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thefandomcassandra · 1 month ago

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There Are Monsters in the Woods

The war is over. The Heroes have died—killed at the hands of the awful Invaders—and the Sovereign Army is falling to pieces, but the war is over. The fake moon has fallen out of the sky, a rain of Living Fire and metal and corpses, and the night sky only shows the stars again.

In their shelters, in the ruins of towns and cities, the children wait with the elders and wonder if they'll ever get to see the wider world. It sounds like they might one day, but only if they're lucky.

The elders talk about Futurum before the war. About green trees turning a myriad colors with the seasons, about the grey and green of the ocean where it met the blue sky, about the smell of the world after it rained. They sigh and paint a world that seems so nice and so far away.

The scouts say the Living Fires—the small patches that burn endlessly just like the wall that used to circle the Invader fortress like a living defense—have sputtered out to ash and embers. They say the cities should be salvageable, if the Invaders haven't taken everything and stripped the resources out of the husks. They say that the woods are healthy, that the rivers run clean, that the oceans are filled with trash but only near the shore. They say there's hope.

They say they saw the Invaders walking around and that nobody should leave the shelters just yet.

There are monsters in the woods. Horrible things that look like people, naked and shambling. They have two legs and two arms, a head and two eyes, a mouth that speaks nonsense that almost is words, they have holes in their chest where their hearts should be.

They call out, "Hello? Hello?" You shouldn't answer.

They cry out, "I know you're there!" You shouldn't answer.

They scream out, "Where are you?!" You shouldn't answer.

If you answer they'll catch you.

If they catch you, they'll take you back to their den in the ruins of their fortress and eat you up, their sharp teeth perfect for tearing into meat.

If they catch you, they'll suck your blood and discard your body, broken and black, scattering it to pieces against Futurum's surface.

If they catch you, they'll make you just like them...an undying heretical thing that breaks every one of the covenants by merely existing.

There are monsters in the woods so nobody is allowed to go outside just yet.

——

Ohriro tugs on Me'szan's shirt, wet eyes welling with tears. He kneels down so that he's at her level and reaches out so that she can initiate comforting contact if she wants it. She shoves her head into his hand and he gently runs his fingers through her hair, careful to avoid pulling too hard when he catches on tangles.

"What's the matter?" He asks.

She sniffles, unwilling to talk for a bit, then answers him in a voice so soft he has to strain to hear her properly. "I saw a monster."

His hand stops, his mind catching on her seeing a monster. What monster? Where? He remembers the elders' talks about the Children of the Stars and their Invaders, yeah, but also of the Sovereign Army's Battle Chimeras and of the long-lost G'ie. Which monsters did she see? What is the danger? How does he react?

"What?"

"I was - we weren't supposed to go, I know that," Ohriro's stuttering and stammering response breaks his heart. He knows she's scared and apologetic and to think that it upset her this badly makes him sad too but he's more worried than sad. "But we wanted to go outside. There wasn't gonna be a dust storm for a couple hours and it was cool and we weren't going far, we didn't go far but it was standing there and it maybe saw us and—"

"What monster?" He needs to know. He needs to know. When he knows he can determine if he needs to tell the elders so they can decide what to do.

"The ones that look like people. An Invader."

"Where?"

——

There are monsters in the woods. Many monsters with many shapes and sizes, many dangers.

One of them has blood-red eyes and a sharp tail that cuts trees down in single swings. It laughs eerily as it does so, its cackles like birdsong echoing out in the carved out hollows it leaves behind. It never prays to apologize to God for taking lives or to Futurum for hurting her. It never stops to replace the trees it takes. It just takes and takes and takes, hauling back entire plants to its den to make large fires that blot the skies with acrid smoke that smells of meat.

We fold our hands to pray in its stead. We close our eyes and wish that Futurum will forgive us for being unable to stop the monsters.

Surely God will forgive us because what are we supposed to do? There are monsters in the woods and we are all that's left.

