deercountry | Neither ever, nor never

Entry tags:

Neither ever, nor never

Who: Midoriya and: Luz, Ruby, Todoroki, Lance, Riz, Snow White, Makoto Kino + YOU? Plot with me here
What: October, including event stuff. Ugly crying. Making friends with Cloverfield lol. Black Parade. Corpse shadow Loneliness thing. Learning to cook with a bear.
When: October
Where: Black Parade. Farther Shores. Cellar Door. Grocery market.

Content Warnings: My Hero Academia spoilers, grieving behavior, intoxicating craving for meat (thanks Beastars), intoxication due to this month's vileblood effects, minimizing one's own feelings.
Cloverfield's event effects, which can include: psychological-based curse, feelings of intense loneliness, mental health.
Mention of: capital punishment, child abuse, underground drug war, harvesting of human flesh and blood without consent.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Snow, for her part, had ALSO dressed differently for the parade at the recommendation of many. Though she wasn't entirely sure how different she looked even with the matching mask, especially since she was still completely surrounded by her animal friends, her omen, a giant stag a dead giveaway for anyone who knew her well. She looked at her omni, adjusting her mask and winced a bit inwardly at the mention of his being near the apples.

Maybe if she just didn't LOOK at them, she wouldn't feel faint?

Snow White saw the familiar green hair and lightly tapped Midoriya on the shoulder.

"I found you!" she giggled.

A friend of his back home really loved apples, and had tried the candied ones for the first time at his school's autumn festival. Every time he saw the bright red confections at the Black Parade, they reminded Midoriya of the first time he had ever seen the sad little kid smile. He had unknowingly used them as a marker, as the stall was easy to spot.

He saw a person in red in his periphery drawing nearer, but it wasn't until she reached toward him that he turned and recognized her.

"Ah! You made it!" She looked very cute, and he felt underdressed, but... too late now. "Are these--what on earth...?"

A gaggle of animals. In the city. Well, that was new.

"Wow so cool!" he blurted out. For the first time in days, his eyes lit up. "I have a classmate who talks to animals. Is it like that?"

"I did!" she laughed. "But why don't we head this way, away from the food. My friends might block the stall!" and she wanted to get as fast away from apples as she could!

She lightly pulled on Midoriya's hand.

"Hmm? Oh! Yes, that's right, cool does mean good, if I remember?" Snow was still trying to learn modern slang. "And that's right, I can speak with animals and they to me!"

He immediately turned pink, not used to having his hand held, but followed obediently. She had taken the hand with scars on it, and he felt a little embarrassed. It wouldn't be the first time someone asked how he'd gotten them. The how had been entirely preventable, even if he had no regrets as to the why.

Snow was the second person to pause at his slang, and he remembered that Kassandra, too, was a person from long ago. He'd have to be more careful with what he said. He put up his hood to hide his hair again but lowered his mask so they could see his face.

"Nice to meet you everyone," he said uncertainly to the animals, not sure if they would get his meaning.

She is quite prone to physical affection... mostly because she's starved for it.

"Everyone, say hello!" she smiled and the animals all gave various screeches, chirps, tweets, meows, stomps, huffs, and all sorts of other noises in greeting.

"Oh, yes, what would you like them to call you?" she asked as she turned to Midoriya. She glanced down at the hand she was holding, seeing all the scars there but not commenting on them just yet. First, they just needed to get away from those apples.

"I--what? Oh, I..." He briefly panicked internally. He wondered if he was expected to remember several names at once in return, and they were all moving around, walking, flying, ungulating, etc., and so was he.

"It doesn't matter to me. Since you call me Izuku, why not keep it the same?"

He was a pushover who let people call him whatever. Everyone calling him by his last name, Midoriya, was the usual standard at school. Deku used to be a hated childhood insult, but he had since turned it into his hero name, something positive. He even answered to "nerd," though he drew the line at "Mr. House Arrest" while grounded for fighting at school. (Long story.)

"Splendid!" Snow White clapped her hands to bring every animal to attention. "Everyone, this is my new friend Izuku!" she giggled and the animals quite literally looked Izuku up and down, analyzing him, the stag, in particular, was stoically gazing at him as if measuring him.

But, for the most part, they all seemed to let out a call or cry, clearly greeting him as that was expected of them.

"Now, then, what shall we do?"

"Oh..." He knew the stag was an Omen. He felt something resonate inside him, and it seemed only right that his own should say hi.

