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selfaware-bungou-stray-dogs · 3 months

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*TW*

Hello!!! I absolutely love platonic yanderes with teenage reader so can I ask for a fic where the teen!reader is basically a traumatized being. They have experienced hell throughout their life from mental abuse to physical abuse. Like I mean, they have gotten in many dangerous situations which ended up with police involved (kidnapped, assaulted, murder attempt). Ofc the reader never really did anything wrong, they were just an innocent child till everything went downhill. They don't have any family members left leading them to stay at an orphanage. Anddd you could say the orphanage people aren't the nicest. And their mental health has become so fucked up that they had attempted suicide.

You don't have to do this if ur uncomfortable ofc. Sorry about how triggering the request might be

On the roof

Self-Aware! Platonic! BSD Cast x GN! Teen! Traumatized! Reader

Description: You are on the rooftop in the middle of the night.

Trigger warning: Suicide attempt. Abuse. Child abuse. Kidnapping. Assault. Attempted murder.

List of Suicide hotline numbers can be found here and here.

Warning: One swear word. English is my second language.

__________________________________

You silently opened the door, that leads to the roof of an orphanage. With your phone in hand, you take a few steps forward.

The door closed behind you.

You just stand here. You were silent.

You were here. You wanted to end this.

You sighed and looked around.

Should you just... Go to the edge and jump? It's not like someone would care about you.

You didn't bother with the last note.

No one would care about the reason.

You will simply become a name in documents.

You just wanted to be heard.

You mindlessly looked at your phone.

Should you take it with you?

Or left it here, so someone else would use it?

Your gaze stopped at the "BSD Mayoi Inu Kaikitan" icon. Will the new owner delete it? Or will continue your progress?

You tapped on the icon. You didn't leave a note.

Yet, you "talked" to BSD Characters so often, that it seems right, to let them hear your last words.

Your reasons.

You opened the Main Menu and choose 'Meeting Hall' option.

The picture of ADA Office appeared. And Chibis of all BSD Characters appeared.

This new option was cute. You liked petting chibis.

All chibis 'looked' at you.

And you finally spoke.

"Mom was strange..."

________

Your mom was strange.

She smelled funny. Like water everyone told you not to drink.

Sometimes, she stared at you. Stared for a long time.

And there were rules.

1. Don't cry.

2. Don't annoy mom.

3. You eat last.

4. If you stayed past curfew, you will sleep outside.

5. Don't tell anyone about your home life.

At least, she let you play outside as much as you want. Mom liked, when you were away from home.

*******

You were five, when you got kidnapped.

That night, you wake up to get some water.

Mom saw you.

In her eyes, you broke a rule.

You were sleeping outside.

One moment you were trying to get comfortable under the porch.

Next moment a man in a mask was dragging you in a van.

Three days.

You were in a dark, scary place for three days.

On a third day you heard two men talking.

"What do you mean, that mother didn't realize, that kid were missing?!"

_____

"Still... Mom paid the ransom. Kidnappers left me. It takes three more days for police to find me..."

____

You were standing near a police officer. And your mom finally arrived to the police station to collect you.

You walked to her, your head was low.

She hit you.

You screamed.

You collapsed on the floor, and your mother bent over you. She hissed and pushed you in the side with her feet.

"Are you satisfied, brat? Get up and go pack your belongings, we’re moving to a shed."

"You should treat your kid more kindly..." the officer grumbled. Your mother squealed.

"Kindly?! This brat had ruined my whole life!” Your mom was mad. She screamed like a fury, jumped in place and gave cowering you blow after blow. You didn’t try to dodge. You just trembled, curled up into a ball.

"Hubby ran away as soon as he gets it inside me! But dear relatives didn’t let me throw it away. They didn’t let me give it to an orphanage! They said that I need to raise this child! They stood up for a little bastard! But now, when I need to pay debt, they are nowhere to be found! They say I play cards too much! I'm just unlucky! Things are not going my way! The house is mortgaged! I poured all my savings into the last card game and won! I would pay off all my debts! And because of this thing, I now have to live in a shed! What will I tell my family now?! What will others say about me?!"

Officer heard enough.

The CPS were called.

_______

"... They were trying to find my father... Until then, grandmother and grandfather agreed to took me in..."

_______

You were six.

Your grandfather sat on the opposite side of the table.

Your textbook and notebook were laying on the table before you.

And your grandfather was talking.

"I finished checking your homework. As I expected, you are a little idiot. A stupid, worthless waste of space. You have made few stupid mistakes. You wrote numbers in a wrong order.

Grandfather opened your notebook. A red paste was covering the page.

2 + 1 = 3 1 + 2 = 3

3 + 1 = 4. 1 + 3 = 4

"So..." Grandfather take a ruler.

"Give me your hand. It will be ten hits for every wrong number."

________

"...it took two year to find my father. He had a family. And I... I was a child from affair. They never let me live it down... For years"

_______

You were nine.

The blow, when it came, took all of your air out of your lungs. You would have fallen if not for your two... "siblings" holding you.

"It feels good, giving a good beating to a dirtbag, right?"

The next hit was in your left eye. You managed to close it in time.

But it will be swollen.

You felt hot breath on your face.

"Your hair is too good for a bastard child."

Your sister brought the scissors up to your hair.

Snip, snip, snip. Cutting right alongside the scalp, sending your hair like leaves swirling to the ground.

Then scissors were plunged into your stomach.

"Die, child of a dirty whore."

______

"...Police was called. They were arrested. But I remained with father and his wife..."

_____

You were twelve.

You were going food shopping. Big bags were heavy, you were tried.

You still need to clean up the house and make dinner.

When you were attacked, because someone tied to rob you, you didn't even care.

You only knew, that, you will be beaten again for being late. And for losing food.

