tunicaintima | Supernatural AU for Roland

Supernatural AU for Roland

[The little hamlet along the forest hasn't had a good time. Surrounded by magical creatures on all sides, they've decided to get a little... proactive in dealing with their problem. When night falls, hunters armed with crossbows and improvised weapons--hoes, shovels, and long hunting knives--come out to patrol.

This time, one of them's squaring off with one of the local werewolves. At this full moon, Firo's completely in wolf form, nearly indistinguishable from an actual wolf when he's not speaking.

The crossbow's been knocked aside, its string broken. The two circle each other, and then the wolf leaps for the hunter's leg to sink his teeth into it.

He's going to make sure that this hunter realizes it's best to leave the business.]

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[Firo sighs and plants a hand on his hip.]

How can you know if you don't remember?! You had to learn it from something.

What's with you, anyway? You were just fine bringing stuff about my family "into the light." Have you got something to hide?

I-

It's a fair question, isn't it? If I am hiding something, you'll be the one to suffer for it, tied to one another as we are. So if I am, you have a right to know.

But I can't tell you. Not directly. When I say I don't remember, Firo Prochainezo, that's just what I mean. If you want to know, you'll have to remind me. I don't know how. Your own memories, maybe. That last one did seem to spark something.

[Although that something is fading now, in the shadow's distraction. The moon is gone, and night is deepening. The bowlegged man's scars and his clothes are sinking away into the dark. The path under the trees is becoming harder to see.]

[The sudden concession has Firo staring slackjawed. Not many people actually listen to his squawkings--especially not enough to change their mind about something.

Maybe this shadow isn't such a jerk.

Firo ducks his head, embarrassed.]

Uh, right--remind you? Lemme see...

[So the shadow doesn't recall if he was a kid, right? Firo frowns; he doesn't like reflecting that far back on his past. But there are some bearable memories...

The scene changes so that they're in the middle of a street in the town. A kid with bright red hair brandished a broom handle, and a scowling teenager pitches a ball to him. The kid hits it, and a much smaller Firo races after it.]

That jogging your memory?

You'll see if it does.

[It's sparked his curiosity though, clearly: he moves closer, bending down to peer at the things they're using and what the boy's about to do with that ball.]

This is what boys play at now? What is it?

Just whatever we could find. See, you hit the ball like Claire did, and then everybody else has to try to catch it and stop you from running around the bases.

[The 'bases' are overturned trash cans and random doorways. The red-haired kid runs between them as the other Firo grabs the ball and chases after him. Another boy joins in the chase, and both he and the other Firo pounce on Claire.

As they go down in a heap, a man steps out of a doorway far down the street. In the memory, he's unrealistically tall, towering above the dream children and even the "real" Firo himself. Firo can't imagine Mr. Gandor any other way.

The man cups his hands around his mouth and calls. As the children run off towards him, he peers up at the nearly full moon in the sky.

Firo nods his head towards the man.]

He lead a different pack. I thought I'd join his when I got old enough.

A pack, hm? You and your friends, you've always known of these things? Always believed them?

[He's still watching the tall man when he hears a voice. He draws in a breath when he hears it, surprised not so much at that voice, which is a mystery to him, but at the feeling which accompanies it. There's a tightening in his chest, a pressure behind the place an uninformed man might call his eyes.]

[The voice is cheerful. It's just been laughing. Its owner, a grinning, sharp faced boy, lounges against a wall near young Firo's game as if he's always belonged there. That boy's aiming his grin at another, a tall and much less cheerful looking blonde. Next to them a third boy, faceless and dark haired, looks on.]

I won't believe in ghosts until I catch one in my teeth!

[The speaker leans forward, opening his jaw wide and snapping his teeth together right in front of the blone's face. Or, well, his collarbone. The shade looks away.]

I didn't know until I met them. And to be honest, I didn't really believe their dad was one at first...

[Firo turns his head when he hears the newcomer. No kid he recognizes--and then he realizes with some excitement that that could mean he's jogged the shadow's memory. ...Apparently not enough, though, if one kid is still creepily faceless.

Firo reaches out to wave his arm in the shadow.]

Who's that? Hey, don't you see 'em?

[The shade reaches out in some long forgotten reflex to snatch at that arm. His hand, of course, goes through. He stares, then looks back at the ground again. He lowers his hand.]

