. The gesture was more for his benefit and dignity. Whatever Gideon had planned for later, it couldn’t be worse than what Aamon knew was about to happen here. He recalled the stories—people had lost fingers to his brother’s rage. And yet, somehow, Aamon was always the one deemed "weird."

Weird was a fitting term for a family such as his one might argue. Normalcy was an exception. Madness was woven into the fabric of his family, a sinister thread running through generations. This dark inheritance—an unstable mind, a dangerous impulsiveness—was something Gideon wielded with tyrannical potential. To a lesser extent Mathias Pride. Aamon had learned to manage his own madness differently, internalizing it, using it like a shield. But as tensions mounted, he felt that precarious control slipping as he got older.

A dark-haired girl was approaching and Aamon’s heart raced. He did not know her, but he certainly wanted to know the pretty girl. It did not take much more than a hint of interest to rile the preteen youth. She was a bit taller than him, her most striking feature a pair of mismatched eyes—one light, one dark. He tried to focus on appearing calm, cool even, but his thoughts were a jumble of panic and adolescent nerves. He needed to act normal, to seem nonchalant, even as his brain screamed at him to run or to wave her over like a lunatic.

The sundaes on either side of him swayed ominously.

"Okay, okay, just look normal," Aamon whispered to himself, trying to summon a facade of composure. "Nonchalant. Yeah, like you didn’t notice her." But his attempts at self-coaching only heightened his anxiety. He forced a smile, one that teetered on the edge of breaking into a full grin before he consciously stifled it. If he could just keep it together, he might have a story to brag about to his brothers and cousins later—about how he had an older woman interested in him. Even if she wasn't, he was likely going to make some ludicrous claim. Not that it would get him far in his family, his family had the gift of the mind. An unstable yet enlightened mind. Most of them were Seers, Aamon among them. Others were legilimens, a dangerous class within his own family that made secrets and lies impossible to maintain.

His daydream crumbled when she greeted him. "Hey, kiddo," she said with a smile. The word hit him like a punch to the gut, deflating his fragile confidence.

"I'm no kid," Aamon wanted to protest, but he bit his tongue, knowing it would only make him look more foolish. Every time someone called him a "kid," it chipped away at the image of maturity he so desperately wanted to project. He was almost a teenager, practically a man, or so he kept telling himself.

The sundaes seemed to shrink in their bowls, and Aamon knew why. The creatures inside—were feeding and they had quite the sweet tooth, pretending they were bait to lure in friends—were stirring. The cherry on one of the sundaes tumbled off the whipped cream, and the entire mound wiggled unnervingly.

The creatures, for a lack of a more appropriate term, were a gift from his estranged cousin. She and by extension her family were the black sheep of their prestigious family. They were half-breeds and while their status in a lower house helped his family maintain an illusion of equal consideration, his family for the most part resented them and wished them dead. Hate does not always need to be reasonable, but there was often a thread of reason. The family served no use in their great family, an albatross and a siphon of their resources. Still, he liked his cousin because she was always willing to play with him. It was rather unfortunate that her madness was quite profound, he was told from a very young age that she was "afflicted" and that he best keep his distance. He did not know what that meant even to this day. He was unaware that she was undergoing something referred to vaguely as the change and that she was meant to die. Yet circumstances seemed to favor her and she survived, much to the chagrin of the rest of his family.

"I don't think I've ever seen a kid look so sad with that much ice cream in front of him," the girl teased, her tone light. "Going off of what you said earlier...is this 'friend bait'? Are the sundaes supposed to attract potential friends so you can tell your blonde buddy just how many you've made?"

There it was again, that word—kid. Aamon felt his self-worth shrivel a little more each time she said it. "I-I have friends," he stammered, though the lie was weak. He lived a privileged but isolated life. This was a part of the control his family exerted over him and his kin. His eyes darted to the sundae, watching as it twitched again. "Ijusthavenotmetthemyet," he blurted out in a single breath. It was easier than explaining the truth.

"My brother—" he started, trying to steer the conversation to safer ground, but her focus shifted to his eyes. One green, one blue—his heterochromia wasn’t something most people noticed unless they looked closely, but under her scrutiny, it made him flush with embarrassment.

"I-uh-yeah, one of yours is darker than the other," he fumbled, cringing inwardly at how awkward he sounded. Smooth as sandpaper, he scolded himself silently.

