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

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!"

Caught by surprise, he awkwardly took the kite. Unlike a real butterfly, it fluttered loudly, wings snapping against the wind. But it was strong.

"You can wind it, like this, so the string doesn't slip. But here, you're the one who hasn't done this before. If... if the only places you've been are that castle, and then this place... You should fly it more."

She had been very candid about her upbringing, or else he would have not alluded to it at all today.

Snow White stood right next to him, watching it fly around. It was truly magnificent. How long have people been able to fly kites like this? Was it something she could have done back home? She knew about flags, but this was so very different. She looked back over to him.

"I want to share this moment with you, my friend. And I can't share it if I'm the only one doing it. I can take it back in a bit."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Neither ever, nor never

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject