☆~ VulpineSweets ~☆

About halfway through your showing, you jumped up, sweeping your polearm under you. Unfortunately, you hadn’t swept it far enough, and your heel landed on it, sending you crashing to the ground.

Capitano clicked his tongue, offering you a hand. “Up on your feet, soldier.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I thought I had it,” you murmured sheepishly.

“You do have it. Mistakes happen to the best of us,” he noted. “Press on; you can do this.”

You nodded, trying to brush away your embarrassment. Capitano walks past, taking notice of your drooping body language. You shake your head, retrying your moves repeatedly.

The more you tried, the more you made little mistakes. You felt eyes on you, hearing little snickers from your fellow soldiers. You were mortified, and you wanted nothing more than to hide away in your barrack and never re-emerge.

“It’s laughable how you even managed to get here. Such a clumsy thing you are,” one of your fellow soldiers quipped. “You must be a fool to think that you’d be a good representative of the Captain.”

“One bad day does not define my worth as a soldier,” you argued in reply.

“Right, and I’m going to be the one to take over for the Captain once he steps down,” he sneered. Him and the rest of the group disappeared to the mess hall, leaving you all alone on the training grounds.

You yelled out in frustration, flinging your polearm into the grass below. You sat criss-crossed with a huff, resting your chin in your hands. Eventually, you leaned backwards, laying on your back.

When you opened your eyes, you spotted your captain standing above you. Your eyes widened and you scrambled about, trying to stand.

“It’s cold,” he observed.

You stayed silent, mortified and ashamed.

“I can see your breath; it’s cold.”

“And?”

“You’ll be of no use if you’re frozen to the core,” he noted.

“I’m not of use anyways,” you grumbled.

Before giving you the chance to reply or deprecate yourself further, Capitano stiffened. He grabbed your shoulders and hauled you to your knees. He pulled your polearm out of the grass, placing it at your side. “On your feet, now.”

Oh dear, you didn’t like this tone he held.

You hesitantly rose to your feet, grabbing your polearm shamefully.

“Assume your stance.”

“Sir-“

“That is an order,” he growled

You flinched at his increasingly angry tone and sighed, assuming your stance.

“Keep your stance no matter the distraction.”

“Captain?” You furrowed your brows. “What do you mean by- gyEAHA!” Your arms tucked in close to your sides, clamping them down. “What the hell?!”

“Don’t falter. A soldier’s battle is one of utter focus.”

Another squeal left your lips as you felt a tweak on the back of your neck. “Sir!” you cried. “This is- NGH- highly innap-EEP! Inappropriate!”

“Focus up, (Y/N). I can’t seem to understand what the issue is here. I’m merely correcting your form.” If you could see your captain’s face, you could have sworn that you would have seen a cheeky grin.

“Cahahaptahahain!” You squealed as his fingers dug into a sensitive spot. Your body shook with gentle giggles, causing your form to falter.

“What’s wrong, cadet?”

“Cahahaptahahain! Ihihit tihihihickles!”

“Oh? Does it really? How curious…” he hummed, tracing gently over the same spot, causing more squeaky chuckles out of you. “Well, let this be a part of your training then.”

As you tried to hold your polearm upright, your body shook as you fought to curl in on yourself. His fingers wormed their way up to under your arms. Your giggles dissolved into full belly laughter.

Frantic laughter poured from your lips as tried to keep yourself from crumbling. Your eyes squeezed shut in mirth, you pleaded for your captain’s antics to cease.

“Stay focused, (Y/N). An assailant may use any means necessary to overtake you,” Capitano reported, wiggling his fingers under your arms with a bit more fervor, causing a yelp from you. “How precious. You really are so sensitive, aren’t you?”

A blush crept up to your cheeks at his teasing words. “Cahahaptahahain! Plehehehease!”

“Please? You wish for me to continue? Such a brilliant soldier who wants to train so diligently,” he hummed. “Quite notable… and quite honorable.”

Eventually, his fingers crept onto your most sensitive spot, causing your eyes to squeeze shut harder. “NAHAHAHA! CAHAHAPTAHAHAIN!”

