for whatever reason, you're there after the war. for touya—not dabi.
once he's moved out of the hustle and bustle of the city and to an intimate little place, somewhere a bit quieter. with his family, of course, as his entire being just—heals. he's given the time and the space and the patience that he needs, but it's not easy. almost feels like it's never going to be.
he comes and goes in waves; thunderous and loud and all consuming, another crash upon the shore. in anger and pain, in fear and hatred, with a kind of madness that you could never hope to understand.
and then sometimes, he is quiet. when you help change the wrappings on his body or when you offer the help of an arm he doesn't have or when you just sit with him, fully clothed, underneath the ice cold spray of the shower.
in these moments, it's almost like he's been gutted, like everything he had inside was scooped out—and it sounds like it should be terrible. but touya watches the carefulness to your hands and how you tie his shoes and lets you rest your head on his shoulder when you're sitting side-by-side in the tub, because he's still as warm as he's always been.
and you think maybe it isn't so bad that all that was removed, when they sewed him back together; all the anger and pain, the fear and hatred, the madness that's nowhere to be seen in those bright and clear eyes of his.
without all that in the way, you hope—you all do—that something new will grow it its place.
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Thinking about an AU where 18-year-old Sam on the verge of leaving comes home to her mother screaming at her little sister. Sam's still high, the shouts ringing in her ears but the words formless. She's about to intervene when a slap cuts through it all. Her sister's on the floor and in the blink of an eye Sam has a hand wrapped around her mother's throat, slamming her against the wall.
Tara's climbing to her feet, eyes wide with fear at the scene. Sam doesn't look away from her mother as she says "Tara, go upstairs and pack a bag." Her sister doesn't move, so Sam turns away to look at her and repeats herself. Tara must see something in her wild eyes, because she runs up the stairs.
By the time Sam escorts her downstairs half an hour later, their mother is nowhere to be seen. Tara's led through the packing and into the car in silence. The what's happening?, the where are we going?, the are you ok? sits on the tip of her tongue, choked back by uncertainty and confusion.
Sam drives out of Woodsboro and doesn't look back.
OR
Sam, 19-years-old, long since kicked out of the house and on her way out of Woodsboro. She just has one stop to make, a goodbye she has to give first.
She sneaks into the house. The door is unlocked, she doesn't even need the key Tara hid outside for her, and it enrages her. Her baby sister is upstairs sleeping and anyone can just walk in.
Her mother is passed out on the floor leaning against the couch, snoring away and a bottle still in her lap. She creeps past her and up the stairs.
Sam perches herself on the edge of Tara's bed. Her sister is sprawled out on the mattress, the covers kicked off, and it makes her smile. She brushes Tara's hair back from her face and the smile falls from her face.
Her fingers trail down to the shadow around her neck. Sam reaches over to turn on the bedside lamp, catching sight of Tara's wrist at the same time. These are bruises. She wakes her sister up and demands answers from her. She doesn't like the answers she eventually coaxes from her. She likes Tara's attempt to lie to her even less.
She makes her pack, tells her to wait out front, that she'll be out in a minute. She kicks her mother awake, tells her she's leaving for good, and that she's not leaving alone. She tells her that she will never have the chance to hurt them again, and if she tries, well, she'll learn exactly how much like her father she can be,
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I have this theory that life is like walking through a field of holes. And of course you don’t see them as you’re walking. But sometimes it’s a little hole, and your foot gets stuck, and you’ve got to pull and tug and eventually it comes loose and you keep walking along. And other times it’s a deep hole. You fall so far down that you feel like you’d never possibly climb out of it.
And the people in your life, they’re on that field too. So when you hit the little holes, you’re like “hey buddy, you’re nearby. Can you give me a tug? Help me out a little?”
But with the deep holes? Those people look down that cavern of darkness and call down to you. “Hey! [Hey? I guess? Excuse me I just fell in here] You okay down there? [No, you fool, I’m in a fucking dark hole] You coming up? [Sure yeah I’ll get right on that thanks friend] Want a tug? [It’s a big fucking deep hole the tug isn’t going to do much here]”
They don’t know what to do either. They’re checking in the way they know how. They’re letting you know they see you.
But the solution to “oh shit this is a deep one” isn’t the same as the tiny holes that feel more like stumbling blocks. That a bit of self-care and humour could fix.
Sometimes I think that what we really need is someone to come along and instead of staring down, they come down to the bottom of the hole with you. “Wow. What a deep hole you’ve got here. [Yes, thanks, I apparently mentally conjured it myself] I see you wrote some stuff on the walls. [Yup. I have trained myself not to say these things to people. It doesn’t stop me yelling the words to myself on the way down] But that’s okay. I see what’s here at the bottom. You. [What pieces of me I’m holding together]”
I think sometimes we need someone to sit at the bottom of that hole and just, put us on their lap. Hold you. Carry you as they walk in circles around the hole. And then when you are ready, you can begin the climb up the dark hole back to the field. Because you’ve done it before. But sometimes a person who falls down those deep holes needs to lick their wounds a little before making the trek back. Again. Just like you will the next time.