——

The five of them sneak out of the shelter undetected, a mixed group of older and younger kids. The younger two hold hands so tight their knuckles turn white, bloodless from fear. The older kids hold makeshift weapons—except Me'szan, who has an actual bow with actual arrows, both gifts from the elders as a coming-of-age present and a reminder that he's on the cusp of being a scout—and they all walk as a single unit. A messy blob that creeps out from under the hidden overhang that shields their shelter from detection, spreading out slightly in the midday sky.

"There won't be another dust storm for a few hours," Quix'un checks a weather reader, marking the sun against the color of the sky and the shape and shade of the clouds. "We should hurry."

"Where did you see the Invader?" Me'szan asks the two youngest.

Ohriro looks up at him, eyes filled with the same panic as before, and looks around. As she bites her lower lip, trying to remember, Xadda tugs on her hand and whispers in her ear. She turns back to Me'szan and the others and says, "That way." She points down the street, over a large mountain of rubble and past a big building whose ruined sign says 'Toys' in peeling paint. "We climbed over the hill and could see the woods."

"The woods?!" Quix'un hisses, horror obvious to all of them.

Nobody is allowed near the woods. Not even the scouts. The Invader's fortress is past the woods. There are monsters there.

"We didn't mean to be near the woods but—" Ohriro shrinks down, tears welling up again.

Thankfully, before Xadda could get any more distressed, Tanna-zal gives them a kind smile. "It's okay. We know you didn't mean to." He leans on his iron-pipe spear like nothing is wrong. It's a mask for the younger two. "But you know why we're worried, right?"

Ohriro and Xadda both nod and hum in affirmation.

"Then let's go." They don't have time to waste. Whether or not they have a couple hours before the next dust storm, the elders and scouts will notice they're missing sooner or later. Me'szan leads the charge, walking towards where the youngest kids saw the Invader.

If it's real...if it's actually there and it didn't kill them...

Maybe they can talk it out.

(But hopefully it isn't real and the little kids were just scared and jumping at shadows.)

——

There are monsters in the woods. Scary monsters who would eat us if they saw us.

One of them flies up to the mountains with wings made of blood and blackened bone, dribbling all over the land as it goes. Its wings turn into gross limbs that it uses to cling to the cliffsides, its mate or bonded other climbing off of its back to use its second mouth to bore holes into the mountain with bursts of crimson light. The two of them function as one, their range a horrifying several miles, and they're some of the most dangerous of the monsters.

They tear resources out of Futurum's body and fly it all back to their nest—the ruins of the old Invader fortress—to use in courtship rituals. Their back and forth singing is like a warning, their bright pink eyes spotlights from above.

We don't walk out in the open, worried that they'll find us if we do. After all, if the monsters can get us from above - if the monsters can see us, then they can find the rest of the shelter by tracking just one of us. All it takes is a single mistake.

We can't afford that so we don't walk without cover because there are monsters in the woods and they have keen eyes for hunting and killing prey.

——

Eventually they find the exact spot Ohriro and Xadda say they saw the monster. The two won't get any closer, huddling in the shell of a building, eyes wide. Tanna-zal kneels down and hands them both his spear.

"But—!"

He cuts Ohriro off before she can protest. "Me'szan has his bow and Quix'un has a radar and their sling. We won't be caught off-guard and if we are, I want to make sure you're safe and hidden, okay? So stay here, hold on to that, and don't move. I won't let it hurt you." It's something the Paragon of Hatred had said to him, when he rescued Tanna-zal and his elders from an attack from the Children of the Stars. It had brought him hope then and it should give them hope now.

"Tanna-zal!" Me'szan calls to him, eyes on the horizon. "Come help."

They want to be blowing things out of proportion. They want it to be the fears of two little kids playing where they shouldn't but even the scouts saw the Invaders long after the Living Fire sputtered out.

Within moments they're proven wrong.

There's a monster on the horizon. It isn't hard to mistake what they're seeing for anything other than an Invader. It could be a Child of the Stars—Invaders are Children of the Stars, after all—but the gaping hole in its blackened chest, the eerie fire that fills the hollow like a heart, is more than enough to mark it as an Invader.

It stops in place, like it's as startled to see them as they are, it.