You were long past gone. There were no point in carrying about yourself.

~~~~~~

You were thirteen.

Your father, his wife and you were going to the funeral.

Your father's uncle died.

Now he only has his wife and kids. And you.

He noticed your gaze in a reflection.

He yelled at you for staring.

And he crashed.

You spent three hours in a broken car.

You were the only survivor.

_______

"... I was sent to an orphanage. I am too old to have any chance to be adopted. And I wasn't the only one, who had no chance to have a family..."

______

You tasted dirt and blood. An old rug was thrown over your head, to make it harder for you to fight back.

Someone pressed a knee on the back of your neck and held your face against the ground.

A kick in the side made you roll on your back.

Another person began to push down on your neck with an arm.

You began to struggle, thrashing about with your legs and beating them against the floor, but it was no good.

There were other kids around—at least a dozen of them. One of them would do something. One of them was sure to see that things were taking too far. Your vision began to go fuzzy.

Caretakers saved you only because the noise didn't let them watch TV.

________

"I couldn't take it anymore. I... thank you... Thank you for making me happy... For being the only happy thing in my life."

You finished talking and put your phone on the ground. You stand up and walked towards the edge.

You heard a loud noise. You turned around.

BSD Characters were standing behind you. Real.

And you were still standing near the edge. You were silent. Nikolai lift his overcoat and put his hand into the portal.

His head reappeared near you. You jumped away. Now you were even closer to the edge.

"No... I... I don't want to... Don't come closer..." whispered you. You took another step. You were almost here.

"[Y/N], if you go back, I will give you a hug!"

You froze and turned around.

Kenji Miyazawa made a step forward. He opened his arms, offering a hug.

"I promise, I will give you a hug. Come here... You really need a hug."

You trembled. You moved towards Kenji.

Step. After step. After step.

Kenji was standing here. Offering a hug.

You launched yourself forward, wrapping your arms around Kenji. He immediately hugged you back.

You cried. For the first time in years.

In a few minutes, you were in a middle of a large group hug.

________

You are fifteen.

You are living with your family.

You still have a long path to recovery.

And you are not alone.

BSD Cast will stay with you.

And will make sure, that you will never be hurt again.

#self-awarebsd #self-awareau #bungou stray dogs au #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd anime #bsd x gender neutral reader #gender neutral reader #platonic #tw: sucidal thoughts #tw: child abuse #tw: abuse #tw: kidnapping #tw: attempted murder

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blueywrites · 1 year

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turtle dove and the crow, part four

A 1940s Farm AU, featuring bsf!neighbor!eddie x fem!reader

story tags: 18+ (minors dni). smut; true love; unexpected pregnancy; angst, angst, angst; parental issues; corporal punishment; scheming, plotting, and betrayal; hurt/comfort; period-typical stigma regarding unwed pregnancy; angst with a happy ending.

chapter tags: please heed this warning and decide if you are prepared to read this chapter, which includes scenes of harsh but period-accurate parental abuse against an 18-year old child. this includes emotional and mental abuse in the form of 'discipline' and depictions of physical punishment. these methods are always harmful and never appropriate. they do not represent the views of the author. avoiding tw/cw's? read the part four summary instead

PART FOUR: THE WEIGHT BENEATH THE SUN (8.6K)

It’s hard to make the moment last

Hard to keep the dreams you have

Hard to let the love inside your heart

The guards are always at the gates

Turning everyone away

But you got through

Didn’t you?

You’re the One I Want — Chris and Thomas

When you were six— two years before Edward Munson became the new boy next door— your mother still hosted garden parties during the warm months. Pa would arrange the iron furniture into a pleasing configuration, ensuring the grass was level and dry beneath the table's heavy feet. The stiff-backed chairs would be spaced precisely from its wrought edges, far enough for ease of entry but close enough that the ladies would not have to stretch their arms too far to reach the cucumber sandwiches. Those Mama would assemble in careful layers, laying them out on a ceramic platter decorated with filigree. Mama's finest pitcher, made of delicate glass and attractive curves, would be used to serve fresh-squeezed lemonade. She'd garnish the sweet drink with muddled mint leaves plucked from the small personal garden she carefully maintains against the backyard fence. A generous spray of flowers would finish the trio of treasures awaiting the town's ladies, invited by your mother for an afternoon of light refreshments and genteel socializing.

Your sister, Virginia, has the supreme honor of being allowed to join the garden party for the first time this year. She is five years your senior in age and ten your superior in manner, evident in the graceful way she smooths the skirt of her shiny pink dress, perching herself with impeccable posture on the very edge of the iron chair situated to your mother’s right side. Poised and prim, Virginia accepts a glass of lemonade, taking a tiny sip before placing the china delicately to the right of her plate. Ever observant, her eyes dart around the table, absorbing gestures with ease; she follows her sip quickly with a dab of her napkin before arranging it dutifully on her lap again. She is rewarded for this, as the ladies generously indulge her presence among them.

You would be jealous of your sister's invitation if you gave a hoot about such things, but you are entirely disinterested in all of it. You care not for hushed titters floating from beneath their sunbonnets and the passing of cucumber sandwiches, which are nibbled little by little and then chewed behind demure palms as gossip is exchanged. Instead, you've happily plopped yourself behind the apple tree, back to rough bark and short legs spread wide in the ticklish grass.

Methodically, one by one, you have been picking the delicate yellow petals off the heads of dandelion weeds, dropping each one to collect in the basin of the sunbonnet cradled between your thighs. It's painstaking work and nonsensical, perhaps, but it serves to satisfy some innate curiosity inside you. The purpose of this is unclear; your actions are confusing, the way children's play is often confusing to everyone but the child. But since you are quietly occupying yourself, and your mother and sister are busy socializing, they are happy to leave you to your own devices.

They are happy, that is, until your eye is caught by something much more exciting than plucking weeds.

Your neighbor down the lane has just finished imparting some succulent gossip to the gathering, and her lips are pursed against a grin as she relishes the reaction to her news. Her revelation has the intended effect: shock ripples around the table, but it is mixed with the suppressed delight of knowing a new, tantalizing secret. The party-goers exchange glances, searching for cues in one another, all wanting to know more but reluctant to appear too eager.

"Oh, my goodness." Mama places her hand over her heart as if in regret, but her eyes are gleaming. Interest thrums within the hush of her voice as she begins to ask, "And what d'you suppose he might now do, on account of—?"

"Mama!"

Her question is interrupted by your delighted cry. She turns to see you holding aloft that which made you abandon your collection. Back by the tree, those petals have spilled from the tipped sunbonnet to scatter heedlessly across the grass. "Look't what I caught!" you squeak, eyes alight with eager, innocent delight. "It's a big one, too!"

Despite your excitement, you cradle the large bullfrog gently in your hands, mindful of its comfort as you present it to your mother. You considered it quite the feat to catch the frog without causing it alarm, and when its strong legs twitch against your palm without attempting to flee, pride glows beneath the dirt streaks on your round cheeks.

Your mother does not share your sentiment.

The way her expression contorts is so opposite what you expected that she may as well have smacked you across the face. Your earlier excitement is smothered like water douses a match, and promptly, you drop the frog.

You drop it as if by acting quickly, you can undo whatever has caused your Mama offense. But it is not enough. Your mother stares at you, and though the look in her eyes is one you are too young to fully decipher, a parent's disapproval is sensed innately, and felt deeply.

