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"It's nothing, I just think you're very cute, Astolfo. Like a little rabbit."
[NaggingAlert]: What a nagging Strear!
[Disgusted]: Chen Ge you are so gross right now~
[SummonTheSlicer]: Where is the slicer man? I need ten billion copies of this face mailed to every person on the planet.
[System]: User 'You_Are_Cute_Like_A_Rabbit' has gifted 10 rockets.
[Justice]: That donor is righteous. That donor gets it.
[Chaos]: Boss has lost his mind!
You couldn't really bla the chat for laying into him.
The problem was the face Chen Ge was making while he said it — which was, thanks to the unforgiving clarity of Kenneth's yellow-haired character model, fully visible in the background mirror. Blushing. Dopey. The expression of soone who had completely lost the plot and was absolutely fine with that.
It was, objectively, a disgusting face.
Astolfo, however, did not find it disgusting.
The apple-pink flush spread across her cheeks in real ti, both hands flying up to press against her face.
"Cute like a little rabbit~ oh my, being told that makes so shy~"
"Just telling the truth."
"Hehehe~!" A beat. "Oh! By the way, Master — have you ever experienced flying? Like real flying?"
"Does a plane count?"
The level of disappointnt on Astolfo's face suggested that no, a plane did not count even a little.
Chen Ge didn't have ti to clarify before a sharp whistle cut through the air.
Spirit particles surged through the window in a rush of wind, and Wuai descended with the energy of a creature that had long since made peace with the fact that it had no say in its own schedule. Wings out, talons down, the hippogriff landed on the borrowed house's balcony with considerably more grace than the balcony was probably rated for.
"Hehe, scared, Master?"
"A little. But is this your mount?"
"Yes! This is Wuai! He goes 'Wuai! Wuai!'"
"Wuai. (That is not my na. That has never been my na.)"
"Oh, sorry, I don't understand what you're saying! But I super like you, so you must super like too, right~!"
"Wuai? (I — what — how is this my life.)"
[RIPWuai]: This creature deserves better.
[AgreentFromWuai]: He really does.
[Nighteting]: Is tonight just a convention of extrely cute Servants? Lily over on Maverick's stream is adorable, and now this. What is happening.
[NotListening]: The not-listening-to-anyone thing is honestly the cutest part. I feel so bad for this hippogriff.
[LifeGoals]: If I had soone this energetic waking up every morning, I'd have gotten into any college I wanted.
[Reality]: Buddy. You are dreaming. Please return.
[EveryoneEnvious]: Not only does Chen Ge sail on a ship with Drake, but now he gets to fly with a cute girl on a hippogriff. I formally hate him.
[EveryoneEnvious2]: Envious of the Strear!
[EveryoneEnvious3]: Envious of Astolfo!
[EveryoneEnvious4]: Envious of the Strear!
Astolfo, operating at her default speed of faster-than-consent, grabbed Chen Ge by the collar and dropped him onto Wuai's back before he'd finished forming an opinion about it.
Wings beat. The ground fell away.
The wind ca at Chen Ge's face like a wall, cold and imdiate and real in a way that no ga simulation had ever quite captured. The city of Fuyuki spread out below him and kept spreading — buildings shrinking to blocks, blocks to neighborhoods, neighborhoods to the miniature geotry of a map. The clouds were close. Close enough that the edges of them drifted past, cold and soft.
He forgot to be embarrassed.
He forgot to be anything except exactly here, in this exact mont, at this exact altitude.
This is what it actually feels like.
He'd flown in gas. He knew the chanics. He'd never known the feeling — the specific, bone-deep weightlessness, the scale of the sky when you're actually inside it, the strange quiet at altitude where the noise of the world below stops reaching you.
His face broke into a grin with no self-consciousness in it. No performance for the cara, no chat to acknowledge, no character to maintain. Just Chen Ge, genuinely delighted, thirty ters above Fuyuki with the wind in his face.
After a while, once the wonder had settled into sothing he could speak through, he thought to ask the obvious question.
"Astolfo — what exactly is Wuai? Is he a griffin?"
"No! But not a horse either. Wuai is a phantom horse that doesn't exist in this world. He's a griffin — well, actually he's not a griffin. He just is."
The chat took a mont to process this.
[Processing]: A griffin that is not a griffin. A horse that is not a horse.
[Biology]: For context: griffins eat horses. These two species should not be producing offspring. The existence of a hippogriff requires an act of the universe deciding the normal rules are optional.
[RelatingToWuai]: I too have been enthusiastically recruited into a situation I did not fully understand. I feel you, Wuai.
[ThePoint]: Astolfo genuinely doesn't know her own mount's origin story. She just liked him and that was enough. He had no say. This is the most Astolfo thing possible.
[WuaiTherapy]: This hippogriff needs a support group.
The flying continued.
The view stayed extraordinary.
And the warmth pressed against Chen Ge's back — the soft, close, fragrant presence of Astolfo's arms wrapped around his waist for balance — was sothing he was absolutely, definitely not thinking about.
The chat, watching through the stream, was cataloguing his expression in real ti.
They were so envious they were practically dissolving.
Chen Ge smiled privately at the horizon and said nothing, because for once there was no mirror, and the cara had his back, and he could just have this.
Then sothing poked him.
Chen Ge went completely still.
He assessed the situation. He ran through all the possible explanations. He arrived at a conclusion he found acceptable and a conclusion he found significantly less acceptable.
"Astolfo."
"Yes, Master~?"
"...Is that your sword?"
A beat of warm, cheerful silence.
"Of course not~!" Astolfo laughed, bright and completely unbothered. "That's my — well — I am a genuine boy, you know!"
"..."
The chat, watching the color drain from Chen Ge's face in real ti, entered a state of collective hysteria that would take several minutes to fully resolve.
[Screaming]: HE SAID IT. HE SAID IT OUT LOUD.
[ChenGeExpression]: His FACE—
[Legal]: Chen Ge, I am warning you — being naive is not a legal defense. Please be mindful of your responsibilities as a public figure.
[PhilosophyFinal]: "I'd rather have a gun behind my back." — Chen Ge, probably, right now, in this mont.
[WuaiWeighs_In]: Wuai. (I did not ask to be part of this either.)
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