#wolfsrainrules asks

wolfsrainrules said: (2) they were supposed to do, would the LC magic they got TRY to mimic what it could of that particular flame type?

Me: OKAY *cracks knuckles* let’s DO THIS.

-They totally react more and more like an Element set as they spend time around Regina. ESPECIALLY after she starts giving them her magic (which of course she does, she loves them and wants to protect them). It starts off small though.

-For Clarus, it’s ... well. His temper. He’s a fairly laid back man, but around idiots, or liars, or the pompous or-

-Okay maybe he isn’t so laid back. But he’s good at hiding it at least. Unless he’s sparring. Oh boy, do not spar with this boy when he’s in a bad mood. Anything that isn’t an armiger-stashed blade starts to straight up BREAK in his hands, shatter into a hundred or more pieces dust like pieces (not just wooden practice swords either, but REAL ONES too). He stops being able to get drunk almost before he is old enough to understand the wonders of getting drunk, and when the flu strikes his household he’s unaffected. It takes a long time for someone to comment (or Clarus to notice) that he hasn’t been sick, really truly sick, since he was about ten. He ... tries not to be alarmed, because it’s not like never getting sick is a bad thing, and not being able to get drunk no matter how much he drinks can be useful. But it’s still unnerving and he definitely blames Regina for it.

-Weskham notices faster, probably because he’s older when Regina gives him her magic and Claims him. Also because this boy was raised on legends and fables and old stories, his grandmother was one of the most superstitious people alive and so honestly there’s a part of Weskham that’s been WAITING for the weird things to happen since he started serving the royal family directly.

-It’s not the enhanced vision or bloodlust or such like from the stories though. If anything he’s like- a siren of some kind. When he talks, people CALM DOWN. When he asks for their attention they give it. Eventually he can put his baby cousins to sleep with just a few words, and when he makes food or tea with the intent of making people happy or calm- that’s what they become when eating it. Happy. Calm. Clarus is the only one who is never at risk of passing out in the middle of eating Weskham’s soup and this makes him ... curious. And vaguely unnerved with his own newfound abilities. But it also makes it so much easier to help Regina, to keep her stable after another frustrating day dealing with nobles or her father, so Weskham never brings it up.

-He also never brings up that his once sharp temper tends to be far more icily composed and long-lasting than short and hot like it once was.

-Cid DEFINITELY notices the changes that happen when he gets magic. Because he’s 41 and raised his kid and he likes to believe he knows himself. Then Regina Claims him and gives him magic and suddenly his already stubborn disposition goes THROUGH THE ROOF. So do his energy levels, and that pesky ache in his back from one too many heavy car parts is just- straight up gone. He finds he CAN hike all day with the idiot teenagers and not hurt like blazes and while, yeah, that’s nice and all, it’s not NATURAL and Cid DOESN’T LIKE IT.

-Cid confronts Regina about it, is flabbergasted by how quiet and fragile she gets as she softly asks if he wants her to take away the magic. The confident, almost insanely determined girl suddenly looks like one wrong move will crack her open and Cid doesn’t need Clarus’s death glare and Weskham’s frosty knife-sharpening to know the right answer is “no, don’t take it, just tell me what Ah’ve gotten myself into”.

-Cor is a bby Cloud. Being given magic by a much older, much scarier Cloud. I’m pretty sure I DON’T need to lay out what happens. But basically think energizer bunny mixed with Murder Child. Cor has never felt so alive, so strong and sure and fast and sharp and he LOVES IT.

-Except for the days when he doesn’t. When the world is too bright-loud-strong-smelling and he huddles in the tent being miserable, skin itching from the feel of the ground and his clothes like his senses are all supercharged to max in all the wrong ways. Regina sits with him on those days, and somehow that makes it a bit better, but still.

-Going to leave the others for now because I’m not sure how Regina’s magic effects them yet (though Titus being able to make copies of himself amuses me) so ON TO RAGE.

-The first time Regina goes down and goes down HARD on their quest, these guys basically level the nearby landscape. Clarus’s sword glows a distinctly red color and there is NOTHING he cannot cut as he tears apart whatever touched his Queen. Cid is moving like he’s twenty years younger, and his movements have an extra kick to them that make his spear puncture armor like tissue paper. Weskham is standing over his queen, sharp-eyed and cold and anything that gets too close finds itself freezing in place just long enough for Weskham to put a bullet through its eyes.

