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Yorick was a man who didn’t expect the allegedly most joyful years of his life to be wrought with fear and countless tense nights spent wondering what he should do. It all went wrong 17 years ago, where his daughter brought life into the world, even though sending people to the other side was more of their family business. He retired from being a funeral director to a beautiful little house in a seaside neighborhood, spending his summers at the beach with a margarita in one hand, and his other gripping onto an ice cream cone. Everything was perfect.
Isolde visited him every two weeks bringing by baskets full of new knitting supplies, supplements (even though he told her he wasn’t nearly frail enough for that), and fruits. The passing of time was slowed by a mercury gauze, wrapped over the lense he watched the world through, and for a while his world could only be described as idyllic. Then Isolde was in the hospital her now-adult and once healthy face turning a deep ashen grey as an infant no larger than Yorick’s hand struggled to breathe, his daughter’s weak fingers reaching out for the child while nurses rushed Gwen to NICU, and the heart monitor was coming to a slow just as the world seemed to speed up. Isolde left the world the same way she came, in a bed of white sheets, surrounded by nurses. And like her mother before her, her hallowed corpse was an artifact taken away by their family funeral home, and laid to rest before she could see the child she named in a panic survive.
Gwen survived. For weeks they all worried that she would follow her mother to the grave, barely clinging to life with her red fingers clutching at nothing. They could barely see her face from behind all the hospital machinery pumping life into her. Butterflies for the first time in life (well since he fell in love, but that was at least one lifetime ago) settled in his stomach like a troupe of barnacles on a ship. Viego could barely handle taking care of himself, much less a premature child that just barely escaped Kindred’s waiting arms. It was worrying seeing Viego self-destruct. It was painful seeing a face that was once tan and healthy turn pale and lifeless, the only semblance of emotion existing in an angry red alcohol flush. The legal battle started after Viego passed out on the other side of his now empty and quiet mansion surrounded by various whiskey bottles and business reports, looking more dead than alive (though Yorick could tell he was just drunk), with Gwen crying on the other side of the mansion in a day-old diaper. The butterflies left after winning her over, but time didn’t slow back down, even as everything seemed to settle into a normal suburban life.
He couldn’t do anything right by her. If Isolde were alive, Gwen would be receiving more than the bare minimum, she’d be tyking around with a matching bib and onesie. But when he realized how to do this, Gwen was already dressing herself, albeit in strange clothes she called “punk lolita fashion.” And now she was 17, under the very self-assured impression of her great maturity, despite having fought one of her friends at school about chicken nuggets a few days ago. It was this hubris that really bothered Yorick, though he knew all children (or teens as Gwen preferred) went through this. She was so sure that she was hiding all her secrets from him, even when her idea of hiding a packet of Oreos in her room was leaving crumbs all over his polished wooden floor. He’d seen her leaving at night to study with some “astronomy club”, but waited for her to admit to him that she was actually sneaking out at night with some strange magical girl transformation to fight god knows what. But of course his knowledge of her “superhero” escapes was a secret, because teenagers never expect their lies to be obvious. Gwen didn't know that Yorick knew about most of her crushes (and by extension her bisexuality) either. She really thought that he didn't know what the bi flag was. "Oh, yeah this is just a flag for an esports team I like." Where's the LOGO, Gwen? He supposed this was something that would just take time, but it hurt that she didn't feel comfortable enough to come out. Still, he wouldn't force Gwen to tell him her secrets.
He thought Gwen was being honest with him for once about her activities when she sat him down and said that she was inviting her club friends over, making sure to note that they were very weird. Being a self-proclaimed magical girl is pretty weird. “It’s just baking, we promise. Things won’t get too messy, they’re very mature.” Still, he’d promised her he’d let her bring friends over. It was a hero’s promise, the one he taught her about when she still read fairy tales. A hero always makes a promise, and they always make it come true.
Yorick wasn’t sure how mature a gaggle of teenagers could be and was prepared for disaster.