There is a fatigue to falling down holes. Knowing that each one you climb out of is just that day/week/month/year’s hole. That there may be other ones out in your field. That you often can’t see them until you’ve fallen down them.
And then you’re there by yourself. Waiting to gather the strength and the tools to climb back up. Because you couldn’t bear the thought of someone else climbing down there. Seeing it. Letting you sit in it. Holding your broken and bruised body off the ground as it healed itself enough, again, for the journey back up.
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"Heed the Call"
Roughly 1,500 words~
They always heard the call of the pack.
From the first time they awoke in the frigid, snow covered forest, slate fur now white as fresh powder tipped with crimson red, they had heard the call.
Since their young, ghostly existence they learned, that the call of the pack meant you were never alone in this cursed world. The small colonies of Zoura and Zoroark that dot the Icelands of Hisui cry out to each other in the night, when a kill is made, a clanmate is lost, or a human draws near them to drive them out of their newfound home of ice and snow.... They had always heeded the call. And the call had always been answered, no matter how far away one may be from the pack.
From the stories told to them as a small white kit in their new unburdened form, the Zorua and Zororak of Hisui banded together to protect themselves from the humans that lead to their unfortunate frozen fates, for being spiteful tricksters and threatening their lives, when no known fox had slain a human before for unjust reason. Why should they be chased away from a place as harsh and unforgiving as Alabaster when hardly any other souls dare to try and carve out a home here? Why cant they be left alone to merely exist and try to make peace with their own tortured souls? The chilling beasts had learned overtime, that their cries of anguish and spite had struck fear into the beating hearts of the living, to draw them away from their nests and guard their newly reborn kits. So from then on and for many generations, the Zorua and Zoroark have howled out to unite as one, and to chase away those that threaten their kind.
The call meant you were never alone.
They remember tales told to them of a life before this, when Zoroark were not as tightly knit together as they are now amid the snowdrifts. Many born from the life before recall their kind as being nomadic in nature, living solitary lives with only a mate and their young to keep safe, small private packs, only calling to one another in greeting and for warning. Even fewer more who had ventured away from Hisui could tell tales of meeting with those of the living, darkened fur with piecring blue eyes, warm with beating hearts. They had called to them to join them, to say they are welcome and safe, but were not met with a call back. Instead they were met with fear and confusion at their ghastly sight. It has happened enough times to know that the beckon of a Zoroark reborn from pain and agony could not be understood by the ones who have never passed. As the baneful packs wander on amid storms and blizzards, looking for more poor souls like themselves who have been brought back so harshly and abruptly, they call to each other. Piercing cries ringing through the frozen air to lay claim to a new wretched life. To welcome them in their new tounge and greet them as family...
To let them know they are never alone.
As they follow along behind their young charge, a human all the same, but ever so kind and gentle since the moment they met, the moment they joined their meager team, they can still hear the pack, far off and away, even within the realm of Lord Kleavor whose home resides far south of the perilous north they called home. They answer back to let their family know they are safe and well, a common occurence now. Humans always hid away at the cry they emitted, but their small human seemed to had recognized what it is they do, scribbling markings in the leaflets they carried around whenever they did so since the child asked them to join them. The child asked them questions about the Zoroark kind knowing they'd not get a proper answer, merely to talk and gleam any response they could provide, though they did this with any pokemon they had caught. To further "research" and build a better understanding they had said. The child had managed to get some answers on their own, a very clever kit they thought to themselves, though one question they asked recently had stuck in their spectral mind in a peculiar way.
"What do you think happens if there were no other calls back to you? Would there be any more Zoroark or Zoura outside Hisui like you? What would it mean if you were the only one left?"
They never thought about that before, they always heard the pack, how would there be none left? As long as there is suffering and pain brought to their kind as they are driven out of their homelands upon their demise, there is always the deathly call of the packs. Even amid the skies turning red, with raging alphas at every turn, when the gods of time and space themselves return to the earthly coil and threaten all life with destruction, and their charge drives head on to protect the lives off all in Hisui and prevails, even as they stand against a lost God and its delusioned ward as a last stand against all odds. As the evolved beast lashes forward to strike down the satanic being who dares to destroy their human kit, howling its bitter malicious vengeance in the face of the almightys forgotten son....
The cries of the pack can be heard resonating within them, to join their strength together with their lone clanmate, to assure them they are not alone atop that mountain.
As the lands of Hisui are left in a serene peace, with the human kit they had come to love as one of their own, beside what they understand is almighty sinnoh themself, they turn and extend their pokeball. An offer to release them to return to Alabaster with their pack, or to join them and their team in a new time and place, an unknown future for the cursed beast they had come to trust with their life. The choice is obvious to them, they had already been through so much, the pack would understand their choice to remain with the child who took them in when no other Zoroark was ever extended such kindness. Wherever they were to end up, they knew they'd hear the pack.
With one last cry to the wind bidding them farewell, in the distance they respond in turn, knowing their clanmate was not alone and still loved like the pack had loved them.
The next chance they had to call the pack in the new world, it was met with silence.