"Hi, uh, um," he stammered again, more flustered than ever as he pushed the bowls of ice cream to the side. "Did you want to join me?" His voice cracked, betraying his nerves. "I can order you whatever you want," he offered, trying to sound nonchalant about his wealth, though the ice cream shop was hardly a place to flaunt money. "You should sit here, though," he added, gesturing to the chair beside him instead of across. It wasn’t the most comfortable spot—it had a view of the door Gideon had exited through, with the staff area’s door a few feet to the left. But Aamon needed her close, where he could keep her safe. Because something was coming, and he could feel it in the air—the sense of impending violence, the dread that curled in his stomach. He felt it because he knew it, but one could just call it intuition in a family such as his and it would be regarded as a likely truth to any that did not know better.

The sundaes wiggled again, more pronounced this time. Aamon gulped, bracing himself for the chaos he knew was about to erupt.

...Of all the possible potential reactions Kit had tried to expect or imagine, puppy love would not have been one of them in a million years. At first she thought that his tight smile might have been a sign that he found her and her approach unnerving and she wondered if she should have gotten rid of her tattoos or, at the very least, matched her eye colors with one another. Something to appear more natural. There were a thousand reasons why she could have imagined she might have fightened him, especially because she was no stranger to others thinking and calling her a creep and worse for constantly observing people and getting into their personal space. That had been as a guy, of course, but she figured anyone might have found those behaviors creepy from someone of any gender. Which was why she suddenly regretted making a statement that proved she had been listening to his earlier conversation; just another reason for him to think of her as a creep.

But the brunet's mind seemed to be on other things entirely. She studied his face as she greeted him, watching for futher changes in expression or demeanor, and thought she saw his tight smile flag. Uh oh. What had she said? Did he not like the term 'kiddo'? Well, yes, she supposed she could see how that could have felt insulting or condescending or both to someone of his age. So many children so eager to grow up.

Kit was so intent on regarding the boy and his non-verbal communication alongside his verbal kind, trying to read between the lines and make as much note of what was said as much as what was not said, that she completely missed the strange movements of the ice cream sundaes no one was eating. She failed to notice how they began to trembled and wiggled and how one of the cherries fell from the whipped cream. Her full attention was on the boy in front of her.

His first, stammered sentence to her was an insistance he had friends. She was about to ask if the friends he claimed he had were the same ones the ice cream sundaes were for, but then he got out his second sentence to her in the rushed density of a single word. Picking the word-sentence apart in her head a moment, she then laughed. "I'm sure you're right," she told him earnestly, grinning.

The preteen began to speak of a brother of his when she accidentally cut him off, distracted by the oddity of his irises. As an artist and a metamorph who was particular about details, Kit hadn't been about to miss the one regarding the adolecent's eyes, especially since she had the same condition with her own, if a slightly different kind. His flushed complexion once she pointed it out made her wonder what he thought of his. Was he embarrassed by it? Ashamed? Or did he appreciate someone noticing?

Interestingly enough, he brought up her heterochromia in response. Was that redirection to divert attention from his own, or was he choosing to remark on it for some other reason? To point out how they had something in common, perhaps...?

She couldn't help but find the blunt, candidness of his statement rather cute, though, however awkward he might have seemed about it. In fact, it was his awkwardness that told her it was candid, which was what made it so adorable. And better still was his attemept to start again with a simple 'hi'. Kit's responding laughter was a symphony of delight.

"Hi," she answered with a fond smile, feeling both sorry and flattered by the boy's seemingly kind behavior by then. Because by then, she thought she had been able to identify the way he had been treating her as adolescent infatuation. What other reason might someone of his age have had for treating some random, strange older woman so warmly after she had not only come up to him out of nowhere and implied she'd been eavesdropping on him, but unintentionally insulted him twice? Maybe Kit should have just been himself after all. Maybe 'creepy' or 'intimidating' would have been a better thing for the boy to think of Kit as than...well, whatever he was thinking of her now.

Well, now she had a huge problem. She didn't want 'lead him on' or give him any weird ideas, and evidently while calling him 'kiddo' had undoubtably been noticed by him, it hadn't been enough for him to decide she was too old or condescending for him to like, either. If Kit reverted back to his original body, he doubted the boy would see him in such a positive light then, but that also damaged his chances of just plain befriending the kid. What business did a boy that young have feeling infatuation so early on in his life, anyway?! Puberty sure sucked; and not just for those undergoing it.

Despite the inner turmoil going through her mind, Kit remained as attentive as she could to her conversation partner. She laughed again when he told her he could order her whatever she wanted, charmed by his attempts in spite of herself. But Kit was familiar enough with people having been infatuated soley with her - his - outward appearances (when he'd previously altered them in his younger years specifically to appeal to peoples' preferences in order to try to make friends) to recognize the difference between what the boy must have been feeling and what he might have thought he was feeling. Oh...maybe that was a way to fix things. In a little bit.

