Suspicious Summonings || Childe X Scaramouche

[cynnabnnuy]

Sometimes (less often than he claimed), he hated that Nahida forced him into the Akademiya. He hadn’t passed the brutal entrance exams, didn’t have to jump through the hoops most scholars there did, whatever the case, he had it drastically easier. A blessing and a curse. His classmates hated him for it, not even giving the poor puppet the time to make them hate him with his dreadful personality. But, they knew he had answers to things, so at the very least, he had some worth that kept him from being entirely alone.

Usually. There were more times than he could count where he’d be in The House of Daena and he’d be able to feel the eyes of other students on him. Whether it was because of his inhuman build, his ‘easy ride’ as they called it, or some other bullshit excuse, they always found a reason to stare.

They hated it. Always feeling watched and never alone but still so drastically isolated. If he could choose to be alone, that would be fine, but this was a hell of its own and there wasn’t anything he could do about it. Like hell would they ask Nahida for help and get called a coward. He may not care for the opinions of others, but it still got irritating how they would just assume things… eugh…

The project he was currently working on, though, was becoming a larger task than he could handle alone. Not because it was difficult, though! He could’ve done it on his own easily!! But… Well, in a home with the only other person being 4’10”, it was a bit difficult to reach things sometimes… If only his creator had made him taller.

Regardless, Koneko was in need of an assistant at the very least, someone who could reach the higher parts of his “miniature” Shouki No Kami. He knew it was dangerous, almost breaching one of the forbidden sins of “Delving beyond the universe”, but his benefactor vouched for him. Still, his final project for the house of Kshahrewar was going… well enough. He needed specialty materials as well, something he’d had to pester Nahida about more than a few times, all the more reason for what he was about to do.

He’d eavesdropped on some Rtawahist and Spantamad students discussing the abyss and demonic summonings, primarily looking to belittle them at first, even if only in his own head, but… The creatures they spoke of caught his attention. They knew the abyss was a real problem, but demons? It seemed far fetched yet less dangerous due to the low probability of it being real. So, he decided to take a brief break from Shouki to read up on the topics. And, while not easy they had access to most of the supplies required to summon one of the creatures they’d read up on.

The only problems? He didn’t have any parts of a whale carcass, so he’d need to get something of that nature without detection, and he couldn’t figure out if this… “Tartaglia” was of abyssal or demonic origin. A slight problem, but one he decided would be fine to ignore as he had the means required to trap any demonic entity and… well, if it was abyssal, he was a bit fucked, but the help would be worth it. High risk high reward, and hopefully if he played his cards right, the only risk would be his own destruction. Something he felt should’ve come far sooner anyway.

It took him a while to get the item he could use, but with his connection (Nahida), he was able to get a relatively cheap whale fossil delivered to him. The bone was bigger than he’d expected, a welcome surprise, but once it showed up, it was finally time.

Nahida was out for the weekend, visiting the desert to arrange something they hadn’t paid any attention to, so they had the home to themself. He decided that he’d use the room just beside the one dedicated as his “lab”, a title Nahida said was cute and fit the space. They hated it… (They did not.) But, the room beside it was fitted with the same raised ceiling and had plenty of space. So, he got to work that afternoon to be sure he was ready on time. He traced out the summoning circle, placed candles, salted the floor, triple-checked the symbols were correct, and set up the items the ritual used where he’d need them. He’d been practicing his pronunciation of the incantation as well, and when night fell and the time came to be, he was there, reciting the chant to the lit candles as he moved through the summoning ritual.

The expectation was for it to fail, but the hope that something might happen made it worth the effort, albeit just barely.