Chapter Text
Chapter 1
Early Morning - Espresso’s Laboratorium , Parfaedium University
Professor Espresso watched concentrated, as a new coffee magic mixture fell in drops into plenty different pistons, flowing into a mess of tubes and pipes and drizzled into a glass container., with another, dark brown liquid swimming inside.
“Ah, finally. It’s beginning to work!”, he observed, almost excitedly.
Of course he was working again, like he almost always does. His schedule tends to stay the same: First tutoring the students, in the Parfaedia academy after the sun rises, and when the night slowly begins to fade at the sight of the bright golden light, Second, buying ingredients and coffee beans if needed, and the rest of the day (and night) experimenting with coffee magic. He usually only sleeps if it’s needed.
"I don’t have time for breaks after all.”, he mumbled thinking out loud once again.
He paced quickly, but concentrated from one station of his experiment to another, writing complicated calculations on his chalkboard. Regularly he made progress with this, but today was strangely… different? It seems like a new, important resident is coming to live in the kingdom, at least that is the topic of conversation he heard from his students around a week ago. But that was usually only mindless whispering, right? ‘You can’t really trust these, mostly rumors, he thought, while taking a sip from his, of course, black coffee.
Suddenly the mage flinched because of the sudden loud and hasty hammering on the door.. “
What in the world? What is going on today?”, he thought to himself disconcerted.
“Brother! Brother!” "Her?, not right now, not at this moment !” Espresso rushed to the door he looked before to have no distractions.
“Latte… What is up with you today, would you be so kind and stop destroying my door?! And what do you want now? Today is my day off, and as you could notice, if you've ever tried, I am incredibly busy! Do you really need to-”
Latte, his sister, who also teached at at the magic academy, ignored the furious lecture, of the other, rolled her eyes and just took him with her by his arm.
“The new resident will arrive soon~, and I would not want to miss them!”
“ Pardon, but I did NOT agree to be abducted by you, for whatever foolish reason you inform me in the last minutes about.“
“I know and I really don’t care.
The resident is coming today and we’ll be the first one to meet him!”, she smiled mischievously at him.
Oh he knew exactly what she planned. She tried to get him to know people for a while now, but Espresso managed to always get himself out of these situations but now it’s not going to be easy to escape. So he’ll just hope that Latte’s Plan won’t work.
☆
The siblings finally arrived at the place the hot air balloon is supposed to land. The place must be far away if they use that…
After waiting a while it seems like Latte's Plan will be unsuccessful, to Espresso's satisfaction. The crowd was big, which made him a bit uneasy, but Latte did not seem to notice.
“Latte, would you consider to finally letting go of my arm? I really do not like it at this place and you know how much I cannot stand other people.”, he almost pleaded.
“No. Not this time. My apologies. I knew that a lot of people were talking about it, but I did not expect them to show up. This is a rare event, so I wanted to seize this opportunity with you.
Her gaze rested shortly upon the other, before she whispered in a tone only she and Espresso were able to hear: “ You know, I am really worried about you Espresso. You never leave your lab if it is not absolutely necessary and you also never attempt to make friends. Everyone I I introduced to you, was quickly scared off by you. I can’t always be the only person you talk to. If I was not your sibling you would let no one near your side.” At the end of her sentence it was only a whisper, merely loud enough for both of them. Though the crowd was loud, for a few minutes all he heard was Latte’s lecture... The mage scoffed. Alas, he knew that she was right, nevertheless he was an incredibly prideful man and did not want to admit such vulnerability.
“I do not seek anyone to be friends with me and you know that. Focusing on my research is much more of interest for me.” Latte went quiet after this.
☆
The crowd descended into chaos. “There, There, they are here! Vanilla and Dark Choco are back with the new resident!"
Chaos flared up, as the voices of the big crowd merged into each other. Espresso had enough, this was ridiculous. He grew more infuriated by this utterly absurd circumstance he found himself in. Espresso did not want to let down his sister, as she only wanted the best for him, he knew that. Alas, he still fled the scene. It was just too much to bear.
The coffee mage swiftly found a way to hide in the dark, but beautifully calming woods, which were luckily not far away from the landing area of the airship landing place which was used to carry any new resident that arrived in the kingdom, depending on how far they were away.
Espresso used magic to cast a coffee colored (and scented) flame and glided quickly to the path used by him sometimes when he wanted to avoid others.
He perfected these uses of magic a long time ago, but for his students it takes months to perform well enough for their professor to be pleased.
☆
Finally after a while he arrived at his final destination - The Parfaedia Institut.
The Academy, also referred to as “The Magic Institut'' is determined to identify and acknowledge the talent in young wizards and mages of any kind. Professor Espresso has, as any academic in teaching, his own research room, an experiment laboratorium.
The talented scientist almost never leaves this place, as he sees it as an “unnecessary distraction” and “a waste of precious time”. He only does it when he is out of precious ingredients which only he knows when and how to acquire them. While the coffee mage was on his way to unlock the door to his somewhat “second home” by now, he heard a faintly familiar voice.
“Professor Espresso, how nice to see you around here today!”
“Ah… Professor Eclair. Yes yes, the pleasure is all mine as well…” this greeting, if you can call it that, just oozes of what sounds almost like loathing.
The other man sighed.
“I suppose you need to return to your studies?"
Espresso's gaze rested shortly on Eclair, with a clearly annoyed look.
“Did you expect anything else, Professor?”
ₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓₓ˚. ୭ ˚○◦˚.˚◦○˚ ୧ .˚ₓ