-Cor doesn’t stop screaming until he’s covered head to toe in gore and the battlefield is totally silent save for his companions, eyes burning purple just like Regina’s do as his hands clench his sword-hilt too tight and his teeth look a hair too sharp when he snarls.

@secret-engima

Hmmmm……..

Tsuna- Surprisingly, to some, this boy ends up a born Vasto Lorde. And he is ROCKING those Pack instincts. It doesn’t matter what world. A Sky is a Sky. This one just puts the instincts closer to the surface. More wild. More….visible. 

It takes everything that Tsuna is- the boy who would take on the world and FIGHT it for his own, rewrite centuries worth of rules, burn an old system to the ground and BUILDS on it. Makes him….more wild. Less restrained. 

In the Hollow’s home, this is encouraged. Is looked for. Is appreciated.

He DID learn from Reborn after all. 

Gokudera- Shinigami. Research division. He PICKS Kisuke’s brains. More than that- he keeps up. He wants to know e v e r y t h i n g. (he has to tell the Tenth when he catches up after all.) He helps Kisuke with some of the more complicated things, after Kisuke sees/finds Gokudera running his own experiments and figuring things out. (he does in fact help Kisuke get out of SS and save the Vizard, He stays behind and is a contact with Kisuke in SS where needed)

Ryohei- Shingami, Forth division. Usually the one sent to the 11th, b.c he has a WONDERFUL TIME there. If he wasn’t a natural born healer, he’d have been THRILLED to join the 11th. The 11th respects him (He once got into a fight with Kenpachi and pinned him in order to heal him, just straight fist fighting, without swords. Charged him and took him head on. He won. It’s a story still told in the Mess Hall to this day.) 

Lambo- ended up in the outer districts. is not a shinigami but is strong enough to be hungry anyway. Lived…hard. But he learned family and love from Tsuna-nii and everyone, and he knows one day he’ll find them again, so he just…takes care of the younger brats. 

He’s the Tsuna-nii to these smaller children. He’s the big brother, the protector, the one they come to when they’re hungry and there’s nothing. 

Yamamoto- Vasto Lorde. Found Tsuna in the sands, joined his little pack, helped carve out their territory and is remarkably calm now that his Sky/Alpha had been found.

He made a name for himself before hand.

When he was….not. And did not, in fact take kindly to the fact that he was separated from his anchor at all.

Mukuro- Vasto Lorde. Found Tsuna  shortly after Yamamoto did. Took Chrome with him, and very quickly became one of Tsuna’s enforcers, over the knife that Yamamoto had made himself. 

Handles the instincts well actually. Very well. This is just….mist possessive-protective without the layers after all.

Chrome- Was not in fact Vasto Lorde, was a powerful soul that could feel her bond with Mukuro as it is soul deep, and he found her quickly even as she looked for him. (not that she could GET to him before Mukuro learned to open doorways between realms)  Learns to become shingami of a sort with Tsuna and co. (no professional training, but she can still hear her sword, and learns all the same.)

Kyoya- Shinigami. Zero Division. Not that he did that one on PURPOSE he just….wrecked everyone and everything that got in his way. (And if he did all of that while looking for his Sky and the other elements, well they were HIS and how DARE anyone or anything- even Death- TAKE THEM FROM HIM?)

He’s not usually in division anyway. He wanders and shows up and enforces the rules while he looks for his family.

Reborn-Vasto Lorde to no one’s surprise. Found Tsuna first. They figured this whole….instinct thing out together, and demolished anyone who got in their way. 

Bonus Notes:

-Aizen….does not try to bother them EVER AGAIN after the once. Tsuna PUNTED HIM across the desert b.c that was a RIVAL SKY trying to touch what is HIS and Tsuna was NOT having it.

-They like Ichigo. Ichigo gets adopted. Tsuna isn’t having no for an answer. They help him when he invades to come after his own. (BBY SKY. TSUNA WILL TAKE CARE OF. AND TEACH)

-Ichigo learns to accept his hollow much earlier due to this

-Kisuke is in AWE. They also will answer questions. Tsuna finds out that Kisuke worked with Gokudera (who Kyoya found and would constantly ‘check in on) and when Kisuke calls him over Tsuna shows up asap.