One year after you drop the bullfrog, Mama will sell the garden furniture to purchase seeds and stock in preparation for the coming hardship, and the garden parties would end. Two years after you drop the bullfrog, Eddie will roll in like a summer storm to join his uncle in the red house next door. Seven years after you drop the bullfrog, Virginia will establish a nest of her own, leaving you as the only unwed daughter left in your parents' roost. But no matter how many years pass, you will never forget how your mother's stare made you feel. In the garden, a heavy stone sank in your gut, sickeningly leaden, steadily crushing your delicate insides with each second you spent pinned by her furious stare.

This moment in the hayloft reminds you of that. But there is no stone of lead in your stomach this time. This time, with the salt tang of Eddie's seed still lingering on your lips, your entire body turns to solid, petrified rock.

Your mother stares up at you from the barn floor. Her face is contorted, screwed up tight with shock and rage, but her eyes are wide, wide enough to swallow you up entirely like a sinkhole would. She traps you. And you remain there, locked tight until the seethe of her voice boils hot from between her lips, blistering the ruddy flesh on its path to you.

"Git. Down. Here."

Each word is a spitfire bullet, enunciated so precisely so as not to be misconstrued. The burn rushes down your spine to melt your solid rock into magma.

Your muscles are clenched tight, but the warm pulse once stoked between your legs has deadened. You're thrumming instead with horror, with deep, all-consuming dread. Where one moment ago you were heavy as a sinking stone, now you are unsteady, shaky like the first time Eddie coaxed you into a rowboat.

You can't grab hold of his rough, broad palm to settle yourself this time, and you don't dare risk a glance at the man still nestled in that soft bed of hay. To catch his eye would be torture of a different kind. Instead, you rush to obey your mother's command. Your knee scrapes raw against old, splintery wood as you scramble around and dip one foot to catch the rung of the ladder.

It's a sturdy old thing, that ladder. Good thing, too, because it holds fast as you cling to it with shuddering fingers and legs so wobbly, they clatter against its rungs with each step toward the perilous ground. By the time you reach the floor, the knee you'd scraped has gone numb. You want to turn your chin down and see if your dress has bloomed a crimson flower of blood, but your neck is unyielding. It's hard enough to step back from the security the ladder provides. All the will your spirit possesses must be channeled into facing the woman looming like a cloud of miasma behind you.

There is no time to brace for a confrontation, but you force your face into as docile an expression as possible before you meet your Mama head-on. She is short and portly, hunched up in such a way as to make her smaller in theory, though, in reality, the sight is only more imposing to you. You expect to meet her piercing stare again, but she isn't looking at you. Instead, she's got one eye hooked on the edge of the hayloft and her lip caught in a sneer so deep it's almost a snarl.

"You too, Edward," she spits, and your throat dries to dust. "Don't think I'm ignorant of your bein' up there with'r."

The silence that follows is stifling, crowding in on you from all sides. The pressure doesn't ease even as that pregnant pause turns to the creaking and groaning of wood, which protests as the weight of an unseen body shifts toward the hayloft's edge. The thud of booted feet that replaces the wood's cry is little consolation; your heart kicks up at the steady plod that commences, matching it in rhythm but pounding twice as fast. You don't dare to turn and look or even to fiddle with your skirt nervously. Your hands remain still at your sides as your mother stares above your head, watching Eddie climb down from the hayloft. Her eyes dip slowly and steadily along with the thumping of those booted feet until her gaze is even with your face. The final step down behind you is quieter than the rest, and your throat tightens as you sense Eddie's hesitance in the sound.

As he alights on the ground, Mama's eyes suddenly shift. Where once she had been staring almost uncannily in your direction, as if she may or may not have been trying to look you in the eye, a sudden cut and glint make it abundantly clear that now— now— your mother is gazing directly at you.

It's all you can do to keep from trembling.

You vaguely hear the shuffle-scrape of Eddie's footsteps and feel the warmth of his body as he comes to stand beside you. The tiniest glance reveals the extent of his mortification: his pale cheeks are beet red with a flush that creeps down his throbbing neck, and his eyes are squinched half-shut as if bracing for a blow. His adam's apple bobs, and unconsciously, you swallow at the same time.

When Eddie finally opens his mouth, all that eeks out is the briefest croak before your mother interrupts coldly. "You best be gettin' home to your uncle now, Edward."

While the words don't drip with venom, the mention of Wayne is nothing if not a threat, and Eddie recognizes it as so. You would never expect him to argue; in fact, you'd be dismayed if he had, but the thought of facing your mother's wrath alone covers the frozen dread inside you with a fine layer of poignant sorrow. You are heavy, but now you are empty, too.

Weakly, Eddie clears his throat to rasp, "Yes, ma'am." Your chin trembles at the sound of his voice, but your eyes only begin to sting when you feel the soft, subtle draw of his fingers across the small of your back as he passes by you to disappear out of sight beyond the barn doors. The touch is one last offering of comfort from your beloved before you both must face the consequence of your transgressions.

In the kitchen, Mama takes you apart.

The way she lashes you with her tongue is harsh and unforgiving. Each word darts across the kitchen counter, catches you with its claws, and burrows beneath your tender skin, sinking deep to carve into your marrow.

"How dare you." Her voice quivers with the force of her rage. "How dare you bring such disgrace upon our family. You know darn well that we forbade you from seeing that boy, yet you went behind our backs anyway. And now, to make matters worse, I find you been carryin' on like a," her lips twist up to spit a sharper barb, "hussy up in the hayloft. What kind of a girl do you think that makes you, y/n?"

She pauses long enough to make you question whether she expects an answer, but she carries on without you. Her eyes dart along the cabinets, unseeing as she chuckles mirthlessly. "And, oh. M'blood could just boil thinkin' how that boy could set there at his dinner table and talk about how good we raised our daughter, only for you two t'turn around and… and…."

She stutters off, wild eyes rolling as she works herself up. The deepening of her wince uglies her visage, so that lines crease at the corners of her mouth where before there were none. And oh, how foolish you were to think the sight of her bulging eyes would be in any way gratifying. How deeply, utterly stupid of you to think such a thing.

"What you done is unspeakable. How'm I supposed to show my face in town, knowing what you been up to right underneath my nose? It turns my stomach just to think about what y'were doin' up there w'him."

Each word sinks deep inside you. It’s a barrage of all you deserve because it's the truth. And this is just the beginning. Because there's disgust there, in Mama's screwed-up face, and there's fury, too. But beneath those, there's also hurt— the evidence of a deep wound torn open by your impropriety. It's a hurt you aren't sure you can mend.

At that realization, fat, hot tears begin to roll unimpeded down your cheeks. They drip from your quivering chin, which tightens with the occasional sniffle as you try to keep yourself from collapsing to the floor, wrapping your arms around your mother’s skirt, and pressing yourself to her shins in pitiful supplication.

Though Mama is looking at you, she doesn't seem to register that you've started to cry. "I just can't understand it." Mama's fingers press divots into her temples, and her head wags absently as if in subconscious denial. "Virginia was your age when she married her Lawrence. She knew the way of things. And now look at 'er— got her own home and three children to raise." Her hands drop sharply, and a flash of judgment returns. "She's a proper lady. And then what d'we have? You. I never thought I'd see the day when a daughter of mine would behave like this."

The burrs stick sharply, coating you in a prickly sadness that only intensifies when your Mama's plump arms tighten to her sides, crossing beneath her bosom, cinching in tight as she presses a fist to her lips.

"Lord help me— what'm I gonna do with you now?"

It's so much quieter than all else she's said, so much duller, and yet all the more painful for it.

Her name on your lips is a whimper, a sob, a plea all at once. "Mama—" You suddenly feel no more than six years old with dirt streaked on your shameful cheeks, filled with the crushing sense of all you've done wrong.

"Don't." She cuts you off firmly. Your teeth click together painfully as your jaw snaps closed. She stares at you for a long moment. "Th'last thing I wanna do is talk about what was goin' on up there, but clearly…"

