Magical Girl Transformation ✨
Their headquarters-slash-secret-base-slash-clubhouse had turned into something resembling more of an eclectic combination of a grade school classroom and a war bunker. Which was all the same because it no longer really was their headquarters anymore.
A hodgepodge of construction paper and crayon art covered every inch of the four walls, many of which overlapped each other several times over in layers of clumsy drawings and clumsier messages. Libertus' dedication to teaching their charge new words might have fallen short, but she had seized upon learning to write with emphatic interest. Many of the signs contained only her name as if actively claiming the home as her own through each awkward scribble of Crowe, Crowe, Crowe.
Crowe. She had started to write it with that 'e' on the end after Libertus had so prudently informed her that the extra letter was only there to make words prettier. There had been a point when he'd looked intent on correcting her spelling, but that happened to time in at just the same moment that Crowe had broken a crayon with a particularly vicious glare aimed solely at him. Libertus had decided the 'e' was just fine.
Crowe, as she was now known, still did little talking apart from their names, her yeses and her nos, and the occasional echo that parroted the boys' words back to them. She still yelled a lot. She still glared a lot. But they had grown accustomed to her acerbic behavior and often fights were just part of the games they played (which always seemed to have a lot to do with wrestling or chasing).
The game tonight was no different. They lounged on the floor, sharing Crowe's makeshift bed of moth-savaged blankets and old clothes as they slapped cards down on a pile and drank from a canteen of juice. It was a simple game of liars and math and one that gave each of them the excuse to shout and slap each other-- which Crowe had discovered was a favorite pastime for boys in general.
"Horseshit!" Libertus cried, triumphantly smacking his hand down over Nyx's as he laid down a card. "You ain't got an ace, we already played all the aces! Crowe, back me up, he's lying."
"Lying," she chimed obligingly with a somber nod of her head before also slapping her hand down over theirs.
"Ow, hey!" Libertus hissed, snatching his own back. "He's the liar, not me. You gotta hit him."