ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴏɴ ᴀʟʟ ғᴏᴜʀs. werewolf kiri au.
you wake up under a mountain of furs.
light comes flickering from the hearth and, warm and welcoming as it is—you've no idea where you are.
you don't recognize the inside of the cabin; it's certainly not yours, nor is its layout that of any you’ve seen in the village. it's rather plain, with a singular window and table and chair and small fireplace, empty enough that you wonder how anyone could live comfortably with so little.
outside, the winter storm rages on, and there's a howl that cuts through the air that strikes bone-deep.
all at once your memories come back to you: dragged through town with bound hands and ankles, in only a thin night dress, screaming with all your might as the physician that delivered you into this world tied you to an old pine, along with the priest and the man that sold you blueberries in the spring.
people you knew and loved. had trusted.
the memories become hazy after a while, darkening with the night that crept in. you remember your body losing its feeling, but not its fear. you remember the violence of the storm, breaking trees and branches and uprooting the forest floor. you remember the horrible and hulking shape of something rising in the moonlight.
the door shoves open then, with enough force to send you scurrying back into the corner of the room. the blizzard tries to rush inside, but a man stands in its way, leaning back against the wood to keep the wind and snow out where it belongs. he's—big, as tall as the frame and just as wide, with thick hair that he's tied back, messy and low.
he's rosy in his cheeks and on the tip of his nose, as bright as the eyes that snap to you the moment you dare to breathe.
he doesn't say anything, at first. the bag of firewood he sets at his feet settles as he turns to you in interest, eyebrows raised. the clothes he's wearing look—old and worn, certainly not suitable for the storm roaring outside, with the holes and tears in the fabric. the boots he has on, however, seem heavy, have his steps echoing when he moves further into the room.
you pull your knees up to your chest and try to shrink away; beneath your thin dress, your skin has pebbled up, reminding you of just how vulnerable you still are.
your fear translates; the man stops on the other side of the little table, breathing in deeply before raising his hands up in what reads as surrender.
"hello," he finally says, and when you don't respond, he places a thick hand to his dark-haired chest and introduces himself as, "eijirou."
he nods emphatically and then repeats himself, as if to reinforce the name. you only grant him a small nod in return—and he smiles. it's wide, stretching across his face, and friendly, authentic enough that you question whether you're as damned as you thought, or perhaps saved.
how did you even get here? the question finally thaws out from the recesses of your brain and you take another look around the room as if the answer lies between the wood or nestled into the furs. this place looks too hand-crafted, you realize, all of it—and the man before you looks like he could move mountains, if he wanted to.
the chains that had bound you were iron-strong and didn't once budge in all your thrashing, before things went dark—but now you are inside by a well-maintained fire, warm and free, and all that remains of your ill fate are the indentions worn into your wrists.
he's still staring at you, the man. eijirou. he's not moved any closer, either, and when you meet his curious gaze, his lips twist and his eyes narrow. a thoughtful noise comes out of his mouth, like he's thinking of what to say or how to say it, and you're reminded that you don't recognize where you are, nor do you recognize him in the slightest.
big as he is, you don't think he could have carried you too far in a snowstorm such as the one still raging outside; are you still somewhere deep in the forest? in a cabin at the heart of the wood? saved by a man that somehow survives with so little out in the middle of nowhere?
"eijirou," you test the name on your lips and he perks up at the sound, attention snapping back to you instantly. you don't know if it's winter seeping through the floor, or if it's in the way that he watches you, that makes you shiver.
finally, he asks, "cold?" and when you nod, he slowly makes his way over to you, carefully, as if approaching a deer ready to run.