You read the intention in your mother's restless shifting, the discomfited rocking of her heels. Heat floods up your throat, a sickly blaze of shame. "Well," she continues stiffly, "I know y'had your mouth on him, and that's… that's one thing. But I need to know." Her fist drops to reveal a stiff upper lip, but her voice quavers slightly as she asks a question that doesn't stick like burrs or burrow beneath your skin. Instead, it pierces straight through the center of you.

"Have you had relations with Edward?"

Your shock is like the firm twist of a leaky spigot. The steady flow of your tears ceases so abruptly that it's nearly enough to distract from the question itself.

Nearly enough. Not quite enough.

Horrified panic surges up as the question sinks in: Mama's askin' me if I had sex with Eddie. The feeling claws its way past your stomach, past your heart, past the heat in your throat, and straight up to your head. It rushes there, leaving you dizzy. Black fuzz spreads across your vision.

And the lie springs up, ready and poised behind your teeth. It's a denial borne of fear, desperation, and the deep ache beating in the child's heart still nestled within your grown one. That tiny heart flutters against your ribs, recalling the plink of music box drift-offs and gentle John the Rabbit wake-ups; the balm of kisses pressed to scraped knees and hurt feelings wrung out with tight hugs; the roundness of laughing cheeks streaked with flour and little hands cradled in large palms, guided to knead love into dough, right here, in this room, all those years ago.

Could you survive the loss that would come with confession? Could you bear to see the lingering light— the final vestige of a mother's regard for her child— die behind her eyes?

Led by a child's heart and a mind seized by panic, the choice you make is not a choice, but an inevitability.

"No," you whimper, and such sincerity pools within your eyes that even one who knows better might be convinced you believe that. "No, I din't lay with him, Mama. I swear it."

The softening of her features, fractional though it is, brings you such tender relief that tears spring anew at the corners of your lashes.

"Well, all right," she says finally, and while her voice isn't quite fond, you can see the creases around her mouth ease, fading from deep crevices back to the faint lines you're familiar with. It's a gift you wouldn't dare waste. "Y'know what needs to be done, then."

Without a hint of protest, you retrieve the wooden spoon from the crock on the counter, passing it into your mother's waiting hand and presenting your backside to her.

With balled fists and a rigid spine, you take your punishment. You press your lips flat to keep all your noises in as Mama spanks you with the rounded back of the wooden spoon. The even raps— ten against your clothed buttocks— smart and sting, but they do not ache. Her actions are not hesitant or reluctant, but they aren’t gluttonous either. Your mother does not grow fat feasting on your pain; she is merely obliged to provide it.

You are braced for another impact when you hear the spoon clatter back into the crock. When you realize another blow will not come, you face her again. Silence reigns the room as you take stock of yourself: warm, stinging skin, pressure in your cheeks, nose, and forehead from crying, and a new, yawning hollowness inside.

"M'sorry, Mama," you sniffle, throat thick with remorse, "M'sorry for disobeying you, a-and bringin' shame on the family. I— I jus'..." You choke and try again. "I—"

There is only one justification, however inadequate it might seem to your mother. It's spoken in the misery of your crumpled brow, in the glaze of your big wet eyes, in the copper of your lower lip where you've worried the spot Eddie's kisses still sweetly linger.

I love him.

"I know." Mama replies as if you'd said it aloud, and her voice is tight, tight with what she is trying to suppress. "I know you do." Her bosom heaves with a heavy, bracing sigh. "But y'know what your Pa said." She doesn’t seem to feel the need to be more specific, and you muster a smidgeon of gratitude for that.

"I know," you echo her, and your voice is tiny and broken. You are tiny and broken. And tired. You realize all at once that you are so tired, it's a labor just to keep from lying down right here on the floor. "R'you gonna tell 'im what I did?"

A jerky nod confirms it, and you think you'd feel more afraid if you could feel anything at all. "I'll speak with your Pa when he gets home," Mama tells you. "Now go'n up to your room. Don't expect you'll get any supper tonight."

You stare at her, solemn and unresisting, and in that stillness, you can see the moment she hesitates. The flicker that passes across her crinkled eyes is brief, but you see it, and the hush of her voice tells a story all its own. "Don't come down for nothin'," she murmurs intently. "No matter what y'hear. Just stay in your room 'til the morning. Hear me?"

You can feel yourself wilt further into exhaustion with each passing moment. "Yes, Mama," you croak in dutiful agreement.

The press of her cool palm against your warm, sticky cheek is brief. It lingers only long enough for you to barely realize it has been offered. But that fleeting sensation keeps you alert enough to drag yourself up to your bedroom, softly shut the door, strip off your dress and chemise, and pull on your thin nightgown before relinquishing yourself to the sunken mattress. At that point, you cease to tick, like the final tines have plinked within a wound music box. You have landed on your back atop the covers, and there you will stay until you can summon the strength to turn onto your side.

Though you are tired, sleep does not come to offer a reprieve. Instead, though your eyes begin to strain, you stare at the crack in the plaster above your head. It's the same one you traced while waiting for your crow to land on your windowsill yesterday, yesterday, yesterday. Yesterday beats in the useless yearning of your heart, trailing down your temples to pool in the hollows of your ears.

Yesterday, Eddie held you in your bed until you fell asleep. Today, he never would again.

Heavy footsteps rouse you, and you jolt awake.

At some point in the afternoon, outside your conscious memory, the slow leaking of your eyes had finally ceased. Blearily, you curled into yourself, tucking your wrists beneath your chin and finally drifting off into unconsciousness. Now, your bedroom is not the way you remember it. It's dizzying at first when your eyes pop open not to the crack in white plaster you'd expected but instead to the sight of your bedroom window. The outside is dark beyond the gauze curtains. The air now hums with the dusk song of cicadas.

You have little time to orient yourself before the heavy footsteps that woke you yield to the squeal of a door hinge. Your neck is stiff when you lift your head, attempting to blink the strain from your eyes.

Cast in dimness, Pa looms over you like the shadow of death.

Your father is typically imposing, but his visage is made even more severe by the lack of light. His long face appears to be carved with crags, which harshen the snarl of his brow and turn the wrinkles of his sneer into jagged gashes lining his thin lips. What little light remains glints off the bony line of his nose and the flash of his hard, unyielding eyes. He stands unmoving as if etched from obsidian; the only feature to betray him as man and not stone is the ticking of his square jaw. A muscle there jumps erratically, twitching out its silent fury.

Eyes wide, heart fluttering, breath quick and shallow, you lay still as a prey animal hoping to escape a predator's sight. That is no use. Quick as a rattler, Pa's hand strikes out, and the yawning hollowness inside you becomes an uproar of fear flooding your throat.

He takes firm hold of your arm, thick fingers like a vice pinching your skin. When he tugs at you roughly, you let him maneuver you to the edge of the bed. You keep yourself limp and unresisting because, now that you've been caught in his jaws, you know he'll only bite down harder if you don't. And you even shimmy to assist him, fingers twisted tight in the hem of your nightgown to keep it from dragging up your legs. Preoccupied with maintaining your modesty, you're unprepared to be dragged beyond the footboard; you lurch off the bed in an ungainly slump, and your knees clunk painfully to the hardwood floor.

A shock of pain shoots up both of your legs, and you muffle your reaction with lips pressed tight, following the silent command of your father's grip as he insists you turn to face the mattress. He drops you only once you're kneeling how he wants you, and the loss of his clamped fingers is a relief. Feeling begins to return to your arm as blood flows freely again, and a dull throb starts up in the place he'd gripped you.

Yet that's nothing compared to what you know is coming when you hear the metallic clink of a buckle. It's followed by the unthreading of his belt, which shicks through the loops of his blue jeans with a drag of denim and a snap of leather breaking free.