Me'szan nocks an arrow and readies himself to fire. He doesn't draw just yet but he won't discount the need.

At his side, Quix'un slips a chunk of metal into their sling, wide eyes flicking between the radar in their off-hand and the Invader. "I didn't - it didn't register as a lifeform."

"It's okay." Me'szan is the oldest. He has to be the leader, even if he's just as scared. "They might have countermeasures. Remember the Paragon of Harmony was able to become anyone. She knew that the Children of the Stars had technology that sometimes rivaled ours. Could be a jammer."

He doesn't know what he's talking about but they can't panic. If they panic they're dead.

Thankfully, Tanna-zal understands what he's doing and echoes his energy and thoughts. "Eyes up, Quix'un. Give me the radar, okay?" The device passes hands and Quix'un readies their sling, same as Me'szan's bow.

The Invader hasn't moved since they first saw it. Why hasn't it—?

"I don't wanna hurt ya."

It talks.

They know that Invaders can talk. It's part of why they're so dangerous—Invaders and the Children of the Stars are good at imitating people, hiding in plain sight back when nobody knew the difference—but to hear one talk is...

Its voice is rough but low. It reminds Me'szan of one of the scouts, an older girl who had part of her throat crushed when a building collapsed while she was in it. Raspy but kind.

Invaders aren't kind. This thing isn't kind. It's just trying to trick them.

Me'szan aims at the Invader, tries to keep the fear from showing. Can Invaders smell fear? Can they see through cloth to bare faces? Do they have the ability to look past masks at things only God and your loved ones should see?

He doesn't speak but doesn't move. Quix'un, in imitation, readies their sling, although Me'szan can feel them shaking slightly. Tanna-zal bumps his hand against their leg and they calm a bit.

In their hiding space, Ohriro and Xadda clutch Tanna-zal's spear to their chests, hands over each other's mouths. Their wide eyes watch on in horror as the older kids stand against a lone Invader.

There is never only one Invader.

"Look...I brought food." The Invader holds up a bag like its showing it off to them. "That's all I wanted."

Did it - did it think they would trust it?

Me'szan doesn't lower his bow, doesn't speak. The Invader turns its golden eyes to him, scarred face twisting weirdly. The fire in its chest writhes and pulses, flickering tongues curling at the exposed muscle of its burn chest.

"It's canned, unopened. Water too." It sets the bag down, not breaking eye-contact. "All unopened. No meat."

Children of the Stars can't really talk, they can only mimic words. Invaders are Children of the Stars but worse. Invaders can't talk.

This Invader isn't talking to them.

It can't be because if it is—

"I didn't mean to scare 'em. That's all..." The bag is by its feet and it's backing up, hands where Me'szan, Quix'un, and Tanna-zal can see them. Scarred palms facing towards them, it continues to slowly retreat. "You don't gotta - you ain't obligated to eat it or nuthin' just...I know you're hungry."

They watch it as it continues to retreat, their silence sharp as knives. It cannot know Ohriro and Xadda are there. It cannot hurt them. If anyone is going to be hurt it'll be them.

If they manage to escape, they'll tell the scouts and the elders and maybe they'll have to move again, but they won't be near the Invaders.

It'll be worth it for the safety.

"Sorry." When it says that, Me'szan almost believes it.

It disappears over the horizon, out of sight. They don't let their guard down.

"We have thirty minutes before the next storm." Tanna-zal's quiet checking of the weather reader breaks the silence. "We need to go."

"One moment." Me'szan breaks from the group—ignoring everyone's panicked cries as he tears towards where the Invader had been standing—and grabs at the bag it left behind. It's a dusty green—the type of color that easily blends in with shrubbery, easy to hide, hard to find if you're not looking too close—and made of a sturdy fabric. Probably water-repellant. Good for carrying a lot of things at once, the straps sewn on with a pattern that looks like some kind of code, criss-crossing a square so strongly that even a Hero would have issues tearing it off. Like the Invader said, it's filled with unopened cans and bottles. All of it is labeled in a weird language Me'szan can't read but it looks safe.