The amount of smoke pouring from his chest and shoulders suggested something big was about to form. But his Omen quickly condensed into a bird no bigger than a hawk perched unobtrusively on his shoulder. They had two peacock-like plumes trailing down their back, but they were utterly mythological. Most of the phoenix was covered in black smoky shadow, but roughly a fifth was hints of iridescent red, yellow, and green.

"This is Snow White-san and her friends."

They spared a vigilant glance off to the side at the festival before meeting the stag's eyes with a serious but warm gaze. They looked at Snow White and the rest of her company in turn.

"There's the main stages for the concerts, but also musicians performing on the side streets," Midoriya was saying, pointing to where small crowds were dancing in front of informal buskers. "And then we have all sorts of food if you're hungry. There's kite flying in the square right now, and a bunch of stalls with carnival games. And that's just the stuff that's nearby."

By now, he knew where everything was.

And Snow White certainly notices his knowledge.

"My goodness! You seem to have this whole place memorized!" she giggled, looking all about the area. "I've never flown a kite before! But I've never played carnival games either! What would you like to do! So long as you're with me, I'm sure to enjoy whatever we do!"

"I... was working a lot..." he said bashfully. Too much, if he was in any way going to be honest about it. Hero work meant patrols, and patrols meant knowing one's turf well.

She was so sunny. He wouldn't have so much cheer on his own, but he kind of fed off hers. She was like his friend Uraraka from home. He would be even shyer than he was now if it wasn't for befriending her early in his first year at school.

"Let's get a kite while we have daylight! The booths will still be open later. This way..."

Rather than be confined to the throng of people, his Omen took off flying leisurely towards the square, gliding like a strange kite too.

"Maybe working too much?" she teased, gently reaching out and bopping him on the nose.

"A kite! Yes, alright, then let's fly a kite! I've never flown one before so will you please show me what to do?" She followed alongside Izuku, her animals causing many people to part for them without delay.

"Is flying a kite a favorite pastime of yours?"

His eyes crossed as they followed her hand to his nose, and his cheeks briefly flushed pink.

"M-Maybe."

He felt called out, definitely. She wasn't the first person to guess, correctly, that he had been working too much.

"Not really, but I've done it before when I was little. I think I remember how."

His actual favorite pastime was far nerdier: compiling fanboy notes on heroes he thought were cool. As nonexistent as his own social life was before high school, Midoriya still got the impression that Snow White was missing some of the usual experiences. She said she had never done any of the activities here. There could be any number of mundane reasons for that, but he couldn't help being reminded of his friend, Eri, the small child he had invited to his school festival. She still struggled with the bad hand her life had dealt her.

"So this is really your first time at a festival? You must be so excited!"

"Oh yes! I saw plenty of them happening outside of the castle walls or inside the grand halls, but I was never allowed to attend them." If she did people might talk to her and BOND with her and her stepmother couldn't have that.

"I'd love to try everything, even just once! Like the games! You can win things, can't you? But for you to patrol it instead of enjoying it, does that mean you've been to lots of festivals? Are you a festival expert, Izuku?"

A castle. She really did step right out of a period piece... He felt like he was breaking into a sweat under her barrage of questions.

"Uh, no, not really! I haven't been working as a hero for very long, and festivals aren't the only things we watch over. It's just pretty normal, where I'm from, to go to one every once in a while if we can."

He approached the kite stand and indicated with one finger that they'd like a kite, once they decided on a design.

"Why couldn't you go to parties inside the castle then?"

"Oh, I was forbidden from them," she offered as she asked for a smaller kite for some of her animal friends who wanted to partake in the fun. "My stepmother forbade everyone from interacting with me and me with them! Anyone who did was either thrown in the dungeon or given several lashings."

She looked back over to Izuku, smiling. "So I would watch them from outside the windows or from the corridors in the shadows."

He pressed his lips together in surprise. He knew centuries long past could be very free with capital punishment, but there was just no good reason for going to the extremes she described. In the sky, his Omen swerved in agitation. He felt the blood pounding in his ears, loud and angry. But there was no one to be angry at here, and it quickly dissipated.

He glanced at her animal friends, as if to ask if this was true, but he didn't really need confirmation.

"That's--"

He thought of his friend Eri, who was silent and scared for a long time. She had gotten used to living under terrible conditions and just waiting for the next round of pain. It was a wonder Snow White could still smile. His eyebrows knitted.

"That's no good. You don't have to live in a place like that anymore, and you can go to any festival you want. I'm really glad you came out here. The crowds don't bother you, do they?"