-Gokudera cries all over him and Kisuke is STILL in awe b.c LEARNING. HES LEARNING THINGS. GOKUDERA HOW DARE YOU HOLD OUT ON HIM LIKE THIS

-Kisuke is also adopted by Tsuna. (clever little mist)  and nearly vibrates out of his skin with excitement for the learning opportunity. 

I WARNED YOU THAT YOU WOULD  R E G R E T  THIS ONE WOLF. I WARNED. Happy Whumptober, you quite literally asked for this XDD.

...

     People said that the hardest thing about being a parent was learning to let go of their children. It was something he’d heard for years, and it only got worse as Class A got older, went from being 1A to 2A to 3A. Shōta got teased about it as their final graduation came closer, nesting jokes and the ever popular internet Dad-Zawa tag floating around the teacher offices with increasing frequency. Shōta gave those jokes exactly as much attention as they deserved —none— and focused instead on ensuring that his Class would have a smooth lead-up to graduation. Class 3A was going to graduate, stop being his students and instead go on into the world of Pro Heroes. That was how it should be, that was the entire point.

     He was not their dad. He had no claim to that title no matter what the internet and gossip columns thought —no matter how warm it made him feel when his students jokingly started calling him Dad-Zawa in the dorms—. He was not their dad.

     That didn’t stop his entire world from crumbling like any parent’s did when he looked into Izuku’s eyes and realized he might very well be about to watch his student die.

     “Mi-! Midoriya-!” He tried to force his voice to work properly, tried to struggle free of the paralysis quirk that had managed to nick him while he was busy erasing the quirk of a villain who could turn his hair into laser whips. The paralysis wasn’t bad enough to kill him, but it had deadened all his limbs and left him sprawled on the ground as the pavement shook and buildings crumbled from the damage being done by Shigaraki’s quirks —multiple quirks, multiple, this was the worst nightmare come true, the heir of All for One come into his own— until Midoriya had hurtled out of the dust clouds like a bolt of green lightning.

     Midoriya gently set Shōta down a safe distance from the chaos, smiled, warm and confident in a way Shōta knew was just a lie to cover up the shaking in his student’s scarred up hands, “It will be okay-.”

     Shōta cursed that he couldn’t move his hands, couldn’t grab the boy by his hero costume and shake sense in to him one more time —he knew that tone, that look, Midoriya was going back out there, going to face the heir of the villain that had almost killed All Might, the Head of the League of Villains, the man who had already already displayed a maniacal hatred of Midoriya specifically, “Midoriya, don’t you dare-!”

     Midoriya stood up, already looking back at the war zone the city square had become as Pro Heroes —professionals, not students a week away from graduating— corralled the other villains but failed to stop Shigaraki’s rampage, “You’re behind the safety line now, Sensei. One of the EMTs should be here soon to check you over.”

     Desperation clawed and Shōta managed to spasm one hand onto Midoriya’s ankle, “Izuku,” he gasped, “Please. Don’t do this.”

     Green eyes looked down at him, firm and clear where he expected them to be filmed with tears —when had Midoriya -Izuku- grown out of crying when situations went south? Why hadn’t Shōta stopped to notice?—. With infinite care, Izuku pried the limp grip off his ankle and set Shōta’s hand on his chest, “I’m sorry, Dad,” Izuku whispered over the chaos, “I have to.”

     Shōta could do nothing but watch with burning eyes Izuku turned and lunged back into the battlefield, raced toward Shigaraki with no hesitation or sign of fear for the damage the other man —the other heir, heir to a kingdom of destruction just as Izuku was heir to a symbol of peace—. All he could do was seethe and rage on the ground as his student-Problem Child-son-son-son- charged toward his chosen path, the rest of Class 1A folding in on his flanks like a wave, the Class —the rest of Shōta’s kids— an unstoppable team ever at Izuku’s sides.

     Without Shōta.

     People talked about parents having to learn to let go.

Oohhhh.

OOOOOHHHHhhhhh.

Lemme think-.