"Thank you. That's very generous of you," she told him, beaming, "but really, I'm fine. I'd hate for you to think you'd have to give me something in order for us to be friends. And I'd definitely like to be your friend if you'd be okay with it."

His insistance that she sit at a certain chair surprised her. "Oh...really? How come?" Despite her question, she got up and did as he suggested, curious as to if she might have gotten a better idea of why he'd told her what he had when she sat. Was there something he wanted her to see? She couldn't notice anything out of the ordinary just then.

"I'm Kit, by the way," the artist told him, refocusing her attention from her surroundings back to him. "Mind me asking your name? And...I'm sorry, were you talking about your brother before I inturrupted you?"

Unlike the young man beside her, Kit possessed no gift of the intuition that he did and thus often remained quite oblivious. The diminishing sundaes, once they wiggled again, earned a cursory glance from the former caretaker this time, but it was the preteen's gulp that caused her brow to furrow. "Um...are you alright?"

@Aamon Athanatos

There wasn’t much time for pleasantries, something Aamon had half-expected. His sundae wobbled precariously, but the real concern lay elsewhere. The whipped cream deflated, losing its once-pillowy form. Aamon nervously nudged the ice cream bowls away from Kit, as she called herself, more for her benefit than for his so-called friends. She had declined his offer of her own sundae—a gesture that was part bribe, part distraction. People always wanted something from him, and he had learned to navigate these social exchanges, offering gifts to maintain a delicate, if peculiar, equilibrium.

He smiled when she offered her friendship, though he knew better. Aamon was enough of a realist to understand that people didn’t just hand out friendship for free. There was always a reason—companionship, shared interests, financial gain, or some other social currency. Yet, he clung to this naïveté, a trait he shared with his older brother. “Are you sure?” he asked, his voice tinged with both curiosity and confusion.

Maybe he was hotter than he realized.

Aamon gestured to a specific chair—an unusual choice, given that social norms dictated people sat across from each other when dining, not side by side. “I have anxiety,” he lied, though it was only half a lie. He was, in truth, a bundle of nerves. “I like to see the door,” he added, trying to justify his odd preference. He wasn’t entirely wrong—his cousin was paranoid, not merely anxious, and her obsession with escape routes came from a real fear that she might need one.

She asked his name.

"I'm..." He hesitated, debating whether to give his real name. His family had advised him to use a different name or omit the surname altogether. “Aamon,” he finally said. The papers would undoubtedly print his full name, so there was no use in hiding. “Aamon Athanatos, nineth Seer of the Circe line. Third son of Thaddeus Athanatos.” His father, a well-known philanthropist and aspiring Minister of Magic, had earned a reputation for his generous donations to St. Mungo's Hospital. The Athanatos family, renowned for their prophetic abilities, held a revered status in Greece, though opinions were mixed in the UK. Rumors persisted that their prophecies weren’t always altruistic, with some hinting at ties to the criminal underworld—whispers, of course, that were never proven.

She also referenced his brother, Giddy.

“Never mind my brother; he’s just a bully,” Aamon added, downplaying the tyrannical behavior of his sibling, the infamous terror of Green Briar Manor.

His eyes flickered to the door and then to the clock. What time was it? He glanced at the sundaes, now rapidly disappearing like white shorts after Labor Day.

Suddenly, two men with exaggerated features and squat frames burst into the ice cream shop. Behind them loomed a towering figure, nearly nine feet tall, with a heavy brow and drooping eyes. The giant had to duck to fit through the doorframe. One of the men brandished a long, elegant cherry wood wand. “Get down!” Aamon shouted to Kit, knocking the table over with his shoulder as he ducked behind it. He wasn’t particularly strong, but it didn’t take a Herculean effort to flip a desert table.

The sundaes would spill onto the floor. The unused spoons would clatter

“Well, well, well,” one of the goblins sneered, shaking his head. “A room full o’ wizards, always flaunting your wealth and privilege in Diagon Alley.”

“Not today,” the second goblin added, casting the Bombarda Spell with the cherry wand. The spell was aimed directly at the overturned table where Aamon was hiding. If Kit had remained standing, she would likely have been hit by the blast. If she had ducked behind the table, only the wooden barrier would bear the brunt of the explosion. Either way, the table shattered into a hail of smoldering, wooden shrapnel. Aamon felt a sharp pain as a splinter lodged deeply into his side, though his forearms had protected his face from the worst of it.

“Quickly now, wands down… coin purses out. A few galleons, some earrings, maybe a couple of rings—cheap price for your life,” the giant rumbled, lumbering around the shop’s perimeter. He held a yellow pillowcase, its color reminiscent of the Hufflepuff scarves and ties Kit might have seen during her Hogwarts days.

