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Kuya was a creature timeless as magic itself. He would entertain himself with people's attempts to establish a timeline for his existence. As if they could ever phantom an answer remotely close to the truth. He was also a spirit of pleasure and curiosity, feeding off the new and the intriguing, and as such, something that lingered around him like a bothersome parasite was looming boredom.
There were limited surprises that eternity and humanity could offer to him, too many boring people to cross paths with and who would fail to amaze him in the most superficial of ways.
Time was something he had in abundance and as such, he sometimes lost track of it as it was filled with things of too little consequence to bother keeping track of.
However, as old and attentive as he might be, he recognized the wood puzzle he carefully held in his hands. It would be hard to forget, considering he had the same one laying in his cabin.
It was the very first puzzle he had been somehow given.
Not to be confused with his first one. He's had several of them before that wood antique came to rest in his hands. He had been solving them since a human engaged enough brain cells to make one of those 'agility games', but that one was the first to get to him by someone else.
Pale fingers caressed the surface of the clearly old but still cared for piece, mind amazed by what he was seeing.
He remembered the moment the vampire had shown him the pieces of the puzzle and requested his company while he tried to solve it, the weight of a body lying over his lap and the smell of a familiar essence and the copper of previously drunk blood slowly filling his senses as he stared at dainty fingers attempt to work the pieces together.
Kuya had to admit he was scantily embarrassed when at a later time he understood that it all had been a setup. If there was something he loathed to acknowledge it was the way he shared with the tiny Familiar the ability to read people and use what they learned to their advantage. Living with someone as cunning as him was in several ways exhilarating, just less so when he had to recognize he had been outmatched.
They both had been hunched, sharing a delightful silence, Aster's back relying only on Kuya's chest for support, while the fox stared at his hand with fixed eyes, trying to decipher the puzzle he had not even touched yet. The vampire had told Kuya it was some kind of puzzle he bought at the markets because it was a unique piece and as such he wanted to have it.
Mismatched eyes watched over the Familiar as he grew frustrated every time he failed to put the puzzle together. He was unable to see the way his brows furrowed together as he grumbled under his breath, but he could picture it just fine and just the mental picture was able to make a smirk grow on his face.
He rejoiced at the way the thin shoulders tensed as minutes passed and the vampire grew increasingly more irked at the puzzle until with a throaty sound he threw its pieces beside them on the bed "I quit. This is stupid, that thing must be broken."
"I don't think so. Maybe you're just too dumb to figure it out." He said so with a teasing tone, chuckling at the indignant high-pitched noise the vampire gave in response.
"Excuse you?! If you are so smart I want to see you try, Fox. Let us see how smart and mighty you are."
He should have known at that time it had been the vampire's plan all along. When had ever Aster enabled a situation that could make someone see him as less than someone else?
There was that stupid quote about pretending to be a fool to fool someone and its existence had never been more fitting than that day Kuya realized he had been outfoxed.
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"Two minutes."
Kuya definitely didn't get startled.
His heterochromatic eyes darted to the figure at the door that had stood there for who knows how many minutes before making his presence known.
As if he didn't infer what the vampire meant, he allowed a sound filled with curiosity and wonder to escape from his throat, resting the puzzle back where he had found it sitting on the nightstand.
"It's the time it took me to finish it. Two minutes."
The sound of heels clanking over the marble floor was all that could be heard in the otherwise silent space as Aster walked deeper into his room, hands loosening the pink band that always rested elegantly over his tailored clothing.
"Curious, I remember you... Struggling to finish it, some decades ago." The corners of his lips raised until his fangs appeared as he heard a scoff coming from the owner of the room.
Always such an expressive creature, that one.
"You know all too well I didn't struggle with it, and if you don't, then you're not as smart as I thought you were." Huh. Not 'then you're dumber than I thought you were' he would store that unusual sentence, question the vampire on his choice of words when his guard was lowered, but that'd be later on.
"I must admit it took me a while to recognize that you had planned the whole ordeal. I didn't think you had it in you."
"You were such an annoying guy. I needed to find a way to distract you or you would have lit the mansion on fire in one of your attempts of 'fighting boredom'." There were few people able to fill their tone with as much cynicism as the fox spirit was, he took pride in the way he interacted with the world, but being on the receiving end of such words, he could understand why people like Quincy frowned so often when they heard him talk.
Still, there was information he knew the vampire was withholding.
"You said that very few of these puzzles were made. I am curious as to how did you find a way to get another one in your hands."
