and I hear him begging someone named god
tw/cw: non-graphic depiction of death/character death
There’s a distant kind of pain registering in Mako, but he’s not sure where it’s from. It really, really hurts. He’s not really thinking about much other than that, so he doesn’t spare much attention to the clogging in his nose or the dripping from his eyes. Something in that burns in a way he doesn’t think tears and snot are supposed to.
Mako finds he’s too exhausted to really care. He’s sniffling and crying like he hasn’t in years. Something in his subconscious tells him to move his hands, hide his face and wipe away the evidence, but gentle hands are already reaching for him with soothing cool and twitching his arms makes the distant pain much closer. He doesn’t like it.
Mako’s thoughts drift to his life. He thinks about his first eight years.
He realizes he might be dying. He can’t seem to pull himself away from the memories to worry about it. Bolin is in almost all of them. Mako thinks he will miss Bolin, if he’s not able to wait up. He’s sorry he has to hurt his brother, but he hopes Bo won’t feel rushed to join him. Mako is patient.
Toza is there, too. Mako kind of misses him. He knows he owes him a lot for how Toza helped him and Bolin out. He hasn’t seen him in a while. He wonders if Toza might be waiting.
Then there’s Korra, and Asami. Korra, brash and proud and present in a way that made him present too. Korra who’s saved his life a thousand times over. He feels a little bad her efforts are going to waste. He’ll have to wait up for Asami, too. Hopefully she lingers with Bolin if Korra isn’t able. They could be like Avatar Aang’s friends—meeting two avatars in a lifetime. How incredible.
Mako can’t quite remember what brought him here. He—he’s a police officer, that’s right (Chief Beifong). Something must’ve happened with that to bring him here. Mako wonders if the Chief is mad one of her detectives got himself killed. He knows she can’t afford any more hits to her narrow ranks.
Maybe she’s even worried. Mako tries to scoff at the thought, but he only summons more too-thick tears. The hands move frantically to shush him, but Mako really misses his mom and dad and Chief really reminds Mako of his mom. It hurts just a bit, through his idiotic attachment, to think she might not care at all.
The vague lights Mako’s been seeing are getting more tinted. His eyes are burning, though he’s not sure if from his wrong-tears or the too bright lights. He lets his eyes slip shut.
Muffled sound filters in as his sole point of focus. It’s a strenuous task to process the information his brain is receiving, but Bolin’s voice is frantic and Mako needs to know his little brother is okay before he can let himself sleep.
He’s almost certain Bolin is begging for something. The person’s name sounds almost like ‘God’. Mako hears his own name, but he can’t summon the energy for a grunt of acknowledgment. He hopes Bo knows he’s trying to listen anyway.
He’s promising to stop running away from his problems, to take care of every street kid and orphan he can find—as long as. Mako can’t figure out what he wants for such a promise.
He laughs, but it comes out more like a choke. His throat burns like someone’s breathed fire back down it and his lips are crusted in something metallic when he wets them with his tongue.
Mako tells Bolin not to be silly, in as few words as he can manage. Whoever this God guy is has better things to be doing, and there’s no way Bolin can make good on his promise.
The snark takes more out of him than he thought. He ends up sounding more worn than anything. He realizes absently that he’s still crying, which isn’t helping add levity to Bo’s distress. He feels bad for crying in front of him, but it really is just all too much to stop.
Someone screams when his breaths even out. Mako isn’t awake to hear it.
His chest stills. Seven minutes pass, and Mako sees all the best times of his life. His eyes fall shut one last time and his spirit fades.
The spirit world is just across the valley where Mako lays, he knows somehow. But he is content to wait until his family is old and withered and can walk the threshold with him in the forms of their youth.
Mako will wait as long as they need. He hopes they know they were in every single minute.
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So this post got stuck in my head again.
Baby Sabi variant of I Told You So go brrrrrrrrrrr.
