#and he wears that one when his orange isnt available. the weight on his shoulders helps a bit. makes him feel less naked

[quirkle2]

I actually want the scarf backstory.

(warnings in the tags)

ok so here's the sitch, the scarf will come eventually i promise

wars' entire life growing up in castle town was just . frankly shitty GVYEAGIV his family was decently wealthy and they easily had food on the table, but wars' father was a Dick and very much not a good parent

wars' mother on the other hand, was like . basically The World to him. in his little 8-year-old eyes she was Everything and he followed her around everywhere she went and he just adored her. she was always so gentle and patient w him and she made sure to teach him how to be kind above all else. she was the one who kept him from letting the arrogance and just,, general toxic behavior of a LOT of people in castle town influence him

she gives him a big orange scarf that she made at some point, just a little gift for when he's older and able to wear it, but he ends up adoring it so much that he wears it even when he's Tiny and gets very attached to it

his mother sadly passes from illness when wars is 8. him being a little guy and not knowing how to process grief in the slightest, he grasps at the only thing he has left of her and that's the scarf—it becomes a comfort item, smth he can't leave his own room without having it wrapped around him

his father starts training him when he's 9 in hopes of making him a soldier good enough to defend the kingdom. he grows up, doesn't make many friends, and eventually climbs the ranks until around the time his game begins. his father dies in battle before wars is even promoted to captain. all that hard work to make him proud, and he never sees him succeed

impa promotes him and hands him the blue scarf, and he's forced to discard his precious orange one in exchange for the Hero's garb. it feels heavy in his hands, heavy on his shoulders, and even though he's 18 when this happens, he's still far too young to rly understand the scope of what he's being dragged into

months later, he knows. he knows far too well why that scarf had felt so heavy on him when he'd first donned it

i'm sure u can guess where i'm goin w this, but all the Expectations and the High Standards and the Pressure of being the hero sorta just melds w the scarf in his mind, and when he puts that thing on, he feels all of it weigh on him

the people in his kingdom are Critical. they love him and they hate him and they praise him and they mock him and u know how being a Big Figure goes, right? every little thing he does is treated with both cheers and malice and usually, to him, the malice reaches much further

they ridicule him for just abt everything. he stands next to artemis as she's giving a speech, acting as her bodyguard—rly just there for show since he never says much during the parades and the announcements—and people in the crowd r making gestures at him, slitting-throat signs w their hands, yelling and mouthing death threats right at his face. when he returns from a long battle injured and beaten, they accuse him of being a poor choice for a war, not good enough of a fighter, not strong enough; when he returns uninjured, they claim he's slacking and letting his underlings take the hits instead

and during the war ? wars' life is just . ,,,so so bad in the mental health department. he's Completely alone. he lives by himself, he has no friends, and impa and artemis are more coworkers than they are companions, even if they claim to have his back. he's overworked until he can barely walk by the end of the day and every surface of his house is peppered w paperwork that he can never escape. the weight of the responsibilities and the Trauma of the war on top of all that ?

he's close to breaking. he's the type of person that needs and loves and seeks affection and he hasn't gotten that literally since he was 8. he's an extrovert, Loves talking to people, loves Being w people and conversing and joking around and hugging and laughing and he's got none of that—the closest he manages is w his troops, but wars is careful not to get too close for,,, obvious reasons. he doesn't need to lose anybody else

he comes home to an empty house and it's that ? staticy, humming silence when he closes the door and stands there in the dark that he hates the most. he has a couch that nobody has ever sat on except him. he doesn't have enough time to decorate and the furniture and tapestries on the walls weren't even put there by him, it was the people artemis hired that were put in charge of housing him. it all feels utterly Empty, and wars is . pretty much hopeless at some point. just,, trudgin along

but then the war is won. and even though that doesn't relieve him of hero duty, at least the fighting and the death is over with. all their resources r directed to rebuilding, and while it's still a lot of work and everything is far from over and wars is still utterly fucking exhausted, he's just glad there's no more corpses he has to look at

fast forward to lu—he meets the chain, they go on a quest, and for the first time ever, he gets close to people. he starts calling them teammates, then friends, then Family, and since he's technically not on duty while out w the chain, he wears his orange scarf instead. it's lighter than the blue one in many, many ways

at some point when they return to wars' era for a visit and a quick break, wars is not included in that break. they overwork him hard enough for him to get ill and bedridden and legend gets so irate about it that he marches up to artemis and impa and makes a Big scene abt it

he's drawing negative attention to authority, but they bite their tongues until wars is better. when he is better, he is called to the throne room and ordered to "keep legend quiet." wars doesn't like that. stuff happens, arguments ensue, and it eventually gets bad enough to where they threaten to Ban legend from castle town altogether

this is . greatly disturbing to warriors. bc they Know how much ledge means to him. and they would blatantly use that against him, to get their way ? they call themselves his friends, when they'd do smth like that?

he says that if legend is banned, so is he—their Hero

and they agree to that

so warriors is, legally, exiled from castle town—his home. he'd meant it as a bluff, bc he'd half-thought artemis was bluffing—ofc tho, he doesn't regret the decision, not when legend was being wrongfully banned just for sticking up for him. and he spends the next few weeks thinking all that over—the fact that his "friends" would do that to him is appalling, but it suddenly,,, Hits him at some point that when he'd stopped being useful, they just,, threw him out

the second he got too hard to handle and not worth the trouble, they tossed him to the street. some "friends" they were.

when he's exiled, he's given a chance to reflect. and he realizes that it was actually one of the best thing to ever happen to him. he was so unhappy all his life within those goddamn walls, so miserably alone, so utterly hopeless, and then when he'd been sent through those portals and met the chain, the weight of that all seemed to ,, lift, a little

he realizes that even though he's on another adventure and looking death in the face, he's infinitely happier with the chain than he ever would have been back home. the chain loves him, treats him like family, talks to him, jokes w him, hugs him and laughs w him. they don't overwork him to death and they don't stop loving him when he's not at peak performance 24/7. he has people who care. he has people who don't only talk to him when they want smth from him

so he ditches the blue scarf altogether. with it goes his responsibilities and all the stress and depression and crippling loneliness it had housed. he dons the orange one instead, sunshine on his back—he's gained a family and the warmth of that resides in it, the happy, jittery feeling in his chest is what the fabric is practically made of. it reminds him of his mother and happiness and it feels so, so much lighter.