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Midoriya Izuku has been standing in his bedroom for the last twenty minutes, staring at two seemingly identical coats made of layered, padded cotton that are laid out on the bed. He is muttering under his breath, tapping one foot anxiously as he considers his options. The majority of his travel bag is already packed, primarily with clothes and a small number of personal items. He has been told not to worry about provisions, bedrolls, flint rocks, and other assorted items they will need for the next two weeks of travel, as those will already be packed for them. Ambassador Takami has them scheduled to leave at first light tomorrow, on the first day of autumn. The trip to Sekoto takes about two weeks by horse, but supposedly the former general can make the trip in only a few days by wing. Normally on horseback the trip would take three weeks rather than two, but Midoriya has been assured by Mirio, part of the last group of students to make the trip, that Ambassador Takami sets an absolutely grueling pace.
Midoriya frowns, lost in thought as he stares at the sad excuse for winter coats. He has already packed most of his kurtas, shalwar kameez, and a few more formal sherwanis as he anticipates having to dress up everytime he is in the presence of the queen. He is bringing a very limited amount of jewelry, a few bangles and rings, but not much else. Metal is heavy to carry, and he has been informed that northerners don’t wear nearly as much jewelry as they do in the south. Should he bring kohl? He still wants to feel like himself, but at the same time he doesn’t want to stand out. Will he be provided with more appropriate court dress in the northern styles once he arrives? Mirio told him that northerners dress completely differently, with wool doublets buttoned down to their wrists, high ruffled necklines and tightly fitting trousers. How on earth they don’t suffocate under all that clothing, Midoriya has no idea.
A rapping at his window startles him out of his wandering thoughts, enough to draw out an embarrassing ‘eep’. The rapping continues, more incessantly this time, so Midoriya walks over to the window. It’s dark outside, but he thinks he knows who it is. He pushes the decorative wooden screen open with a heavy groan, wincing at the metallic screech of rusted hinges. There is a wild flurry of mauve and royal purple feathers as his visitor quickly hops into the room.
The siren is rather tall for his age, although his exceptionally long flight feathers that sprout directly from his arms and trail on the floor like gigantic sleeves make him seem even taller. His hair and eyes are just as brightly purple as his feathers, although his face is marred by deep, tired bruises under his eyes. His kohl is a mess, smeared in a dozen places and making him look even more exhausted. His face and torso are human in appearance, but that is where the similarities end. From the waist down he is covered in deep purple feathers, entirely bird-like legs peeking out from a gigantic mass of tail feathers that trail on the ground like a peacock’s. There is a veritable rainbow of purples and deep blues in his tail, the massive feathers trailing several feet behind him like the train of a dress as he tiredly slumps across the room, throwing himself dramatically on Midoriya’s bed. He is wearing a loose-fitting black and silver kameez, split at the back to allow his tail to flow and flare out from the base of his spine, although his entirely bird-like legs and impressive tail prevent him from wearing proper shalwars.
Midoriya sighs and closes the window with a heavy creak before turning to look at the (apparently miserable) siren sprawled facedown on the bed.
“I take it that means Seelie Aizawa said no?” he asks carefully, biting at his lip. The siren on the bed sighs and rolls over dramatically to scowl at the ceiling.
“It’s a no. I argued with him for like two hours, but he wouldn't budge. He says maybe I can go next year.” Midoriya walks over to sit on the edge of the bed, guiltily rubbing at his arm.
“I’m sorry, Shinsou. Did he say why he wanted you to wait until next year?” The siren sighs and rubs at the dark circles under his eyes with the hand-like talons that sprout from his last wing joint, smearing the messy kohl even further.
“Apparently the limit of three students per year is pretty strict, which doesn’t make sense to me. The castle in Sekoto is supposed to be huge, there's no way they only have room for three exchange students, but whatever. He also wants me here for Eri’s first year with us, something about wanting her to get used to a stable home life. I mean, I get it, but still. I don’t want to have to wait a whole year, you know?” Midoriya starts picking at a loose thread on the bed anxiously.
“I mean, I get it for Eri,” he says a little sheepishly. “She’s coming from a really rough situation, and she only just got here. If you left now she wouldn’t really get to know you until you got back in the spring. It might make it hard for her to really get integrated into the family if her new older brother is gone for the first six months.” Shinsou just sighs, continuing to stare tiredly at the ceiling.
“Yeah, you’re right. She’s only six years old, and she has a lot of socialization issues. She’s hardly ever interacted with other people, and she keeps asking why she didn't get put in a family of other unicorns. She doesn’t seem to understand that she’s the last one.” Midoriya winces sympathetically.
“Oh. Is she getting used to a mixed family? You and Seelie Yamada are both sirens, so at least there’s other non-humans in the house, right?” Shinsou just shrugs.
“I dunno, I think she gravitates towards Shouta because he looks most familiar. She’s basically just a human with a horn, so humans don’t scare her as much. Chisaki was a tengu, so I think mine and Hizashi’s feathers kind of freak her out. She’s warming up to us though, she’s starting to understand that not everyone with feathers is going to hurt her. It’s hard though.” Midoriya gives the purple siren a sympathetic smile.
“That’s good. I’m sure it’ll just take some time. When can she start school?” Shinsou shakes his head.
“Shouta and Hizashi are going to need help with her, she has too many issues to go to school just yet, so they’re relying on me to help take care of her while they are at council meetings and shit. They both promised to dedicate more time to training me though, so maybe that will make up for me not getting to go to Sekoto this year.” Midoriya smiles.
“Hey! That’s great Shinsou! Seelie Yamada and Seelie Aizawa are excellent teachers, I’m sure you could learn a lot in the next year. I know it doesn’t really make up for missing out on the Sekoto trip, but you’ll still go next year, right? Do you know who else would go with you?” Shinsou sits up with a dramatic huff, purple hair sticking up wildly. Most sirens take an extreme amount of pride in their appearance, their impressive peacock-like tails groomed to utter glossy perfection. Shinsou is always a mess, however, hair sticking every which way and feathers half-ruffled. He perpetually looks like he just rolled out of bed.
“That’s the worst part,” he groans. “I’d have to go with fucking Kaminari Denki.”
“Hey, Kaminari is nice!” Shinsou just gives him an ugly scowl.
“Kaminari is the dumbest, most annoying dog I’ve ever met.” Midoriya chuckles a little, getting up from the bed to resume his packing. He has to finish tonight, they are leaving first thing in the morning.
“Aw, c’mon. His family are apparently from a really important raiju clan back east, and they’re been having a little trouble settling here in Musutafu. I’ve talked to Kaminari a couple times, he seems really nice and genuine.” Shinsou just rolls his eyes.
“He’s a dumb thunder mutt that smells like wet dog and ozone. He’s about as dumb as a real dog too. You know I have gotten him to listen to me sing seven times just this month? You would think after the second time of waking up in a tree or naked in a field he would learn his lesson, but no. He’s determined to actually hear and remember what a siren song sounds like, even though he knows it’s impossible.” Midoriya just shivers, goosebumps appearing on his arm for a brief moment. Shinsou sang to him once, and only once. He just remembers everything going black, all of his senses completely disappearing, and the eerie feeling of his body moving of its own accord. He woke up several minutes later in an entirely different room, with no recollection of how he got there. He has zero desire to repeat the experience. He can’t imagine willingly subjecting himself to a siren song more than once, let alone seven times.
“At least Kamiari is nice…” he mumbles, starting to pull some socks out of a drawer and stuffing them into his travel bag. Shinsou casts him a sympathetic glance.
“Bakugou still being an angry little shit?” Midoriya just sighs, shutting the sock drawer and moving on to his limited collection of shoes. He mostly owns sandals, but he does have a single pair of leather boots that will just have to do in the northern winter.
“Yeah, he’s just Bakugou. I don’t know how Kirishima and him get along so well. Kirishima is super nice, and Kacchan is just…”
“...Yeah,” mumbles Shinsou, casting his friend a sympathetic glance. “You’ve basically grown up with him though, right? So six months abroad with him will just be more of the same. You know how to handle him, plus Kirishima will be there to mellow him out.” Midoriya just shrugs, pulling out a very large, fluffy scarf that his mother knitted for him in anticipation of his trip to the north. Ambassador Takami instructed them to pack for the bitter cold, but Midoriya doesn’t have much more than a few coats that are suitable for Yuuei’s mild winters on the southern coast of the continent. He fully anticipates that he is going to freeze his ass off in Sekoto. He gestures to the two coats laid out on his bed, biting at his lip.
“You think these’ll be warm enough? Ambassador Takami said it snows a lot.” Shinsou gives the coats a skeptical glance, reaching out to rub the fabric between his talons.
“These coats are shit, and you don’t have any fur or feathers. You’re fucked, Midoriya.” Midoriya just throws his head back with a groan.
“Ugh, I know. Why did they schedule this student exchange trip to Sekoto for fall and winter? Why can’t we go in the spring and summer when it’s not like, negative a billion degrees up there?” The siren just shrugs.
“I dunno man, Takami always goes to Endeavor for fall and winter. Since you guys are kind of just tagging along I guess they just didn’t bother changing it. I know that as the official Yuuei ambassador he has to spend half the year there, but over-wintering in the north sounds miserable. He seems to like it though, so what do I know?” Midoriya grumbles and starts filling the remainder of the space in his travel bag with his many, many journals of notes, and a bag containing a few fountain pens and bottles of colorful ink. He likes to color code his notes, after all.
“Ambassador Takami must be the only bird in the world that flies north for winter,” he grumbles under his breath. Shinsou breaks out into a loud, squawking laugh, and Midoriya turns scarlett in utter embarrassment. Shit, that was really, really rude. He and Shinsou are friends, and he has sort of gotten permission to call the siren a bird in a joking way, but that privilege does not extend to anyone else. It’s a borderline racist joke, he needs to watch his tongue. “Shit, Shinsou, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like–”
“It’s fine,” Shinsou laughs, rubbing a tear out of his eye with a talon. “Fuck man, that was fucking funny. It’s about time you started loosening up a bit.” Midoriya groans, dropping his head into his hands and yanking at his green hair. He starts muttering under his breath, sitting down on the edge of the bed to bounce his leg anxiously. Oh god he’s going to slip up and call Ambassador Takami a bird to his face, he’s going to embarrass himself and get kicked from the trip and then he’ll have to tell his mom and King Toshinori that he got expelled for being racist and then he’s going to get disinherited and–
“Jeez, relax Midoriya. You can’t walk around as an anxious mess for the rest of your life. People make jokes all the time. Takami grew up as a military brat, you think he and Usagiyama don’t call each other ‘bird’ and ‘rabbit’ all the time? Pretty sure Bakugou calls Kirishima a lizard like ninety percent of the time, and they’re still friends.” Midoriya scowls.
“That’s because Kacchan is a gigantic jerk…” he mumbles, looking away. Sinsou sighs, pushing himself up and off the bed.
“You have to relax Midoriya. Look just… be happy you get to go on the trip, alright? A lot of people would kill to be in your place,” he says with a half-hearted smile. Midoriya sighs and nods.
“Y-yeah, you’re right… I know I’m lucky…”
“You are lucky, but you also earned it.” Shinsou rubs at the perpetual dark circles under his eyes with a soft, tired groan. “Anyways, I should go. I’m crazy late for dinner, and Aizawa will have my head. Have fun in Sekoto, you’ll have to tell me all about it when you get back.” Midoriya smiles a little as Shinsou climbs up onto his windowsill, ready to throw himself up into the air.
“Thanks, Shinsou. I’ll keep a diary so I don’t forget anything, alright? You’ll have to tell me all about how Eri settles in and all the crazy things you make Kaminari do when I get back.” Shinsou turns to give Midoriya one last, tired smile.
“Will do, human.” He waves his talons before dropping out of the window, gliding away. His massive tail feathers trail behind him like a banner as he flies away. Once Shinsou is out of sight Midoriya closes the window. He sighs, thunking his head onto the elaborately carved wooden screen. The pale moonlight streams in, casting the shadow of the screen’s pattern across the floor.
He needs to go to bed soon, he has to be up early to meet up with Ambassador Takami for their trip.
Midoriya barely sleeps that night, tossing and turning and staring at his ceiling.
Somewhere outside, a nightingale sings.
“Did you pack enough clothes?”
“Yes, mom, I promise I–”
“And the scarf I knitted you?”
“Yes, mom. The scarf too.”
“Be good now, ok? Be responsible, and don’t push yourself too hard. Remember your limits, you can’t do things that the other kids can and that’s ok because the most important thing is that you don’t get hurt and–”
“Mom, I’ll be fine…” sighs Midoriya, slinging his travel bag over his shoulder. He tries not to wince as the heavy bag strains his scarred hand. His mother is on the verge of tears, wringing her henna-stained hands in worry. She sniffs and starts messing with her elaborate braid of dark green hair, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
“Speak up if you need to take breaks, and eat all your vegetables! Oh, and I packed you some baklava as a travel snack. I made enough for you and your friends so make sure you share–”
“Mom,” he says with a soft smile, pulling her into a hug. “I promise I’ll be ok. I’ll write to you as soon as I get to Sekoto, alright?” His mother hugs him back as tightly as she can, sobbing openly into his shoulder. He tears up as well, starting to rub comforting circles into her back. “It’s just six months mom, I’ll be back before you know it, alright?”