Some fluff under the cut -- and Emmet struggling with that thing that every parent of a baby does at some point: comforting the Wailing One.
"You are being verrrry loud."
The infant continued to scream.
Emmet released the largest of sighs and shifted her in his arms, bringing her up a bit higher against his chest. Her round face was puffy and red -- distress incarnate, it seemed.
"Extremely loud," he deadpanned. "Yet I feel like I've heard louder. Still. You are being loud. Why?"
Sabi squirmed, finally lapsing into precious silence to draw breath.
Snuggled down in the nest, Lord Braviary grumbled and peeked his head over the rim of sticks and down.
"Do you want to cuddle with Braviary? Is that it?"
Her lungs had been filled, and she set about emptying them for the umpteenth time.
He couldn't see anything wrong, which was what made this entire situation so... infuriating? Bothersome?
Concerning?
Emmet wondered -- not for the first time -- how, in all the world, he had wound up like this. Lord Braviary had picked him, and that he could understand the Clan abiding with.
But the tiny orphan he was currently holding while the moon crept towards its midnight zenith?
Baffling.
She was distinctly unhappy, clearly indescribably so -- though, if one asked him, he'd say she was doing a fantastic job of describing her misery despite her nonexistent vocabulary -- and apparently hurting, if the desperate edge to her tone did anything.
Well, her tone, and the odd buzz in the back of his head. It was almost like panic, though subtle, and it didn't shut up no matter how much he mentally swatted at it.
He knew that maternal instincts were strange, if logical things, but paternal instincts were an oddity that he'd never heard of -- assuming that that was what this incessant need to comfort was.
"Would a kiss help?" he offered, half sarcastic, and was met with still more dismay and distress.
Sighing again and desperately nearing defeat -- down would hurt to stuff in his ears, but he couldn't calm her down and he needed to sleep -- he leaned down and gently kissed her tiny forehead. It was feverishly hot from her fussing, especially in contrast with the chilly Icelands air.
Yet -- she quieted at that, prying her bright eyes open to peer up at him.
"... What?" He blinked at her, and she blinked at him. "Was. Was that all you wanted?"
Could babies be petty? He didn't know. Human babies were outside his area of expertise -- and he didn't know how he knew that, he just did, don't ask -- and that included their capacity for grudges, pettiness, mischief, and all other manners of intentional tomfoolery.
But, no, she hiccuped, and her tiny hands were wiggling under her blankets -- she looked like a tiny Cascoon that had been kicked in the face.
Another peck on her forehead, and she babbled, sparing his ears the symphony of misery she'd been conducting.
"... Is it your head?" he asked, leaning back to tilt his head at her. He shifted her to one arm, lifting his free hand to tap at her forehead.
She gurgled, squirming like she wanted to lean up against his hand -- he finagled the glove off, exposing his fingers to the cold air, and pressed his hand to her head.
Well.
As excessive as her methods of conveying the agony of a headache may have been, he could sympathize somewhat.
Braviary clucked from his nest, and he lifted a wing as Emmet looked up at him.
Emmet stared at his Noble for a moment, then looked down at where his bedding lay rumpled on the ground. It had most likely gone cold.
He huffed, softly, and plucked up a pillow, keeping a tight hold on Sabi as he bend to pick it up. She giggled at the motion, down-and-up, apparently in much better spirits.
Lord Braviary rumbled deep in his throat as Emmet clambered up into the nest and settled under his wing. The Noble was exceptionally warm, all fluffy and soft, and it was like being smacked in the face with solid Sleep Powder.
"Okay," he said, patting Sabi's head. She blinked her big, green eyes at him slowly, headache forgotten already under the crushing weight of sleepiness. "Back to sleep. For you. And for me."
He cut off with a yawn.
"Sleepytime junction is now boarding...."
Sabi cooed at that, a little, "'eeby," that was almost a word falling from her mouth as she fell asleep.
Emmet followed soon after, and Lord Braviary after him, huddled in the cozy nest.
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