I’m feeling a battle. A battle that’s like- unexpected. Probably after about a month or three of Axis perpetually running into Nox, just after he starts helping Nox and Ardyn fight Nifs. Ardyn ... probably isn’t there? He wanders a lot. Anyway. It’s probably either one of those thrice-cursed dropships that always show up in the game- no wait. Daemon attack there we go. They took too long on a Thing and are hauling butt for the nearest Haven when they hear the agonized groan of the earth giving way to Starscourge goop and suddenly there are WAY too many Daemons all around.

-They have no choice but to fight and fight hard, because while Nox could warp them a short distance, the daemons are EVERYWHERE. It’s one of the rare huge mobs that Nox remembers fearing most during his road trip. The ones with at least two Fire Giants (or whatever they’re called I can’t remember) and like- a dozen Goblins or Imps. Maybe a few Bombs.

-Nox usually has the power to Deal with this, but it’s dark and he physically exhausted from raiding a base and all his scars ACHE and it slows him down-.

-It’s not the Giants that do it, Nox and Axis are trying to stay well away. It’s one of the Bombs. It charges Nox from behind, right in that perpetual blindspot he has and Axis is MOVING before he knows what he’s doing. He tanks the hit, uses his weapons to try to deflect it before it goes off but it’s not enough and suddenly he’s on the ground, ears ringing lungs gasping, torso and arms THROBBING with the pain of the explosion.

-Over the ringing in his ears, Axis hears something scream. High and FERAL, like a Coeurl or a dragon or something else that wasn’t a daemon but wasn’t HUMAN either. Even as he struggles to get to his feet (never stay down or you’re dead, never, ever stay down), the screaming gets LOUDER past the ringing and he feels magical pressure EXPLODE.

-Now by this point, Axis has felt Nox using his magic before. He’s felt it overwhelm and decimate a Nif base with cold precision and old anger. This isn’t like that. Not at all. The magic around him BUCKS and ROARS like a physical entity, rushes around him and turns the whole world blue with fury-denial-grief-not-again-NOT-THIS-TIME that almost flattens Axis again from the sheer force of it.

-Nox is suddenly at his side, crushing a Hi-Elixir against Axis’s chest to repair the damage but Axis can’t say thanks, can’t even think it because Nox’s eyes-

-They’re the color of blood, so bright they glow in the dark, gleaming pinpoints in skin that looks almost like cracked ash (like Nox is burning from the inside out, like he is fire and his body is wood about to become charcoal) and it’s TERRIFYING to see.

-Then Nox looks around at the daemons still left, bares his teeth and holds a hand toward the night sky as he reaches down with his other (hot-hot-hot) hand to grip Axis’s bicep. Nox screams.

-The sky screams back.

-And Axis can feel his heart stop as he looks UP into the looming face of Ramuh the Fulgarian. Keeper of Justice and Favored Astral of Galahd. Ramuh picks them up in a hand that is lightning made flesh, lights up the night with his staff as it crashes to earth and the daemons far-far below all scream.

-Nox stays curled protectively around Axis through the entire thing, there in the palm of an Astral’s hand until Ramuh gently lowers them onto a Haven and fades away.

-Axis gets maybe half a sputtering word out past his general levels of WHAT and his heart that is trying it’s level best to keep beating before Nox is hugging him tight. Clinging to him with shaking hands as he whispers “Don’t you dare do that again, don’t you dare, don’t go. You can’t just leave me like that, sacrifice yourself like that I’m the one supposed to be protecting you-”

-Nox actually passes out like that in Axis’s arms. But Axis- Axis remembers that moment for the rest of his life. The moment this exiled princeling called down an ASTRAL just to protect ... Axis. A nobody. An illegitimate child.

hgdghgfd great ask now if I can just get my brain to work and think of some answers....

Imma time-skip a bit and make this when Wren is .... 13. That makes Mest 21, Laxus 20, Bickslow 19, Evergreen and Freed 17, and Cana 15.

-So. Here’s the thing about Fairy Tail.

-Fairy Tail might be known to accept just about anybody, from any walk of life or background, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have STANDARDS.

-That doesn’t mean that breaking those standards don’t have Really Bad Consequences to whatever soul comes in looking to cause trouble.