“I love you ‘Zuku,” she sniffles into his chest. Midoriya gives her one last little squeeze.
“I love you too, mom.” He finally pulls away, brushing his mother’s tears away. He adjusts the bag on his back and finally turns to walk out the door and out onto the city street. It’s very early in the morning but the street is steadily filling with merchants pushing wagons of goods up to the market, getting their stands ready before the crowds arrive. Midoriya turns to wave at his mother who is still crying and sniffling in the doorway, a big smile on his face. He keeps waving until he turns the corner, yelping in surprise as he almost runs into a kitsune woman carrying a bundle of cloth.
He apologizes sheepishly, scampering up the hill and towards the palace, a skip in his step. The rising sun paints all the white plaster buildings a soft pink, the sounds of people waking up and starting their days filling the streets. A group of sirens flies overhead, each of them carrying baskets filled with dates for the market. Midoriya waves hello to the basilisk who owns the glass shop on the corner as he sprints past, too excited to walk.
Finally, finally, the day is here. He’s going to Sekoto.
Midoriya has been begging to go on the foreign exchange trip ever since it was established three years ago, and he is finally old enough to go. The exchange program is meant primarily as a way to foster friendships and positive long term relationships with Endeavor after the end of the war. If younger generations establish cross-border relationships early, then the two countries will have a much stronger bond of peace over the next fifteen to twenty years. It is not only a diplomacy trip, but a practical training opportunity. Three students each year are selected to go train with various military and diplomatic leaders in Endeavor’s capital city of Sekoto, as personal guests of Queen Todoroki Fuyumi. As the heir apparent of Yuuei, Midoriya Izuku was selected to attend this year, despite his lack of magic or combat expertise. He (much to his anxiety) will be joined by longtime family friend Bakugou Katsuki, and by one of Toyomitsu Taishiro’s top students, the dragonkin Kirishima Eijirou. They will be joined in their studies this year, apparently, by the youngest Todoroki, Prince Shouto. The exchange program is overseen by the Yuuei Ambassador Takami Keigo, the former general and Seat of the Military. He is tasked with bringing the three Yuuei students along with him to his annual six-month trip to Sekoto, but it is a little unclear what his role in the program is once they have actually arrived at the Todoroki castle.
Midoriya sprints past the palace gates, waving at the guards and yelling a quick hello over his shoulder. He finally slows to a walk as he approaches the central courtyard, panting and struggling to catch his breath.
“Hey, Midoriya! You’re just in time!” Midoriya looks up and sees Kirishima waving frantically from the other side of the courtyard, tail swishing behind him. Bakugou is next to him, leaning up against one of the decorative columns with an annoyed scowl on his face. Midorya grins and waves back, jogging across the courtyard to join them.
The palace courtyard is built around a large, central fountain, the edges lined in enormous swaying date palms and other lush southern plant life. The interior walls of the castle surround them, lines of a hundred decorative arches carved from stone forming smooth lines that draw the eye up and towards the intensely decorating ceilings and columns. Midorya’s shoes make a soft, bright sound as he jogs across the brilliantly red tiles that form a walkway in between the lush plants and the fountain. He finally stops in front of the two teenagers, smiling brightly and giving another little wave.
“Hey guys! Still waiting for Ambassador Takami?”
“Obviously,” snarks Bakugou, rolling his bright red eyes. He is, like always, rather sloppily dressed in a black, wrinkled kurta with some burn marks on the sleeves, paired with loose, slouching red shalwars that bunch up around his ankles. He always wears far too much kohl, smearing it like a mask around his eyes. Kirishima leans in, giving one of his bright, serrated smiles, tail thumping across the floor.
“He should be here any minute though! Takami’s great, you’re going to love him I’m sure,” says Kirishima brightly. The dragonkin is dressed in a bright red kurta as well, although well ironed and lacking in burn marks. His little patches of red scales glitter brightly in the morning light, and they stand out starkly against his more human-like skin. His spiked hair easily adds another couple inches to his height, making him look taller even though he and Bakugou are around the same height. The little nubs of his amputated wings flicker and move under his clothes, and Midoriya always has to remind himself not to stare.
They don’t have to wait long. A deafeningly loud thwum makes all three teenagers look up, squinting against the bright rising sun at the silhouette of enormous red wings.
Midoriya’s mouth drops open as the harpy lands only a few feet away, the wind generated by his flaps blowing him over and into Bakugou. The perpetually angry blond shoves him off with a scowl, but doesn’t say anything, bright red eyes also fixed on the gigantic, impressive wings.
Midorya has met the former general in passing once or twice, but only in court and with wings neatly folded up against his back. He has never witnessed the harpy fly before, and his wingspan is nothing short of staggering. The tips of his primaries must easily come to fifteen feet across when fully extended, and up close Midoriya spots the subtle variations in the red coloration of his feathers.
The harpy gives them a wide grin, eyes rimmed in sharp black markings accentuated by the bright red, square-cut ruby earrings he is wearing, blond hair an artfully windswept mess. He is wearing a bright red and gold kurta, far nicer than is probably wise for travel. A couple of gold bangles jingle softly on his wrists as he gives the teenagers a little bow, tail and wings flaring out behind him.
“Takami Keigo, at your service,” he says, voice echoing off the decorative stone arches. He straightens up and pushes his black talons through his blond hair, a confident smile on his face. He folds his wings across his back and tucks his tail up against the back of his legs, compressing down to a more normal size. “You three must be my new chicklets this year!” he chirps.
Midoriya scrambles to bow deeply and politely, an embarrassed flush on his face. The former Seelie is famous for surviving an extremely long time as a prisoner of war in Endeavor, and for his laundry list of military accomplishments during the war. He was missing in action for over a year, before returning to Musutafu in strange northern clothes and with a letter from the new queen of Endeavor, offering peace. He has since become an ambassador, splitting his time between the two countries and helping to negotiate long-standing peace between the two kingdoms. Midoriya is absolutely honored to be in his presence.
Kirishima gives a quick bow of his own, jumping excitedly in place, while Bakugou sneers. Takami laughs, waving a taloned hand.
“Oh you are definitely Bakugou Katsuki, you look just like your mother. Heard you’re a spitfire too,” chatters the harpy. He turns to give Kirishima a wide smile. “And Kirishima! It’s been a while, but I heard you took my advice and started training with Toyomitsu. That’s going well, I trust?”
“Yes sir!” says Kirishima, tail curling up in excitement. The harpy’s brilliant gold eyes finally settle on Midoriya, and he has to swallow nervously at the sudden attention. Despite Takami’s bright, crooked smile, his eyes are focused and calculating, pupils pinning into thin slits. His subtle fangs and black talons reflect the morning light, and the edges of his wings spread ever so slightly. A shiver runs through Midoriya’s body, realizing all at once that, despite his friendly and outgoing exterior, the former general is easily capable of brutally efficient violence.
He feels not unlike a rabbit under the cold, golden eyes of a hawk.
“And you’re Inko’s kid,” he chirrups, voice smooth like honey. “I’d recognize that green hair anywhere.” Midoriya nods quickly, hands raising to anxiously tug at the straps of his travel bag.
“Uh, yes, Ambassador Takami,” he mumbles, suddenly shy. It feels like there’s cotton in his mouth. The harpy’s eyes soften slightly, wings dropping and spreading lowly in a soft gesture meant to put the nervous teenager at ease. Takami gives another little chirp.
“I know these two trouble makers are on the military track,” he waves a talon at Kirishima and Bakugou, head tilted and smiling. “But I’m not sure where you are at with your combat abilities. Tell me kid, can you fight?”
“Uh,” Midoriya fiddles, shuffling his feet. “I’ve been practicing with knives and swords.”
Takami flicks his eyes down at Midoriya’s body, gaze lingering on his small frame and thin arms. He raises a single eyebrow.
“I see. Ever tried something less… close quarters?” he offers. It’s about as diplomatic as he can possibly be about pointing out that Midoriya is, well, small. “How about archery?”
“Uh, I can mostly hit a target around twenty yards away. About seventy percent of the time.” Takami gives him a slightly dismayed look. “Oh! I had this idea to make specialized arrows! If you put very thin glass vials just behind the arrowhead, and fill the vials with salamander blood and essence of wolfsbane, any concussive force should break the glass and detonate the target! You could make all kinds of combinations depending on what potion you put in the vials, maybe nightshade and toad mucus for a stunning arrow, or maybe mandrake root and batwing for–”
Takami chitters, wings flaring and patting Midoriya on the head. The teenager squeaks, eyes going wide.
“Yeah, you are just like Toshinori described,” laughs the harpy, ruffling his wild green hair affectionately. “Alright, so you’re not really on the military track, although you have some interesting ideas. That’s fine, of course, not everybody has to fight. I’m afraid I don’t know what you are truly interested in studying outside of your more… interesting weapon designs. You have been named heir to King Toshinori’s throne, and I have heard that what you lack in magic you make up for in intelligence. So then, where do your passions lie, young Midoriya?”
Midoriya swallows nervously, eyes dropping to his feet as he mumbles.
“Um, anatomy, physiology, and the magical sciences. Sir.”
Takami blinks and tilts his head in surprise, wings perking up a bit behind him.
“He’s a nerd,” growls Bakugou, arms crossed and pushing himself off the column he is leaning up against. “Obsessed with magic he doesn’t have.”
“Not just magic…” Midoriya mumbles, shoulders starting to tremble nervously. “All metaphysical traits and abilities. I just started reading a book on flight mechanics, but I haven’t gotten to the avian chapter yet. I’m still on insect types, like faerie wings, and I just finished the chapter on reptilian types, which kind of have a lot of crossover with mammalian wing types since bat wings and dragon wings are pretty much the same thing, which is really interesting considering they are from just different classes, but it’s a great example of convergent evolution since reptiles and mammals evolved to have very similar wings even though genetically they are so distinct and–”
“God damn it, don’t get him started,” huffs Bakugou, leaning over to pick up his own travel bag off the floor. “Can we go now? We’re losing daylight,” he snaps. Takami fluffs up his wings with a laugh.
“Eager, are we? Alright then chicklets, might as well get moving. Your horses are waiting just outside the city gates, and Bakugou is right, we are burning daylight. It’s a long trip on horseback, I hope you three are ready. Just follow me, I’ll be circling above your heads the whole way. Do try to keep up!” Takami snaps his wings open and takes off with a gigantic whoosh of air, shooting off into the sky faster than they can blink. The red wings rapidly disappear, and the three teenagers are left staring at each other in bewilderment.
Midoriya bites the inside of his lip, staring up at the sky with growing apprehension.
Harpies are the fastest fliers in the world. If Takami expects them to keep up on horseback, the next two weeks are going to be absolute murder.
Excerpts from the diary of Midoriya Izuku- Vol. No. 13
September 22
Today was the first day of the foreign exchange trip to Sekoto! Well, our first day of travel, anyways.
Today was exhausting, and I know it’s only going to get worse. Takami refuses to get on horseback, instead he flies in circles above our heads the whole day, occasionally diving down to yell out directions before taking off again. He technically has a horse, but he has just loaded her back with all of his travel bags so that way he can fly unencumbered, and has tied her to my mare. Bakugou and Kirishima are much better riders than me, and are always ahead while I trail up the rear.
Takami apparently expects us to keep up with his flying pace, even though I am about 90% sure he knows horses cannot travel as fast as harpies do. Why he is in such a huge rush, I have no idea.
We made it about 100 miles outside of Musutafu today before Takami finally let us stop, and I think the skin on the inside of my legs is going to fall off. I am supremely jealous of Kirishima’s scales, riding for twelve hours at a time doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Apparently our pace is too slow, Takami says we really need to move faster if we want to make the trip in the scheduled two weeks.
Two thousand miles. Takami wants us to move two thousand miles in two weeks. That is 140 miles a day, is he insane?! Would the horses even survive a pace like that? Arabians are bred for long endurance rides, but still.
Apparently he can make the trip in three days by wing, which just blows my mind. That’s 660 miles a day. If he flies for twelve hours a day, that means he is averaging about 55 miles an hour. And that's just his sustained cruising speed, I can’t even imagine how fast he must be able to fly when really pushing himself or in a sustained dive. Peregrine falcons can reach around 240 miles per hour when diving, can Takami fly that fast? I know harpies are the fastest fliers in the world, but holy shit. It never really sunk in what speeds like that really meant before I understood what 100 miles on horseback felt like. He can move the same distance in two hours without breaking a sweat.
I think this trip might kill me.
September 23
I noticed something today while Ambassador Takami made us breakfast and tea. On the ring finger of his left hand he wears a wedding band, which I previously thought to only be a human custom. Well, I assume it’s a wedding band, at least. It is bright gold with a single, large ruby set in the center. I don’t think harpies usually exchange rings, maybe he married a human woman? Which would be unusual to say the least. Mixed race relationships aren’t THAT uncommon, but the avian races have a tendency to marry each other (the only human/siren relationship I can think of is Seelie Yamada and Seelie Aizawa, but I’m sure there must be others).