No one to be angry at was exactly Snow's opinion on the matter. She could be angry, certainly, but to what purpose? What good did BEING angry do and at whom? Her stepmother? Her stepmother wasn't here. Her father for marrying the woman? She was sure the woman had been lovely at some point, or it may have simply been political. Being angry was a useless endeavor.

"I can go to any festival I like, so long as there is one around," she giggled. She looked at all the people and shook her head. "Oh no, I've always wanted to be around people, this is exciting!" that said, Snow doesn't quite understand being over-stimulated so he may want to ask that question again later.

"I'm glad. Just let me know if you start feeling nervous. Everything's pretty new today, and it's a lot, but I'm here."

Overstimulation was exactly what he was wondering about. He knew he was in for keeping a closer eye on her here. He'd done this before. At least kite flying was less likely to startle her than, say, a haunted house.

"Here, you get to pick the big kite since it's your first time."

Some of them were in familiar animal shapes, or simply abstract antler designs, but there were definitely some lesser sky Pthumerians too.

"I will, I promise," she assured him, reaching out and resting a hand on his elbow. She then hmm'd softly as she looked at all the kites. She then held up a squid kite, giggling nonstop.

"Look! It's us!" she couldn't help herself. She put the kite back down and then her eyes widened. "Oooh, could we do this one?" she held up the giant butterfly. "It's absolutely beautiful!"

"Yeah... it's us..." he croaked awkwardly, reminded of how he'd sworn off calamari when he found out Sleepers were squids. Thanks Trench, thanks for that!

"Oh, amazing! Yeah, let's do that one."

He haggled (badly) with the kite seller and did his gallant best to carry the kite without knocking into other people or Snow's animals on the way to the huge square. It was easy to tell what the wind was doing by the other kites in the air. He held out the spool of the butterfly kite to Snow first before pointing at the sky with a scarred hand.

"We want to face this way, so the wind leads it away from us. This crank controls the height... When I give the kite a boost, let it take the string. Ready?"

Snow has never had calamari, so she wouldn't know to swear it off regardless. Snow White watched Izuku speak with the seller before they made their way to a place to fly the kite.

She took the spool in her hand, examining it for a bit before holding it with both hands. Her animal's friends doing much the same with their own, much smaller spool. They seemed to be listening to Izuku as well, several of them chittering to each other as it was decided to give the kite to a squirrel who then climbed up Faramund, her omen, onto his antlers. Several birds are rolling their eyes at the whole thing since there had been an argument about just letting them carry the kite up to the wind but the other animals had insisted they try it properly.

Snow, for her part, was ignoring the whole argument and focusing on Izuku.

"Oh yes! I'm ready! This is so exciting!"

He smiled, watching the mini argument between the winged and flightless of her retinue, and waited until everyone was ready. He gathered some string for slack. He started a countdown to get their attention.

"3... 2... 1... Go!!"

The wind was perfect--a bit too enthusiastic at times, actually. He only had to jog a few steps before the air filled the wings of the colorful butterfly. He let it soar out of his hands towards the sky. Watching it, he backtracked to Snow.

"That should be high enough!"

Snow had done as Izuku instructed, watching the kite go higher and higher, several of her bird friends taking off to join it in the air, swooping up and around it to let the butterfly dip and dive. She let out a soft gasp, watching as it moved in the wind.

"Oh... Oh, this is... it's so beautiful," she whispered, mesmerized as another one of her birds swirled around the butterfly kite and make it dip and dive before coming back up again.

"Look at it, look at how it moves. This is amazing."

The colors were a loud and bright splash against the sky. Midoriya wanted Snow to experience everything that was the opposite of how she was raised, the infinite possibilities life had to offer outside of a castle with no one to really talk to. In a way, doing something like this for someone else healed his heart too. To think, he had almost not come out today. He was so glad he could almost cry, but he won't spoil the mood by doing so.

"Don't forget to stop the string," he said with a small laugh to dispel the ache in his throat.

Snow White looks down and tries to figure out how to do just that. Does she hold the string? Snow attempts that and while the kite string doesn't like the sudden jolt, it does oblige without yanking out of her hand.

"It's like I have a real giant butterfly!" She came over to Izuku, holding it out to him. "Here, you try it!"

(no subject)

wannasmash - 2022-01-04 09:19 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

onebadapple - 2022-01-09 01:55 (UTC) - Expand

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only