I see them.

[He starts breathing again.]

I see them very well.

[Abruptly the breaths turn stilted and uneven, loud and hitching. That feeling pulls and presses behind the eyes he doesn't have.]

[Slowly, Firo withdraws his arm. It's hard to make out any emotions in the shadow, but he can see enoguh to tell that something is happening here.]

Hey... Can you tell me how they are?

You're always asking me questions I can't answer.

[The hitching breaths don't stop while he speaks. His speech isn't speech; it is thought. His breath isn't breath; it's the sound of wind through leaves. There is no need for one to make room for the other.]

I can tell you what he said. You heard him too. He doesn't believe in ghosts. The other one never did, either. But that tall one did. He was afraid of them. No- no, it was disrespect he was afraid of. Of disrespecting the ghosts of his ancestors. He believed.

Tell me, Firo Prochainezo. You tell me. Did that do a one of them any good?

I'm not trying to.

[Firo'd be pouting now if he weren't too busy staring quizzically at the shadow. That sound is pretty unsettling.]

What's that supposed to mean? What happened to 'em? Did they die?

[That's just how it goes. Firo tries not to, but he remembers what it was like to be a kid. He remembers that it was like walking around with a big target on your back; if disease or hunger didn't get you, there was a big chance that other people would. The way the shadow's talking, it sounds like something dismal happened to these kids--not unusual. So Firo makes what he thinks is the obvious assumption.]

[The ground, suddenly, is a smear of green, a vague impression of grass. Somewhere from behind one of Firo's buildings the boy - man, now - who meant to catch a ghost in his teeth calls out delightedly, phrases which waver in and out of clarity. 'Outnumbered!' his voice calls and the buildings fade out of existence, show a blur soaked with blood, and then snap back into place, hiding him.]

['Surrounded!' he calls. Metal clashes against metal. 'No quarter!' he agrees happily, and the background noise of men's screams is replaced, for a second, by the sound of the shadow's uneven breathing. The noise of battle rises again and again is drowned out, this time by the shrieking laughter of children playing their ball game. It's not a good recreation of Firo or his friends - their faces smear and flicker, and each child's seemed to decide on a different set of bases. It's a secondhand memory, not his, but he won't let it go.]

[A couple of the buildings flicker into statues but there isn't time to see more than an impression of wide, curving stone before the buildings appear again, crooked and blurred. The hitching noise of wind through leaves, this time, is almost enough to drown out the distant screams. Shapes which once looked like shadowed hands are curled tight now, held at his sides into fists.]

Edited (Nitpicking) 2017-01-17 17:03 (UTC)

[Firo drops one leg back, reading to spring into action, as the scenery suddenly changes. It's more disorienting and wilder than the previous memories--more warped and chaotic too.

Is the shadow doing this? He must be. Firo whirls around to look at him and sees how the shape has changed. He steps right next to the shadow and waves his hand in it.]

Hey... What's wrong?

[Again the shadow's hand snaps reflexively out. The moment it doesn't make contact with the boy, the moment it begins to, of course, go through, the noise of the battle intensifies. Suddenly the light is very bright, blindingly bright - and then it, along with the whole of the scene, sound and noise and smell and touch, disappears completely.]

You keep asking me questions I won'tcan't answer.

[The words come out together. It's another one of those oddities involved in speaking as he is. Word is thought. Once a thought's been started, it's impossible to change it 'round halfway through.]

Oh. I forgot. You need light, don't you, you living things.

[And then, gradually, there is light. Moonlight, seeping through trees. Until Firo changes the scenery he's going to be spotlit by it; the light and the forest extends about a foot around him, and no further.]

Is that better?

What're you--?

[The force of the sound drowns him out. All he can do is fling his arm over his eyes and ride it out.

The quiet, when it comes, is deafening. Firo blinks in confusion as he lowers his arm. He looks up at his little spotlight.]

...Thanks.

[It's creepy, like he's standing on a little island of reality and could slip right off the edge. But it's the thought that counts.]

Can you, uh, move it off me? The light, I mean.

[He doesn't wait for the shadow to do anything before he ventures one foot beyond the little patch of light and forest around him.

His own expectations lead him astray here. He doesn't consciously change the scenery, but he so expects there to be nothing in the darkness that his foot hits emptiness.]