I would have thought that if the Ambassador were married I would have heard of his wife before, but I never have. Whenever he is in Musutafu he lives in the palace, and certainly alone. Could his wife live in Sekoto? That would be interesting, I suppose, if he married a foreigner. Maybe that’s why he agreed to be an ambassador?
I asked Kirishima about it, since he met Takami once when they were both imprisoned in Sekoto. He said that, at least at that time, the ambassador didn’t wear a wedding band, but it HAS been three years since then. Maybe he met someone while in Sekoto, and got married at some point in the last three years. When he landed again after dark and started on dinner, I tried to ask him about it (without really asking, I kind of beat around the bush) and he just… skirted around the issue. Which is… weird. If he’s married, why wouldn’t he want to talk about his wife at all? Later when he laid up in the tree branches to sleep he just… stared at his ring for a while, making these little chirping noises. I don’t think he meant for us to hear him, but it was… sad.
Bakugou thinks his wife might have died in the war, which… makes sense unfortunately. It made me really sad, honestly. Ambassador Takami is young, maybe mid to late twenties, and to be a widow so young… It's bittersweet, I think, if he is still wearing his wedding band as a widow. I know harpies are extremely devoted to their partners, and something tells me they would never remarry if their spouse died. I can’t even imagine; losing your life partner in your twenties…
I feel bad for him.
September 24
The grassy foothills and rocks of the southernmost end of the continent are starting to disappear, slowly but surely. More and more trees are starting to appear, but we haven’t hit the forests yet.
I’ve never seen a real forest, I’m actually really excited. Kirishima says that they have evergreen trees up north. Can you imagine? Trees with puffs of needles instead of real leaves?
Kacchan is interested in the changing landscape too, I can tell. He grumbles and calls me a nerd, but I saw him staring practically open-mouthed at the biggest oak tree I have ever seen. The leaves were starting to change color at the very top. There was a nightingale singing in the tree, and the whole sight was so picturesque… I wanted to stop and paint it, but Kacchan said we couldn’t fall behind.
We don’t have trees that change color in Musutafu, and the tallest trees we have are date palms. The colors are remarkable. I think I get why Takami chooses to travel north in the autumn now. I hope Sekoto is this pretty, the city is supposed to be in the Black Forest at the foot of the northern mountains.
A city like that has to be pretty, right?
September 25
Forests! We hit actual forests today!
I didn’t know there could be so many trees, it’s incredible. They are all changing colors, and as far as the eye can see there is a rainbow of green, yellow, orange, and red. It’s getting cooler too, enough that I have to put a jacket on over my kurta. And the birds… There are so many birds, you can hear them singing all the time.
Kacchan blew up a tree, I think he just wanted to know if he could. I don’t understand him sometimes.
On the positive side, I think I’m starting to get used to the pace we are setting. The horses are doing surprisingly ok, they are apparently bred from really high performance endurance lines and do well with long distance travel. My legs hurt less at the end of the day, but I’m still exhausted. I was worried about having to sleep on bed rolls on the floor, but to be honest I’m so tired by the time I can actually lay down that I just pass out. Takami sleeps in trees, and I have no idea how he doesn’t fall out.
PS, I don’t think Kacchan is aware of it, but he holds on to Kirishima’s tail while he sleeps. It’s adorable, I will have to sketch it sometime.
September 26
At first I thought there were a lot of birds in general, but today I realized it’s actually one bird.
There is a nightingale that lives in this forest, and it seems to be curious about us. I keep seeing it occasionally between the leaves. I know it’s the same one because it has a silver band on its leg, which was odd to see on a wild bird. It must have been someone’s pet at some point and escaped.
Takami chirps a lot at the birds, I’ve noticed. I wonder if he is aware of it. It’s incredible, harpies are so much more bird-like in their behavior compared to sirens, even though physically sirens look so much more like birds. Shinsou’s head and chest are the only human bits about him. From the waist down he is completely covered in feathers and his wings grow directly out of his arms, but he speaks and behaves like a human. Takami is basically a human with talons and wings on his back, but he chirps and screeches and caws all the time. He preens his wings with his mouth, and he perches on trees and stares at us with his slitted pupils, tilting his head and flicking his tail when he talks. It’s interesting how strong the bird-like behavior is. I know he can turn it off, I’ve seen him give speeches once or twice in court, and he never chirped or warbled or moved like a bird then. I wonder if he tries to act more human in front of other people. Does he just feel comfortable out here in the wilderness, enough to drop his mask?
I wonder why harpies behave that way. Maybe when we get to Sekoto I can find a book about it. The Todorokis are one of the wealthiest royal families in the world, I’m sure their library is incredible.
I wonder what the Todorokis will be like. I know the late King Enji was supposed to be ruthless and terrifying, but I have heard nothing but good things about Queen Fuyumi. I don’t know anything about the rest of the family though, except for that she has a younger brother that will be joining Kirishima, Kacchan and I in our studies. I hope he’s nice.
September 27
I…
I don’t think I’m ok.
We are starting to run low on preserved meat, so Ambassador Takami said he would hunt for us tonight. It makes sense, we need to eat and I am grateful for his skill, truly, but…
I will admit, I am from the city. I eat meat, sure, but I am privileged enough that I have never had to kill or butcher my own animals. I am somewhat ashamed to say I was rather divorced from the concept, and my stomach is easily turned by blood and gore (yet another reason why I would be the worst soldier in the history of the world). I have seen people kill chickens with a single cut across the throat, which is unpleasant but understandably necessary, but that’s all.
I was most certainly not prepared, however, for the way Ambassador Takami kills his prey.
We were sitting by the fire, Kacchan and Kirishima were talking about something (I wasn’t really paying attention) while I focused on some drawings. I’ve been trying to sketch the structure of Takami’s wings and tail. Harpies have their wings on their backs as an extra set of limbs, rather than having feathers growing directly from their arms like sirens have. It’s fascinating, honestly, trying to imagine how the bones and muscles must be organized, the mechanics of how harpies fly. I have been really focused on his tail, actually. He seems to use it like a rudder to balance himself in the air, and he twists it to change directions and make sharp turns. It's so different from what Shinsou does, which is interesting. Siren tails are long like a peacock’s, while harpy tails are shorter and stiffer like a hawk’s. Siren tails actually just get in the way when they fly, and makes it so they can only fly slowly or glide over short distances because the enormous feathers just weigh them down.
It makes sense, actually, once you think about it. Sirens are ambush predators, they lie in wait until their prey gets close enough, and then they just sing them into submission. They don’t need to be fast or agile, once they trap something with their voice they can just command it to stand still, or to stop breathing. Harpies are true predators, like hawks and eagles. They rely on their incredible speed in the air, snatching prey off the ground and going for quick kills using their talons and fangs. Fascinating really.
Anyways, I was trying to draw Takami’s wings and tail from memory when suddenly a thing dropped from the sky and landed with a horrible crunch in the middle of our campsite.
A deer. Takami dropped a fucking deer from 200 feet in the air.
It landed head-first, and its skull exploded from the impact. It took me a few seconds to register that there were pieces of deer brain splattered on me, it was hot and wet and fuck there was so much blood… Its skull was cracked open, the eyes were bloody and glassy, hanging by the optic nerve out of their sockets. Its jaw was broken and hanging obscenely, revealing shattered teeth and a lacerated tongue.
I couldn’t help it, I screamed . As soon as I realized I was covered in the poor creature’s brains I lost it. I was trying to get it off, it was everywhere, in my hair, on my clothes, on my face, in my mouth…
Kacchan laughed at me, obviously. Called me a lily-livered pansy and weak and just…
Ambasador Takami apologized afterwards for the apparently ‘traditional’ way harpies kill their prey. He explained that they most commonly drop them from very high up onto rocks below. This is in an attempt at a humane slaughter method, since death upon impact with the ground is instantaneous, even though it isn’t very pretty to look at. It was not his intention to drop the deer directly into our campsite, he was aiming for a rocky outcropping about 30 feet to the north.
Takami skinned and butchered the deer quickly, and had the meat roasting over the fire within half an hour.
Kacchan and Kirishima ate with him, but I lost my appetite. Everytime I close my eyes I just see that smashed skull, the hanging jaw, and eyes dangling out of their sockets…
I don’t think I’ll be able to eat meat again for a while.
September 28
I am so tired. Sleeping on the ground is starting to really hurt my back, and I’m not sleeping well. Kacchan snores, and that nightingale with the band around its leg keeps singing at weird hours of the night. I’m surprised we haven’t traveled out of its territory yet, nightingales must have a bigger range than I realized.
Kacchan and Kirishima spend a lot of time talking to each other, which I’m honestly grateful for. Kacchan is my friend, but he’s also kind of a bully, and he has always picked on me. It’s kind of nice to have his attention focused on someone else. He still explodes Kirishima, but his scales are indestructible and it doesn’t hurt him at all. He just laughs and smacks Kacchan right back. I guess Shinsou was right, Kirishima does mellow Kacchan out a bit.
They entertain each other, which gives me a lot of time to think. I’ve figured out how to write in my journals and ride at the same time, so I’ve spent a lot of time taking notes on the changing environment. My horse just follows the others, so I don’t actually need to do much except stay sitting on top of her.
Kirishima is fun to draw, there are a ton of different scale types on him, several just on his tail alone. He seems to mostly have scales on his back, arms, and legs, but just a few on the edges of his face. He has a forked tongue too, which he can actually wrap around things to pull them into his mouth. I wonder if anyone has ever studied when dragonkin diverged from actual dragons, there must be a way to estimate that. I think dragonkin are more closely related to fire dragons than ice dragons, considering they are native to the south rather than the north, but that’s just speculation. A few rare dragonkin can breathe fire, but that’s relatively uncommon. Are there populations of dragonkin who can breathe ice? Note, ask Kirishima about this later.
September 29
We stopped in a town today. It was small, but there was a shop where we could stock up on some supplies. I bought some trail food, these compressed blocks of nuts and honey that taste kind of like baklava but crunchier, and some jerky (I just cannot bring myself to eat the animals Takami catches for us. I know it's still meat, I just… It’s different.) Kirishima bought some little honey cakes, and Kacchan bought some goat cheese and these spicy fried vegetable chips that almost burned my tongue off when I tried them. Takami bought these really expensive rose flavored candies, but he hasn’t even touched them. Could they be a gift for the Queen, perhaps?
I chatted with the shopkeeper a bit while Takami looked at a bunch of different things (he also bought a book of love poems, which seems like an… odd choice, but whatever). I mentioned that we were on our way to Sekoto, and the shopkeeper just… froze. She started shaking, and she looked scared . She pulled me in and started whispering, begging me not to go to Sekoto. It scared me, and I asked her why, but before she could explain Takami butted into the conversation with a loud chirp and said we had to leave.
I still have no idea what that was about. Maybe this town was subjected to a raid during the war? But there has been peace for three years, why would she still warn us against traveling to the capital?
I wanted to stay the night in the town (god I want to sleep in a bed so badly) but Takami said we had to keep moving.
I’m tired. I just want to get to our destination already, my whole body hurts and everyone is starting to get grumpy, but we still have like five days to go.
God I can’t wait to sleep in a bed again.
September 30
We finally saw our first evergreen trees! They are crazy to look at, from a distance they look fluffy, but the needles on the trees are actually stiff and pokey when you touch them. The needles are dark too, and now I understand why it’s called the Black Forest. The conifers are very dense, so they don’t let nearly as much light down onto the forest floor. There are still plenty of deciduous trees as well, and those are changing color even faster. There is hardly any green left, just reds, yellows, and oranges, interspersed with the really dark, almost black-green of the pine trees.
And oh my god, pine cones. I have never seen a fruit so bizarre. Kirishima taught us to crush the pine cones open, and there are pine nuts inside. They are rather oily but very good. Kacchan likes to cook, so he spent all day giving Kirishima pine cones to crush in his claws, and picking the nuts out. He gathered up quite a lot, and used them in our dinner. I passed on the rabbit he stuffed with pine nuts and chestnuts, but the salad he made with dandelion greens, the goat cheese he bought in town yesterday, honey, and pine nuts was actually really good.
I could really go for some rice though. I can’t remember the last time I’ve gone more than a few days without rice. It feels weird. They should have rice in Sekoto, right? It’s a royal palace, the Todorokis must have a proper kitchen. I wonder what northern curries are like.
October 1
I am scared.
I was trying to sleep, but Kacchan snores and there was a nightingale singing and my back hurt and I just couldn’t get comfortable. I was up really late, I gave up trying to sleep at a certain point and started drawing instead. Kacchan was holding onto Kirishima’s tail in his sleep again, so I drew a portrait of them cuddling (it turned out great, maybe I’ll show it to Kirishima at some point if he promises to keep it a secret). I was starting to draw Takami sleeping up in his tree when I heard this low, haunting call.
It took me a few seconds to realize that it was wolves. Howling.
I’ve never heard wolves howling before, but I’ve heard stories. Wolves descending on people’s campsites at night, ripping them to shreds in their sleep. They wander in packs, and even if you kill one, two more will replace it. They’re supposed to be huge and dangerous and hungry .
And I don’t have weapons. Or magic to explode them with. Or scales that make me bite proof. Or wings to let me fly away.
If wolves descended on us in the middle of the night I would be killed while everyone else fought them off and escaped.
I’ve been awake for hours now, listening to howling wolves and a nightingale singing.