It wasn't lying.

"We can't take it back!" Quix'un is the first to speak up. Of course they were opposed. "What if they're poisoned?"

"They can't be." Tanna-zal points to the lack of pull-tabs, dents, or holes. "None of them are opened or tampered with."

"How do you know?!"

Food. Good food. Lots of food and water. This is...

Even if it came from an Invader it's...

"We found this while sneaking outside to scavage." It's not a full lie but—

"What?"

"It was hidden. We're pretty sure it's safe, but just in case..."

Tanna-zal's eyes light up in understanding. "The elders will check."

"You plan on trusting an Invader?!"

"It's food!"

"Invader food!"

"It could have killed us and it didn't."

"It might be playing the long con!"

"Why did it let Ohriro and Xadda go? Was that part of the long con too?"

"I—"

"Guys!" Me'szan and Quix'un stop arguing and focus on Tanna-zal. "We don't have time. Grab the bag and let's go!"

They truly don't have time to argue. The wind is already kicking up and the trip back to the shelter is almost thirty minutes if they walk. If they run, it's still pushing it.

Tanna-zal picks up Ohriro, Quix'un picks up Xadda, and Me'szan carries the bag as they dash back home.

They don't tell anyone about the Invader.

They eat really well that week.

——

There are monsters in the woods. Sometimes they don't even move and that's somehow worse than if they were actively looking for us.

One of the monsters is a giant with a dog's face in its chest and horns forking out of its head. When it's provoked, the dog unhinges its jaw like a snake and fires pure energy out for miles, turning anything caught in it into ash and dust and leaving behind only the smell of lightning in the air.

It stands in front of the ruins of their fortress and watches the horizon for hours on end. It never once moves, nor does it eat nor sleep. It remains, steadfast, an unyielding guard against any stealth advances.

Sometimes its chest opens up and a smaller Invader climbs out of where its heart should be. The smaller Invader scrambles out, the chest of the bigger Invader swinging closed, and it clambers up to the shoulder of the bigger Invader. Once there, it stares up at the sky as if it's looking for something.

Eventually they both disappear as if they were never there. How they move so silently is unknown, only that it makes them all the more dangerous.

There is no place to approach the Invader fortress from with that monster watching. We couldn't infiltrate even if we thought we could gain anything from it.

God will forgive us our fear and stagnation. Inaction born of a difference in strength isn't a sin and not all of us are Heroes. None of us have Divine Blood. None of us stand a chance against the remaining Invaders.

So, like it, we remain stationary. There are monsters in the woods and we are far weaker than they are.

——

One of the elders—an older elder, one who remembers Futurum from before the war with the Children of the Stars started—says that the Children of the Stars aren't so different from Futurans. The others quickly shush her, try and keep her quiet because what if the children get ideas, but if she's alone and someone asks nicely, she tells them about why she thinks that way.

Back before the war was really bad and the cities were all gone, sometimes Children of the Stars would take over entire buildings and start using the facilities like they owned the place. The elder was a worker at the time, a nobody. It's why she wasn't conscripted to the Sovereign Army. But the building across from where she worked got infested with Children of the Stars and, with the Heroes busy dealing with the Children of the Stars' horrible war machines, it was her and her coworkers' duties to drive them out and kill them.

She knew, of course, that Children of the Stars looked like people. She just wasn't prepared for how much like people they actually looked like.

The only one she found alive was huddled in a corner, gripping some kind of mask against its face. It was wearing a white jacket, like a scientist. It was young, although an adult. It shook with fear.

It said something. Held something up in its hand like it was warding the elder away. It looked like a container of spray aerosol.

The elder didn't know what it was saying as it screamed at her. She just knew that it had to go. It was the last one left.

The Child of the Stars shattered the thing in its hand and threw its mask at the elder, screaming. Blood poured out of its nose and mouth as it seized on the ground, coughing horribly. It wept as it died.

The elder would have died too but she put on the mask it threw at her and only suffered minor effects. She was ineligible for conscription after that due to irreparable nerve damage.

She wasn't even useful as an armature.