Kit nodded, first in confirmation that she was sure she didn't want him to buy her anything and also that she wanted to be his friend. She might have agreed that people didn't just hand out friendship for free, especially since friendship itself tended to come with certain expectations like a mutual sense of trust, but all she could do was offer her own friendship and trust to begin with; not demand his of either thing. She would leave those up to him to withhold or give as he saw fit.

When she nodded next, it was slowly in acknowledgement of the things the boy was telling her, such as his claim that he had anxiety and that he liked to see the door. The first comment was mildly concerning in itself, but the second really suggested the degree to which the first affected him. Poor kid. Then again, living in the world they lived in, she couldn't fault him for being that way. Especially when he introduced himself to her with what sounded like his full birth name and title.

Her eyes grew wide. Athanatos? She had heard of the Athanatos family, of course, particularly Thaddeus, which made Aamon Athanatos' mentioned anxiety suddenly make a whole lot more sense. But if this was a son of Thaddeus Athanatos, even if his parents might have been too important or busy or whatever to accompany him to get ice cream at an ice cream parlour, was it wise for them to allow him to go anywhere unaccompanied? Or was the boy from before someone who had been sent to accompany Aamon due to his family's famous status? That would have explained the familiarity if not the contempt...

Aamon then said to 'never mind his brother' and that he was 'just a bully'. At first she was wondering why he mentioned his brother so briefly as if she had already met him or knew him, but then Kit began to connect the dots and speculated that perhaps the boy from earlier had really been his brother as she had originally tried to guess. Not that there was any time to confirm it. Too many things happened after that too quickly for the metamorph to make sense of them immediately.

Aamon looked to the door, then the clock, then the sundaes, as if anticipating something that involved all three. But Kit couldn't for the life of her figure out what when all of a sudden two strange individuals barged their way into the parlour through the very door Aamon had been staring at. A third individual entered after them, as unusually tall as his companions were unusually short. Aamon shouted to get down and knocked the table over with his shoulder like an American hero in a Hollywood movie. Kit, astonished by the decisive and prompt way he immediately took action, did as he bid her.

Two goblins and a giant? Here in Diagon Alley? But why? And why at an ice cream parlour of all places?

When the goblin aimed his Exploding Charm, why did he aim it directly at the table that had been overturned? If he had been aiming to do real damage, wouldn't it have made sense to have aimed it at someone or something else? It almost seemed...purposeful. Like he had aimed it specifically at the table for a reason despite the table having deliberately been overturned as a defense against...a potential future attack that hadn't yet happened.

Maybe she was looking too much into things. Maybe the table had been overturned as a potential defense against any likely attack from the newcomers. And maybe the spell had just been aimed at them because they were directly in front of the door. But it all still struck Kit as odd when combined with the dialoge she had heard being exchanged earlier. Especially since it was an Athanatos child at her side. Third son or not, he still had to mean something to his important, political figure of a father, didn't he?

And why was a goblin using a wand when they could use goblin magic which required no wand at all? Kit knew they could use wands due to having learned about the American goblin Gnarlak in Ilvermorny, but she also thought she'd heard that the Ministry of Magic had passed a Wand Ban. So how had they gotten a hold of wands? And how had a couple of goblins and a giant decide to work together? So many questions, so little time to ponder them.

Kit tried to shield Aamon with her body when the blast hit, shattering the table, but she wasn't able to save him from the splinter that found its way deep into his side. Oh, no. Why had those goblins felt the need to attack when no one had even made a move against them yet? This was crazy.

She tried to think fast as she examined Aamon's wound and listened to the terrorists make their demands. Then, making a quick study of the room and whatever she could see of her surroundings, she turned back to the boy.

"Aamon...please don't move. I'll make sure you stay safe, but only if you're willing to work with me on that," Kit whispered, thinking about how quick Aamon had been to act. Sure, it may have been a defensive move he'd made, but as she didn't know him too well yet, she couldn't tell what he might do next. "Don't try to remove that splinter or touch it or anything until we can get to some medical supplies."

Then, subtly gesturing at the terrorist trio behind her back, Kit concentrated on the incantation, Fumos Duo. As she fortunately knew both wandless and non-verbal magic, she didn't neet to either speak the incantation aloud nor use a wand for it, but that didn't mean it would succeed. She could only hope it would and that the fairly simple, improvised plan slowly forming in her mind might have some chance of success.