I don’t think I will be able to sleep.
October 2
I told Takami about the wolves, but he didn’t seem worried about it. I don’t doubt that Takami could fight them all if need be, but would they kill me before he could kill them?
I heard the wolves again tonight. Kacchan is scared too, I can tell from the way he stares into the dark and sits pressed up against Kirishima, but he doesn’t say anything.
I didn’t think Kacchan could be scared of anything.
The deciduous trees are thinning out, and the forest is steadily becoming more and more filled with pine trees. It’s getting darker too. It’s cloudy and overcast all the time now, and the temperature is dropping. It’s getting cold and dark, and wet . It’s almost always drizzling, or windy, and in the morning there is always a dense fog that makes it almost impossible to navigate. We keep trying to follow the dark outline of wings against a gray sky, but we keep losing Takami. We ride for hours in what we hope is a straight line before Takami appears again, circling above our heads and cawing.
It feels like there's a vulture above our heads during the day, and the cold is seeping into my bones.
At night the nightingale and wolves keep me awake.
I want to go home.
October 3
I just want to sleep.
The wolves and nightingale are keeping me awake again. I’m so tired. I’m cold, my clothes are always wet, and no matter how many layers I put on it always feels like I’m freezing.
Takami is disappearing for longer and longer periods of time. We rode for over five hours today without seeing him. It scared me, and I really thought we were going to get lost in this horrible, dark forest. He keeps coming back with dead foxes, and I don’t understand why. He only kills the white ones, and he goes after the fluffiest ones he can find. He ties them to the pack horse, and the blood leaks out of their cut throats and leaves a macabre red trail down the side of the horse and on the ground behind us.
He spent almost two hours tonight skinning all the foxes he caught and stretching the hides to dry. Once they are dry he puts them in this big container of this gross-smelling solution he mixed up. Apparently they will stay in the tanning solution until we arrive in Sekoto. Why on earth Takami is attempting to collect a ridiculous number of white fox pelts before we get to Sekoto, I have no idea.
Takami is… kind of weird. After dinner he just flies up to a tree, curling up with the book of love poems he bought and chirping softly to himself. He has finished one of the fox pelts, the first one he caught as soon as we entered the Black Forest, and he is sleeping with the white fur clutched tightly in his arms. He’s weirdly obsessed with it, running his talons through the fur and grooming it, making tiny chirping and cooing sounds at it, and once or twice I think I heard him talking to it. One night I swear I heard him read one of the love poems to the white fur, but it was whispered so quietly I may have been imagining it.
And his ring. He stares at his ring when he thinks we aren’t looking, eyes distant and unfocused. If he isn’t staring at his ring he is staring north, towards the mountains that are just starting to creep up on the horizon.
He’s talking less and less, focused on moving north as quickly as possible.
Takami is… off, and I don’t know why he is behaving so strangely.
I don’t like it.
October 4
Tomorrow is our last day of travel, thank god. I am so, so tired. I have barely slept all week, and everything hurts. Kacchan is getting grumpy. He exploded at least eleven trees today, and even Kirishima is having trouble getting him to settle. We barely saw Takami at all today, just moving blindly north and hoping we were going the right way.
We made camp earlier than usual. Takami found a river for us to bathe in. It was freezing, but it was better than being filthy. He spent hours preening his wings, obsessing over every feather and making sure his wings looked perfect.
Takami’s behavior has evolved past just being odd. He chattered to himself non-stop. He can't sit still, he flutters and squawks and paces, chewing at his wings, hiding in a tree to groom a white fox fur, and going on midnight flights to ‘clear his head’. He barely talks, staring towards the north with a single minded intensity that I have never seen.
He is apparently dying to get to Sekoto, and I think it frustrates him beyond belief that he has to escort us the entire way and cannot simply fly the last hundred miles by himself in a couple hours. Why he is so anxious to get there I have no idea. Sure, we all want to be done with this trip, but Takami is practically losing his mind.
What is in Sekoto that could possibly be so important?
Not even Kacchan can ruin Midoriya’s mood today. Today is the final day of their journey to Sekoto, and the young heir could not be more excited. Finally, after two weeks of spending the entire day on horseback and sleeping on cold, hard ground, they are finally arriving in Endeavor’s capital city. Finally, Midoriya will get to sleep in a bed, take a bath, and eat something other than dried flatbread, blocks of nuts and honey, and overly spiced and salty jerky. (Ambassador Takami has been catching various animals along the way, but Midoriya has politely declined the offers of barely cooked, bleeding meat that the harpy and Kirishima seem to enjoy. Takami only dropped a deer into their campsite the one time, thank Christ, killing the rest of his prey with his fangs and talons out of sight before bringing them back for dinner.) Finally, he will get to have freshly brewed tea and properly cooked rice and curry again. He couldn’t be more excited.
Takami, Midoriya, and Kirishima have all dressed up in anticipation of meeting Queen Fuyumi today, putting on formal silk sherwanis and applying small amounts of scented oils to cover the slightly unpleasant smell of the road. Midoriya has rapidly learned to dress in layers in the increasingly cold weather, and has layered his formal clothing over a layer of linen and rough silk shalwar kameez. He is wearing his favorite (and most expensive) sherwani, a tailored suit made from intricately embroidered and beaded silk in brilliant shades of emerald accented with rick black, fastened with glittering onyx buttons. He has gone through the trouble of applying a small amount of kohl around his eyes today, which he hopes distracts from his slightly messy hair. Kirishima is wearing a similar sherwani to his own in a bright, brilliant red that matches his scales, tail, and hair. The bright outfit brings out the shine in the little patches of red scales scattered across his arms and the back of his neck, as well as the diverse array of crimsons present in his massive reptilian tail.
Ambassador Takami is wearing the most ostentatious outfit of them all, a brilliant red and gold sherwani absolutely covered in intricate embroidery with what appears to be thread made from actual gold and inlaid with little rubies and garnets. The harpy (as most harpies have a tendency to) has also covered himself in jewelry. Each wrist has a dozen golden bangles that clink and jingle every time he moves, the bright metallic sounds announcing his presence like a dozen little bells. He is wearing a wide, collar necklace of gold and rubies around his neck, brilliant square ruby earrings to match, and more bangles and rings around his ankles and on the talons of his feet. The only exception is the harpy’s hands, which Midoriya cannot help but find slightly odd. His fingers are bare apart from the single gold band inlaid with a large, solitary ruby on his left hand. The ring stands out against the black of his talons, always glimmering brightly in the cold northern sun.
(Bakugou technically dressed up, although not very well. He is wearing a black and orange sherwani that Lady Mitsuki undoubtedly forced him to pack, but he wears the top bit unbuttoned and with sagging pants that are a size too big. Kirishima tried but failed to dissuade his friend from applying his usual amount of kohl, and as such Bakugou has an almost obscene amount of messy, smeared black around his eyes. He looks absolutely terrible, which is unfortunately rather typical.)
The further north they have traveled, the more and more obvious it is that they have left the warm, temperate coasts of Yuuei behind. The sky in Endeavor is perpetually gray and overcast, the land covered in dense, dark forests, and it is already fairly chilly even though autumn has just started. The main road north winds through a dense forest, deciduous trees with leaves that have turned orange and red increasingly interspersed with dark, looming conifers. The air seems almost thin, and the three teenagers find themselves increasingly exercise intolerant as the altitude steadily increases. The paved road gave way to packed earth and mud a while ago, and it makes trudging through cold, wet weather all the worse. It has been drizzling and misty for the last four days in a row, and all of their clothes feel perpetually damp and freezing cold. Endeavor is, apparently, a downright dreary country.
Despite the increasingly dark and depressing weather, Ambassador Takami seems absolutely delighted. They’ve been riding for several hours, but the former general keeps diving and twirling in the air, chirping excitedly and making these loud, hawk-like screeches. Kacchan seems annoyed at the harpy’s antics, but Midoriya and Kirishima both rather enjoy the sight. It’s odd, Midoriya honestly expected the former general to be more serious and somber about the entire situation (If Midoriya were in Takami’s situation, he doubts he would be nearly as pleased about having to return to the country responsible for his long imprisonment), but instead the harpy seems absolutely thrilled to be coming back to Sekoto.
They have been riding to their destination for the better part of the afternoon when Midoriya finally notices a break in the treeline. The road takes one last little turn out of the dark forest, revealing the capital city of Sekoto. The entire city is built on an incline at the base of Sekoto Peak, with a gigantic, dark, rather austere stone castle perched on the very last bit of flat ground at the top of the city. Just behind the castle a massive mountain shoots up into the sky, cutting a harsh line against the gray and black clouds. The mountain is almost entirely dark gray granite, not a single tree growing much further above the castle at the highest point of elevation in the city. The buildings are all remarkably drab, built from blocks of ugly, slate-colored stone with dark wooden roofs. Everything looks cold and horribly, horribly dark. The northern city is a harsh contrast to the warm, coastal city of Musutafu, a metropolitan population center filled with white plaster buildings, frequent courtyards overflowing with mediterranean plants and brightly tiled fountains, colorful rugs and intricate tile work decorating the multi-level houses. Sekoto just looks gray and cold and… ugly.
The most obvious (and alarming) sight however, is the mountain itself. The face of Sekoto peak is marred by a gigantic black obsidian crater towards the top of the mountain. Midoriya’s mouth drops open in astonishment, a rush of anxiety running through him. It looks like someone quite literally melted a hole into the side of the mountain, and the sight chills him to the bone.
What on earth could have possibly made that?
“Whoa… now that was definitely not there three years ago…” mumbles Kirishima, pulling his horse to a stop at the edge of the treeline. Bakugou doesn’t say anything, brows furrowed and expression dark as he stares up at the ominous hole in the side of the mountain. Midoriya swallows anxiously, gripping the reins just a little harder, mind racing through the possibilities.
The only creatures he can think of who could possibly have done that are a wyvern or a dragon, but that doesn’t make any sense. The only dragons and wyverns that should exist this far north should be of the ice variety, although he supposes it is not impossible that a fire-breather couldn’t have flown a little too far north during a migration. Even then, dragons and wyverns tend to avoid population centers and keep to the mountains instead, unless Sekoto is far enough into the mountain range that they would ignore the threat of sentients and descend upon the city regardless? And if so, why burn the mountain rather than the buildings below? A dragon doesn’t really make sense, but he can’t think of anything else with fire magic that is also large enough to do something like that, unless one of the previous Todoroki kings was just that strong? But no, Kirishima just said that the mountain didn’t look like that three years ago, and after the death of King Enji all the remaining Todoroki children have ice magic instead, so that doesn’t make sense eith–
“Quit your fucking mumbling Deku,” snaps Bakugou, pulling the anxious human from his thoughts. He blushes brightly, mouth going dry. Fuck, he was saying all of that out loud again, wasn’t he?
“Uh, sorry Kacchan,” he mutters, cringing down and avoiding eye contact. Bakugou just gives an annoyed ‘tch’ before urging his horse forwards. Kirishima shoots Midoriya a sympathetic little glance before he clicks at his own mount, following Bakugou down the little hill leading towards the front gates of the city. Midoriya sighs and follows, encouraging his mare and the pack horse lashed to his saddle back to a gentle walk.
The three teenagers ride towards the front gates of the city in silence. The forest road gives way to a cobblestone walkway, slightly damp from last night’s rain. The outer city walls are made of dark, slate-gray stone the same color as the buildings, dotted by the occasional guard pacing along the top. The wall is decorated by banners bearing the Todoroki family sigil every forty feet or so, the writhing form of a crimson, orange, and brilliant yellow phoenix on a field of black waving in the perpetual wind coming from the east. The gate itself is made of dark wood and iron, already open as a few people trickle in and out carrying baskets of goods or guiding mule-drawn carts. There are surprisingly few people milling around, and beyond the gate Midoriya can see that the streets appear to be largely deserted. There are two guards flanking the gate, dressed in dull gray chainmail and dark blue cloaks. Midoriya’s gaze wanders back up, eyes fixed on the jagged and melted mountain dominating the entire horizon to the north. The mountain looms over them, casting a deep shadow over the entire city and making the air even colder.
Something about this place feels… off, and he can’t quite put his finger on what the problem is. The air is filled with the pervasive feeling of unease, and the hair on the back of his neck starts to stand up. He decides to attribute his goosebumps to the cold and constant biting wind blowing from the east, trying to ignore the clawing voice at the back of his mind telling him to turn around and avoid the city entirely.
Midoriya is still staring at the almost black silhouette of the mountain when he practically jumps out of his saddle in alarm at the loud thwum of wings suddenly snapping open above their heads. Ambassador Takami lands just in front of them in a few massive wingbeats and the loud scrape of deadly talons landing on slightly damp cobblestone. The horses spook, whinnying loudly and rearing up as they are buffeted by the surprisingly strong wind generated by the enormous, blood red wings. The three teenagers grip onto their saddles and work to calm their horses, the poor animals plagued by an instinctual fear of the enormous raptor amongst them. Midoriya manages to calm his mare rather quickly, patting at her neck and tutting softly. Bakugou struggles, his attempts to simply yell his own mount into submission backfiring spectacularly until his horse bucks him off. The blond mage crashes to the ground in a rumpled heap, cursing violently while Kirishima just laughs at his expense. Takami chirps in amusement, digging his talons into the stone as he folds his almost fifteen foot wingspan tightly onto his back.
