Don't kill me. My life is just chaos right now.

Doesn't line up 100% with current Ripples canon, because I think Luke met Dark before Kairi came to Baticul, and they brought Koran up after that, but the scene popped in my head, and unless I'm much mistaken, with the travel times involved and Natalia pushing things along, Koran should have been up running around the castle and Luke's manor before Kairi got to Baticul, so... Whatevs. We'll just call that a plot hole I can't be bothered to fill and move on.


Gold Ripples – Luke
Daemione

I was bored out of my mind.

Not an unusual state of being, if I'm being honest. I get bored a lot. Little side-effect of being locked inside a manor all the time.

So could I really be blamed for hiding from my tutors in favor of getting a little sword practice in? Guy was busy, would be busy until late afternoon, at least, and I didn't really care about some Malkuthian Emperor who was two hundred years dead.

So I practiced, quietly and in a corner of the manor that would hopefully keep me from being discovered quickly.

And that's where I was when it showed up.

It was... big. Not quite looking me in the eyes on all fours, but almost. Black-striped gray fur, for the most part, save for a fluffy brown mane around its neck.

I'd heard of ligers before, mind you, but I'd never realized they could grow so big.

And this one was in the manor.

And currently between me and my route out of my hidden corner.

Brown eyes watched me, even as the liger tilted its head to the side and sat down.

Like this, it looked a lot like a cat that had wandered into the manor once... if cats grew to be the height of a teenager.

I took a deep breath and sheathed my sword. It wasn't making any threatening moves, and there was no way something this big could have snuck into the manor without the White Knights noticing.

That meant someone, or something, had brought it in. Somehow.

It tilted its head to the other side, then stood and started toward me. Not wanting to find out how quickly it could eat me, I took a step back—right into the wall. Well, there went that plan.

Thankfully, it seemed all the liger was interested in was sniffing at me. Slowly, carefully, I reached out—with my right hand, at least, so if it bit me, I could still write and stuff—only to freeze as the liger stopped to sniff at my fingers.

Then, with all the impatience of, say, Natalia... the liger shoved its head under my hand, and the order of 'pet me' couldn't have been more clear.

I rolled my eyes and started running my hand over surprisingly soft fur, scratching behind the liger's ears, and was 'rewarded' with a quiet rumbling that I recognized pretty quickly as a purr.

"Overgrown cat, much?" I muttered. The liger shook itself and let out a huff, almost like it was laughing.

...Was it laughing?

"...Can you understand me?" Oh, Lorelei, who was I kidding? It's just a...

The liger nodded once, very deliberately, and made eye contact again.

...very smart monster, apparently. Well, that wasn't exactly what I was expecting.

"...Huh. Okay. So... Don't suppose you could show me how you got in here?"

The liger tilted its head to the side, then put its nose to the air and sniffed, ears lifting and turning slightly, this way and that, before...

A yowl broke through the air, and I wondered for a moment if that was another liger, or if it had actually been a human. It sounded a bit off from what I thought—

The liger threw back its head to let out an answering yowl, and I nodded to myself.

Definitely a human on the other end of that exchange. That was a good sign. I hoped.

Apparently unbothered by the fact that I still had no idea how it got in here, the liger sat down and rubbed its head against my chest, clearly looking for more pets. I sighed and relented. It wasn't like I had anywhere I needed to be, and its fur was really soft.

I'd just sat down—and ended up leaned up against the liger's belly, somehow—when I heard the voices. One familiar, one... not.

"I don't think I've ever been back this way," Natalia's voice drifted around the corner.

"Unless I am much mistaken, which I kinda hope I'm not, seeing as the stubborn ass refused to come to us, he should be back here. Good Yulia but he's a headache on a good day..." the unfamiliar male voice replied.

I frowned to myself and shifted, glancing at the liger half-sprawled behind me. I didn't know the second voice, so was he talking about me, or...

A black-haired boy, probably a little younger than me, rounded the final corner, and the first thing that drew my attention was his eyes. Mismatched, one a dark green similar in shade to my own eyes, the other...

Gold. And with a black line for a pupil instead of a circle.

The liger rumbled something behind me, and I glanced at it, then up at the stranger, who had a weird expression on his face.

Natalia was trailing right behind him, but she giggled when she spotted me. "Seems like Koran's making friends."

I scowled and made to stand up, only to pause as the black-haired teen made another face. This one, I recognized. Exasperation.

And probably not with me, seeing as he growled a moment later. The liger's answering growls didn't actually surprise me at this point.

"Lazy bum," the teen finally muttered after a few minutes of back and forth growling. "Lazy, spoiled bum. And we haven't been here three days yet."

The liger just purred and laid its—his, I guess?—head on his paws.

Natalia's giggling said enough about the situation.

"So who are you?" I asked. I could guess why he was here. He was twitchy enough, and very aware of Natalia's location at any given time. I knew Uncle had been pushing Natalia to hire a bodyguard for a couple years now, ever since she started traveling the country, but I hadn't thought she'd ever actually find someone who'd put up with her.

"Name's Dark Daemione. And the overgrown housecat behind you is Koran."

Overgrown housecat, huh?

I glanced over my shoulder, and remembered a head shoved against my chest not twenty minutes ago.

Yeah, I could see it.

"Dark is my new bodyguard," Natalia said cheerfully. "Which means Koran's... probably going to spend a lot of time wandering the upper levels of Baticul, because, well... I can't imagine him sitting still well for meetings." Her cheeriness had gradually faded through that statement, even as Dark crossed his arms.

"We should probably drag him back past the Duchess when we leave. He wandered off before we spoke to her earlier," he said rather bluntly.

Natalia looked worried. "Aunt Suzanne is... I don't want to say delicate, but..."

I frowned. "He's... surprisingly gentle," I piped up. And Mom had really liked that cat that had dropped in, so she'd probably like Koran, too, massive size aside.

Dark looked amused. "As ill as the Duchess is? He'll probably try to help the maids take care of her. Rather a bit of a mother-hen, that one."

Koran raised his head to growl at Dark for that one.

"Yeah, well, family's the jerks we got stuck with at birth. Friends are the family we pick," the boy grumbled back, still in the fonic language. The scowl on his face told me that I probably didn't want to know what his family was like.

Koran growled again, and this time it almost sounded like a question.

"Not counting tangles with Danté, how often have I gotten in the sort of trouble where I need the help?" Dark shot back.

If a liger could make Dad's 'Oh really? And I'm supposed to believe that?' look, then that was exactly the look Koran leveled on Dark right then.

What sounded like it could only be a list followed, Dark's face slowly turning pink as Koran went on.

"...Yeah, okay, you've made your point. Shut it."

Koran let out another snort-huff, and then shoved his head under my arm to lay it in my lap. The message was obvious, at least to me.

'If you're done being an idiot, I'm going to go back to getting pets.'

Natalia giggled again, apparently amused by the whole scene, while Dark rolled his mismatched eyes.

"Damn spoiled overgrown cat."