-Wren is usually good at staying out of trouble (despite major incidents like the AoT arc when she was younger and the other things that have happened since then). She’s also really good at staying out of trouble in the guild hall. But sometimes ...

-Sometimes trouble finds her.

-It starts out a normal enough day. Get up, chat with the Raijinshū, go down to the guild hall with everybody to look for a job or just hang out.

-They get to the guild hall, and it’s fairly busy. Wren spots the new member that joined up about three days ago near the job request board, but doesn’t think anything of it. She doesn’t recognize him from the anime, but he could’ve just been a background character, and while he strikes her as ... arrogant and violent prone, Gajeel in canon was both of those things, and it isn’t like a guild that gets into a brawl almost every day can be considered “non-violent” anyway.

-It’s Wren’s turn to go up to the request board and snag a job for the Raijinshū, and she nods politely to the new member, who smiles a little too sharply at her and nods back. Wren, not wanting to get into conversation with the new guy and waste the morning when she’s probably going to have to travel a ways for whatever job she picks, Wren proceeds to focus on the request board and ignore him.

-She also rolls her eyes and ignores the guild brawl that breaks out behind her as well, only keeping her senses trained behind her enough to track if someone flings a chair her way or something.

-She isn’t watching her flank, where the new member is standing.

-So busy reading a job poster and keeping an ear on the brawl behind her, she doesn’t have time to register and dodge the kick that comes from the side.

-The roundhouse kick slams into her stomach hard enough she hears at least two of her ribs crack, feels the wind get knocked out of her as she is propelled across the room and into the far wall almost as fast as one of her shadow teleports. The world goes bright and sparkly with pain in her stomach and ribs and back and head and even if she’d had a functioning voice, she wouldn’t have had enough air to scream in pain when her body peels free from the dented wall and hits the floor with jarring (agonizing) thud.

-Beyond the ringing in her ears, the guild hall has never sounded so silent.

-She registers someone landing next to her, glimpses a foot cocking back for another kick past the swirling colors in her vision, then feels the entire guild hall erupt around her.

-Thunder shakes her bones (it-hurts-it-hurts-) as Laxus crashes into whoever just landed beside her (the new member, he attacked her, why-why-why) and she can faintly hear Bickslow’s tikis shrieking nearby. Wren struggles to get up (she’s fought through worse, suffered worse, it’s just the unexpectedness of it, the fact it happened in one of her safe spaces, her home that makes it so hard to think and move past), feels too-warm hands grab her shoulders and pull her close. She wheezes a bit at the feeling, glances up and is dizzily confused to see Natsu holding her, the young teenager wrapping his arms protectively around her, his focus more on where the Raijinshū and the rest of the guild are mobbing than on her, his pupils slitted and teeth inhumanly sharp as he snarls deep and bass in a way that Wren can feel prickling her skin with restrained (barely) fire.

-Laxus is shaking the new member, roaring in his face with eyes that glow bright gold while the rest of the guild essentially tries to be the next in line to murder him without getting too close to the lightning Laxus is giving off. Wren thinks Levy has run to get the Master from upstairs because she can’t see the bluenette in the crush of shouting and fists and angry, seething magic.

-Her hearing is back, but it’s hard to tell what anyone is saying when they’re all talking over each other. Erza is there with a sword, standing between Wren in Natsu’s arms and the new member even though there’s no way he’d be able to get past the rest of the guild hall at this point.

-She thinks she hears the new member (not for long) protest that he was just joining in the brawl. After all, everyone here fights all the time, it isn’t his fault is Wren is just a wimp who can’t take a hit.

-She watches, dazed for reasons she can’t quite place, as Freed bodily rips the man out of Laxus’s grip, heedless of the lightning that singes his clothes, and punches the man’s teeth in.

-The Master arrives before the murder can really start, has to wade in using his Giant Magic just to get the guild to settle and let him see what has happened. Then he takes one look at Wren and her stuttering (painful) breathing and the new member (not anymore) spitting teeth while Freed stands there with split knuckles and Master Makarov’s magical pressure makes the building physically shake.