“Alright there, Bakugou?” laughs Takami, wings puffing slightly behind him. “Careful now, I don’t want to have to tell Mitsuki her son ended up at the healer’s before he even stepped foot in Sekoto.” Bakugou just curses louder, scrambling to his feet to catch the reins of his horse before it can buck off his saddlebags as well. Midoriya rushes to dismount and run to Bakugou’s side, reaching up to catch the dangling reins and help him calm his horse with a few gentle words. The frightened gelding finally settles, nose blowing and snorting anxiously as he paws at the ground, still tossing his head.
“Shh.. it’s alright, shh… there you go…” mutters Midoriya, petting at the gelding’s muzzle and continuing to calm the frightened creature. He glances over at Bakugou who is scowling and straightening his messy clothes, a slight bruise starting to bloom along his cheek. “Are you alright Kacchan?”
“Fuck off,” the blond snaps, magic popping off in his hands a few times. Kirishima dismounts from his own horse, leading the reins of his mare in a clawed hand, tail swaying gently behind him. Takami chirps again, flicking his wings.
“Sounds like he’s fine,” the harpy caws, waving a taloned hand casually over his shoulder as he turns around the walk the last twenty yards towards the front gate. “Come on chicklets, we are burning daylight! Hurry along now.” Midoriya hands the reins of the gelding back to Bakugou, the irritated blond snatching them from his outstretched hand with a growl before stomping forwards to follow Takami up the hill. Midoriya sighs, walking back to his own mare and giving her a few comforting little pats before guiding her and the pack horse to follow the others. The guards allow them to pass without question or comment, simply giving Ambassador Takami a silent nod in acknowledgement as they pass. The harpy whistles a little greeting and waves, a bright smile on his face. Midoriya just shrinks down and tries to hide behind his horse, shoulders bowed anxiously.
They walk up the main street that winds up through the center of the city toward the castle above them, the gray cobblestone road flanked by cramped stone buildings that cast long, deep shadows across the road and the black alleyways that spider in every direction. All the buildings are at least two to three stories tall, built narrow and tightly packed as they stack up the base of the mountain and along twisting, confusing walkways. Midoriya glances around anxiously, following about ten feet behind Kirishima and clinging tightly to his horse. The entire city looks like a maze of identical buildings and dark alleys, with no apparent rhyme or reason to its construction.
It takes about five minutes before Midoriya realizes what is making him so bloody anxious. The city is silent, the streets almost entirely abandoned. There is no chatter, no music, no sounds of carts rattling, no yells of people haggling in a market. There isn’t even birdsong, just the pervasive and eerie groan of the wind filtering between the buildings, and the clip clop of their horses’ hooves as they trek up the stone street. Over a million people live in this stone city, but it seems utterly abandoned. The hair on his arms starts to stand up, paranoia crawling into his mind. Something is wrong.
Once he really starts looking however, Midoriya realizes that the city is not actually as empty as it seems. If he looks carefully they are surrounded by hundreds of eyes. There are people hiding in alleys or peering from second story windows, hidden and huddled under layers of dark gray and blue fabrics, glaring silently from their hiding places in the shadows. People are staring, silently and suspiciously, standing still as statues as they watch with unblinking, dark eyes as the foreigners walk through the center street. He looks up, making brief but unblinking eye contact with a pair of glowing red eyes staring at him from a third story window. He starts to white-knukle grip the reins in his hand, pulling his cotton jacket closed over his sherwani as if he could hide in it. The owner of the glowing red eyes continues to stare, gaze piercing into his soul as it follows them down the street. Their features are obscured, but the eyes are certainly not human. Midoriya catches a glimpse of a pale hand reaching up to scratch anxiously at the person’s neck before the figure vanishes from the window.
Midoriya turns to stare at the dark, damp stone street instead, heart beating far too fast as he follows the lead of the dragonkin ten paces ahead.
The walk up to the castle gates is surprisingly long, winding through the narrow cobblestone streets spidering out from the castle gate at the top of the city. The entire city is built on an incline at the base of the mountain, and the closer they get to Sekoto castle the steeper and steeper the streets become. That, coupled with the significant difference in altitude when compared to the coastal city of Musutafu, leaves them breathless. Midoriya is panting by the time they reach the castle gates, and he can only partially attribute his racing heartbeat to his anxiety. Even Bakugou is breathing heavily, although he tries to hide it. Ambassador Takami, on the other hand, seems utterly unaffected. He must be accustomed to breathing extremely thin air when he flies, Midoriya realizes, and the cold mountain air must be nothing to him. The former general also looks bizarrely ecstatic, starting to make a strange whistling and trilling sound as he hops and bounces along the floor, wings half open and tail flared widely. Why on earth the harpy is so excited to be in this miserable city, Midoriya has absolutely no idea.
They finally reach the front gates of the castle grounds, a massive door made of thick, iron bars, flanked on either side by twenty foot walls of stone. The massive blocks must weigh a ton each, and Midoriya cannot even begin to imagine how many men it must have taken to move even a single stone. It, like the rest of the stone buildings in the city, is made from dark gray granite, clearly harvested from the base of the mountain above them. The guards posted at the gate must know the ambassador by sight alone, because they bow deeply as soon as he approaches.
“Hello there!” chirps the harpy, a beaming smile on his face. “Thought I’d be polite and use the front door this time. I know Captain Inui got a little uppity last time when the kids came in by themselves and I just flew in.” He turns to gesture at the three teenagers behind him, wings flaring slightly for emphasis. “So, tada! Official introduction. These are my companions this year! Fun bunch, huh? ”
“Ambassador,” greets one of the guardsmen with a terse little bow. The rest of the guards do not respond, staring at the far too cheerful harpy with blank, tired looks. They seem largely unfazed, apparently (and begrudgingly) accustomed to Ambassador Takami’s overly outgoing (and perhaps slightly annoying) behavior. Midoriya shifts his weight awkwardly, anxiety building. Kirishima and Bakugou seem rather unbothered by the increasingly cold and uneasy atmosphere, wearing a brilliant smile and an annoyed scowl respectively. Midoriya just starts chewing obsessively at his lip, soft mumbles tumbling involuntarily out of his mouth. Takami chatters loudly, hopping in place.
“Oh! And I followed instructions and did NOT fly straight in with a chimera or wyvern this time. Fuyumi got a little annoyed last time, something about dripping blood on peoples heads and on the roof. See? I can follow instructions!” The guards just glare at the squawking harpy, while Midoriya turns to stare at Takami with an incredulous look on his face. He did what last time?? “Although, Yumi compromised and said I could bring in prey on Tuesdays as long as I don’t leave any heads on the roof, just so you know. Maybe wear a hat those days.” The guardsman that spoke before gives an exasperated little sigh.
“It is a pleasure to have you back, as always, Ambassador Takami,” he says in a voice that implies that he does not, in fact, find the harpy’s visit a pleasure in the slightest. The harpy chirps brightly regardless, skipping forwards through the gate with another little wave.
“Always a pleasure, Lieutenant Hiro! Say hello to the wife for me!” The guardsman looks up at the sky with a face that says he is seriously contemplating quitting before he waves the three teenagers through with an exhausted sigh. Midoriya gives them a guilty little bow as he walks past, giving his horse a gentle little tug.
The southern lawn of the palace grounds is enormous, a large field of long grass topped with tiny sheafs of autumn seeds that are just starting to turn a pale yellow waving in the perpetual wind. The lawn slopes gently upwards towards the front gate of the castle, an enormous building constructed of a slightly paler shade of gray granite when compared to the rest of the city. The castle is asymmetric and tiered, built on an incline on the last bit of semi-workable ground before the sheer wall of Sekoto Peak juts up and into the sky. From the outside the castle appears to be a haphazard collection of disconnected wings built in phases over the years, topped by towers, spires, and chimneys of various heights and shapes. The tallest point is the northeastern tower, the top fenestrated by archers' windows. The castle backs up into the sheer cliff of the mountain, almost enveloped in stone. It is absolutely nothing like the royal palace in Musutafu. Bakugou is silent for once, red eyes fixed on the impressive castle with an analytic glare.
They are able to pass off their horses to a row of stablehands waiting just outside the front doors of the castle, and a small cluster of maids help to unhook all their saddlebags for transport to wherever they will be staying. The ambassador’s personal bag (marked by a few large red feathers tied to the top) is left untouched, however, the cluster of maids seemingly going out of their way to avoid touching the bag at all costs. Takami does not seem to notice or care, seemingly content to leave the bag on the ground in front of the castle door as he walks inside. Midoriya exchanges a questioning glance with Kirishima before the dragonkin just shrugs and follows the harpy inside, followed closely by Bakugou who does not appear to give a shit about the staff’s odd behavior. Midoriya hesitates, before making a move to pick up the ambassador’s bag and bring it inside himself.
“No, don’t…” a maid with long, sea-green hair tied into a bow abruptly grabs Midoriya's arm, stopping him from touching Takami’s bag. Her hand feels bizarrely sticky and slightly cold, and her eyes are a little too large for her face. And her tongue… is she a frog hybrid? Midoriya gives the maid a long, confused look.
“But–” she just shakes her head.
“No. Don’t touch it. Ribbit. She will come and get it soon. Nobody else touches his things,” she whispers, voice low and croaking. She’s definitely part frog. Midoriya just frowns.
“What? But that doesn’t make any–”
“No. You never, ever touch the ambassador’s things,” she whispers, fingers gripping into his arm almost painfully. Midoriya gently pulls his arm away, swallowing nervously at the maid who is staring at him with the most deadly serious look he has ever seen in his life. He finally nods, which seems to provide the young woman with a small measure of assurance.
“I uh… alright. I’m Midoriya, by the way. Midoriya Izuku,” he says, plastering a nervous smile on his face. The frog-girl gives him a long, slightly blank-eyed look, her obscenely wide mouth parting ever so slightly as she darts a long, sticky tongue up to lick her own eyes.
Alright, that’s gross.
“Asui Tsuyu,” she croaks. She is holding her arms in front of her body, wrists limp and hands dangling like an animal standing on its hind legs. She lets out this long, low ribbit, pouch at her throat expanding and contracting along with the sound. “But you can call me Tsu. I’m assigned to take care of you and the other exchange students while you’re here. If you need something, come to me, ribbit.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Tsu,” he smiles, tilting his head. Her facial expression does not change.
“Your friends already went inside, you’re already late,” she croaks. Midoriya turns around with a startled ‘eep’, sprinting through the doors into the castle, waving over his shoulder.
“Thanks, Tsu!” he calls. The frog-girl just stares after him, tongue flicking up to lick her eyeball again.
He’s going to have to get used to that, it’s rude to stare.
He jogs into the main foyer of the castle, stopping in his tracks when he almost crashes into Kirishima’s back. He and Bakugou are standing in the middle of the foyer, whispering to themselves while Takami chats to another maid. She bounces in place and calls him ‘Hawksie’ a few times, which is weird, but Midoriya is quickly distracted by the inside of the building.
The main foyer is massive , and the palest, light gray to almost white stone was clearly saved for the interior of the castle. The main door is decorated with extensive gold filigree, and there is a large, round tessellated window above the door that allows in the sparse sunlight, lighting up the pale stonework and making everything almost glitter. There are enormous sets of stairs leading to the east and west, and two sets of mirrored doors that look like they lead to ballrooms, or maybe a throne room. A few officials in elaborate councilor’s robes wander past, and a few guards are stationed at the entrance to the foyer, but otherwise the castle seems remarkably quiet. His eyes dart around, trying to memorize the space, only halfway paying attention to what is going on around him.
Kirishima and Bakugou are still whispering at each other. Kirishima giggles softly and gives Bakugou an affectionate little punch on the arm. The blond scowls and lets off a small explosion in Kirishima’s face, but the dragonkin just giggles again, claiming the explosions tickle. Takami seems to be wrapping up his conversation with the maid in the corner. He is muttering, but the massive stone foyer echoes and carries his voice farther than is likely intended.
“He still not coming out for family dinners? I know he’s largely nocturnal at this point, but he could at least come out for dinner.” The harpy whispers, wings flaring slightly. The massive wings obscure Midoriya’s view of the maid, but she has a bizarre, giggling manner of speaking.
“Oh, you know him. He’s still being all dark and broody, it would ruin his image otherwise. Shouto still goes up to his bedroom so they can have breakfast together a few times a week though, so that keeps him social. You know, aside from going to Kurogiri’s bar every night,” she snickers. “Ask him about his latest fight with Tomura, it was hilarious.”
Takami laughs softly, wings puffing.
“I’ll make sure to do that. Run along now, if he doesn’t hear from one of us soon he’s going to have a conniption. Just let him know I’ll be up in like five minutes, gotta introduce the new kids.”
“Alright Hawksie! I know tonight you guys will be busy getting down and dirty, but you better come down to the bar tomorrow night. You know Jin is dying to see you again.”
“Language, Toga!” squawks the harpy, but he quickly lets his mock offense turn into a lighthearted laugh. “Yeah, we will be there, don’t worry. I’ll see you for dinner?”