Oh, shit--!

[And he falls through the air.]

[A single coherent noise should not, perhaps, be able to follow a falling man in this way. Luckily this one is more an impression of a noise, and so it can; an impression of a sigh.]

Firo Prochainezo. Are you so terrible at controlling your own impulses? Or is this truly what you'd like to be doing?

No! Obviously not!

What do you--?

[But with the thought of 'hey, maybe this could NOT happen' planted in his head, Firo suddenly finds himself on solid ground. Just a little stretch of cobblestone around his feet, limited much as the light was earlier.

He thinks hard, and it extends outward to where he expects the shadow to be.]

How'd you know that'd work?

[The cobblestone and accompanied trappings of existence don't find much - an amorphous shape, darkness doing the very vaguest impression of a man. The werewolf asks him a question, obviously expecting him to think about it, to be in one place and answer, and suddenly the vague shadow shape has regained the small blue lights of its eyes. He uses them to look down at himself curiously, not really paying attention to his answer.]

Should've been obvious, if you'd paid attention at any of your lessons.

[This is better; Firo doesn't want to talk to a guy he can't see. However strange and indistinct, this is better than a disembodied voice.]

Lessons?

[What lessons? Firo'd have something to say about it if anyone tried to give him lessons.]

Do you want me to take us somewhere from here? I'd ask if you wanna handle it, but you really screwed it up last time. No offense.

Did I?

[The feeling to his tone is quiet, distant. He is not terribly invested in figuring out what the boy meant by that last sentence. The question is an idle one. Its answer doesn't seem important.]

Take us wherever you like. Whenever you like. You think it matters a whit to me? Where could I want to go?

You sure seemed to care a lot where we went a moment ago.

[Firo bites his lip and thinks of what he can construct.]

...I just wanna go home. This isn't getting us anywhere!

[But he'll try. Instead of going back to their homes in the town or the den they have in the woods, though, Firo thinks back to earlier this night. There's the moon, there're the trees, and there're the crossbows. Firo bites his lip in concentration.]

Where were you before you saw me? Tell me so I can take us there.

Just before? The edge of the forest, in front of the village. A group of hunters'd been skulking around, getting too close. They were planning something later.

[There's a pause. When he resumes he sounds slow, thoughtful.]

Your pack were there. They knew it too, didn't they, that they needed to be stopped. You knew it. I never really considered you.

Perhaps we were there at the same time. East side of the village. More undergrowth, mostly young trees - don't get the older ones until you go deeper inside, the parts of the forest the humans seldom go. You know the look of it, I'm sure.

That is what you'd meant to be doing, isn't it, you and your pack? You were there for the hunters?

Huh?

[How'd he know? Did the shadow smell his family nearby?]

I went ahead.

[But he doesn't want to focus on that just now. He wants to see what Roland was doing. Firo flicks his wrist impatiently, and the faint image of a werewolf stalking through the bushes disappears.

Think. Younger trees, he said. Firo shuts his eyes, and when he opens them, the trees are smaller and greener.]

Like this? Can you take over? I wanna find out what happened to us. We have to retrace our steps.

[Maybe they're bound by some sort of weirdness from... whatever the shadow is. Firo's sure it's nothing to do with him.]

[It does not occur to him to let the boy know he'll do it. He just does it. The trees change a little, the light changes a little, the shape of the shadow itself flows into the shade next to a man on the ground, a hunter's bag and tools fallen on the underbrush just a little too far from his groping hand. The lower half of his face is dark, though there is nothing above him to cast quite so dramatic a shadow. His eyes stare, wide, upward at the moon; his mouth is open. After a moment the view of his tongue and teeth are swallowed up in shadow. His screams go quiet.]

Once I knew how many of 'em there'd be and where, I went to the village. Is that what you wanted to see? Just what is it you're trying to trace?

[Firo frowns in concentration as he watches. Nothing yet.]

I wanna see what started this--why we're stuck here. I don't know about you, but this kinda thing isn't normal for me. And it never happened until you showed up, so...

[He shrugs and focuses on the scene. What else can he do?]

...I don't know when you first showed up in my fight. Keep going.

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Supernatural AU for Roland

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I love that detail with the breathing + the speaking

<3

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