He wasn’t sure if the actual results were worse or better than what he expected. A large and rotund ginger man dressed in a too-small pink blouse, completed with a pink halter, and white jeans perched awkwardly on a chair in front of him stamping stars out of cookie dough. This was Gragas, apparently a bartender that was friends with a teacher, also involved in this “club.” The teacher in question, Pyke, was currently struggling to get an obviously underbaked cake out of a circular baking tin. Pyke’s strangely nautical outfit? Protected by a flimsy floral apron, currently losing a war to an avalanche of crumbs. Yorick struggled to equate this image with a high school Calculus teacher, but he supposed Gragas joining a magical girl club was weird enough by itself. The adults, though unwelcome, were arguably more tolerable than the teenagers Gwen brought. Shaco could barely be counted as a teenager, for one. He apparently was in the same grade as Gwen, but had been held back a few years. The infuriating little clown was everything Yorick expected a delinquent flunky to be, especially with his horribly inappropriate jokes. Seriously! Pyke seemed suspicious already but even he couldn’t stand being the target of Shaco’s hooker jokes. Yorick didn’t even want to try to understand the young man’s fashion sense. It was something between the Joker, Freddy Mercury, and Madoka Magica. What’s worse was how much Gwen seemed to like Shaco as they filled out cupcake tins together. He thought the nice-looking Qiyana would at least bring some stability to the friend group, but after interacting with her one on one, he realized her main interest was looking good to her friends rather than being the group’s problem solver. Another case of teenage hubris. Ironically the edgy self-proclaimed bully, Kayn, was the easiest to handle. Introverted, shy, and focused on crushing candy canes to decorate Pyke’s cake. He didn’t argue, didn’t insult anyone out loud, and didn’t tell bad jokes. It was… acceptable.
Of course, just as he began to tolerate the presence of these friends, a new person somehow popped up in the middle of the crowd. A very loud blonde teen introduced himself as Ezreal before joining Gragas with the cookie dough. The two immediately started pumping out heart shaped cookies. Yorick thought he heard something about pink hair. The group finished baking. Yorick got up to put the numerous cookies, cakes, and pastries in the fridge to cool so he could continue working on the lattice of his next pie. They were all chatting now, happily, and presumably would move to another room where Yorick could relax.
Qiyana was definitely not interested in staying in the kitchen, “Come on! You can’t expect me to help you bake more. I want to go look at your closet.”
The group kind of did a dead pan at Qiyana. Pyke looked between his crumb-coated apron and the icing covered hands of his peers. Ezreal coughed awkwardly. Kayn broke the silence, “Well… Qiyana. You didn’t really do anything except spray some pans with Pam.”
Qiyana shrugged, “It’s a contribution all the same. Plus, I don’t really want to get dirty from cooking, it’s not my style.”
At this a shit eating grin wormed its way onto Shaco’s face, “I didn’t know you had a style, Yaya. Couldn’t really tell from your outfit,” and with this snarky statement he lobbed an egg at Qiyana. The egg cracked open, staining Qiyana’s pale green blouse. Shaco immediately grabbed another egg as Qiyana brought herself back to her horrible new reality. She caught the next egg and slapped Shaco, but this didn’t stop a food fight from breaking out. Yorick felt his heart crack, just like the egg, as he watched pink food dye launch onto his newly installed marble backsplash. Gwen would help clean up of course, but by that time, the damage would probably already be done. He’d need to buy a new backsplash for the sink. As suspicious as the middle aged Pyke looked, he wasn’t engaging in the food fight, the audio of which became incomprehensible screaming and the odd whimper from Kayn. He just sighed and walked over to the bathroom, coming out with a newly cleaned apron. Yorick felt a surge of respect for the irritable looking man as he realized who the real glue of the friend group was.
He pulled Pyke over to his office. The teacher looked nervously up at the sample coffin poster above Yorick’s computer. Yorick shrugged, “So how did you come to join the Astronomy Club? You seem a bit old for it.”