"That Child of the Stars saved my life at the expense of its own." She always says this with conviction. It is, after all, the most important part of the story.

The other elders and scouts talk down at her about it. They say that the Child of the Stars hadn't meant to save her, just to kill itself and her with it. They say it was a fluke. That Children of the Stars and the Invaders are unthinking, unfeeling monsters. That she shouldn't encourage fantasies like that.

What most people in the shelter don't know is that she has proof that the Children of the Stars are people.

"After I was discharged with a clean bill of health," she leans in close and winks conspiratorially, "I went back to the building with a mask and respirator. Covered head-to-toe, I looked for its body so I could pray for it. While I was there, I found this." She pulls out a picture, creased so badly that parts of the photograph are faded lines.

It's of two Children of the Stars and a much younger one. The older Children of the Stars seem almost proud of the younger one, their hands on the shoulders of the younger, a comforting smile on their faces.

"I looked like this." Her crooked finger taps the younger Child of the Stars. "I looked like its loved one and it couldn't kill me."

(The food isn't poisoned, nor is the water. Me'szan wonders for days afterwards what he should do about the Invader. Eventually he asks Quix'un and Tanna-zal for advice and they argue for almost an hour before coming to an agreement.)

(Maybe this Invader isn't a monster. Maybe their Invader is a person.)

(Or maybe they just got lucky.)

(Who can say?)

——

There are monsters in the woods. They don't always stay confined to the woods, however.

One of them rides up and down the ruined streets in a vehicle that bleeds. The engine screams like a living thing, the blood-tinted windows opaque so that nobody can see the Invader inside driving. Still, sometimes people can hear it shrieking and crying as it tears down empty streets, challenging any who dare to a race.

The death-bringers mounted to its roof are enough to deter even the bravest among us. If you were to lose, well, it's likely that it would open fire and you'd be dead.

Even if you were to win, it's unlikely that you'd be spared, as it doesn't like losing—considering the war and how hard it's still fighting.

The woods are dangerous, yes, but if you hear the roaring of something, run and hide. It's coming. It's coming.

It will pursue you endlessly.

There are monsters in the woods and we are not fast enough to outrun them.

——

They build a shrine. Slowly, in pieces, in parts, they build a small standing shrine in the city whenever they get a chance. Me'szan, Ohriro, Xadda, Tanna-zal, and even Quix'un put together a reminder of the place the Invader chose not to kill them. It's a group decision, against all odds, though Me'szan is the one who brings up the idea, to honor the elder who talks about the Children of the Stars being people.

Maybe the Invaders are people too. Maybe it'll understand the importance of shrines. Maybe it'll leave offerings there, like they plan on doing.

It's based on some of the old ones made for God, the old ones meant to thank Futurum for taking care of them, the pretty woman a representation of her to guard the offering bowl. They put together small standing table, a tablecloth that makes it look pretty, and a clay statue stand-in, like all good shrines are supposed to have. The statue is small and messy but Ohriro makes it with shaky hands and red mud she carves up with her own fingers. There's curves and whorls in the clay where she digs in too hard, baked in the sun and sandstorms, yellow-dusted from the weather, cracked in places.

Xadda covers his fingers in pigments and paints the statue in bright hues—as bright as they cane make, red and yellow and white—to make it 'good enough to be real'.

"Isn't it real?" Tanna-zal asks, confused as to why they're treating it like it's just some joke. "We're thanking God aren't we? It's real, so it's always going to be good enough."

Quix'un sniffs, tilts their head at Tanna-zal. "Are we thanking God?"

"Thanking God that the Invader didn't eat us." Tanna-zal answers. Quix'un hunches their shoulders and goes back to grinding pigments for Xadda. Chunky yellow powder puffs up in their face and they turn away to sneeze, dusting their cloth mask with color.

"Fair."

They smuggle the pieces out to the roadside one at a time, in smaller groups than just the five of them. Sometimes Xadda says he wants to go get paints or clay or something from the ruins and then one of the older kids goes with him—usually Me'szan because he's 'responsible' in the eyes of the elders. Sometimes it's Me'szan and Quix'un 'practicing with their ranged weapons'—not ever a full lie—heading out to a firing range nearby. Once it was Tanna-zal and Ohriro foraging for medicinal herbs.

