The orange leaves of the approaching autumn adorned the trees, occasionally plucked from their branches by a mild breeze. Tranquillity and silence staked their claim upon the autumn forest, allowing peace to spread and prosper unperturbed. However, the peace wouldn''t last, given the unfolding antics of a certain trio. In contrast to the once overbearing silence, the mortified cries of a child pierced through the trees. Her wails were unrelenting and contested only by the relentless torrent of aggressive buzzing.


    A silver blur zipped between the trees at a frantic pace, trailed by a faint tremor that grew in intensity before a swarm of bees spilt out through the trees like water and after the fleeing trio.


    "Why are you crying, this was your idea!" Kid Temperance exclaimed excitedly as he glared back at the crying Faithilia sitting on one of his three small kitsune tails. The girl continued to wail while desperately clinging to a sizeable chunk of solidified honey in her arms.


    "Fai didn''t spec all the bees from the other bee-homes to attack," Child Faithilia cried, balling her eyes as her four small dragon wings shivered in terror at the closing in buzzing.


    "Asty, this is all your fault!" Alexstrala pouted calmly, concluding her sentence with a reserved and contentious huff.


    (Alexstrala Umbrou is a short, kid abyssal vampire; she has slightly long spikey-tipped black hair, dark topaz eyes, very pale skin, vampire fangs, and a jet-black scarf-like appendage that''s attached by the back of her neck)


    "And how did you come to that conclusion?" Kid Temperance remarked teasingly. Alexstrala glared downwards, casting contempt upon Temperance. She found his sense of danger lacking, but what really ruffled her scarf-like appendage was Temperance''s complete disregard for etiquette when talking to her, given their respective standings.


    As beams of sunlight began falling upon the trio''s path, Alexstrala commanded her scalf-like appendage with the flick of her wrist and she whipped it over her head before morphing its form into an umbrella in preparation for the sun.


    "It''s your stupidly condensed spiritual energies that attracted the bees," Alexstrava murmured disapprovingly. But, even with her misgivings for the guy, her agitation slowly faded, replaced with giddy delight as she watched Temperance''s small angelic wings flap and flutter. The smol vampiric child reached out a tentative hand to touch one of the wings, her cheeks flushing slightly as she recalled how fluffy and soft to the touch Temperance''s wings were.


    "If you touch my wings right now, we''ll all be eating the dirt," Kid Temperance stated before going completely limp as Alexstrava failed to restrain herself from touching the fluffy angel wings.


    Kid Temperance swung to the ground like a sack of potatoes and smashed face-first into a tree.


    Snapping back to consciousness, Temperance shot up from a lying position, flinging Miya off his head and across the bakery like a ping pong as she bounced off every surface she collided with.


    "Woah, he was out for six minutes dead-on, talk about a power nap," Faithilia remarked as Miya crashed into the booth bench behind her, bringing her bouncing fit to an end.


    Photon''s tail slivered up from behind and over the counter, its scales glistening like stars in the reflection of a lake as it travelled towards the bee''s crash site. The fur at the end of her tail wrapped around the sulking Miya, who was utterly defeated at not getting even a drop of spiritual energy, before carrying the bee girl into the kitchen before she regained her confidence to try again.


    Temperance rested his head in his palm, covering half of his face as he rubbed the tiredness out of his eye. The brief encounter in his dream was fresh in his mind but the finer details of it illuded him while the occupants of his dream blurred into unidentifiable blobs with each passing second. He could only groan, desperately trying to patch his dissolving daydream back together but only managing to give himself a headage—the searing pang as his desperation to bring back his short-lived dream.


    "You good, dude?" Faithilia asked with concern. Temperance remained silent, lost so deeply in thought he didn''t hear Faithilia. Realising she wasn''t getting through to him, Faithilia began to slightly lean forward, her eyes wobbling with fear at seeing the unnervingly heavy look in the guy''s eyes. But luckily for her, a loud metalic clang from the kitchen jumped Temperance back to reality and registered the question.


    The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    "Yeah... just felt like I slammed my face into a tree.". Temperance rubbed his face one last time before dragging his hand down his face until letting it drop onto the table with a thud. Faithilia mentally sighed in relief, returning to a sitting on the booth bench as realised her concern was unfound.