Pyke sat on what appeared to be a hard bench. He stood back up after realizing that the bench was actually a coffin. The teacher fidgeted with his tie before responding, “The kids wanted to start the club first. I’m just the supervisor for legal reasons.”
Yorick leaned back on the lid of a coffin without any fear, “I’m surprised you’d willingly put on a sailor suit. Seems like a strange hobby for an astronomy club.” With this statement, Pyke began very visibly sweating. He played with his anchor patterned tie a bit more.
“Gwen actually wanted to explain this all to you… Mr. Mori. We were going to tell you at the last PTA meeting but I got pulled aside by the Crownguard family about Garen’s grades. Uh… it’s complicated…”
“You’re dating Gwen? I have her father’s private security force on speed dial, I hope you know that.” Yorick said this knowing that he’d seen Gwen on the news the other night fighting a monster with a blurry gang of other magical girls.
Pyke looked visibly disgusted at the thought. He thoughtfully pulls out his wallet, showing Yorick a picture of an angry looking baker with long purple hair. His finger paused on her wings for a moment before he put his wallet away, and looked up at Yorick, “Well I have better options than some high school girl. Besides, I’m a little older than I look, Gwen and the others are like toddlers to me. They’re so immature.”
“Tell me about it. Food fights… in my kitchen…”
Pyke nodded sympathetically, “Oh that’s why we always have them meet up at Kayn’s house, usually. Well the Astronomy Club is actually covering up for the fact that we’re a Star Guardian team. Ezreal isn’t in our team, his team doesn’t have a club, but he’s in my class so he knows about our team. You know what Star Guardians are, right?”
Yorick rolled his eyes, “Doesn’t everyone? You’re the line between us having to pay for home insurance for spontaneous monster attacks. I’ve been suspecting that Gwen has been involved with them.”
“Yeah… so all of us here are Star Guardians. I only signed up to watch over the students. There’s another club sponsor called Urgot, but… he’s not a Star Guardian, and he doesn’t really show up to club activities so we’ve never asked if he wants to be one.”
Pyke tries to leave the room, but Yorick places a steady and large hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. Pyke looks back up, “You want to see my transformation, don’t you?” Yorick nodded excitedly, he wanted to see how Pyke would look dressed up in all anime. The man didn’t seem like he enjoyed cutesy stuff.
A beautiful swath of white fabric shot at Yorick’s face as Pyke transformed into what appeared to be a buff Princess Tutu cosplayer. His suit was lined with white swan feathers that arced up to form something like a bandana, or a half-face veil of sparkling feathers. His suit was complete with two suit tails, also tipped with feathers, and sea green loafers, which complemented by some sea green tulle magically held in place on Pyke’s head. Yorick tried not to laugh, but he was too weak. It was just too funny. Pyke transformed back with a bashful look on his face, “Please don’t tell my crush about me okay… you guys live really close to her bakery.”
They joined the rest of the now clean club in the living room, where Kayn was currently standing in a t-pose as Gragas and Gwen pinned fabrics onto him. Shaco and Qiyana shouted out directions, and Pyke flashed a quick thumbs up at Gwen as he settled down. Yorick returned to his kitchen, cleaning up the mess for what seemed like hours, and got back to work on his cherry pie. His granddaughter was having so much fun, and the truth was so clear, that Yorick felt like all was right even if her friends were aggravating. That’s why none of them noticed Viego unlocking the front door with several designer bags in hand.
Gwen was having so much fun with her friends that she didn’t feel like she’d forgotten something. As far as she remembered, she was rarely not happy or having fun. It was just a given that the world would make her happy, even when she was fighting monsters or arguing with her annoying dad.
That’s why she forgot that Viego had a visitation session today. It’s not that Viego was banned from seeing her anymore, he’d regained the right for that when she turned 16, but he was still too busy with his company to see her. That was also part of the reason why she preferred telling her grandfather about PTA meetings or what clubs she’d joined - Viego was too busy to care and he wasn’t very good about caring either. Being pulled away from her friends at a hangout session because he didn’t like how Shaco and Pyke looked? So uncool!