-In a very quiet voice, he orders Mest to teleport Wren to Porlyusica. Wren spends three days in Porlyusica’s care, getting her ribs treated and her healing enhanced with herbal remedies that actually don’t taste too horrible while the literal entire guild take turns keeping watch (there’s always at least one Raijinshū member, but Erza, Natsu, Gray, Pauz, and so many others all stop in and linger for minutes on end until Porlyusica throws them out. None of them will tell her what happened to the guy who kicked her, though she knows it’s a given he was kicked out of the guild. The daily brawl was one thing, bruises and a few minor scratches were stupid common in that, but breaking bones? Then chasing her down for another hit? Not acceptable.

-What Wren doesn’t know was that Makarov just about gave the man a heart attack through sheer magical pressure while Laxus paced and snarled for blood like the dragon he usually pretended he wasn’t. That Makarov had ripped the man’s guild mark away and bodily thrown him out of the guild with the warning to never come back to Magnolia. Ever.

-She doesn’t know that the guild essentially chased him to the borders of Magnolia, or that for literal months (probably closer to a year) after that, if any of them saw the man while out on a job, they would they would, at best, radiate killing intent his way. The more violent members of the guild (read: Natsu, Gray, Bickslow) would use their magic to cause trouble (Natsu maybe was too sloppy with his fire roar on purpose, Gray maybe made an “accidental” blizzard down that one street the man was on and Bickslow’s tikis maybe “accidentally” cut through an awning with their lasers that then fell on the man and tangled him up for several minutes.

-Is it petty? Yes. They all know this. They all acknowledge it. Do they stop? .... eventually. When the man, years later and well after their petty revenge has stopped (because angry as they are they aren’t cruel), crops up as a member of Raven Tail, do they immediately and gleefully take the opportunity to kick him around in the way Makarov didn’t let them all those years ago? As well as teach Gajeel, arguably the guild’s most petty and violence-prone member to do the same just through observation?

-A b s o l u t e l y.

-Wren is a capable mage in her own right, strong in her own right, and compared to some of them gets into far less trouble. It’s her self-imposed job to help out the guild, keep the more reckless ones in line, and yes, Team Mom basically everything that breathes and wears Fairy Tail’s mark. But when trouble does come and find her, no matter how capable she might be of handling it herself, the guild will go feral for her.

-The guild will always go crazy for it’s own. Any of it’s own. This is a given, proven fact. But with Wren ... it’s a bit different. She’s basically their self-control and restraint. Even if she isn’t there, the members remember her rules and tend to follow them (most of the time). So if she is the one hurt? The one to go down? Especially in a place where she should have been safe?

-All the attacker has done is single-handedly taken out the guild’s restraint and removed any chance of getting their mercy.

Woolfff. Wolf the ANGST and WHUMP you have unleashed. It was so hard to keep this short. Basic background for this is that there are a lot of people in the world, not all of them are “villains” out to get power. Some are the exception that prove the “no vigilante” laws. Hitoshi learned this the hard way. Also tagging @north-peach too cause it might interest you.

     Stench of disinfectant. Bright lights against his eyelids. Scratchy sheets, something strapped tight over his face muzzle-pain-muzzle-get-it-off-!

     “Hicchan! Hicchan it’s okay!”

     A big, scaly black weight came to rest on his chest, keeping him from clawing off the muzzle-muzzle-mask-muzzle-? He almost bucked against the weight no matter how much it hurt, but gentle purring, so deep it vibrated through his bones, made him still. Hitoshi blinked at the ceiling. Swallowed past the scraping sensation of panic-pain-dehydration. “…’Zu?” He could talk. Could move his jaw more than a few centimeters. Not a muzzle then.

     The purring deepened, the weight lifted just enough to reveal large green eyes swimming with relief-worry that could never become tears, “I’m here. You’re okay, Hicchan. You’re safe. You’re safe, I promise. Kacchan stepped out a little while ago but he’ll be back soon to help. You just … have to leave the oxygen mask on okay? The nurses said- you need to leave it on.”

     Hitoshi blinked sluggishly —drugged?—, “Gone … long?”

     Izuku shifted, leaped onto the bed with care for him and none for the creaking bed frame. Curled around Hitoshi and adjusted his wings so that it wouldn’t hit his arm cast —shattered arm, shattered hand don’t-think-about-it—, “Two weeks. We were looking for the culprit when we heard-.” Izuku’s vocoder gave off static, buzzed loudly before muting entirely. Izuku pressed his nose against Hitoshi’s hair, careful of the oxygen mask, crooned in a way Hitoshi understood without words, “I thought you were dead.” We all did.