“Yup! I’ll go tell him you’re coming. HA, get it? Cuz soon you’ll be–”
“Alight!” Takami whips around, wings flared. “Chicklets! Come on now, time to meet the queen!” he practically yells, voice high pitched and embarrassed. Midoriya can hear snickering laughter from the maid obscured behind the harpy’s wings, but quickly gets distracted as the harpy starts flapping and pushing the three teenagers forwards through the large double doors as quickly as possible.
Midoriya stumbles on his own feet, allowing himself to get pushed along with only a small squeak of embarrassment. Bakugou growls and pops off a small explosion at Takami, but Kirishima manages to jump in the way and block the blond’s wayward magic with his face.
“C’mon man, chill,” mutters the dragonkin, tail sneaking up to wrap around Bakugou’s waist. The mage instantly seems to calm down, voice dropping to a low grumble as they get ushered into the throne room.
As soon as the doors open and they step into the throne room, Midoirya fails to suppress a gasp. The room is enormous, lined with pale columns decorated in gold and silver, arching up to create a tall, vaulted ceiling. There is a row of absolutely enormous stained glass windows lining the far wall, surrounding a dais. There is a large, imposing throne made of pale, almost white wood, decorated with gold and flanked by two other, smaller chairs on either side.
“Keigo!”
“Yumi!” The ambassador’s voice is a bright chirp, flaring his wings and crossing the throne room in the blink of an eye and several powerful wingbeats. Huh, apparently the two of them are on a first name basis. That’s… odd. A woman who Midoriya can only assume is Queen Fuyumi rises from the throne to greet him.
She is of average height with a rather thin build, and she doesn’t actually look all that much like a queen. Her dress is remarkably simple, made of fine, bright blue linen layered over a midnight blue shift. The skirt is moderately wide with a few feet of train, and long bell sleeves that fall to only a foot above the floor. The only real decoration on the dress is a one inch trim embroidered with golden thread and glass beads along the edge of her skirt, neckline, and bell-sleeves. Her hair, predominantly white with small streaks of red throughout, is tied up in a simple bun, and she wears little black spectacles that seem a little too large for her small face. A remarkably understated white gold crown rests on her head, designed to look like a ring of flames, although Midoriya knows the Queen has ice magic rather than the flames of her forefathers. It must be a crown that has been passed down, rather than custom made for the queen.
It’s odd, the northern style of dress is apparently completely different from the styles of southern clothing and hair Midoriya is accustomed to. Noblewomen in Yuuei wear lightweight, gauzy silks in extremely bright colors, elaborately embroidered and heavily beaded with an almost dizzying level of complexity. There is also a much heavier emphasis on jewelry, with most wealthy women’s arms decorated with layers and layers of golden bangles, bright jeweled necklaces, and elaborate golden earrings. Yuuei women also tend to wear their hair extremely long and in complex braided styles, or half up with long, thick waves cascading down the backs and down to their waists. Their hairstyles are usually ornamented with jeweled hair sticks, bright golden rings, and golden and jeweled pins cast to look like flowers or birds. Queen Fuyumi looks… utterly plain in comparison. It’s surprisingly jarring, especially compared to Ambassador Takami’s formal and intensely detailed red and gold sherwani complimented with an almost obscene amount of jewelry. It feels… wrong to have an ambassador dressed more richly than the queen herself.
Midoriya gives a nervous yelp of alarm when the harpy doesn’t land at the base of dais, but rather crashes head-long into the queen, chirruping loudly and wrapping her up into a massive hug.
That’s… can he just touch the queen like that? Is that allowed?
Apparently so, because she just laughs brightly and hugs him back.
“Oh, thank goodness! We were starting to get worried, it took you longer than usual to get here. Did you have any trouble on the road?” Ambassador Takami finally pulls back, holding the queen an arms length and giving another bright little chirp.
“Oh no, nothing like that, just trying to be considerate of my travel companions. No wings, you know. Nejire, Amajiki, and Mirio almost killed me last time when I tried to make them make the trip in one week.”
(Holy shit, one week?? The trip from Musutafu to Sekoto was exhausting and miserable in two weeks, Midoriya cannot even comprehend trying to make the long journey in half the time. That would be utter lunacy.)
“Well, I’m glad you’re finally here,” the queen says with a kind smile. “Touya was worried sick.” The harpy’s wings lower slightly, voice dropping into a soft croon.
“How is he? He isn’t always entirely honest in his letters, I know he doesn’t want me worrying.” Takami’s voice drops to a soft whisper, and Midoriya can barely make out what he is saying. He tries to look away, this seems like a private conversation. Bakugou is not bothering to hide that fact that he is listening in, carmine eyes darting between the harpy and the queen. He is scowling and, oh, he’s probably just annoyed that they are being ignored. Midoriya rolls his eyes.
“It’s been up and down,” says the queen, voice falling to barely above a whisper. Yes this is definitely a private conversation, they should not be listening to this. “We switched doctors, things weren’t… working out with the old one. They started giving him lithium a couple months ago, and it seems to be helping a lot.”
“Lithium? Like, the metal?” Takami asks, voice a surprisingly soft croon.
“Well, lithium carbonate actually, it's a salt. But it’s really really helping, Keigo. It's balancing him out, especially the manic episodes. He’s been much more stable these last few months, I think you’ll be really surprised.” Takami lets out this bright, happy coo.
“That’s really good to hear. And the eating?” The queen smiles.
“That’s been better on the lithium too. It’s still not perfect, but it's better.” Takami practically beams, wings puffing up in apparent delight.
Bakugou suddenly clears his throat, loudly. Midoriya can’t help but blush brightly in embarrassment when Takami and Queen Fuyumi suddenly turn around to stare at the three teenagers standing awkwardly in the middle of the throne room and listening in on their incredibly personal conversation.
“We’re still here,” snaps Bakugou, face dropping into a prominent scowl. Midoriya lets out a startled little ‘eep’, and Kirishima curls his tail awkwardly around his feet, a sheepish smile on his face. Takami squawks in apparent embarrassment, while the queen looks mortified.
“Oh, oh my, I am so sorry,” she says, turning to face them. She pushes her glasses up with an embarrassed little smile. “Please forgive my rudeness. I am Queen Todoroki Fuyumi, it is a pleasure to have all of you as our guests.” She gives a little curtsy, and Midoriya and Kirishima scramble to bow deeply in respect. Bakugou just makes an annoyed ‘tch’ sound. Midoriya pales, and desperately tries to tug on his childhood friend’s sleeve.
“Kacchan, bow,” he whispers, heart rate increasing the longer the mage stands there and stares in annoyance at the Queen of Endeavor. Bakugou is going to give him a fucking heart attack. The queen just seems amused rather than offended, thank god, giving the human mage a little smile.
“You must be Bakugou Katsuki. Keigo has told me so much about all of you in his letters.” Midoriya and Kirishima slowly straighten up from their respectful bows.
“Yeah, whatever,” grumbles Bakugou, crossing his arms and scowling. Midoriya squeals again, wishing he could hide in his mass of green hair. His heart is still pounding in his ears, hands shaking. Oh god they’ve already made a bad impression, what if Bakugou says something really offensive and they get kicked out of the exchange program and bring shame to their whole country and to Toshinori himself and then Toshinori and Fuyumi will start fighting and what if that triggers another war and–
“You must be Kirishima Eijirou, then.” Queen Fuyumi directs her attention to the dragonkin. Kirishima gives another little bow, hands rigid at his sides. His tail thumps excitedly behind him, betraying his veneer of a calm exterior. “I have been told you have been to Sekoto before, although under extremely unpleasant circumstances. Please, accept my deepest apologies for how you and your kind were treated under my father’s rule. I know it cannot make up for your suffering, nor the suffering of thousands just like you, but I hope our country can continue to make amends and rectify our past mistakes. You are now an honored guest of ours, Kirishima Eijirou, and I hope you enjoy your time here despite the no doubt unpleasant memories.” Midoriya silently admires her diplomacy and eloquence. Toshinori is kind, but he is not nearly as well spoken. He has a feeling he will learn a great deal from his time here.
Kirishima bows deeply, tail curling along the floor.
“Thank you, your grace,” he says, straightening up to give the queen a bright, serrated smile. “I have heard nothing but good things about your leadership, and I and many of my kind are grateful to you for bringing an end to the suffering of thousands. You have our gratitude and respect.” Takami smiles approvingly at Kirishima’s answer, giving the dragonkin a little wink from where he is still standing at Queen Fuyumi’s side on the dais. The queen gives him a little curtsy, before finally training her soft, gray eyes on the last teenager in the room.
“And last but certainly not least, Midoriya Izuku, son of Seelie Midoriya Inko and heir to the throne of Yuuei.” Midoriya rushes to bow again, cheeks burning. He hates being put on the spot, it makes his heart race and he feels almost dizzy with anxiety. “I have heard a great deal about you, young Midoriya. Although, I must say, Keigo was certainly not lying about your most peculiar shade of green hair,” Fuyumi says with a kind little laugh. Midoriya’s blush deepens to a red brighter than Takami’s wings.
“Umm, yes, the uh, green,” he stammers, wringing his hands together and casting nervous glances between Takami and Queen Fuyumi. He catches Bakugou rolling his eyes but he tries to ignore the blond’s derisive stare. “It’s, uh, yeah. My mom has green hair too, but uh, not as bright. We, um, we don’t really know where it comes from.” Takami sniggers a little behind a taloned hand, wings puffing up in amusement. The queen gives Midoriya another kind smile.
“Do we not all have mysteries in our ancestry? I think it makes the world more interesting. I have also heard that you more than make up for your lack of magic and combat experience with a clever mind. I am looking forward to many long discussions with you, Midoriya.” Midoriya flushes brightly and bows again, eyes trained at his own feet. Bakugou growls beside him in obvious annoyance. The blond still seems bitterly resentful that the weak, magic-less friend he always surpassed in every conceivable way has started to become an actual rival for the attention of others. There is an uncomfortable air of competition that now colors all their interactions, even though Midoriya still looks up to Kacchan as a role model.
Fuyumi turns to give Ambassador Takami a little nudge, pushing her glasses up her nose again.
“You don’t have to stick around for all this, I know you want to go see him. Shouto should be upstairs in the library studying though, would you swing by the window on your way up and let him know our guests have arrived?” Takami practically hops in place like a parrot, wings fluttering.
“Yeah, I’ll send him down,” he chirps brightly. He flares out his wings and tail in a wide arc, flashing the three teenagers he has spent the last two weeks escorting halfway across the continent a crooked grin. “Alright chicklets, behave and listen carefully to Queen Fuyumi. Your orientation is very, very important. If you follow the rules then you’ll be just fine, got it?” Midoriya and Kirishima nod obediently, while Kacchan sneers. The harpy gives one last bright chirp before snapping his wings in a powerful downbeat, creating a massive gust of wind that pulls at their hair and clothes as he takes off, flying through the massive throne room and out through one of the open windows along the perimeter of the room.
Midoriya can hear the harpy’s bright birdsong rapidly fading away, a perfect imitation of a nightingale’s song.
“As I was saying,” says the queen, drawing their attention back up to the dais. “Welcome to Sekoto, all of you. I am sure you are exhausted from your travels, so I will keep it brief. You have tomorrow to rest and settle in, and then your classes will commence the day after. We expect you to take your courses seriously, although there is no doubt in my mind you will all be excellent students,” she says with a kind smile, the edges of her eyes wrinkling up.
“While you are here we want you all to feel at home as much as possible, and as such you will be treated as one of our own. You will each get your own bedrooms in the east wing, where the royal family lives. You will have access to the royal baths, of course, and you are welcome to share meals with myself and my brothers, Natsuo and Shouto. Natsuo will be leaving for Hosu’s medical school next week, but Shouto will be joining you in your studies this winter. All the castle facilities are free for you to use at your leisure. There is a training ring out on the southern lawn, a healer’s office on the third floor, and a full library. The library is open from ten in the morning until seven in the evening, and you are welcome to borrow any books you please so long as they do not leave the castle grounds. You are free to wander the castle as you wish, although we do strongly encourage you to be in bed by ten. There is, of course, one exception.” Queen Fuyumi’s smile drops ever so slightly, and her voice takes on a serious edge, albeit no less friendly.
“The north wing is strictly prohibited. Under no circumstances should you ever attempt to go there, and violation of this rule will result in strict disciplinary action. Do I make myself clear?”
Midoriya and Kirishima nod obediently, but he does not miss the curious glimmer in Bakugou’s eye.
Oh no, please please please let Kacchan behave–
The door to the throne room opens with a loud, reverberating creak, and Queen Fuyumi’s smile instantly returns.
“Shouto! Come say hello to our guests for this year!” she says brightly. The three teenagers turn to the door, and Midoriya’s breath catches in his throat.
Oh.
He’s…
“Uncle Keigo sent me down. Hello, guests for this year,” Prince Shouto says with a surprisingly deep voice, face impassive and utterly expressionless.
