Supernatural AU for Roland

[foundafamily]

[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.]

Comments

[ka_sera_sera]

You could go back. But if you couldn't remember how, wouldn't that be safer? Better for everyone involved? You, your pack most of all.

[And because, speaking with his own thoughts as he is, it is nearly impossible to lie:]

And the rose. Safer for it, too. If you'd let me try, there's a lot we could avoid before it bites me in the ass.

[foundafamily]

[If it were just about him, Firo'd immediately call bullshit. At the mention of his pack, though, he feels a twinge of anxiety.]

What would happen to my pack if I remember?

[ka_sera_sera]

You might lead one of them back there. Or mention it to one who goes back to find it on their own. There's a reason I've been killing anyone who comes too close to finding it, you know.

[foundafamily]

[Firo snorts as he continues to lope along.]

What's that reason, huh? And don't you pretend for a second that it's for any of us.

[It must be selfish, Firo assumes, though he's not sure why even this weird shadow thing would want to keep the rose to himself. ]

[ka_sera_sera]

[If he had shoulders, he'd shrug. At this juncture it's possible Firo's own shoulders might tickle - or whatever the equivalent feeling is when someone else inside is trying vaguely to move them, more out of impulse than actual attempt at control.]

You all benefit, don't you? Given that, do my reasons really matter?

You saw me. You know what I am, more completely than anyone living. You know what my- my family. My family-that-was. What they suffered. What risk would you take, Firo Prochainezo, to save them from that? From this?

[At that last word, the shadows around them spread. They race in front of him, slide up the trees and, with the cover of the branches, make a strong attempt at blocking out the sky.]

[foundafamily]

So if I remember, all that could happen to my family?

[Can he trust this guy? As far as Firo knows, Roland hasn't yet lied to him, and Roland has helped him out a couple times in their short acquaintanceship. That doesn't mean that he wouldn't turn on Firo in an instant, but Firo does have to take it into consideration. Plus, what would Roland gain from lying to Firo on this?

Near as he can tell, the price is worth averting the risk of potentially hurting his family so badly.

Firo stops, raising his face to the shadows above him.]

All right. So what do you need to do?

[ka_sera_sera]

I don't know.

[There might be a scrunched up feeling in Firo's head, a feeling like some nonexistent face furrowing up in annoyed wrinkles.]

This'd be easier if I had a body. I know how men do it.

Because I was taught, I suppose.

[He can't help but remember that last part, the reminder that he knows the things he knows about humans because he was once as alive as the rest of them. Whatever's left of him curls away from the reminder, away from the thought, settles itself instead in a different part of Firo's brain.]

Maybe if you- If you think of what you saw. When you looked in.

[He doesn't like the idea but - as with everything else Firo is hearing from him - he can not even consider whether to share it. He is thought, right now. What he thinks is, more or less, what Firo hears.]

Then mayhap I'd see where the memories sit in you. Track them down.

[There is little he wants less than to be forced to look at his own - that other man's past. At Roland's life. The squirming dread lies heavy and obvious in every second of his thought. But he would have suggested it, maybe, even if he'd had a choice. The fact that it might work, regardless of the rest of the shadow's feelings on the matter, make it worth suggesting.]

[foundafamily]

[Firo tucks his tail against his leg as he feels something shifting around inside of him, like a tickle in his skull. He wishes this weirdo would quit it, but he's just going to look silly if he focuses on something so minor right now.

He finds that he's suddenly scared of what this memory stuff is going to be like, if the mere existence of the shadow is so uncomfortable. Is it going to kill him? That part isn't as scary as the fear that his pack would think he's just run off. And what if the memory stuff just turns out to be weird? What if it turns its light on some dark corners of his mind?

Damn it, why does stuff like this happen to him?

But there's no way to stop agonizing over it except to get it over with.

The blood and the man's body slumped against the wall. The frenetic yips and cackles of one of the men those kids grew up to be--and the kids themselves running around.

It doesn't take much effort for Firo to bring the memories to mind, though they're not his. He tries to go about recalling the images methodically, but it's all too easy for his brain to jump from memory to memory. He sees Roland's childhood friends and thinks of his own--the Gandors and Claire playing stickball again. That time they went looking for Claire and found him on top of a crumbling warehouse, something no normal human should've ever been able to reach...

He pulls himself back to 'Steven', and there's Maiza pouring himself a drink, smiling.]

[ka_sera_sera]

[The shadow would approve of the 'just get it over with' spirit if he were in a position to do so. As it is he might just be giving Firo another one of those odd feelings, the emotional - and perhaps physical - impression of a man pressing himself close against a wall in hopes that he will not be seen. He can almost see where the memories are coming from for something approaching a second, but they're so quick and he cannot prevent the urge to distance himself, and quickly, before anything inside might touch him.]

[His first thought is a distraction, and due to his current nature his first thought is, of course, what comes out. The feeling of curiosity in it is genuine; the desperation sitting behind that is genuine too, but not particularly relevant here.]

That man. He's your father? Or- I don't know if turned werewolves have that kind of arrangement amongst themselves.

I never asked.

[The tone of that last thought feels somewhere between bemused and ironic. Between the killing and, in that other man Roland's life, the slaying, when would he have? The question's never, in maybe hundreds of years, occurred to him to ask.]