     Hitoshi listed his head against Izuku’s nose, too tired to move anything else, too afraid to try considering his memories. A woman who could make lifeless copies of people she drew blood from —Mortem Copy she’d called it— and pose the bodies to look like corpses of the originals. A vigilante who hated “villainous” quirks, kidnapped kids who had them so she could “teach them better”. Two weeks of a muzzle, of beatings, of lectures and doting hair pets like she was some kind of sick caricature of a mother scolding her child-.

     Playing along to escape. Breaking his arm and hand during the chase that followed. Risking everything just to get the muzzle off so he could scrape raw his too-dry throat with a night fury scream-.

     Blacking out from exhaustion-dehydration and the pain of the bone-fracturing —shattering? He was too drugged to tell if breathing hurt— kick the vigilante had landed right as Hitoshi heard an answering, furious roar from the sky.

     Izuku made a snuffling sob sound in his hair, tail curling into Hitoshi’s lap like a lead weight. Hitoshi licked dry lips and managed to turn his head so that his forehead could press against Izuku’s head despite how uncomfortable the mask made it, “S’okay,” Hitoshi sighed tiredly, “Wasn’t ‘fraid … once I got out.” Green eyes blinked tremulously and Hitoshi smiled, “I knew … you’d come for me.”

(CACKLES) Wolf you give me so many good ideas. Enjoy this definitely-too-long-for-a-drabble thing.

     Beep.

     Beep.

     Beep.

     That noise was annoying. Very annoying. Especially because the more he noticed it, the faster and louder it got, which made him notice it more. It was a vicious circle that wouldn’t let him sleep. Izuku just wanted to sleep, please and thank you and go away.

     Something shifted next to him, shaking hands clasped his with a concern that dragged him further out of the blissful darkness, “Izuku? Izuku are you … are you awake?”

     A groan slid free in a shape that might have been a “no” if someone listened hard enough. It also might have been a curse he picked up from Kacchan, but who cared really?

     The hands holding his went so tight it was painful and he opened his eyes with another noise of protest. Instead of any sympathy or loosening of the grip, his first sight past the blinding flash of hospital lights were Hitoshi’s furious purple eyes, “You idiot!”

     Izuku flinched at the shout, “Not so loud, Hicchan.”

     “I’ll be as loud as I want,” Hitoshi hissed back in a hoarse murmur that belied his words, “especially after what you did.”

     What … I…?

     Villain attack.

     Chaos.

     Realizing that one of the villains had the ability to read the intent of anyone who got within a certain radius, which meant that any move Izuku made unless he used too much of One for All in an enclosed space —an enclosed space with civilians and children, easily injured children— would be anticipated and deflected. Remembered shaking awake Hitoshi, who had been briefly downed by an unexpected speedster —that Izuku had taken down a literal second later— and begging, “You need to wake up. Hicchan I need you to wake up, I can’t do this without you.”

     Remembered convincing Hitoshi, somehow, to use his quirk to take over Izuku and call out commands —because it if wasn’t Izuku’s mind and Izuku’s intent the mind reading quirk wouldn’t work—.

     Remembered … oh.

     “Sorry, Hicchan.” Izuku hadn’t wanted to make Hitoshi do that. Take over one of his closest friends and use him like a weapon. Hadn’t meant to force Hitoshi to choose between using Izuku to save lives and not ordering Izuku to push himself too far, to stand there and take a hit that would have killed the civilians rather than just hospitalized Izuku himself.

     Hitoshi, looking even more exhausted —haggard, self-loathing— than usual, slowly loosened his grip on Izuku’s hand, leaned over to halfway flop on Izuku’s hospital bed with a hoarse sob, “You owe me … so many things. Chief of them being never making me do that again, understand? Don’t make me choose between your life and theirs again, Izuku. I can’t-. I felt like-.” A puppet master just like everyone always told me I would be as a child.

     A monster.

Me: looks up the definition and word limit of “Drabble”. Also me: Yeets that word limit out the window in favor of attempting to write romance that isn’t all Cliche Kissing™.