Eventually it's set up and the five of them scrape together an excuse to go visit it with proper offerings. Why the elders didn't immediately assume they were up to no good remains to be seen, but they bundle up, bring along their weapons for defense, and head out with a five hour grace period between dust storms.

As they walk, Quix'un checks the weather reader against the sky. "We might get rain tomorrow."

"Rain?!" Xadda looks delighted, his soft voice a rarity even with as much time they spend as a group. "We can play?"

"If the elders say," Ohriro answers, her small eyes turned up at the clouds billowing above them. The idea of rain—not storms, not floods, but the first rain of summer—is appealing. Summer rains are warm breaths of life and even the oldest kids in the shelter—Me'szan included—want to see a world awash in new life and they certainly want to smell what Futurum used to be like before they all hid in shelters. "But won't that be fun?"

Tanna-zal grins at them both. "Imagine the mud dango you can make with fresh mud? Summer mud?"

It keeps them occupied, keeps the thought of the Invader far from the forefront of their minds. Me'szan still is on-edge, bow at the ready and eyes watching the horizon for any movement, but Tanna-zal regales the younger two and Quix'un is too busy navigating to stress.

The shrine is small and slipshod, a clumsy thing made by children of course, but something about it feels sincere. Even if Me'szan isn't blessed by God, he can tell that their belief alone has made this place Important.

An Invader brought them food here. It didn't kill them and, in return, they signal it as a landmark and safe place to any who might walk past.

"Your gifts?" Me'szan turns to the others and waits for them to place their offerings to christen the shrine.

Ohriro steps forward and places a fistful of dried flowers and medicinal herbs. "For health," she says with a solemnity far beyond her age.

Xadda sets one of his favorite wheeled toys there, the fading paint and hand-carved angles of the wood complimenting the homemade statue of Futurm. "For being happy."

Quix'un rolls their eyes but pulls a waterproofed sky-chart from their pocket and places it under the offering bowl like a doily. "For guidance."

Tanna-zal unstraps a small knife from around his neck—the one made from a scrap of one of the Children of the Stars' fire-breathing death machines—and places the blade and the cord it was on next to the bowl. "For vengeance."

Me'szan sets his offering in the bowl itself. A small drawstring bag of seeds, all foraged, all edible. "For sustenance."

The five clasp their hands together and pray. They pray for happiness, for health, for vengeance, for sustenance, for guidance, and for a million other things. They pray that one day, someone will find this shrine and it will be full of offerings and gifts.

(At least one of them prays that the Invaders understand the intent and leave the shrine be.)

(At least one other prays that the Invaders leave offerings of their own, to prove that even monsters can be people.)

Then they stand and walk away, unaware of the golden eyed-monster watching from deep within the woods.

(That same monster steps out and gently leaves a banner draping across the shrine that says something in their strange foreign language. Something that might say something akin to 'we won't forget what we did to you'. Then it turns and leaves, the offering firmly in place.)

(It wanders back into the woods without another sound.)

——

There are monsters in the woods. There used to be more of them, but time kills all things.

The strongest of the monsters, the alpha, has eyes that burn bright like the flames that coat its bladed arm. Bright blue with heat, they flicker in the dark as a warning to any who might stray too far from home.

Beware, for the monster there is the same that killed the Paragon of Hope. It shoved its arm into her chest and devoured her whole. She screamed and cursed it with all of her and its body became covered in bright blue flames and it howled in pain with her.

It is the master of their fortress now. It watches with fiery eyes and stalks the grounds of its territory, a possessive beast. It wrestles and fights any of the other monsters who dare step out of line, its arm sparking bright against their fire-blackened flesh. None dare defy it.

We leave it offerings and carve out our paths to avoid its land. We dare not draw its ire for there are monsters in the woods and it has devoured their god and we do not want it to turn its hungry gaze upon ours.