Moments pass in agonizing silence as you wait for the first crack of the belt. Everything inside you tightens in preparation for the pain to come— your muscles, your bones, your heart, and your spirit. You brace yourself, thighs quivering as you hold so perfectly still despite how your skin has begun to dew with nervous sweat. As you hold that stillness, you can even detect the sting of your mother's milder punishment throbbing in time with the pulse that thrums within your tense body.

Your head has just begun to sag when Pa's voice grates loudly like the grinding of stone, gruff and hoarse. "Y'pologized to your Mama for your behavior?"

You rush to answer. "Yes, sir."

"Y'ever gonna dare sneakin' around under my roof again?"

"No, sir."

A grunt follows your reply. It sounds satisfied enough to untwist a little of the fear inside you. "Y'ashamed of yourself for what you done with that piece of trash? You regret lettin' him," he pauses so the spit of his words might sting you worse, "ruin you with his filthy hands?"

Unbidden, Eddie's face blooms in your mind's eye: wild curls of soft dark frizz, crinkled eyes lightened to amber in the sunshine, soft nose dusted with cinnamon freckles, pink lips stretched wide in a smile that makes your heart squeeze even in your memory. You see him there, your beloved crow, and your chin trembles with the truth. You manage to steady it so that your second lie of the day can come out strong. "Yes, sir."

But perhaps, in your remembering, you hesitate a second too long, because your answer is quickly followed by fire cracking across the crease of your thigh and cheek.

You yelp with shock and pain, reeling as the contact burns through you, beginning as a white-hot ache before dulling to a throb. You tremble, breathing shakily as your father mutters, "I'll make damn sure of that."

Pa belts you across your buttocks and thighs, attempting to scald that shame into you with the cruelty he wields by his hand. But the whip of the belt is not the same as the lashing of your mother's words in the kitchen; it could never be. Not when Eddie's face has bloomed before you, bathed in summer sunshine. Not in this place, where the bunching of your fingers in the bedspread only makes you think about strong arms around your middle, soft breath on your cheek, and the tickle of wild curls against your shoulder.

Your father feasts on the cries he draws from you. He takes them as evidence of your guilt and shame. But you're fortified by the memory of Eddie's strong body cradling you in this bed, the breadth of his wide palm on your mound as he brings you to the pinnacle of pleasure, holding you snugly against him when you fall into surrender.

Harshness could never drive out reverence. Pain could never drive out love.

Pa might leave you welted and whimpering against the footboard, but he can never make you waver in your devotion to Edward Munson.

That's not, of course, due to a lack of trying. Because try he does. Pa efforts to cleave you from Eddie in any way he knows how. He begins with a belting and continues the next morning with a visit to your neighbor, Mr. Wayne.

He's over there 'til midday, which you know because you do not rouse from your bed until he returns. You'd lain there on your side for the entirety of the morning, wrists again tucked beneath your chin, but legs straight since curling them made the throbbing in your bottom and thighs sharpen to a burning ache. Throughout the morning, you stared out the window, watching the light crawl steadily up the red siding of the house next door.

You stirred only when Mama came to tend you. She didn't speak, but you could sense her sentiment in the mild soap and damp cloth she used to wash you, in the gentle pat of a soft towel against your cleansed skin, in the earthy spice of the calendula salve she dabbed on your welts. After she was done, your nightgown fluttered back into place around your hip and flank with the lightest touch. You nibbled on the toast sweetened with butter and honey she left for you on the bedside table, but you did not quit your bed.

This was not the first time Pa had taken the belt to you for some indiscretion, but it was by far the harshest. That's evident as the painful throbbing in your lower half intensifies when you prop yourself up on a palm, testing how it feels to sit up. Your father finds you in the midst of this endeavor: leaning gingerly on one flank, your lips pressed tight and pale.

You glance toward him warily as he bullies open your bedroom door, and he squints back but doesn't acknowledge your pained expression. "Get y'rself presentable," he grunts. "You're comin' with me next door."

Humiliation, it seems, is the next tool Pa has decided to use to cleave you from Eddie. You know it isn't unreasonable to ask you to apologize to Mr. Wayne for your inappropriate behavior. In fact, now that you've had time to reflect on your actions, you even want to apologize to your neighbor. You cannot— will not— denounce your devotion to Eddie, but you do regret disrespecting Mr. Wayne. He's a man who has been nothing but kind and patient with you and his nephew throughout all the years you've known him, and to think you'd wounded him with your actions makes your throat thicken with genuine regret.

So you dress hastily in your loosest, lightest frock and spend the majority of the time Pa affords you sitting at your writing desk, crafting a missive of carefully-chosen words you hope will convey to Wayne the depth of your sincere contrition. It takes some scratch-outs and restarts, but by the time Pa returns to retrieve you, you feel satisfied with what you've written.

You expect to apologize to Mr. Wayne for the offence you have caused him, and you expect to make the apology in person, so you don’t hesitate as you follow your father into the red house. It is also unsurprising that Pa would watch you deliver that apology. Knowing his nature, it's expected that he'd want to ensure your efforts are satisfactory. But you do not anticipate the way Pa ushers you through your neighbors' house, one palm pressed flat to your back to keep you from retreating when you see Eddie sitting next to Wayne at the dining room table.

Eddie doesn't look any worse for wear, not in the way you feel after enduring Pa's punishment last night, but he isn't unaffected by yesterday's events. He's wilted like a shade plant left too long in the hot sun: limp curls clumped at the ends, broad shoulders slumped, pink lips sagging at the corners. His umber eyes are smudged with purple in the hollows of their sockets as he stares down at the table. He doesn't look up as Pa urges you forward.

Your heart seizes at the sight of him, stalling as familiar, hungry want mixes with poignant, thrumming sadness. The impulse to rush to the table and throw your arms around him, to bury your fingers in his curls and cradle his face to your breast, to feel his hot arms crush you against him— all comfort, all sweetness, all desperate relief— is nearly overwhelming.

To resist is worse agony than any strike of leather, but resist you must. Pa's firm hand on your back demands you stand behind the chair across from Mr. Wayne; all the while as he maneuvers you, you will your crow to look up. He doesn't, though you can tell he now knows you're here. You see it in the tightening of his brow and the twist of his plush lips, which pinch with the effort to keep himself at bay.

Pa scrapes a chair out, settling himself heavily down into its seat. Standing beside him, you fidget with the crisply-folded letter, pinched fingertips crawling slowly along its edges as you pour all your will and longing into a stare that Eddie refuses to return.

The stalemate ends as Pa clears his throat loudly, growing impatient. "Go'n, now," he prompts, crossing his arms and kicking his feet out under the table in a scuff and thump of heavy boots.

You steal one more lingering glance at Eddie before dropping your eyes to your hands and unfolding your letter. It is silent at the table as you turn it right-side up to read from. You lick your lips and take a breath to steady your nerves before beginning.

"Dear Mr. Wayne," you begin, reading in a cadence reminiscent of your schoolteachers' voices— melodic, perhaps too overly-expressive. "I want to tell you that I am so very sorry—"

A lump rises suddenly in your throat, and you falter; you begin again, speaking a little faster, though you can't disguise the tiny tremble that has emerged. "I am so very sorry for what I've done to disrespect you. I have been carrying on in a shameful manner…."

The apology becomes a blur as you race to complete it before losing your composure. As you express your remorse and acknowledge your wrongdoing, the shaking of your voice only worsens; by the end, your chin is wobbling hard enough that your teeth start chattering.

"Tha's all right, dear," Wayne interjects, gruff but not unkind. Never unkind. "I kin what you're tryin' to express. 'ppreciate your apology."

You nod jerkily, accepting the reprieve gratefully. You fold your letter back up with trembling fingers and pass it over the table to your neighbor, who tucks it away in his pocket.