“Endure it.”

“CMOHOHOHON! IHIHI CAHAHAHANT!”

“You’ve yet to beg me to stop, cadet,” he observed.

Damn it!

Eventually, your knees crumbled beneath you. You curled in on yourself, instantly letting go of your weapon. It fell quickly, the blade headed right for your head. Capitano knelt before you, one supportive hand on your back, and the other effortlessly catching the falling polearm.

“Careful, little one,” he warned, setting the polearm into the grass next to you. “Now… where was I? Ah, right-“

“NO!” You huffed, gripping his wrists. His fingers remained wiggling just above your worst sport. You giggled in anticipation. “Cahahahaptain plehehehease nohohoho mohohohore.”

“Alright, alright,” he soothed, gently rubbing your back.

You sighed, closing your eyes and catching your breath. Capitano continued to rub gentle circles on your back, looking upon you fondly through his mask as he watched you lean into his touch.

“You’ve done nothing but impress me so far, (Y/N),” he noted suddenly. “I heard what the others were accusing you of. I’m here to report that they are nothing but false.”

You scoffed, pulling your knees to your chest, “No, they’re right, Captain. I have far too much to do to improve before I’m worthy.”

“Worthy? More to improve?” He hummed dismissively. “My child, I would trust you the most out of all of your peers to guard my life.”

You perked up at that. “Do you really mean it?”

“So you had a hard day; it is inevitable for any soldier.”

“But I-“

“When I was a boy…” he began. “I was so infatuated with my sword. I was filled with excitement so quickly that I tried to become a master within a day. I ended up accidentally slicing off a large piece of my hair.”

A small snort left you, and you uncurled into a more relaxed position. “Really?”

“Really. When I first became a soldier, my pants fell during a physicality test. I didn’t show my face for a week.”

“There’s no way!” You chortled.

“There is. So, take my experiences to heart. Your mistakes will not define your future. Do not be afraid to make them.”

You smiled sheepishly. “Thank you, Captain.”

“You’re most welcome, little one.”

• That magic cooking pot Qifrey shows off to Coco seems so useful I feel generic putting it as "man, wouldn't magic be nice!?"

• Speaking of cooking- this man must be a master chef or somewhat decent. Or maybe it's just that thing of anime making food look good. I do hope there's a manga spin-off where it's just Qifrey's cooking adventures with the girls. PLEASE TELL ME THAT'S A REAL THING I SWEAR I SAW SOMETHING SIMILAR ON GOOGLE- or maybe Google lied to me. It does that-

• I spent a good 40 minutes rambling to my friend who's never heard about WHA about Olruggio and Qifrey's fannon doomed yaoi. She was so devastated they were doomed she might have been more upset than me. Thank you Tumblr 😭

• I do like the silver tree and the idea of it dying to create ink. Most trees that produce something that we use like rubber or sap you have to tap into the tree to get it out of its tree veins and then process.

• I am genuinely curious to see more Agott character development or at least just see more of how she thinks and acts. She's a genuinely interesting character in my eyes.

• And I also want to know about Richeh because I don't feel like I know anything about her currently!!

• My friend was showing me Qifrey's master over Discord because they read the manga. What do you mean he has a chair made out of a ram? Alright then- witches be witches.

• I also have a question if anyone could answer. I was looking carefully at all the witches during the market scene in the witch city and I felt like I saw other young children that were either apprentices or just young witches. There was specifically like a young boy looking up to an older witch and my point of all of my rambling is that they were wearing matching robes- but the apprentices we've been shown wear a completely different color to Qifrey. My question is along the lines of "do the mentors choose robes of their apprentice wear?" Like- what's the deal with which clothing in general...???

• do the tassels mean anything?????? I should probably just read manga to find out but I don't have it anywhere near me so I'll find a way to swashbuckle it soon enough for my kindle.

• I started yelling obscenities at my computer during the masked witch scene with Coco at the tower- like genuine threats to that witch... I fear I will continue to do that. I'm so attached to these characters 🥹