Prince Shouto is like nobody he’s ever seen. His hair is split perfectly down the middle, brilliant red and snow white, both colors complimenting his pale complexion. There is a large scar surrounding his left eye, slightly faded to a dull red, but it does not detract from his appearance. He’s a bit taller than Midoriya is, with strong shoulders on a slightly narrow frame. He has high, sharp cheekbones and a slightly round jaw, and when he get close enough to look Midoriya in the eye–
“You have heterochromia!” Midoriya blurts out, before smacking his hands over his mouth in embarrassment. Prince Shouto stops right in front of him, staring down at him with brilliant blue and gray mismatched eyes that feel like they are boring straight into his soul. He’s not even wearing any kohl, he doesn’t need it, the black would just ruin his long white and red eyelashes and oh my god .
“Yes, I do,” Shouto says, tilting his head ever so slightly. It highlights the edge of his jaw and the pale line of his throat.
Oh my god. Oh my god. Midoriya is going to have to spend the next six months studying day in and day out with someone who looks like that? His mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, and he is suddenly acutely aware of his freckles and messy hair and round, childlike-features. How does somebody that pretty exist? He is still staring at the prince with a slightly slack jawed look when–
“What the ever loving fuck are you wearing.”
Midoriya has to fight an internal groan. Bakugou just cannot keep his mouth shut, can he?
Although now that he mentions it, the prince is dressed… Well, it’s not what Midoriya would have chosen. It does, however, match the description he has been told of what northerners wear. The prince is wearing pure white, slightly form-fitting wool trousers, odd looking boots that come up almost to his knees, a white linen shirt, and bright blue woolen waistcoat decorated with gold embroidery. The neck on the waistcoat is quite high, split in the front but coming almost up to the edge of his jaw, and… are those ruffles on his neckline and sleeves?
How on earth can he breathe under all that wool?
Northern clothing is weird, he decides.
Prince Shouto just gives Bakugou a calm look, eyes darting down to look at the blond’s black and orange sherwani, before flicking his gaze back up to stare at his face. His gaze is drawn to the absolute mess of kohl Bakugou has smeared thickly around his eyes until it looks like a mask, before the corner of his mouth twists up into a slight smile.
“What is on your face? Did you get in a fight with a squid?” he asks, voice deadpan.
Kirishima just starts laughing hysterically while Midoriya slams his hands over his mouth yet again, struggling and failing to hide his sniggering laughter. Bakugou instantly scowls, a few sparks popping in his hands.
“Listen here you rich little shit,” he snarls. “I look fucking awesome, you’re the one who’s dressed like–”
“BOYS!”
The four teenagers' mouths instantly click shut, turning to stare wide-eyed at the Queen of Endeavor. A burst of ice has sprouted around her feet, and a single breath of cold fog tumbles out of her mouth. She suddenly looks terrifying , cold gray eyes looking down at them with the slight edge of disappointment. She looks like an ice queen, and Midoriya wants nothing more than to sink into the floor. She takes another long breath in through her nose and out through her mouth, before allowing her face to fall back into her gentle smile.
“Please, behave. Shouto, would you please give them a quick tour of the castle, and show them to their rooms? I’m sure they are all very tired. We can meet up for dinner at around seven?”
“Yes, Yumi.” the prince says, giving his sister a quick little bow. He quickly turns on his heel, giving a slight nod to his guests before walking away slightly too quickly. Midoriya gives a little squeak and scrambles to follow him, Kirishima and Bakugou jogging after him.
“Thank you very much, your highness!” he calls out over his shoulder, stopping to try and give the queen a quick little bow, just in time for Kirishima and Bakugou to run directly into him. Midoriya gets knocked over with a squeal. Kirishima apologizes and stops to help Midoriya up, while Bakugou blazes ahead, stomping after the prince who has already disappeared out the door and down the hall.
“Wait up, you half and half bastard!”
October 5
We are finally here in Sekoto! Thank goodness, honestly, I don’t know how much more traveling I could take.
We all get our own rooms, which is actually really nice. I have a bed, a real feather bed, and it feels amazing after sleeping on the ground for two weeks. The bed is dressed with furs, which at first sounded really hot and uncomfortable, but now I can see it is absolutely necessary. Stone castles are apparently freezing and extremely difficult to keep warm. As soon as the sun set the temperature dropped, and I was suddenly very grateful for the warm furs. I get why northerners dress head to toe in wool now.
If it's this cold now in the early autumn, how bad is it going to be when winter comes?
Also, I finally got to take a bath; a nice, warm, long bath in the royal family’s bathing room. It's a very nice communal pool, with more soaps and scrubs and oils than I have ever seen in my life.
Dinner, on the other hand was…
We had dinner with the Todoroki family. Queen Fuyumi and Prince Shouto were there, of course, and I got to meet their brother, Prince Natsuo. He is very tall and broad, but is otherwise the spitting image of his sister. His hair is pure white, however, without traces of red like Fuyumi and Shouto have. He’s very nice, apparently he is interested in medicine. He said he is leaving for the medical school in Hosu next week.
We all chatted a bit while we waited for dinner to be served, but once the maids came in with the food everyone was just… silent. Nobody spoke for almost forty five minutes. It was agony .
And the food. Oh my god the food.
Northerners apparently do not eat rice. Or curries. Or shellfish. Or anything resembling actual food.
No. Northerners eat cabbage . Boiled cabbage, pickled cabbage, stuffed cabbage, just… cabbage. Cabbage served with meat that is either boiled or roasted with mustard or all things.
Why. Just why. Why, would anyone, EVER, cover a perfectly good piece of meat in mustard .
The first course was sauerkraut soup and I honestly thought there must have been a mistake because there is no way, no POSSIBLE way anybody could ever misconstrue this as food. I thought at least the bread would be good, but it’s incredibly heavy and dense, something called pumpernickel, and it is nothing short of revolting . They drink almost exclusively beer here, and that was also just heavy and bitter and nauseating.
Kirishima ate absolutely everything, but he always eats everything. Kacchan was a bit put off by the sauerkraut soup, but he actually seemed to enjoy the weird mustard meat? Enough that he kept nodding to himself and doing that thing where he hums and chews slowly while he tries to analyze a dish so he can recreate the recipe later.
Thankfully dessert was actually good, this odd honey and apple tart that was surprisingly delicious. I had an extra helping of apple tart just to get rid of the taste of sauerkraut.
Please let breakfast tomorrow be better.
Midoriya waits anxiously at the large, imposing door, eyes stopping to linger on the threshold. The stone floor here transitions to a rippling obsidian, which is an interesting design choice, but he doesn’t dare comment. Kirishima and Bakugou are quietly muttering to each other, too caught up in their conversation to pay attention to Midoriya who is practically shaking in his boots behind them. They have been asked to come to the queen’s study after breakfast, to review some of their upcoming course material. The queen herself will be conducting their economics courses, which sounds equally exciting and terrifying.
His eyes flicker up and down the west wing, analyzing the row of stained glass windows, the tapestries, the suits of armor, the absolutely ridiculous displays of wealth that absolutely cover the hall from end to end. The west wing apparently contains government offices, conference rooms, and the queen’s private study, and as such has none of the subtlety and simplicity of design that characterizes the royal apartments in the east wing. It is just after breakfast, and the soft morning light filters in through the stained glass windows, bathing the entire hall in a dreamy rainbow of color.
He feels trapped in the moment, stuck in the soft pastel rainbow cast along the floor, like falling into a dream.
Maybe he just didn’t sleep well last night.
Bakugou is finally brave enough to knock at the door, and he is rewarded by the bright, happy voice of Queen Fuyumi emanating from inside.
“Come in!”
Bakugou and Kirishima waste no time in opening the door to the queen’s private study, and Midoriya has no choice but to trail in behind them.
It’s a surprisingly large study, the wall on the left dominated by one of the largest fireplaces he has ever seen, and the right wall filled with enormous, arching windows that let in the soft, golden morning light. The furniture is made of rich mahogany, clearly centuries old, and a massive golden chandelier filled with over a hundred magelights dominates the ceiling above their heads. The carpet appears new, however, which is a stark contrast to the antique furniture. It is a soft blue, highly detailed in the Persian style, and almost certainly imported from the lands across the southern sea. There is a large painting above the fireplace, but Midoriya does not stop to examine it, too anxious about the occupants of the room.
Queen Fuyumi is sitting behind the massive mahogany desk that appears entirely too large for a woman of her size, smiling as she adjusts her glasses. Sitting in front of her in one of the four chairs facing her desk is Prince Shouto, currently clutching a fine porcelain cup of tea.
“Good morning!” says the queen in a bright, cheerful tone, a genuine smile on her face. “I trust breakfast was to your liking?”
(It wasn’t, actually. Midoriya has no idea why anyone would ever serve fish covered with dill for breakfast, but he doesn’t dare complain. Bakugou and Kirishima seemed to enjoy it well enough.)
“Yes, your highness, thank you very much for your hospitality,” says Kirishima, taking a seat. Bakugou grumbles as he slumps into the chair next to Kirishima, leaving Midoriya the only remaining chair on the other side of Prince Shouto, closest to the fireplace. He gives a nervous smile as he sits down, trying to pull his deep green kurta somewhat straight. All his clothes are thoroughly wrinkled from being packed or dirty from the trip, and he is looking forward to getting his clothing laundered today.
“Oi, does Takami not eat? The damn bird wasn’t at breakfast today, or dinner last night.” grumbles Bakugou from where he is slouched in his chair. He jerks his thumb over his shoulder to rather rudely point at Kirishima. “He eats almost as much as lizard boy over here, there's no way he’s skippin’ meals.”
Midoriya practically chokes on his tongue, while Queen Fuyumi’s eyes widen slightly at Bakugou’s… insensitive language. Shouto just slurps his tea, loudly.
“Oh! Um, Ambassador Takami prefers to take his meals in private,” says the queen, adjusting her glasses. Shouto slurps his tea again. Bakugou frowns.
“Why? That’s fucking weird,” retorts Bakugou. Midoriya wishes he could sink through the floor.
“Because,” says Shouto, voice deep and surprisingly deadpan. He tries to hide a tiny little smirk with his teacup, rather unsuccessfully. “Food isn’t the only thing Uncle Keigo is swallowing.”
Queen Fuyumi gasps and immediately whacks her younger brother across the head with a few rolls of parchment that were on her desk, face going bright red. Kirishima breaks out into hysterical laughter, while Bakugou looks like he just bit into a lemon.
“Shou! We do NOT talk that way, ESPECIALLY about family. What is wrong with you!” stammers Fuyumi.
Midoriya wishes that he could not only sink through the floor, but that his soul could ascend to another reality.
Shouto just snorts into his cup.
“It’s not as bad as the one time dad called it bestial–”
“SHOUTO! Enough!” snaps the queen, whacking the teenage prince over the head with the rolls of parchment again. Shouto winces, grimacing as he fixes the now mussed red and white hair, while taking another long slurp of his tea. Fuyumi takes off her glasses to rub at her eyes, exasperated. “This is what I get for having Natsuo take over homeschooling you for the last two years. Honestly.”
Queen Fuyumi puts her glasses back on and straightens up, putting an air of propriety back on. Kirishima is still snickering under his breath, and Midoriya still wishes he could simply be euthanized.
“Anyways,” she sighs, straightening out the rolls of parchment she just whacked her brother over the head with. She hands one to each of them, and they all unroll their papers as she speaks. “This is a schedule of your coursework for the next six months, as well as both required and suggested readings. All books are available in the castle library, although for most of the titles we only have one or two copies. I suggest you coordinate with one another and take turns reading all the required books, and splitting up the suggested books and writing summaries for one another that you can all exchange and discuss.”
Midoriya glances down the reading list, noting with a small amount of satisfaction that he has already read almost half of the books on the list.
Kirishima stares at the long list of required readings with a deeply dismayed look on his face. His expression morphs to downright terrified when his eyes glance down at the schedule underneath.
“Um, we have exams?” he asks with a slight panic to his voice.
“Yes,” says Fuyumi, opening a notebook of her own which apparently contains the master schedule. “At least one a week for most of your main courses, although those are usually smaller quizzes. You will have a midterm in January and a final in March, so I suggest you keep up with the material and do not allow yourself to fall behind.” She taps at the schedule for this coming week. “Most of your classes will be in conference room B, just down the hall in the west wing. Any classes you have with me will be here, in my private study, and are largely discussion based. Please make sure you have completed your pre-assigned readings so you are ready for class. As you can see from your schedules, in the afternoons you also have practical combat training in the practice ring, which is located on the southeast lawn. Shouto can help you navigate if you cannot find your way, but I imagine you will learn where everything is within a week.”
Midoriya winces at that, while Bakugou breaks out into a massive grin.
“Your combat training will largely be overseen by our retired weapons master, Gran Torino. He will have you all run through some training exercises tomorrow, and well as free sparring to determine your starting skill level.” Midoriya pales, slumping down in his chair. He grabs self consciously at his scarred hand, wincing a little. Queen Fuyumi seems to notice his discomfort, and offers him a gentle smile. “Worry not, Gran Torino will be focusing on individual growth, and progress will be measured by your own personal improvement. It is not a race, and there will be no winners. Our goal is to get you proficient in self defense only, not to train you for open warfare.”
Midoriya nods sheepishly, while Bakugou practically vibrates with excitement at the prospect of daily combat training. Shouto looks as emotionless as ever.
He glances back down at the schedule. It looks like they are taking military strategy, economics, and natural sciences on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and political sciences, literature, and history on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He looks over the instructor list with a slight frown.