Gwen stared at her grandfather and her dad, arms crossed. Yorick looked apologetic but went back to working on his pie after seeing that everything looked alright, peeking up at them every few seconds. Her dad dropped his phone to clutch at his chest dramatically. She couldn’t believe that she was related to him… he was so cringe. Nevermind that she had a phase of her life where she’d tell all her friends that she was going to move to South Korea and marry a member of an idol group, or that she said she’d date a Marvel actress, or that she had a crush on that one boy who was obsessed with conspiracies.
That was a different type of cringe. Viego was just… cringier than her.
“What are you doing here? My friends and I are hanging out!”
Viego dropped to his knees now, “Am I not invited?”
Gwen heard her friends backing out of the living room, into the hallway to her bedroom. Her dad really did ruin everything. Well she couldn’t really get rid of him now, “I didn’t even know you were free today. I don’t know, can’t you hang out with Gramps until my friends leave?”
Yorick shook his head. The two did not get along very well. It was all Gwen could do to get her friends to not leave through the back door, but she managed to get Viego to sit in a far corner away from her friends so he wouldn’t be annoying, but still close enough so he would feel included in their horror movie marathon. By the time her friends left, he was curled into a ball and clutching onto a pillow, clearly disturbed by costume makeup and cinematic ambience. Really, how was she related to someone this pathetic? It was just a horror movie!
Glad to see her friends gone, Viego immediately started opening the bags he brought. He walked up to Gwen with a big smile, “Look at what I got you, Gwennie!”
Yorick came over as well, curious to see what Viego brought this time, and if he would fit in it when Gwen inevitably decided it was ugly. It was a dark blue dress with a weird black upside-down T down the middle and white buttons. Gwen looked up at her dad with an eyebrow raised, “Is this…?”
“Givenchy! I thought you’d like it since it’s all the craze amongst the office ladies. Kalista said that she got one for herself the other day, so I thought you of course would look adorable in it.”
Gwen’s face blanched. It looked about 20 years too old for her, but she tried on the dress anyway. Yorick thought it was lovely on her, but he knew mentioning that would only raise her ire. The next was a blue macrame dress that somehow cost 2,000 dollars, which Yorick agreed was a waste, and was too ugly for Gwen to even pretend to not hate. Viego seemed hurt, as he’d picked the dress out himself, without any outside intervention. The only thing that Gwen liked out of Viego’s entire shopping spree was a pink dress covered in strawberries that Ledros picked out. Yorick and Viego both personally didn’t like the tulle or the color, but as long as Gwen was happy… Gwen drew the line at Viego staying the night. Dinner was alright, watching T.V. was fine, but no way was she going to let Viego sleep over and stop her from sneaking out. He seemed awfully hurt as he got back into his car and drove off, and Gwen almost felt bad, but she knew he was too clingy to deal with. Not when she was now a Star Guardian, with her own little 7-pointed star, and an awesome magical outfit.
She pretended to change into pajamas after showering, and tucked herself in for the night. Then she heard it, the sound of a monster, and she instantly sprung up. It was probably 1AM, and Yorick was old, so he fell asleep early. Even though he knew the basics, she didn’t want him to know that she was leaving. She transformed and opened her bedroom window. Just as she was going to jump out, a deep and wobbly voice called out to her from the window besides hers.
“Be careful, alright?”
She sucked in a deep breath. This wasn’t what she wanted. Just a little bit of secrecy, just enough so he wouldn’t worry, that’s what she wanted.
“I always am, and I always will be.”
Gwen hopped out of her bedroom window and met up with her team. Still, she couldn’t help but wonder what her grandfather was up to now that she’d left. On Yorick’s side of the city, he was tucked into bed surrounded by plush purple blankets, dozing off knowing that his granddaughter would come back. A hero does keep their promises after all.