"..." The first answer he received was eyes filled with distrust, searching for something he didn't understand on his face "What do you want, Kuya?" The voice he was used to hear talking in a cheerful, energetic tone sounded so weary as if this little exchange had bothered its owner to the bone.
Perhaps it had.
The silence was the only sound that could be heard at that moment between them. And maybe to say it was anything but delightful was appropriate.
"What did the puzzle mean?" He knew the answer. Of course, he did. He remembers the words he heard an artisan say when he found the puzzle on another continent centuries after leaving the mansion, how at that moment he had found the meaning of the gift amusing and pitiful.
How when he saw the puzzle back at the cabin it made him feel troubled enough to think about throwing it out and still, he couldn't find it in himself to do so.
How at this time he wanted Aster to give him the puzzle he had kept in his room for who knew how long.
"Nothing, it's just a puzzle" The words were so blunt that by the way they cut right through his thoughts with so much ease, he thought they should be awarded.
"I found it, several years later, heard an artisan tell the story behind it."
"Good for you." His words were accentuated by the thud of his shoes dropping from his feet "It meant something then, but right now... Right now that puzzle is a link to an embarrassing memory."
"Then why keep it?" He knew he shouldn't keep pushing it, could see the familiar way Aster set his shoulders in frustration "That means I can take this one too?"
"For the love of-" Aster's angry response was interrupted by a deep unnecessary breath the vampire took. Fucsia eyes closed as if he never wanted to open them again in his presence "You know what the puzzle meant, don't you? Then why would you ever think I would give you this one?"
His jaw was set and his tiny hands gripped the fabric of the coat he was taking off "I regretted it once, I won't go repeating mistakes. They say something about doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome, don't they?"
"Yes, but those humans also have a lot to say about trying until you make it. They are persistent little creatures, as you are"
"So, that's it? You want me to... what? Keep trying?" The disbelief he used could almost be touched from the distance that now separated him from the Familiar, as he had kept walking into his room "We both know how well it went, the last time I tried."
The fox spirit released a humming sound, his left hand rising until it was laid in the space between the two of them, unmoving, just Kuya waiting for something.
"Then maybe next time I come by the mansion, I could give you my puzzle."
The look of bafflement Aster gave him was worth his words.
"What are you playing at, Kuya? What do you think you are getting out of all of this?" There was so much distrust coming out of Aster's entire posture and he may as well have earned it, but there was also something tiny, something Kuya might not have seen had he been younger and less perceptive. There was something that looked so much like hope and it made him feel even more certain.
"I think I would like to try."
He smirked as the vampire took a sharp intake of breath. He would question the Young Master later about what made the vampire breathe so often, but right now he enjoyed the way that inhalation gave the vampire's eagerness away.
Fucsia eyes narrowed at his expression and just like that the Familiar washed all tells from his face, his complexion was the countenance of someone pondering hard on something.
"So, you want to try? Interesting." He let a humming noise scape his throat, giving a step towards the fox spirit, looking up at him from the lower perspective his shoeless feet provided. "I have to admit it would be fun to see you trying."
"Oh?" He allowed his face to show his own amusement at the idea "But of course, that's just an expression. You should know I don't try, Aster." And by the reaction, he knew the vampire could also recognize this was the first time Kuya had ever talked to him by his name "I make things happen."
It was as much a statement as it was a promise, that much Aster could see in the Fox's eyes and it weighted heavily but comfortably on him. So much that even Kuya could see the way his shoulders dropped as if abandoning some of the fight he had carried during all their interaction.
"Then, next time you come make sure to bring back the puzzle you so rudely stole from me." With a still notable hesitation, his dainty pale hand came to rest over the one Kuya hadn't lowered in between them, just softly lying there without making any further movement. It wasn't much, but it was enough, puzzles got solved a piece at a time, after all.
Heterochromatic eyes gave a brief glance at the star-shaped puzzle lying on the nightstand. Such a little thing, but holding a meaning much greater than its size.
"What did you say the puzzle meant, again?"
"Don't push it, Fox. Bring me my puzzle back next time and I may tell you how I came across it."
"But not the story of the puzzle? I get a feeling you're trying to con me."
A sharp smile grew on the Familiar's face and with it came a glinting light he hadn't seen shining in those fuchsia eyes in a long time, or at least not in his presence. "Why, I would never. You'll just have to try harder to make me tell you next time."
"I intend to."