Action: Using the Smokescreen Spell Duo to create a smokescreen
Interacting with: @Aamon Athanatos and the NPC goblins & giant
HP: 810/900
Stats: STA 9 / EVA 6 / STR 9 / WIS 20 / ARC 7 / ACC 9
Abilities: Metamorphmagus / 's Grace / Perfectionist / Wandless Magic / Nonverbal Magic

Kit’s instincts had screamed that something was wrong. The sight of an affluent boy—no more than ten or eleven—sitting alone in an ice cream parlor unsettled her deeply. It wasn't unusual for a typical parent to leave a child unattended for a few minutes, but the Athanatos family was far from typical. Their name was synonymous with wealth, power, and danger. Aamon Athanatos, the boy before her, was essentially a walking ransom. For kidnappers, political extremists, or any opportunist, he was the ultimate prize. Most people of his status were surrounded by bodyguards, yet here he was, vulnerable, and far too open about his identity. His carefree admission of who he was sent alarm bells ringing in Kit’s mind. It wasn’t just dangerous—it was practically begging for trouble.

Kit was already piecing things together, asking the right questions, even if only in her head.

When the trio stormed into the ice cream parlor, their aggression was unmistakable. Wands raised, voices sharp with threats, they targeted the table in a heartbeat. A burst of energy shattered the wood into splinters, and Kit instinctively threw herself in front of Aamon, shielding him from the brunt of the blast. Sharp fragments of wood lodged into her skin, but the adrenaline pumping through her veins dulled the pain. She barely registered the warmth trickling down her side, the strange metallic scent filling the air. It wasn’t her injuries that concerned her—it was Aamon.

A thick, charred shard of wood had embedded itself deep in his side, and though the bleeding was minimal for now, Kit knew it would worsen the moment the shard was removed.

It was a bold and reckless attack, the kind you'd expect in a high-stakes robbery.

"Aamon… please don’t move," Kit whispered, her voice steady but urgent. "I’ll keep you safe, but you have to trust me. You have to work with me."

She glanced at the piece of wood protruding from his side. "Don’t touch that. Don’t try to pull it out until we can get you some proper help."

The boy winced, his pain evident. Kit knew it hurt—it was supposed to hurt. But for now, his success depended on keeping calm.

Behind her back, Kit’s fingers twitched ever so slightly. Focusing on the trio, she began silently casting Fumos Duo, conjuring a thick, disorienting cloud of smoke. She didn’t need a wand for this spell—thankfully, she had long mastered the art of non-verbal, wandless magic. But that didn’t guarantee success. The situation was tense, and her improvised plan wasn’t foolproof.

She could only hope the spell would work and buy them enough time.

As the smoke began to swirl and spread, her mind raced through options. The next few moments would determine their fate. If the trio didn’t fall for the distraction, if Aamon panicked, if her spell failed, there would be little hope of escape.

The seconds stretched as Kit prepared for what would come next, ready to act, ready to protect.

She wasn’t just a bystander anymore—she was the only thing standing between disaster.

The darkness would envelope the space. Patrons of the ice cream parlor would gasp, children would whimper in the dark and the trio of terrorists, perhaps robbers, perhaps something else would mutter obsentities in the gloom. This was their chance, their chance to run. Their chance to fight. In the dark, they would hear the shuffle of feet. "We should get out of here," Aamon would rasp.

A strange scamper. The sound of vermin. "They will be taken care of," he claimed. His hand reaching for the spear-like piece of wood that was embedded in his side.

Does Kit see it? Roll 3.

Kit was incredibly perceptive. It was almost eerie. Things that should have been missed and would have been missed (especially with a 3) by others were somehow perceived by the metamorphmagus. Small feet, small forms, rushing headlong towards the criminals.

And then there was a scream.

Kit hadn't been a part of the Wampus house in Ilvermorny - the house that was said to represent the body of a witch or wizard - for no reason. In addition to becoming very familiar with the way her body worked, especially as a metamorphmagus, she had decent kinetic intelligence. However, when Kit had to learn how to compartmentalize her emotions, she came to find a new way to connect to others instead. Instead of feeling through emotions, she would feel through physical touch.

It made her grateful for every sensation she was fortunate enough to experience, including pain, pleasure, and everything in between. Because every physical sensation, no matter how minute and subtle or huge and intense, was a reminder that she existed; that she was alive - a fact she was constantly grateful for and which she tried to never take for granted. Not since she had survived the fall that had caused her to, at last, realize how lucky she was to have been born different despite what her parents had taught her to believe.