    "Well, that bee girl did headbutt you like her life depended on it," Faithilia remarked cheekily before taking a bite out of her muffin counterpart.


    "Say, what made you ask if I was ok?". Faithilia choked on her muffin at the sudden question and she rapidly punched her chest to dislodge the muffin before she could suffocate.


    "I-I um, didn''t like the look in your eyes, that''s all," Faithilia mumbled as she took a smaller bite out of her muffin, anticipating further questions and wanting to avoid choking again.


    Detecting Temperance''s emergence from his slumber, Saigo whipped her crumb-covered face around with a beaming smile. She leapt off her stool and bounced her merry way over to Temperance with a half-eaten crepe in hand. Her wings giddily flutter, lifting herself off the ground as she scaled the booth bench and one arm crawled over to Temperance. While finishing her last crepe, Saigo nudged her tail under Temperance''s right arm, subconsciously allowing it to coil the guy''s arm as her mind became filled with the anticipation of combat.


    "Big Bro, let''s go play at Big Sis Nana''s playground thingy," Saigo pleaded as she wrapped her tail even tighter around the guy''s arm. The grip of the young girl''s tail was surprisingly firm against his arm, forcing Temperance to mildly wince from the pain.


    Intending to decline, Temperance steeled his nerves and pushed past the pain. But, he was blind-sighted by some of the biggest puppy dog eyes he''d ever seen. Despite the surprise, Temperance was far too familiar with the form of relentless persuasion the little girl had employed on him, thanks to Nakamai and Kannachi''s presence in his life. Temperance kept his gaze locked on the kid, his mind plagued with dread, and fearing if he diverted his focus for even a second that his barely held-together resistance would immediately fold like a pushover parent.


    "Are you really losing a clash of wills against a kid?" Faithilia asked teasingly, finding it hard to believe someone in the academy''s Hunter Department could be susceptible to a kid''s puppy dog eyes of all things.


    Temperance snapped his focus to Faithilia from her provocating question. He mentally pondered on how to respond, going over various resorts of increasing ferocity with a tempered yet sinister visage forming in his mind. Seemingly sensing her essence''s train of thought, Nakamai''s complexion turned a timid shade of blue while Nana-ka gleefully stuck a spoonful of ice cream in the ego''s mouth.


    "Oh, Gods. I got a brother," Nakamai uttered muffledly as Nana-Ka pulled the spoon out of the girl''s mouth. The spoon-wielding girl couldn''t help but let a hearty sigh escape her lips, unable to hold back her excitement at the prospect of having another being as cuddly as Nakamai appearing in front of her.


    "I hope he''s just as huggable as you~" Nana-Ka proclaimed with glee, letting a coe of endearment at imaging a mini-version of Temperance with different hair colours/different creature features while absent-mindedly sticking the spoon into the tub of ice cream.


    "I doubt it...," Nakamai grumbled as Nana-Ka brought another spoonful of ice cream to the ego''s face which she gladly consumed.


    Temperance''s deranged comeback to However, a second opinion entered his thought process, flinging his train of thought off its very rails and crashing in a ditch. But, despite his comeback going up in smoke and leaving him minorly peeved, the simplicity of the new voice in his head''s idea turned his sinister grin into a normal one.


    Employing the use of his free limbs, Temperance placed an angelic wing atop Saigo''s head. He gently cupped her head, ensuring his grip wasn''t too firm before he turned head to face Faithilia, leaving the on-looking teen to raise a shiba ear in confusion.


    The half-dragon''s confusion only rose as she watched Temperance bring his free hand to Saigo''s face. And once the guy was certain Faithilia was only focusing on Saigo, Temperance squished the little girl''s cheek, flinging the lingering crepe crumbs from her face as she made a "Wah" noise.


    Faithilia widened her eyes in unadulterated awe with her brain lagging behind her as the image of Saigo''s goofy face and cute noises flooded into it. Adding to the prior flood of stimuli, the overwhelming might of Saigo''s big ol'' eyes forced Faithilia''s brain to reboot. But, along the way, her brain must have bluescreen from the cuteness overload she received before she lost all control of her body and slammed face-first into the booth table.


    "Woah... I killed her," Saigo mumbled through her squished cheeks, before losing interest and glancing to the side as she heard Zalina place a large pastry box on the counter.