——

"What are you even doing?!" Kohnsul frowns at her partner.

H'raix keeps her head bowed, keeps her eyes closed, and simply answers, "Praying."

"For what?"

"Things to stay as they are."

Kohnsul laughs, a sharp noise, and shakes her head in admonishment. "As they are? Barely eking out a living farming and foraging? Living in mud huts that almost don't survive the typhoons? How is that good? What about that is worth perpetuating? Shouldn't you want change?!"

"There's an elder in the village I grew up in," H'raix offers instead of an answer, "who remembers the war, even if he was a child when it happened. He says that things used to be worse. As it is, they're only getting better."

"Are things better?!"

"We can see the sky. The forests are growing. The Living Fire is gone. The Children of the Stars aren't a problem. We have food and water and live in villages instead of underground." H'raix counts her blessings as she rummages around in her rucksack for an offering. "So things are better. And I want them to keep getting better."

The importance of what her partner is doing is lost on Kohnsul. "By praying at a beat-up old shrine in the middle of the ruins?"

"By any means." With a bow, H'raix places a rough-made garden trowel with a fired clay handle on the shrine and stands to look back at Kohnsul. "Intent matters, doesn't it?"

"I...guess?" Kohnsul frowns at the shrine. "I don't know why this shrine is even here."

"Well," H'raix says softly, lacing her dirt-covered fingers with Kohnsul's, "according to that same elder: when he was younger, he saw an Invader here and it didn't kill him. This shrine was built to honor that and thank God for keeping him safe."

"Did it work?"

"I think it did." H'raix turns to look back at the shrine, decorated with all sorts of offerings and objects. "After all: there used to be monsters in the woods."

#the sheepy writes fic #the hundred line last defense academy #thllda #hundred line #100 line #the hundred line last defense academy spoilers #thllda spoilers #hundred line spoilers #100 line spoilers #ch01 spoilers #second scenario spoilers #long post #mostly features OCs #an exploration of After The War from an unrelated civilian POV #using fairy tales and culture and belief as a grounding point #''there are monsters in the woods'' is a mantra and a warning #fairy tales are meant to be cautionary in many regards #i think futurum is neat and want to explore futuran culture more

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thefandomcassandra · 1 month ago

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candy coating (bitter pill)

Nozomi tries to be nice. She tries.

It doesn't come easily. She's full of sharp needles and broken flasks and salt guns that fire bursts of bitter words that flake off skin in painful, burning streaks with every syllable.

But she fucking tries.

Sometimes it presses against her teeth, the bitter frustrations that dig their claws into the rivulets of cryptoglobin that dribble through her veins. She can feel the horrible green-eyed beast howl in her carefully controlled voice and muzzles it tight until it can hardly whimper. It knocks at the back of her throat and grips at her brainstem, puppeting her body in hurky-jerky spasmodic leaps, pushing her further and further away from her promises.

She promised she'd be good. She promised she'd be good and take the injections. Even as the injections burned their way into her body, magma heating every square inch of her exhausted and needle-bruised skin, she said she'd be good. She doesn't cry. She doesn't! She doesn't so don't—

If Nozomi isn't good, if she isn't nice, everyone leaves. That is a fact.

Not everyone is like that.

Kurara is sharp and bitter in ways that Nozomi envies. It might be a mask—hidden beneath unripe nightshade, a twisted mockery to shield herself from pain so blatant and on the nose that Nozomi goes blind with rage—but nettle and belladonna-laced spittle flies from her lips with every razorblade thought and Nozomi wants that so badly she—

Kurara is mean and spiteful and angry. She's hurting, like Nozomi, but she doesn't have to be nice. She isn't nice. She's worse and Nozomi hates her for it.

(She loves her for it. Cradles her against her chest and strokes her hair as she cries. Feels a guilty disgusting warmth as she is useful to her friend at last, that bitter and angry Kurara needs meek, nice Nozomi. It makes her sick to be happy that Kurara needs her. If she's needed, she won't be abandoned. If she's needed, she doesn't have to be nice.)

(You're only needed if you're nice. Nobody would need Nozomi if she wasn't nice.)