It was for that reason among others that Kit was not oblivious to the pain of the wood shards and splinters that had pierced her skin; nor did she want to be. The adrenaline that had begun to invade her system dulled it, but she still felt it to a degree and she relished it as best she could. It made her feel alive, reminding her to be present and mindful in the moment and to enjoy every second. They might have been in a dire situation just then, but there was a mystery afoot and she wasn't about to just ignore it. Every moment was precious, but there were some moments - more than others - that really reminded one how precious life was; that really made life worth living. This was one of them - especially if she was able to do anything at all to make Aamon's own life a little easier.

She was sorry he seemed to have gotten so seriously injured despite her best efforts to try to protect him, but she supposed it could have been worse. And, fortunately, it seemed that her idea to conjure up a thick smokescreen actually worked. The metamorph then stuck her hand into her pocket and pulled out her wand.

Accio wand, she thought, reaching into the dense cloud of smoke to snatch whatever wand might have made its way to her as a result of her spell. Each time she tried this, she tried to picture the wands she had seen in possessions of the non-humans. Simultaneously, Kit knew that without using verbal words to cast her spells, her chances of success were much lower. In fact, she had every reason to fear the spell could have caused her some backlash, but she still felt inclined to try nevertheless.

It may have seemed stupid, but she did this for a number of reasons. Even if the goblins still had goblin magic, Kit wanted to see if there was a reason they weren't using it. Under the cover of the smokescreen and with her managing to cast the summoning spell without speaking, she hoped to relieve them of their wands without them recognizing who had probably done it, especially because they had already seen her face. If she was able to take possession of any wands after three tries, she stuck them in her front pocket and attempted to pull her shirt over them so as to hide them from the previous users.

She would have liked to try to feel her way through the smoke back to her table in order to grab her satchel and hide the wands in there. However, she wasn't about to leave Aamon on his own and she didn't want to drag him around the darkened space without really being able to see or tell where she was going, either. There was too much potential for even more disaster that way. But then Aamon spoke.

"We should get out of here."

What? Already? And not find out what was going on or why? It had to be more than a simple stick-up or even some protest against goblin and giant racism. Too many things weren't adding up to be anything as simple or straightforward as any of those. That included the way Aamon, such a young kid, talked like he knew exactly what was happening and what he was doing. Almost as if...but no, that would have been silly. How could such an honest-seeming pre-teen have orchestrated the entire thing all on his own?

"They will be taken care of."

If Kit hadn't been worried or quite so suspicious before, she certainly was after Aamon said that.

"What are you talking about?" she asked, suddenly realizing what a liability it could have been to utter his real name again just then. "Do you...did you plan for something to happen to them? What's going on?" Her eyes widened as she began to make out in the gloom that he was reaching for the wood in his side. "Wait, don't! Please! You'll just end up bleeding out!" Perhaps she should have spent her focus on trying to heal him with her magic instead of attempting to confiscate their strange visitors' wands, but right then, it was too late.

...What was that?!

"Aamon," Kit whispered suddenly, forgetting again briefly that she probably shouldn't have said his name. Hopefully more people were familiar with his last name instead of his first. "What's going to happen to them? What - are those things that just..." Realization about his prior comments regarding Aamon's 'friends' suddenly clicked. Her mismatched eyes widened as she stared at the young boy. Even so, when she opened her mouth to speak again, it was very calm; very relaxed. She hadn't learned how to compartmentalize her emotions for no reason, after all. "...Aamon, what are your friends?"

And then there was a scream.

Kit jerked toward the sound before dashing forward as fast as she dared, suddenly fearing more for the goblins and giant than Aamon. She glanced back toward her new acquaintance briefly, however. "You go ahead," she told him. "Get outside where it's safer and find some medical help. Don't take out that splinter yourself, please; I'm begging you! I'll find you in a little bit."

That said, she tried to close in on what she thought had been the direction of the source of the scream.

Action: Using the Summoning Charm to try to summon however many wands she can to her (even if she's only allowed to use it once due to the one action-per-post rule).
Interacting with: @Aamon Athanatos and the NPC goblins & giant
HP: 810/900
Stats: STA 9 / EVA 6 / STR 9 / WIS 20 / ARC 7 / ACC 9
Abilities: Metamorphmagus / 's Grace / Perfectionist / Wandless Magic / Nonverbal Magic

Aamon’s fingers twitched as Kit’s voice cut through the smoke, her words frantic but controlled, betraying the same tension he felt. She was sharp—too sharp, in fact. He could see the way her eyes widened when she realized something wasn’t adding up, like pieces of a puzzle falling into place too quickly for comfort. The way she said his name, whispered it like a question and an accusation all at once, sent a shiver down his spine.