They knew they were still in Hisui, had been told this was the future and that a handful of pokemon they knew to roam the earth had been lost to the ravages of time, but the silence on the wind after many calls to the wild was deafening. There surely had to be a reply, right? They must have hidden away all this time to keep safe. There was always Zorua and Zororak that were driven to their deaths, this was a fact of their cursed life. Why would there not be a response? Surely there had to be another remaining lost soul now, right?
As the human looked on at them in worry, trying to piece together what was wrong with their corporeal friend, believing they may have made the wrong choice bringing them home to the present day.... a thought stirs in the back of the Zoroarks mind. One last try, a call that would have made the earth tremble and the heavens quake, echoed off the top of the mountain within spear pillar...
One moment....
Another, with baited breath....
Yet in the end, had they stayed there for the rest of eternity, arceus allowing them to...
Nothing would be returned to them, only the wind and their frozen pulse in their ears.
Slowly with realization and certainty in their mind, they began to bear a tearful, but elated smile. The pack was gone, absolutely gone, they knew they'd never hear the call ever again, they were the last snow white Zororark with crimson tipped fur left in the wide world beyond Hisui, and they were ecstatic!! If the human could understand them now in their joy they could see why the silence was the most amazing sound they could ever hear.
They were the last one left, no more Zorua were being reborn, no more Zoroark were fleeing to a fate worse than death itself. They stopped being hated and being hateful in turn.
No more of their kind were dying angry and spiteful, freezing, alone and afraid. The cycle stopped.
The Lone Zoroark couldn't have been so glad in all its second life to be in this moment. It did not care they were the last of its cursed kind. If it meant no more kits were dying and the frozen anger of generations had finally melted away to nothing but warmth and peace....
They would pray to almighty sinnoh to never hear the call ever again.
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Have any soft FD HC’s/ scenarios when he would take care of them?
(Not actual scenes, because I know you you would end up writing something, just scenarios.)
(Bonus points if it includes the Burrito Bros…)
LOL you know me too well, I would probably write something. XD
Sky likes to wear the mask so Fierce can interact with the others (he tells Fierce that it isn't too painful for him personally, which is an absolute lie, but Fierce respects his privacy and doesn't read his mind after the first time so he doesn't know). He always does it when Time isn't around that way the elder doesn't get upset (Time wants to meet Fierce as much as the rest but he doesn't want Sky to get hurt/ill/drained from it). He talks to Fierce a fair amount to help him keep up with what's happening. So when one of the boys is hurt or ill beyond something a simple potion can fix, Fierce is usually fretting about it and Sky lets him come out.
One time Twilight pushes himself too far because he's still recovering from his Dink Disaster, and it happens because the group got separated. Sky, Twi, and Four are together at the moment, and Sky happens to have the mask because he was talking to Fierce when the ambush happened that got them split up. Fierce is worried as all get out, so Sky lets him take over because the deity has more experience in this sort of thing and is far more capable of fighting off the hordes that they know are lingering around. Four is overly stressed and freaking out because it's too soon from the last time Twi almost died, so Fierce soothes him and takes care of Twi and slaughters any monster that breathes within a ten mile radius. Twi tries to pull his weight and Fierce just ends up carrying him as they walk. Four loves doing storytelling with Fierce because he adores listening to his little rainbow fill him in on events in the world. Twi eventually settles into being cared for because he can't really argue about being a burden to a freaking godlike figure, and Fierce learns to his delight that Twi loves cuddling. Four does too.
When the trio finally reunites with another chunk of the Chain, it's Warriors and Wild, and oh boy because Fierce knows about Wars' PTSD and Four told him all about Wild's issues and this Mother Hen is going to town now because he can already see how stressed and worn out they are and he just sets to work calming them down and insisting everything and everyone is fine and gathering ingredients for Wild so he can stress cook and Fierce wants to taste everything because he hasn't eaten in millennia, and he senses when Warriors is going from normal to I have to take care of everything and everyone and I am spiraling mode, and he has Twilight basically tackle him as Wolfie before carrying Warriors over to the group wrapped in his scarf. Fierce showers Wild with praises because he knows he needs to hear it, Four does more story time (interspersed with Warriors and Twilight and Wild piping in) and the like.
After a few days, they reach civilization, and Fierce hesitates, knowing he'd be an intimidating sight in a town of Hylians who know nothing about him. He asks Wars what it was like when he took the mask off, and Wars tells him about the sensation. Fierce feels really awful, and he asks the boys to gather supplies for Sky and get a room at the inn ready for him. Fierce tries to mentally reach out to Sky and can't find him. Nervous, he takes the mask off, and Sky is a hot mess, but the boys take care of him.
The next time Sky tries to talk to the mask, Fierce won't reply until Sky almost puts it on. He asks Sky to not use the mask, and says he's content with just hearing about the boys. Sky can immediately hear the pain in his voice and knows he's lying, but he doesn't know what to do about it, so he decides to go to Legend and Hyrule, magic and artifact experts, to see if they can work something out.
Because by now, everyone wants to meet Grandpa Fierce.
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