With a jut of his chin, Pa motions to Eddie. "S'your turn now, boy," he says, and there's enough vitriol roiling there beneath the surface to more than compensate for Wayne's lack. Pa's shrewd eyes dart to you. "Sit down now."

You don't dare disobey, though your stiffness and pinched expression bely your discomfort as you perch gingerly on the edge of the chair. Eddie rises sharply, and your gaze catches on the clench of his broad fist at his side, how his ruddy knuckles have blanched with the force of his grip. You know they'd tightened at the sight of your pain, and a sudden surge of longing nearly leaves you breathless.

You'd urged Eddie to look up at you when he'd been seated, but now you know why he didn't because neither can you, now that the positions are reversed. You can't look up at his face and see the expression there. It's hard enough to hear his voice as he apologizes to your father for touching you without his permission, for the deep offense of wanting you when he'd expressly been told he wasn't allowed because he was too wild and frivolous, and that he'd proven himself as such for what he'd done with you in the hayloft.

At the end of Eddie's apology, Pa grunts his acceptance. Then, he informs you in no uncertain terms what now will happen. It is the result of his lengthy discussion with Wayne this morning; in the end, they both agreed on certain truths moving forward, and they share those with you now.

They tell you that you and Eddie have been stripped of your freedoms and grounded for further notice. That you aren't to attempt to see or speak with one another. That you should begin thinking about your separate futures and leave this silly summer romance behind. That you are both lucky they are benevolent enough to allow you to continue living side-by-side without sending one or both of you away.

You are bidden to acknowledge the rules, and you intone your obedience, as does Eddie. And when Pa is satisfied that you have been sufficiently cleaved from the boy across the table, you are herded back around the tall fence and deposited onto your property.

Having seen the defeat written across your miserable face, Pa leaves you to your own devices. You choose to sit beneath the apple tree, hissing at the lance of pain that races up your buttocks and into your spine as you thump down into the grass. Stubbornly, you ignore the low throbbing in favor of deciphering the storm inside you.

Under the apple tree, a billow of emotion spreads within, complex and layered, filled with contradictions. Because what you've done is indeed wrong, and you know that. But to take the depth of your relationship with Eddie and reduce it to an indiscreet romp, a careless mistake, an insignificant dalliance chalked up to the folly of youthful impulse…

Well, you know this also. Down to your core, you know that that isn't right. And no one rivals you in conviction once your mind is set.

Twelve days ago, the intimacy you shared with your crow came to fruition in a wondrous way. As you pass your days in solitude within your roost, that wonder begins to transform you. It starts with a letter.

Though the tall fence running the length of your adjoining properties keeps you apart from Eddie, and your parents' watchful eyes prevent any wandering from your front porch, one minor breach remains in those steadfast defenses. It's the tree stump rotted straight through, the only place where the grass of your backyards mingles to become one. Secrets are concealed there, announced by the innocuous song of two woodland birds: the turtle dove and the crow.

You don't hear the call the day following your public apologies, or even the day after that. It comes on the third day while you're sat on a stool in the goat pen, working down the nanny's final teat with one hand. Milking her has been slow and steady work, impeded because her kid is leaning against your flank, content so long as you keep one hand on his small bristly side. His tiny tail beats rhythmically against your skirt as her milk rains hollowly into the metal bucket with each pull of your pinched fingers. And when the stream has turned to a dribble, you hear that unmistakable sound: a deep, harsh 'kaa-kaa-kaa' that has your heart pattering instantly against your ribs as your head whips of its own accord toward the fence. You strain to see Eddie through those tiny gaps, but you're too far away for the gesture to mean much. Your eyes dip to second best— that familiar stump, gnarled and weathered gray, splintered but surprisingly soft and spongy to the touch as if it would give way under a heavy hand or foot. You cannot see into the dark crevice at its base, but you know what now awaits you there.

You want to throw yourself to the ground and reach elbow-deep into that damp space, dirt and dress be damned. But you know the second you leave the bucket unattended, all the milk you'd painstakingly gathered would be claimed by the kid. You squeeze out the teet a few more times— perhaps a bit too hastily, since the nanny flicks her ears at you— before snatching up the bucket, bringing it to the kitchen to strain with cheesecloth and tuck into the icebox, leaving the bucket and soiled cloth in the sink out of sight. I'll wash it right quick as soon as I check the stump, you assure yourself. You couldn't possibly wait another moment longer to see what Eddie has left for you to find.

You're thrumming with impatience and excitement as you pop the screen door back open, struggling not to rush toward your prize and draw suspicion from anyone who may see you. Thankfully, a furtive glance around the yard ensures you are alone, and with nothing else to impede you, you quickly gather up your dress and kneel before the stump to claim your offering.

You reach past the blanket of fertile green moss that skirts the stump's base, mind flicking through the possibilities of what you might find in there. It will surely be a scrap of paper, but what will its few words convey? Will Eddie beg you to join him at the creek one last time? Tell you he's enlisted someone's help, an emissary of sorts, to go between you so you can speak again? Will he express his longing for your body's closeness? His pain at your separation?

A fluttering thrill blooms low inside you, cautious and sweet, fearful in its intensity. Because another wondering crosses your mind before you have the good sense to prevent it, and that wondering is this:

With an acknowledgment, perhaps, of how unideal the timing and the method is… will Eddie finally put words to the truth you see in that soft expression that graces his features, the one that's only come out for you, only you, only ever you?

Your fingertips graze thin smooth paper nested in a cradle of grass. As you pull your arm out of the stump, you can imagine it so plainly, written in that familiar scrawl: three words to turn a scrap into the most precious of treasures.

But the paper that comes out is not torn hastily from the corner of a brown paper bag as it usually is. Instead, you’re holding a folded piece of stationary, lightweight and crisp white, though its edges have soaked up some dirty dampness from where it has been hiding.

You don't have the luxury of time needed to examine the emotions that stir at this unexpected sight; you need to get to safety first. You tuck the letter beneath the band of your pocketless apron, fumbling with the bow at the small of your back to tighten it. There the paper stays, pressed against your stomach as you return to the kitchen to wash the bucket and cheesecloth. You lay them out to dry, then pass by your mother in a brush of fabric down the narrow hallway. Lightheaded, heart thumping, you creak up the stairs to your bedroom, closing your door and releasing a woosh of held breath. You sink to the floor in front of it, pressing your back to the wood. In lieu of true privacy, this position keeps someone from bursting suddenly in on you before you can conceal what you're doing. With that assurance, you shift forward, untying that tight bow and letting the apron fall across your legs, revealing a flutter of crisp white.

That stirring of emotions returns full force as you run your thumb along the bottom edge of the paper, wiping the collected dirt absently on the hem of your dress. As you unfold it and Eddie's penciled scrawl is revealed, the first wave of your emotion crests to sting sweetly in the corners of your eyes.

The letter isn't particularly long. It doesn't wax poetic about your grace and charm or meander through the hills and valleys of your shared story. It little matters when you can hear Eddie's teasing rasp in every sentence, see his wild beauty in every word, and feel his firm touch in each uneven scratch of letters into the page.

My Dove, Eddie murmurs against your temple, and you sigh, melting with the sticky sweet honey as he voices his claim on you. His Dove. That's what you are.

"Yes, Eddie," you whisper into the stillness of your empty bedroom, lids low, lashes heavy as you read the next line.