—and then he sheds his shirt with a quick shrug and holds it out to you.
you should want to look away, for decency sake, but you're—stunned by it, by him. there's a litany of scars that paint him in odd and worrisome places, but he stands tall and strong before you, unbothered by his own state. unbothered by the eyes that run over the expanse of his bare shoulders, the dark, thick trail of hair running down from his belly button, the ripples of muscle his loose shirt did well to hide.
you take it from him carefully and it's so warm, almost hot, that you press it to your face immediately to chase away the chatter of your jaw. the material itself, however ragged, is big enough to drape over your curled form like a blanket, and so you do just that. it carries the earthy smell of the woods, deeply woven into the fabric; pine and musk and something smoky.
with your cheek still pressed to his shirt, you look up to thank him, at last, but the words still in your throat at the minute changes of his face: still smiling, though sharper now, somehow, and his eyes are still wide with that keen, rapt interest—but the crimson to them has set like the sun and they've grown just as dark as the night outside.
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having a lot of thoughts right now at 4am about chay being ruthless
there’s a specific animorphs quote i’m thinking of:
"People don't understand the word ruthless. They think it means 'mean.' It's not about being mean. It's about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It's about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it." — Marco, The Reunion by K.A. Applegate
specifically the bit: It's about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B.
now, i dont think chay from season 1 is ruthless. but i very much see him as having the makings of it. chay has a very simple and direct approach to things; he sees something he wants, so he pursues it (he asks his idol for lessons their first meeting, he doesn’t let kim skip out on tutor lessons, he confesses twice because he had a homework goal and then a personal goal, he wants the truth so he confronts kim that same day, etc). and we see this theme of ‘chay has a goal, chay pursues goal’ most often with kim because they specifically foil each other in this. kim has a grand speech about making sacrifices to achieve your goals, but he’s stagnant between the world he was borne into and cant fully leave because of his brothers, vs the soft bright world he wants to be in but cant because he comes bearing blood. this directly contrasts with chay, who pursues his goals fullheartedly and recklessly
now, chay's not ruthless. not...yet. but there’s also these little...hints of a ruthlessly practical mindset to him. the most standout point for me in this regard was episode 1 when porsche is worried about his uncle. he’s sent arthee away, but he’s still planning “how do i get uncle out of trouble, and how do i maximize it?”
but chay? chay’s straight up like “uncle’s problems aren’t ours, lets just runaway to go live your dream of owning a bar on the beach”
i love this scene between porsche and chay so much. not only is really heartwarming, but i think it rly solidifies who they are as characters right off the bat. porsche is a caretaker. he takes care of everyone around him, whether he has an obligation to or not. but chay is fully ready to just leave their uncle behind. uncle interferes with brother’s and mine’s future plans? then no uncle in future plans. chay doesn’t even seem to mourn nor care that his uncle, one of his two caretakers left, is just gone from his life after ep1. like...that’s a really cold assessment for a teenager to make about one of his two living family members (that he knows of)
for me, what holds chay back from tipping into any sort of ruthless so far is mostly his naivety. not innocence (chay is not innocent yes i am still fighting on this hill), but he has certain expectations of the world that don’t necessarily match what the world is. to me, this shows most clearly when he sees warning flags (”...how do you know i have a brother?”) but is fully willing to ignore them in favor of pursuing his original goal(s) instead of taking the warning flags into account. and since he doesn’t plan for them, when some of those flags grow into actual problems, they really trip him up in ways he’s not prepared to handle. but he doesn’t have that any more at the end of season 1
if we do get a second season, i would be v curious to see where chay’s character develops. im apparently the outlier lol, but i actually really love where kim and chay ended in s1. they were on a trajectory to crash in the middle and instead they missed and landed where the other started. kim, the kid running away from the things he’s always wanted, puts himself out there with zero expectation or surety that chay will reach back. chay lingers over the video, unsure if he wants to respond to it or block it, so he throws his phone away to deal with it another time. and it’d just be really interesting to see how these two characters would react following the same trajectory the other one originally did, but coming at it with a very different background/development. and for chay specifically, i would just rly love to see how his ep1 “lets just abandon uncle to the debtors and go live our dreams on a beach” hints might come back/come into play in a mafia world setting
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