…..

     Thunder cracked and grumbled overhead as the rain fell earthward. Cor growled and picked up his pace toward the shelter of an abandoned shed. Of all the times for a surprise thunderstorm to end the dry spell, it had to be on their mission-.

     Where was Amissa?

     He stopped, glanced around for wavy copper hair that had been at his side moments ago. He didn’t think she’d chosen to disappear, not without warning him, so where…?

     Behind him. On the edges of the forest, just under the thin branches of trees, her arms spread and her face upturned to the sky. The rain was steady, darkening copper to dull red in moments. Her usual long-sleeved shirt was already soaked through … from where it was dangling in one hand, leaving only her cami to shield her torso from the rain. Cor blinked once, doubled back, “What are you doing?”

     Thunder rumbled, Amissa didn’t move, “Feeling.”

     Annoyance bled into confusion, because his Mate was usually more practical than this, “We’re in the middle of a thunderstorm and you want to stop and feel the rain?” No response, Cor sighed, “Come on, you’re already soaked. The glaives will have my head if you catch your death-.”

     “Just a few minutes, Cor.” Her head tilted toward him, mismatched eyes opening to fix him with a gentle look that was … pleading.

     Cor paused, assessed her. Glanced from her soaking nest of braids to the rivulets of rain running down her umber skin, the darker lines of her too-many scars glinting in the weak sunlight not blocked by storm clouds or rattling wet leaves. He looked at her face, already turned back toward the rain and saw … peace there. Calm content that was different from her usual mask of restraint. He scanned the storm clouds through the waving, clattering branches, took in the contented scent of the Alpha letting the rain soak into her bones. The rumble of thunder was closer now, ever more dangerous, but Amissa didn’t flinch.

     She sensed his question before he had the words to ask, “It feels like Galahd.”

     Cor looked across the rolling landscape, clumps of pines and open plains. Duscae looked nothing like pictures of Galahd. He nearly startled when warm, rain-soaked fingers brushed against his cheek. Her eyes were shut, still facing the sky, but her focus was on him, “It feels like Galahd,” she repeated gently, a gentle reproof and remembrance and desire all in one.

     Cor let her fingers slide to his chin and tilt his face up, closed his eyes to the rain as his fingers impulsively found his jacket buttons and shrugged it off, let it dangle in one hand. The rain was cold against his bare arms, brisk and nipping in a way that made him breathe deep, drink in the world as it was washed clean. Everything smelled wet. Rich. Damp soil and bark, sweet air clear of dust, the contentment of his Alpha mingling with it all like hints of ozone. He took another breath, opened his ears and listened to the thunder, the clatter of rain on leaves and branches scraping in a storm-sent breeze. He took a third and for just a moment could almost picture-.

     Deep jungles. Thick greenery. Large, exotic, flowering trees under which the wild things —the wild-hearted people— liked to huddle to watch the world be reborn. Whispered fables in the dead of night and nostalgic stories told around drinks and firelight all rose to take what his ears and nose provided and paint a living, breathing picture of what his eyes would likely never see.

     Cor kept his eyes closed and dreamed of Galahd beneath the thunderstorm. Felt just the tiniest pang of longing for the place he had never known but could see in Amissa’s eyes every day.

     He took one last breath, didn’t startle when Amissa wove their fingers together and pulled him out of the rain-soaked Galahd and back into the storming Duscae. He opened his eyes and Amissa smiled at him, “Thank you.”

     He dropped his jacket to impulsively reach out and push locks of rain-darkened copper out of her face, “It’s fine.” For you, anytime and anything. 

     Amissa hummed, pressed a fleeting kiss to the corner of his mouth in the same moment she hooked her foot under his jacket and flipped it up to the arm holding her shirt, “Let’s get you out of the rain. Wouldn’t want you catching a cold.”

     Cor huffed, “I’m the one still wearing two layers of clothing or more.”

     “Exactly.” White teeth flashed mischievous, “Insomnians can’t stand cold and rain like Galahdians do. Without your jacket, you’ll catch your death, and then who will Titus foist all of his extra paperwork off to?”

     This time when Cor laughed, it was a rumble almost as deep as the thunder, “Always looking out for the Pack.”