He glanced at her briefly, eyes darting between the swirling smoke and her shadowed figure as she fumbled with the wands, tugging them into her pocket. She hadn’t pieced it all together yet, but the gears were turning. He could sense it in the sudden calmness in her voice, the forced steadiness that was only ever used by people trying not to show how rattled they really were.

“My friends?” Aamon echoed, his voice low, barely audible beneath the sounds of chaos around them. He winced slightly, shifting his weight, his hand instinctively brushing against the "splinter" lodged in his side. It wasn’t a splinter, not really—he knew that much. It was part of what they had left behind, the dolls hidden in the ice cream he’d been pretending was bait.

But Kit wasn’t stupid. She was starting to understand that this wasn’t just some botched robbery or protest. And she was right. This was something he had known was coming. Something he had been waiting for.

“You’ll see,” Aamon murmured, his voice soft but steady. His heterochromatic eyes flickered with something darker, something that hadn’t been there when he was playing the innocent boy, trying to act nonchalant. There was no point in hiding it from her anymore. The scream that followed—a sharp, gut-wrenching sound from somewhere deeper in the shop—confirmed it.

Aamon clenched his jaw as Kit jerked toward the noise, her instincts driving her to help, to figure out what had just happened. He wanted to tell her to stop, to let it unfold, but he knew it wouldn’t matter. She’d see what she needed to see soon enough. She would then understand he hoped. Understand why it had to be this way.

“They’ll be taken care of,” Aamon repeated, more for himself now than for her. His hand drifted toward the wooden shard embedded in his side, the reminder that his “friends” were still out there, doing what they did best. They were hungry, and he had fed them. What came next was inevitable. Only he was a child believing himself a man that had thought of everything when he had thought of nothing.

Kit, her eyes still lingering on him, urged him to get outside, to seek help. Her concern felt misplaced, almost laughable, but there was a flicker of something else—guilt, perhaps? He hadn’t wanted to drag her into this. Not her. But it was too late now. He would not have been able to prevent this, only mitigate the worst of the damages.

“I’m fine,” Aamon muttered, though he could feel the warmth of blood soaking into his shirt. He wouldn’t leave. Not yet. Not until it was over. Not until they had finished what they’d come for.

As Kit dashed toward the sound of the scream, Aamon’s gaze followed her for a moment before drifting back to the thick smoke, where shadows shifted and shapes writhed. His “friends” were moving now. It wouldn’t be long before she saw them—before she understood.

“They’re not like us,” Aamon whispered to himself, then louder, in case Kit was still listening, “They don’t care about wands. Or about goblins. Or giants. They care about me.”

And then, with a slow, knowing smirk, he added, “They care about keeping me safe.”

For a moment, he wondered what Kit would do when she saw them—the dolls, those twisted little creatures he’d been feeding all along. Would she run? Would she fight? Or would she understand the truth of it all? That Aamon had never been just a kid playing with ice cream.

That he had been waiting for this all along.

Aamon watched through the smoke, his pulse quick but his mind strangely calm. The tension in the air was thick, and Kit was moving through it with a combination of caution and desperation, her wand raised, her instincts screaming at her to find the source of the chaos. She didn’t understand—yet—but she was getting close. Too close.

He had to admit, watching her figure out what was happening, seeing her put together the pieces, gave him a small thrill. The look of confusion and fear slowly morphing into realization—it was almost satisfying. She’d underestimated him, everyone always did. But now, in this mess he had quietly orchestrated, Kit was finally seeing the truth.

His "friends" were out there, in the smoke, and they were hungry.

When Kit cast Accio, summoning a wand to her, Aamon’s lip curled in a half-smile. He could tell the moment she realized something wasn’t right. The wand she had pulled toward her wasn’t quite like the others. Her fingers wrapped around it, but it didn’t feel like it should—it wasn’t just wood and magic. It was something more. It was something alive.

And then she saw them.

Aamon’s gaze followed hers to the goblin on the ground. He had felt the scream before it ripped through the air—a delicious shudder in the air, the sound of fear and confusion. The goblin’s eyes were wide, frozen in a twisted expression of terror as Aamon’s friends scurried over him, their small, porcelain bodies clicking as they moved. Tiny, clawed fingers tore at his clothes, at his skin, and the blood was already pooling around him in dark, slick puddles.

The dolls were working quickly. They always did.

But they cared not for an audience. They would twist their head all the way around, as if they were trying to cast their gaze upon the metamorphmagus but there was no face.

Words could be so funny; so ironic. Like how, in Aamon's phrase, “They care about me,” and “They care about keeping me safe,” it was fairly obvious that the word 'care' didn't mean the same thing as it did when he said, “They’ll be taken care of.” In fact, despite the same word being used, Kit was fairly certain their meanings in the two separate contexts were the exact opposite.