First things first. Don't you even think about writin' me back. You hear me? Plush lips curl as your besotted expression falls into a pout, and you hear the rasp of his laugh as he cradles your face in his broad, rough palms. S'not that I don't wanna get a letter from you, you know. I just can't have you in any more trouble. It nearly killed me to see how you were hurtin' on account of me. Umber eyes crinkle, and his thumb brushes the corner of your lip. Promise me you'll listen for once.

You regard him sullenly for a moment. "Fine," you grump, and the crooked smile you're rewarded with softens the edge of your frustration.

Eddie regards you fondly. I know you don't wanna. But you will anyway, 'cause y'can't help but do what I say now that you're all gooey over me.

You flush with heat, bashful but pleased, twisting your lips against the dopey smile that wants to come out for him. Now that that's settled, he snarks, making you yearn to kiss the knowing tilt right off his lips, I want you to know that… well, I really am sorry for makin' a mess of things for us. Maybe if I'd done different, we wouldn't be where we are right now. No use dwellin' on it or nothin', because what's past is past. But I screwed it up for us, and I don't know what to do to fix it, and I'm just sorry, Dove. I really am.

"Oh, Eddie—" His name is a soft, feminine sigh of anguish as the sting returns full force, burning insistently behind your eyes. You grab up his hands, squeezing them tight; the paper wrinkles in your grip. "Eddie, you didn't make a mess of anything. It's not your fault at all, what's happened."

He stares at you mournfully, dark eyes heavy and sad, continuing as if you hadn't spoken. And I know it's only been a few days since I seen you, but I miss you something fierce. S'like my arm's been cut clean off. His lips quirk up just slightly in the corners. And you'll say that's just me bein' dramatic as always, but I mean it. It really does hurt me that much to be away from you.

Eddie's curls brush your cheeks as he gathers you close to him, pressing his nose to the top of your hair. Wish I could hold you. Be there for you, take care of you. But I guess this's all I can do for now. He breathes in deep, and your heart twists sweetly in your chest at the feeling of his breath there— a cool inhale, and then warmth puffing in short bursts when he murmurs, You know you're my best friend, but you're so much more than that. Y'always have been. I told you I'd never let anyone take you from me, and I intend to keep my word, no matter how long I gotta wait.

Your first tear falls, and Eddie's arms tighten around you. He presses a kiss to your hair. In the meantime, he rasps, quiet but sure and brash as always, if you find yourself missin' me, or if you're havin' a hard go of it, or if you just wanna remind yourself where I am. All you gotta do is call for me, Turtle Dove. And when I call back, what I'm really sayin' is, 'I'm here. I'm here, and I ain't goin' nowhere.'

On the page, there's a gap of space and a scratched-out word, and you can feel Eddie's adam's apple bob in a gulp. And if I'm missin' you, or… or if I'm havin' a hard go of it. If you still want me the way that I want you.

The final line of the letter begins to fuzz while you stare down at it, expanding in a bloom of dark-on-white as more tears flood your eyes. But you don't need to see it; the words have already been etched into your heart.

Will you call back to me? So I know you're here, and you ain't goin' anywhere?

Those two questions close the letter; there is no signature. After all, when two like souls flutter their wings and settle themselves to perch together on a shared wire, names become nothing more than an afterthought.

Paper flattens to the wooden floor. It crinkles as you press against it with your palm, leveraging yourself up to your feet blindly as your stirrings finally overtake you in a rush of tears. They flow over as you lurch around the footboard to the windowsill, pushing the gauzy curtains heedlessly aside; they catch the corners of your lips as your fingers twist the stiff window hinge, and your smile stretches in time with the window's jerky progress up the frame.

September air floods in, ruffling gauze and soothing over your forehead and cheeks. The humid heat of summer has finally broken, leaving mugginess a thing of the past. And it's into that air, scented with crisp wind and the first dry musk of fading leaves, that you call for your crow.

Your first coo isn't as graceful as usual because your voice is choked by sorrow and joy combined. But you do not let that stop you. You call out your bedroom window again and again, as loud as you've ever been, eyes fixed on the stoop at the back of the red house. You call and call until the door springs open there, and a crow hops out onto the stoop. As you look down upon him, tears run in trails that drip off your chin, and your cheeks begin to ache with the force of your smile. You cup your small hands around your mouth and call again.

'Turr-turr-turr,' you sing, mimicking the melodic trill of the turtle dove.

This moment will not quell your stirrings. As more days pass, they will billow ever more intensely and change ever more quickly as the transformation continues inside you. Your bitterness and your temper are still to come; you have not seen the last of your aching.

But, for right now, this is all that matters. A pale face tipped up toward the sun, a cloud of dark curls tossing wild and untamed, a boyish whoop of relief and adoration, and the love that swells within you— still unspoken, but no less true.

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rboooks · 1 month

Text

The Shadow Nation

Zuko will admit that his time as Fire Lord has been a rough adjustment. Many oppose his rise to power, scream for a more prolonged war, and still support Ozai over the banished prince turned tratior (In their eyes at least).

He has dealt with many assassination attempts throughout his two-year rule. Suki and her warriors were working nonstop to keep him safe, but even they couldn't be everywhere at once. So it came to no surpise that one managed to sneak through every now and then.

Ussually, Zuko is able to fight them off. What many people of the fire nation don't realize is that the stories of his bending and combat being weaker then his sister and father are in the past. He has plentely of front line combant experince, has re-shaped his whole fire bending tenchine and has even trained the Avatar.

Zuko, to this day, is much more deadly with his swords than with his flames. The fact his people consider none-bending as a none-threaten is a sadundervalue of his combat abilitiess. The assasins are always so suprise when they learned just how ready he is for them.

They spent the rest of their days in a prision cell, stweing in rage that the Fire Lord contuines to call back troops, return colines and some may say worst of all, welcome the Mixed Blood into the nation.

Mixed Blood are children who resulted from Fire Nation soldiers letting off some stress in conquered areas with other Nations. They were not seen as equals, for Fire stood above all, and those children were servents at best, dirty secerts at worse.

This was a notion that all four elements shared. They disagreed with intermingling with the wrong element. The Mixed were not welcomed anywhere, less if they shared Fire in their veins. There was some tolerance for Water and Earth mixing but only some and only in trading ports that were far out of sight. (Or the pleasure district where all the Mixed eventually ended up)

It saddens Aang; he claimed a hundred years ago that mixed was common, and it's another thing this wretched war ruined.

Mostly, it angered Zuko. He knew what it was like to be an unwanted child, knew the confusion, the anger, the pain of wondering why his birth was such a sin.

He met some mixed children while on the run from the Fire Nation - he suspected Jet was one of them, but he never dared voice his opinion. Being outed as mixed in some places was as good as a death sentence. Ba Sing Se was one of those places.

He decided that the if Fire Nation would heal everything they have done then they needed to make admends for such children. They needed to help them find love and a home. With the help of his friends, he sent out a world wide notice welcoming any Mixed Blood and promising a life where they did not need to hide who they were.

Zuko, will admit that this eagerness to welcome those children may have blinded him from how lowly his people saw the Mixed. His assassination attempts tripled since herds and herds of badly washed, weary eyes, and tired individuals started arriving in the fire nation.

It, apparently, didn't help that Cheif Hakoda did the same after much encouragement from Katara and Sokka. The Fire Nation for the past three generations grew up with nothing but tales on how they should never be like the rest of the world.

Agreeing to shelter Mixed like the Southern Water Tribe has many calling for a coup.

Zuko knew this. But he would not stop in his effort to right the many wrongs of his bloodline. He expected the assumptions, he expected the barely hidden insults of his advisors, he expected the resentment from some of his more patriotic people.