Moko is so kind, a burning sun, that Nozomi turns her green petals towards her light and grows in groaning aches. She loves unconditionally and Nozomi doesn't understand because love isn't free—love is give and take, concessions and scraps of love and apologies and I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry please don't leave me—but Moko doesn't demand anything of her. She just smiles and laughs and calls her pet names and it's all Nozomi can do to not grab the affection by the roots and tear it up, bringing her nettle up in fistfulls with the mandrake, screaming agony about things she can't—won't—explain as it burns her fingers blister-bright.

(When Moko disappears, Nozomi feels a nauseating relief. She doesn't tell anyone, the shame kudzu choking her words in her throat, the awful nature of herself nothing more than a reminder that there is no unconditional love. Moko loved her unconditionally and she died disappeared. Her mother loved her unconditionally and she killed herself died. If nobody knows her, if love is give and take, then nobody else will die and then she can sit in the darkness, growing in agonizing spurts that scream and tear at her muscles and heart until she weeps in relief when combat makes her bleed. At least that pain is real, is visible. At least that pain can be painted over with smiles and laughter and nice.)

(Moko could see that Nozomi was trying. Moko isn't around to look pityingly at her, to hold her in one strong arm as she pet her hair, and that's—)

Takumi is nice too but he doesn't have to try. Why should he try? Beneath the smile he wears and the happy way he greets his friends—tears streaming down his cheeks, relief in blue and red, black curling against his cheek as he throws himself forward to call her a name that isn't hers—there is no falsehood. There is no filler evening out the worn scratches covering his truth. He's just Takumi. Kind, nice, helpful Takumi.

Sometimes Nozomi hates him.

Rejection flares up, her veins pulling away from her meat, demanding her attention and her concentration slips. She loses her grip on nice and she bites Takumi's hand. He draws back, hurt, but comes back anyway. A wounded animal, snatching and clawing at the help trying to alleviate the agonies, but he doesn't resent her even as the chokechain clenches tight around her trachea.

Why doesn't he resent her? After what she said, after the way nice fell away, leaving only the sharp smell of antiseptics tending bubbling blood oozing from pursed lips, he still comes back with food and a smile and his effortless nice.

Nozomi wouldn't forgive herself. Nozomi would rip the plaster off with one sharp motion, reveling in the watery tears that sprung up as an irritated rash raised welts towards an unfeeling empty sky. She would bite back. She would resent herself.

But Takumi doesn't.

Why?

He looks at her and she can see him looking for someone else sometimes, that "Karua" person she reminds him of. But sometimes he sees her and his painfully earnest affection makes acrid bile waft up her esophagus and tear tears from her eyes.

If she's nice, people will like her. They won't leave. Their conditional love will splint them against her and she will use them to support her hobbling towards her goal.

Nobody will like Nozomi if she isn't nice but it hurts to be nice and one day—one day in the not-too-distant future and the past and something between the two, pressed thin like research, graphs and charts that never lie because numbers are always right—she will be alone.

Until then, until that final moment, until the conditional aspect of their love is shown, she will be nice nice nice nice nice.

(The sword in her back feels like...it's a relief. There it is, the condition. She looks up at Takumi—Takkun, her friend, how could she forget?!—and understands how he could be so nice so easily. He doesn't know any better. He'll learn soon enough.)

(After all, because Nozomi isn't nice, she leaves him behind, cradling her bloody body, and feels selfish relief.)

(No more.)

#the sheepy writes fic #long post #the hundred line last defense academy #thllda #100 line #hundred line #the hundred line last defense academy spoilers #thllda spoilers #100 line spoilers #hundred line spoilers #spoilers for the first hundred days #character study of one nozomi kirifuji #i think she has to try so so hard to be nice and it is not inherently in her nature #and fwiw the fact that she is so nice and only slips occasionally #every day i think about ''do you want to help me or are you just thinking about karua'' because jesus girl fuck #anyway i think that like nozomi is teeth and anger and she decides to smile because she wants to be useful and needed #and im like that too hence the fic

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