She gradually came to the conclusion that she had, indeed, underestimated him. Kit guessed it likely had something to do with a certain sort of prejudice she possessed against children. It wasn't usually obvious, but often she found it came to light under indirect circumstances such as these. Well, that was her fault. She could accept her mistake and try to learn from it. While metamorphmagi could be more skilled than most at seeing through magical deception, deception that came from pure, raw acting talent was something else entirely. Whatever it was that flickered in the boy's mismatched eyes fascinated her and she wondered vaguely how dark it could get. But now was not the time for pondering that.

People were already fleeing out the door, their movements slowly pulling the smoke out of the room with them. The more smoke that left and the more light from outside that filtered through it, the easier it became to see the dolls that had begun to try to ravage their fallen victims.

Kit had to think fast. She would have liked to retain her guise, but what she meant to do required a different shape - her previous one - and there was no more time to waste. She wanted to get the dolls away from the goblins and giant and whomever else they might have meant to ravage if anyone else, but she doubted attracting simply one or two with the weight of her attention would do the trick.

Staring at the dolls wouldn't work; even if that act alone might have drawn their attention from their victim to her, she couldn't stare at them all at once. Repelling them with a spell was also unlikely to work on more than one at a time. By the time she managed to repel them all, it would probably already be too late for their victims. No, she had to do something a bit more drastic.

'They care about me', Aamon had told her, almost as if he had been intentionally trying to give her a clue, though she highly doubted he meant for her to use the information in the way she was about to. 'They care about keeping me safe'.

Reverting to his former shape with the ease and comfort of someone letting down their hair, Kit darted back toward Aamon, grinning as good-naturedly as if he was about to take him to a theme park. Then he scooped him up in his arms princess-style. As he liked to maintain a healthy, decently fit, athletic body type, he managed to carry the pre-teen with relative ease and quickly proceeded to hurry out the door through the flow of the traffic. As he passed the goblins on the ground, Kit forced himself to avoid looking at them. If his educated guess was right and he managed to save them in time, then so be it. But if they were beyond saving...well, Kit preferred not to dwell on things he couldn't change.

"Seems like we've all got a few tricks hidden up our sleeves, don't we, Aamon?" Kit asked cheerfully, intentionally avoiding any potentially condescending nicknames that time. "Let's see...I wonder who you consider better friends of yours. Me or them." He grinned brilliantly at the magical young man, but there was a touch of melancholy to that grin. "Do they really care about you? Or are they just enchanted to protect you from physical danger? Do you think they'll catch up to us and do to me what they were doing to the others?" He cocked his head questioningly at Aamon. "Or would they be able to recognize that I care about keeping you safe just as much as they do, if not more?"

As fit as Kit might have liked to consider himself, hustling in something of a jog while carrying a person - even a relatively small one - princess-style was starting to slow him down, especially when he tried to talk between breaths. He began to pant from the exertion, but that didn't keep him from attempting to continue to speak just the same. "You said they're not like us, " he remarked, his grin sobering into a tightly strapped-down smile. "So I'm willing to bet they don't actually 'care' about anything."

The faceless dolls. The living 'wand' in he had stuck in his pocket. The thing lodged in Aamon's side. All of the mysteries gleamed like partially-buried treasure begging someone to completely exhume them in order to reveal their true value and beauty. But of all the puzzles laid out before him, it was the boy he was carrying that intrigued Kit most of all. It was too soon to tell for sure, but...Aamon seemed to be amoral.

Amoral, like fairies that supposedly couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong and thus relied on their own selfish whims and wills to guide their actions. Amoral like the abandoned infant raised by fairies in Kensington Gardens. Aamon might not have been raised by fairies, but he certainly behaved as if his only moral compass was calibrated based on his own selfish desires. What a typical child...at least in that aspect. And yet...could he really be blamed for becoming the way he was? At least he didn't seem to be immoral, exactly...not yet, anyway.

"Aamon," Kit said quietly, staring straight ahead with his gaze on the road instead of Aamon. His smile was completely gone and his expression was flat. However, he didn't appear to be or sound angry or judgmental. Only calm and nonchalant. "Were you the reason those goblins and giant attacked the ice cream parlor?"

Action: Attempting to pick up Aamon and carry him out the door princess-style
Interacting with: @Aamon Athanatos and the NPC goblins & giant
HP: 810/900
Stats: STA 9 / EVA 6 / STR 9 / WIS 20 / ARC 7 / ACC 9
Abilities: Metamorphmagus / 's Grace / Perfectionist / Wandless Magic / Nonverbal Magic