[foundafamily]

No, he's...

[How does he define it? They don't have set roles like father or brother. They are what they are.]

He's famiky. Like all of us in the pack.

...Weren't you gonna do something to me?

[ka_sera_sera]

[That question feels, to him, like being taken to task for woolgathering. And there is yet one holdover from the man he once was, even though he does not know it; the knowledge that he should be the one who says things like that, not hears them. Chastened, ashamed of his own cowardly procrastination, he reaches for one of the memories blindly, pulls at it, meaning to cut it out at the root-]

[He reached for the memory of Rolad's father, found his mother instead. He found the shock, found the overwhelming horror, found her hands still holding that gift, and how badly stained it is, now-]

[He comes back to himself huddled in a distant corner of the boy's mind. It is Roland who could have chosen, perhaps, whether to say what he says next. The shadow, in his current form, has no such choice.]

Please, please no more. No more of this.

[foundafamily]

[She's important; Firo can tell that immediately both from the associations that follow the memory and the near immediate pleading that follows it.

They need to regroup--something about this is going wrong.]

This isn't working, okay? We need to stop.

[He growls, low in his throat, and tries to hop to another memory to get them out of this. He sees a woman, hand to her mouth as she shakes with wracking coughs. No. He tries to avoid that too, only to find himself once again thinking of the image of Roland's memory: the bloodied woman--

No. He digs in his heels and tries to think of nothing at all: empty skies, the new moon, and howling wind.]

[ka_sera_sera]

[The shadow joins him without taking a second to deliberate. The empty sky, the moon shining down, the trees catching that light and holding it, laying down paths of shadow, roads of dark. The wind moaning through it all, through the forest and over to the village of humans and far away. The things he knows. The cold and the bright moon and the dark. One thing glowing bright in that darkness, a thing in the shape of a rose- but he turns away from that. Sets his thoughts on following the path of some remembered wind. By the time he finishes, he's calm enough to think.]

This is hard. You have memories closer to mine - to Roland's - than I thought.

Those were yours, weren't they? I can't tell. I'd rather not- I can't get too close, can't look at them to tell.

[foundafamily]

[Firo finds that he's disappointed when the world of his imagination encircles them. He had wanted to get out of that particular mire of memories--badly--but he'd also been so hopeful that home would finally be nearby.

He sighs and lets his head dip towards the ground for just a second. He's tired of this.]

The ones that weren't yours were mine.

What're we gonna do now? If you can't look at those, how're you gonna get rid of 'em?

[ka_sera_sera]

I-

[For a moment, two moments, no thought comes. He doesn't know. He wants to suggest they try again, but can not make himself even think the words. Not and mean them.]

If you start to tell your family anything I think is dangerous, I'll stop your voice. Once I figure how. Might have to practice it first. That sound acceptable?

[foundafamily]

You're sure you can do that?

[He sighs and wishes he weren't about to say what he feels he has to say.]

Could you test it out?

[ka_sera_sera]

[He thinks a few seconds. What he comes up with isn't ideal, still, but it's far enough from witnessing those memories himself that he can think it, and honestly.]

Should probably use the relevant memories to do it. Speak of something you saw. Something- something unlikely to bind so close with your own memories, if you can. I'll see what I can do.

[foundafamily]

If that's what you want.

[For once, Firo actually finds it hard to open his mouth again. The prospect of something else taking hold of his tongue and throat is actually somewhat intimidating. What is that going to feel like? It feels strange to start talking knowing it's going to be stopped.

Or, well, hoping that it is.

And he's hesitant to pick a memory too. It has to be the battle, since that's the one least likely to lead to any of Firo's own. It just seems cruel to speak of it.]

I saw a guy--your friend--all grown up. He was in a fight. He kept laughing, and he was saying something, but I don't really remember what.

[ka_sera_sera]

[Once Firo finishes saying 'something' the shadow finds himself reaching out and doing what he'd just been thinking about. Look for where the impulse to speak comes from, move into that part of the brain, block the thought before it gets to the throat. No more. He doesn't want to hear any more.]

He wasn't saying anything. Not at the end. At the end he was just laughing.

[He realizes he was too caught up to notice whether his attempt worked. He comes back to himself, draws himself back into the safer parts of the werewolf's mind.]

...Did it work?

[foundafamily]

[His mouth is working up until it isn't. The feeling is so abrupt that Firo shuffles his paws on the ground, his brain short-circuiting into the assumption that he's choking and needs to fight.

He twists and shakes his head to clear out the feeling.]

It did. You're... you're gonna be ready to do that if anything comes up? I'm not even sure what I'm gonna have to keep from talking about--everything? How'm I gonna introduce you?

["Hi, this is my headghost, Roland. He just showed up, sorry can't say how." That'll go over great.]

[ka_sera_sera]

Improvise.

[Again, that mental feeling of a shoulderless shrug.]

You know your family best, what'll keep them from looking for the rose?

[He doesn't realize that's the first time he's mentioned the thing so directly. To be fair, his mind's on other things.]

[foundafamily]

[Firo doesn't have to think long at all before he gives an actual shrug.]

Honestly, I can't think why they'd give a shit about it. If all it does is screw with your head, they've got no reason to want anything to do with it.