Emi jackknifed in her bed, gasping.
She glanced frantically around the room. She wasn't falling. It was a dream.
God, that was odd. She kind of liked the dreams where she was falling. Because she wasn't really falling, just floating in a generally downward direction at high speeds. Or that's what it felt like. She usually didn't have a ground to go splat on though. That kind of killed the mood.
Her heartbeat fell to normal levels and she sighed, scrubbing her hands down her face. She stood up a little shakily, planning on getting water. As she straightened, she noticed a strange shadow, blocking the streaks of light from the city that always managed to leak in.
She frowned and pulled her curtains all the way back. Maybe there was a bird or—
That was not a bird.
To be clear, it wasn't like she hadn't noticed the unusually large number of gargoyles on her building.
However, she did spend a lot of time on her fire escape, and knew for a fact that there was not, in fact, a giant, stone gargoyle on the railing.
She pinched herself. She didn't appear to be dreaming. Maybe lucid dreaming? She willed herself to levitate. She glanced down. Nothing— she was in her school uniform. A very bloody school uniform.
"Hey." She glanced up at the sound.
Seth was crouched on her railing, right where the gargoyle was, staring at her.
No. No, that was a dream. She scrambled backwards with a small scream.
Seth rolled his eyes and opened the window from his side, which she didn't realize was possible. Or legal.
"What— why—?"
"All you do is scream and ask stupid questions." He muttered, and tossed something into her room, and she ducked with a gasp.
The something bounced on her bed, and she slowly peeked at it as Seth attempted to fold his body through the window; it was an awkward affair, since he was tall and his limbs were bending at strange angles.
It took a minute for Emi to register the thing on her bed. It bent upwards, and two, small, neon blue and slitted eyes glared at Seth.
The little, silvery snake on her bed hissed, as disgruntled as a snake could look. Which was a lot, it seemed to have very human expressions, she thought rather hysterically. She scooted into the space between her dresser and the wall, curling into a ball.
"Shut up, Azzy." Seth grunted before falling over with a yelp, smacking his face into her bed as his foot, which had been caught on the windowsill, finally popped free. "Ow!"
To Emi's growing horror, the snake opened its mouth wide and its body contorted, seeming to turn inside out and then, somehow, Azriel was on her bed.
"What the fuck, Seth?" He hissed, sounding quite a bit like a snake. Still.
What was happening?
"Today sucked and it's halfway your fault." Seth stood up, brushing himself off, then leaning out the window again to grab a bucket. "And I'm not going to take it out on the girl who I just had to scrape off the pavement and into a bucket until at least a week. I have standards, you know."
He set the bucket down on her floor, and immediately something dark seemed to leak out of it.
"Why is Azriel a snake?" Her voice cracked.
Seth blinked. "I thought she told you she was the Ouroboros?"
"I didn't really get much of a chance to explain before you came down like a demon from hell sponsored by McDonald's." Azriel pointed a finger at him. "You owe me so much apple juice."