What he wasn't expecting was his people trying to rid of him using spirits.

Zuko doesn't know much about the spirits or the spirit world. Aang never really talked about his trips there, and Uncle would only warn him to respect the beings at all costs.

He knew enough to follow, honor them, give them prayers, and how to avoid them but nothing else. So he really isn't prepared for his latest assassin to be an old woman with a spirit trapped in a cursed pot.

Apparently, her family had sealed it away years ago, and in exchange for its freedom, the spirit is tasked with ridding the world of Fire Lord Zuko. The old hag waits until Aang, Uncle, and Sokka- who also surprisingly has some encounters with spirits- depart before attempting her plan.

She rushes into the Gand Courtroom, throwing her pot with a loud release spell on her lips. Zuko is in the middle of a peace summit, so his first instinct is to protect the visiting diplomatics, less the other Nations call war again.

The old woman is quickly taken down by the Kypshi warrior, but the deed is already over.

The pot shatters, and out bursts a blue burning flame that forms into a howling wolf. There are chains along the wolf neck, and no amount of thrashing can break them. The wolf looks up, straight into Zuko's eyes, ignoreing the swords and flames of his guards trying to protect him before it bows it head.

I'm sorry. It seems to say. This is the only way.

He leaps at Zukom by passing every attempt to stop it, before it digs it's teeth into the Fire Lord's neck. Everyone is left watching in horror as the young king screams in agony, blue flames licking all over his body as he truns to dust.

The wolf's chains shatter as the last of the ashes that were once the man who brought peace to the world fall. The old woman laughs, even though the wolf spirit now turns it rage filled eyes on her and her kin.

She did what she needed to do. The Fire Nation will rise.

She is unaware that her actions cause the Fire Nation to burn. The wolf spirit was the nation's original spirit of mercy, and her family was the ones responsible for sealing it away on the order of thelate Fire Lord Sozin.

She is unaware her ancestors were all but wiped out once they successfully put the wolf away, for fear that they would turn on the nation.

There is nothing more dangerous than a spirit that no longer holds mercy. The Fire Nation seems to vanish overnight. It breaks Avatar Aang's heart but world prepares for a second war. A war against the spirits.

But that is the fate of this timeline. Fire Lord Zuko would never know the fate of his people as he was sent far away by Mercy to fulfill another destiny.

It's the least the spirit can do for having to take his human life in part of a deal.

Zuko wakes to find the Blue Spirit Mask attached to his face, laying on his back in what could only be Fire Nation colonies within the Earth Kingdom.

His trusted duel swords tied to his back., his utterly black outfit with only hints of blue undertones, and the most startling feature of all, his now unscared skin.

Zuko has no idea what is going onas he studies his face in a river, tracing his smooth skin with a near-hysterical glee. He's never considered himself overly goodlooking, but for some reason his relection is pretty.

No, not pretty, gorgeous. Unnaturally so, as if he traded his humanity for features as perfect as these.

What in the world-

A scream breaks through the air. High pitch, laced with fear and sp obviously young, Zuko is donning his mask breaking into a sprint before he even process what he is doing.

He does not notice the small flickers of ember he leaves in his wake, multiple colors as his dragon flames, nor does he see that the speed he travels is impossible unless he, too, is an Airbender.

When he breaks through the treeline, he finds himself in a ruined camp. A crowd of Earth Kingdom soldiers surrounds two small children, who look no older than ten, while a third, probably twelve, is desperately trying to free himself from a large boulder that seems to have crushed his legs.

There is blood everywhere, and Zuko burns with rage.

"Mixed Blood isn't welcome here," A soldier spits, kicking the thrashing twelve-year-old. The gut-curling screams the poor thing releases don't seem to affect the soldiers besides a few taunting smirks.

"Spirits help us!" One of the smaller kids cries out and a near by soulder kicks her in the stomech.

"The spirits don't answer to the likes of-" His words are lost as blue flames overtake the small opening, placing a barrier between the children and the adults.

Zuko walks through the flames, a strange sense of calmness washing over him. Deep within, he knows that he will protect these children from the world and burn everything in his path that tries to stop him.

"A spirit," One of the soldiers gasps. "Why is a spirit here?!"

"You attacked children." Zuko's voice is his own but not. It sounds like it's coming from a deep cave, as if the echoing flickers in and out like a candle flame. Somehow, it sounds far worse than Aang whenever his past lives speak through him.

It would have chilled him to the bone if he was in the right state of mind.

"You attacked children." He repeats when he does not get the responses he wants from the soldiers. They are not groveling before the children in regret. They are not freeing the boy from his pain. They are not moving.

"These are not children. These are Mixed- abominations! We were only trying to Agggh No, please. Mercy! No no! Please," One of the soldiers starts, but his words are cut off by the blue flames that suddenly grab hold of him, shaping him into chains and dragging him into the shadows that have formed around Zuko.

Shadows that hold loud screaming voices all being for death for that would be a mercy.

His screams echo alongside the voices within Zuko's shadow as he tilts his head to the remaining soliders.

"You attacked children. Leave" He whispers and at once the screams stop, the shadows draw back into his own human shaped one and his flames blow out. The Earth Kingdom soldier remains on the floor, eyes seeingless, and skin blue.

Dead.

The rest of the Soldiers don't linger, rushing to leave the angry spirits sight. Zuko watches them leave from behind his mask wondering where such rage had come from. And why he felt numb to the life he just took. Why he felt so unhuman and not be bothered by the thought.

He reaches up to trace the Blue Spirit Mask, feeling dancing flames along his fignertips.

Well done. Our children are safe. A voice whispers in his mind. It's Zuko, but it's also not. It's something more.

He hears a small whimper that snaps his out of whatever hold the mask has over him snaps. He turns his attention to the three children. The two are trying to push the bolder off of the eldest, their features scream Fire Nation but their eyes and coloring belie their Earth Kingdom.

Zuko stride over, waves a hand and the rock butns to dust harmlessly. The younger children cower and the oldest is too daze with pain to do anything else but sob.

His legs are comepletly smashed.

The cold burning rage returns.

Our children. Heal them. Zuko hears, and he wonders if he's gone mad. It's his own voice, but it belongs to the Blue Spirit.

I can't. I'm not a waterbender. He tells it

We can. We heal with green flames. Heal. It insits

Zuko traces the jaw of his mask before he raises a hand and sure enough green flames lick his fingers. The children start to sob, but he heads their fear no mind as he brings the green fire down on the boy's broken body, willing it to warm, fix heal.

Bones, muscles and skin slowly repair one by one, taking whatever scars once decorated the child's skin and leaving smooth almost too perefect sking behind.

Once done the flames jump onto the other children, fixing the broken bones, the bruises and the many scars other less kind humans have given them.

The three gape up at the spirit who holds out a hand.

"Would you like to come live in my nation?"

"The spirit world?" One whispers wondering if they had not been rescued after all. If that had all pasted to the next world.

The spirit tilts its head before removing its mask and revealing a face so beautiful it could rival the stars and sun. "No, dear child. My nation. My name is Zuko."

A fifth nation is born. The Shadow Nation moves from place to place but can never be taken as the spirits themselves protect the civilians.

Not that Zuko realizes it. He's just trying to get back to the Fire Nation, and if he impulsively stops every time a child is in pain and said child follows behind him like a lost puppy, well, that's no one's business but his own.

The legend of the Blue Spirit, protector of all children, inspires so many before Avatar Aang is found in the Southern Water tribe three years later.

A fire wolf watches from a far and smiles.

#avatar the last airbender #time travel #Zuko is the blue Spirit #I've been reading a lot of ATLA fanfiction #I love the idea of Zuko being confused for a spirit #Zuko has no idea what's going on #tw: child abuse #Tw: some racism?

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