#crushed chapter 1

It was fall. The heavy wind nipped at his ears and the trees were aflame with a beauty only appreciated when you were inside with a cup of warm tea instead of outside, lost after the trail he had been following was covered in a mountain of leaves.

Lohen’s parents would claim Barbados was angry today, but to the little seven year old boy it seemed more like the wind god had caught a cold and was taking it out on everyone else by accident. (His parents would also not like that imagery)

Instead of moving forward, Lohen paused and assessed his situation.

He was lost, yes, but not in any immediate danger. No need to panic. He had been walking in a fairly straight line. If he turned around now he could try and retrace his steps.

Only there was a great deal of rustling and grunting echoing on the wind behind him.

If he was a little older or a little wiser, maybe he would not have gone out to explore what the strange sounds were.

But Lohen was neither of those things. We was a boy born in repetition and molded by it. As he was right now, he had no reason to be scared of monsters in the woods any more than he was scared of monsters in his closet.

All of which his mother had eyed him critically over and explained there were no such things as closet monsters.

Lohen hadn’t thought that logic reasoned out. There were gods but no monsters?

Mother had looked him with her special eye again and said ‘Yes. Your mother wouldn’t lie to you, Lohen.’ So his fears had been tampered and he brazenly ventured closer to the sound.

Beyond a wall of birches, Lohen came upon a most remarkable sight.

“What are you doing?” Lohen asked. Skeptical and judgmental in the way only a seven year old could be.

You looked up from your place on the forest floor, eyes wide and clothes covered in autumn leaves and face streaked with reddish mud as you wrestled with a large hare in the dirt.

The hare was a strange color. A kind of turquoise that reminded him of the pictures of Liyue’s Luhua Pool.

It also had a wire cinching its back right leg, peeling open the skin as the dangling wire dribbled with red blood in a steady drip. He swore he could see a chip of bone peeking out from the wound.

The sight was gruesome, and it made something in Lohen’s stomach flutter.

He couldn’t tell if it was a good feeling or not but simply watching a seven year old child(he assumed you were seven) fighting with a beady black eyed hare made him feel downright confused.

You were losing a fight to what was supposed to be an easy lunch. Even a child like himself could catch a hare. All he would need is a rock and a slingshot.

So how were you losing?

“I’m trying to save this rabbit from the wire trap,” you gasped as it kicked you in the chin, both you and the hare looking incredibly offended.

That had to have hurt.

“Thats a hare,” Lohen corrected, not even moving a single foot forward to help you. “And why is it green?”

You looked to him incredulously, like the answer should have been obvious. All raised eyebrows and cocky child-ness that made Lohen want to help you even less. “I knew that. And I don’t know. Maybe it’s someone’s pet?”

“Who dyes their hare green?”

“Again, I don’t know. So stop ansking me. And he’s not green—he’s blue-green.”

Now it was Lohen’s turn to look incredulous. “What’s the difference?”

You opened your mouth to give a retort when you paused, hissing when the hare managed a kick to your neck. You looked ready to burn the hare at the stake before you glanced back up at Lohen and responded. “Dunno’. Sister Philomena is trying to teach me color theory. She says there’s a difference, and she’s right about lots of stuff.”

“Well, you don’t seem to know lots of things.” Lohen said with a frown.

This time you frowned right back at him, though in Lohen’s eyes it was more of a beastly scowl. You were pretty ugly for a seven year old. And stupid to boot.

“Hey! That wasn’t very nic—“ you didn’t get to finish your sentence when the blue-green hare gave a double kick to your face and twisted out of your grasp, the sharp wire whipping around and slicing across your arm.

You shrieked so loud Lohen’s ears rang. Tears spilled from your eyes as you flinched back. Your good arm cradled the scratch close to your chest, staining your shirt with blood as you whimpered.

It really wasn’t as bad as you made it seem, but to two seven year olds it might as well have been a death sentence.

Lohen stared at your arm, and then at your face. Your eyes were still following the hare after everything it had done to you. Looking closer now, the red mud turned out to be bloody scratches covered in dirt from your scuffle.

You made a move to get up and follow after the wild animal when you whimpered again and sat back on the ground and just cried.

All Lohen could do was stare awkwardly. But then the beating of three feet and the swwsh of wire cutting through grass and leaves approached him at lightning speed. His heart nearly leaped from his chest.

But suddenly he found his body moving on its own.

Lohen lunged instinctively towards the hare making a surprisingly fast escape towards the forest line. It sprinted, kicking up dirt and dust in its mad dash to get away from a quietly sobbing seven year old child.

It was infuriatingly fast. Covering ground like, well…a hare.

But Lohen was smarter. He chased the hare towards a long line of rocks and scooped it up when it attempted to vault over the stones. Fast, but weak—fwph!

The damn thing tried to hit him with the wire. The wire. Indignation rose in his soul and suddenly he was fighting the hare just like you were. Messy, scrappy, like animal against animal.

The hare was a snake trapped in a prey body, Lohen swore it, feeling it wriggle and fight like it had bills to pay by dawn tomorrow.

Only now did he understand your struggle. With its good paws the thing was clawing and scratching at him with a force he didn’t expect it to have. It hurt to get hit with its hind claws especially. If he hadn’t been wearing his winter jacket his skin might have taken serious damage like yours had.

After what felt like a year of wrestling Lohen gave a firm tug to one of its long ears and finally it moodily quieted to a still against him, somehow glaring up at him despite its beady face.

It gave one final swat at his arm and Lohen could already feel the bruises blooming across his arms and stomach.

Maybe it decided breaking its own back to escape him wasn’t worth the effort after its long boxing match with you.

With one arm around the hare, Lohen approached you. You were still ugly sobbing and sitting in a pile of fiery red leaves.

“You can stop crying now. I caught him, see?” Lohen soothed terribly, holding the injured hare out like a doll waiting for transfer.

Lohen didn’t know why he was helping you.

Maybe it was because you were weird, and he felt benevolent enough to grace you with his presence.

Maybe it was because seeing you try to save the hare from a bloody demise while getting all scratched up moved him to help you out.

Or maybe he just wanted a friend.

His parents certainly weren’t abusive people but they just seemed to have forgotten the laws of childhood and the need for friends. So they never really let him out of the house to just play.

Maybe with you around, that would change.

You wiped at your eyes, only succeeding in smearing a smudge of blood onto the corner of your lip as you looked up at him.

Straight in his eyes. Eyes he had been told were like pools of water stained with blood.

You hiccuped and sniffled like a snotty kid, and Lohen thought that was exactly what you were. A kid. Someone his age.

“I don’t know how to get the wire off.” Is what you whimper out instead of a thank you or I’m not crying like Lohen thought you might say.

He stares at you for a moment, dumbfounded, and then his gaze turns to the fuming, bloody hare in his hands.

And he realizes something.

“Neither do I.”

Credit to @/cursed-carmine for the rose divider! And if anyone finds the artist of the Lohen divider/banner at the top please notify me so that I can change it or credit them!

Look at me, finally posting a story I promised you :)

(Likes and reblogs give me every + the expectation to write more, energy won’t hold me back from posting so don’t worry! I write this for all the Lohen lovers looking for a good long chapter fic of them as childhood friends)

Pls be patient while I try to fit Lohen into character, seeing as we know very little of what he was like before the accident/10 yrs old and traumatized I am doing my best to improvise :D thank you!