“Um, excuse me, your highness?” Midoriya says, voice breaking slightly. The queen looks up, head tilted. “Um, I was under the impression Ambassador Takami would be teaching a course?”
“Ah,” she says, messing a bit with her glasses. “Keigo will be largely indisposed with other duties. I do not believe you will be seeing him very much, although he may pop in to supervise your combat training in the afternoons on occasion.”
“Oh,” he mumbles, slightly disappointed. Ambassador Takami was an accomplished general during the war, an excellent tactician and aerial combat specialist, and has been renowned as one of the most instrumental figures in negotiating peace and trade between their two countries in the last three years. Midoriya finds himself sorely disappointed that the harpy will be almost entirely absent from their educational experiences. He was honestly really looking forward to that.
“Alright, I believe that is all for now,” says Queen Fuyumi. “You have your schedules. Please take the rest of today to get settled and familiarize yourself with the castle library. You may want to start reading some of the books or your list this evening. Your first class on the fundamentals of military strategy is bright and early tomorrow morning with Captain Inui, and he has high expectations. Shouto, if you would please assist our guests by being available to answer their questions for the rest of the day, that would be greatly appreciated.” Shouto nods, finishing off the last of his tea before standing up and placing the empty teacup on the edge of his sister’s desk.
The four teenagers all stand to shuffle out of the room, Midoriya in the back of the group, like always.
Shouto has just started to open the door back out into the hallway when Midoriya hesitates for a moment, looking up at the painting above the fireplace.
It is a Todoroki family portrait, painted in surprisingly dark, oppressive colors. He recognizes Prince Shouto as a toddler, his split red and white hair unmistakable, in the arms of a small, thin woman with gray eyes and pure white hair. That must be Shouto’s mother, he realizes. Next to the former queen is an enormous man he can only conclude is the late King Enji, twice the size of his wife with a broad build and bright red hair. His stern eyes are a brilliant piercing blue, brows low and slightly angry. He recognizes Fuyumi and Natsuo as well, perhaps around thirteen and ten years old respectively, gathered around their mother’s skirts.
Midoriya frowns, tilting his head at the one unexpected person in the painting.
There is a fourth Todoroki child, standing slightly apart from the others, on the other side of his father. He is a boy of perhaps fifteen, thin like his mother, cheeks slightly hollow. He is dressed head to toe in black wool, unlike the whites and blues worn by the rest of his family. His skin is ghostly pale with hair the color of fresh snow. And his eyes… piercing, blue eyes that almost seem to glow when set against his pale complexion, the exact same shade of brilliant cerulean as his father. His expression is distant, almost empty, and…
He’s the oldest. He is very obviously the oldest, probably at least a few years older than Fuyumi.
Which begs the question.
Who is he, and why did Fuyumi, the second oldest and therefore second in the line of succession, inherit the crown after the death of her father?
“Did you have a question, Midoriya?”
He startles, looking back at Queen Fuyumi who is still sitting at her desk, head tilted curiously. He swallows nervously, realizing that the other three teenagers have already left the room, leaving him behind. He blushes slightly, shaking his head.
“N–no ma’am, just got distracted.” He bows deeply, backing out of the room as quickly as possible. “Thank you for your time, your highness.” The queen smiles at him, nodding as she directs her attention back down to some paperwork on her desk.
Midoriya scurries down the hall, running to catch up to the others as they disappear around the corner.
October 7It followed us.
I had only just fallen asleep when I was awoken by something tapping on my window. At first I ignored it, we are on the third floor and there are no sirens or harpies (other than Ambassador Takami) this far north, so I assumed it was just the wind. But it wouldn’t stop. The tapping just got louder, and louder, and even more insistent. Finally I got up, thinking a branch or stone was rolling around on the windowsill in the wind, tapping away at my window. I got up, lit a candle, and went to open the window, only to find something that frightened me to my very soul.
There, upon the windowsill, tap tap tapping away at my window, was the nightingale with the band around its leg.
I don’t know how, or why, but that bird followed us, all the way from Yuuei.
Is it some kind of omen? A harbinger of evil intent? It stood on the windowsill, staring endlessly with its beady black eyes, tap tap tapping away at the glass. I opened the window, and to my surprise the nightingale actually hopped into the interior windowsill. It fluttered its wings for a moment, chirping and trilling, until finally it settled down and resumed staring at me.
This was the closest I had ever gotten to the bird, so I sat for a while to watch it. It stayed perfectly still, like a soft little statue. Its wings are a peculiar shade of rust, maybe even blood-red, even though the rest of its feathers are a common gray. The band around its leg appears to be a bright silver colored metal, and is embossed with a little botanical design of miniscule flowers and leaves. Whomever this bird belonged to must have been very wealthy to place such a fine piece of jewelry upon the leg of a bird. It shines like silver but has not tarnished or rusted in any way, so I suspect the band may be of white gold or platinum. Part of me wondered if perhaps the nightingale was approaching humans in order to try and have the band on its leg removed. The bird allowed me to pet its back and head, but as soon as I tried to touch the band it screeched and pecked at my hand, refusing to allow me to attempt to remove it. It proceeded to fly back out the window, and for the rest of the night I could hear it singing in the forest beyond the castle walls.
It is peculiar behavior for a bird, and I can only conclude that it must be partially tamed. It clearly belonged to someone at some point, perhaps now sometimes it misses the comforts of domesticity? Not enough, apparently, to stay a pet, but instead trying to live a life somewhere in the middle. Half wild, half domesticated, flying between humanity and the forest beyond the wall.
If the gods are trying to communicate something through this bizarre omen, I cannot elucidate their intent.
What could a half-tamed nightingale possibly mean?
Midoriya is sitting at one of the small study tables in the library, chewing at the end of his wood-handled quill. The lights are dimmed, and the sunlight outside is impeded by a solid layer of gloomy clouds that casts everything in a cold, gray light. He flips the page, humming a little at himself, and continues scribbling notes in one of his notebooks.
Queen Fuyumi assigns an astonishingly large amount of required readings for her economics class, but they aren’t all terrible reads. Some of the readings are textbook chapters that are remarkably dense and boring, but he rather enjoys some of the more opinionated essays she has assigned. He tries to do most of his studying alone in the library, it helps him focus. Kirishima and Bakugou start yelling at each other a little too often for productive group study, and Prince Shouto is a little… distracting to look at (and he is NOT going to analyze those thoughts. Nope. Not going there).
The sunlight starts to grow dim enough that he has to reach out and flick on one of the magelight lamps on his little study desk. The lights are brighter than a candle, but tend to have a more blue-ish glow that he isn't fond of. Has anyone looked into creating magelights of different colors? It’s really just a core of magical energy anchored to a copper filament and contained in a small glass sphere. What if you changed the metal the filament was made of?
Midoriya stops, pushing aside the economics textbook. He rifles through his bookbag, looking for one of his personal journals. He pulls out the old, leatherbound book; he filled it completely at some point last year. He’s pretty sure it’s in here… He flips through the book, finding the page he is looking for relatively quickly.
Ha, got it. A list of flame tests on various metals with their results. His eyes scan the list (it is alphabetical, obviously) before his eyes land on copper.
That’s what he thought, a flame test with copper results in a blue-green flame. It’s not unreasonable to think that is at least partially responsible for the blue-ish hue of magelights. Interesting. He’s only ever seen magelights constructed with a copper filament, mostly because the metal is soft, readily conductive to magic, and easily spun into wires. Could a substitute metal offer similar advantages and produce different colors?
His eyes scan down the list. Aluminum burns a silver-white, and is light-weight and workable enough, although he isn’t sure of the metal’s magical affinity. Bismuth burns azure, and is rather expensive. Iron burns gold, which could be fun. Mercury burns red, but is probably rather dangerous, not to mention liquid at any workable temperatures. Lithium also burns red, that could have potential. Nickel is also silver-white, lead a blue-white. Ooh, tungsten has potential, it is known for its magical affinity.
And of course, if you create a pure white magelight, you could easily achieve different colors by simply tinting the glass sphere. He probably has glass additives written in this book somewhere. He flips through the book again, eyes scanning the pages until he opens a hastily scribbled chart he made while shadowing the glass blower on the end of his street. He smiles to himself, he has all the basic colors written down. Glass mixed with small amounts of copper-tin yields red, iron-sulfur for orange, cadmium for yellow, iron for green, cobalt for a deep blue, and manganese for violet. There are a few others for various shades, as well as a list of recipes for other custom colors.
He opens his most recent notebook and turns to the next blank page, starting to scribble notes. He could try making magelights with tungsten, aluminum, and nickel filaments to start with, see if any of those renders a more pure white light. Then he could see if he could get different shades of glass blown out as thin as possible for the housing. He’d have to source all the materials of course. He starts doing a little math in the margins. Purchasing tungsten, aluminum, and nickel, paying a smith to cast it into filaments, paying a glassblower, contracting a light mage to power them… Can he get this done while here in Sekoto as a little side project? He doesn’t have any local currency, maybe if he comes up with a well-structured project proposal the queen might give him a small budget. He could potentially spin it as an educational project, although he will have to come up with some more practical applications of–
“Midoriya.”
He squeals and jumps in his seat, slamming his notebook closed. He turns, red faced, to see Tsuyu standing next to him with a cup of tea and a plate of little linzer cookies. He slumps down a little in his chair, thunking his head forward onto his desk with a soft groan.
“Tsuyu, Jesus Christ you scared me. Don’t sneak up on me like that!” Tsuyu croaks as she sets the tea and cookies on his desk, overly large eyes blank.
“I did not sneak up on you, I said your name three times before you noticed,” she says, tongue peeking out from the edge of her enormous mouth. “It’s teatime. I thought you would enjoy a study snack, ribbit.” Midoriya looks up, inhaling the warm smell of fresh tea, made with a small amount of milk and sugar just how he likes. He gives the maid a soft smile.
“Thanks, Tsu.” He reaches out a scarred hand to pluck one of the linzer cookies off the plate, taking a bite. “Mm, is this raspberry?”
“Yes, ribbit. Raspberry is the queen’s favorite, so that is usually what the kitchen bakes.” Midoriya gives her a small smile, taking another bite of the cookie. He pushes out the chair next to him, gesturing to the maid to take a seat. She blinks at him in surprise, taking a moment to rub at her hands, before taking a seat next to him. Midoriya pushes the plate of cookies in between them, before picking up his tea and taking a drink.
“You should have some too, they’re good,” he says. Tsuyu stares at him for a moment, eyes blinking one at a time. Midoriya hesitates, putting down his teacup. “Unless… I’m sorry Tsu, I’m afraid I don’t know if you have any dietary restrictions. Do you eat cookies? Or…”
Tsuyu blinks at him again, before her tongue darts out of her mouth like an actual frog, latching onto one of the cookies and snapping it back into her mouth with a loud crunch. Midoriya gasps in delight, hastily grabbing his notebook and opening it to another blank page.
“That was amazing!” he says, practically vibrating in excitement. Tsuyu continues to stare at him blankly. “Wow, an actual frog tongue! Can you do that again? What is the range on that? Are there limits to what surfaces your tongue can stick to? Are your hands and feet sticky too? What other frog things can you do? Do you have the ability to jump or stick to walls? How far can you jump? Do you secrete mucus? Is it toxic mucus? Oh my gosh frogs can vomit out their stomachs, can you do that too?”
Tsuyu blinks one eye at a time. Her throat expands like a bullfrog’s to ribbit loudly, before going back to normal. She tilts her head.
“You ask a lot of questions.”
Midoriya blushes, letting out a little eep.
“Oh, oh my gosh I’m so sorry, that was really rude, I just have never met a frog person before and I–”
“It’s fine, ribbit. ” She says, darting out her tongue to snap up another cookie. “I’m just surprised. Nobody ever asks about that sort of thing, or cares really.”
“Oh,” he says, biting at his lip. He taps his quill on the blank page of his notebook. “I’m just interested in this sort of thing, you know?” he mumbles. Tsuyu gives him the slightest smile.
“I’ll answer your questions to the best of my ability, ribbit.” She opens her mouth and whips her tongue out, briefly sticking it to one of the nearby tables, before snapping it back into her mouth. Midoriya instantly starts taking notes. “I can shoot my tongue out about five feet. It’ll stick to almost anything, but it unsticks pretty easily. It's good for eating, or catching lizards and bugs and stuff as a snack, but not a whole lot else. Yes, my hands and feet are sticky too, and I can stick to walls. I can jump about twenty feet. Yes I can secrete mucus, and yes it is toxic. Yes I can expel my stomach, but it’s rather unpleasant. I can also camouflage and breathe through my skin when underwater, although I still need to surface for air every few hours. I think that's all your questions.”
“Amazing,” mumbles Midoriya, writing frantically in his book. “You said you can catch lizards and bugs with your tongue?” Tusyu tilts her head.
“You don’t think that’s gross?”
“Of course not!” Midoirya says enthusiastically, starting to create a rough sketch of her sitting in the library chair. “It’s a natural part of your diet, right?”
“...You are an interesting human, Midoriya. I enjoy answering your questions.” Midoriya looks up with a slight blush.
“Oh, um… are you alright if I ask you some more?” Tsuyu nods.
They spend almost an hour chatting in the library, sharing tea and cookies while Tsuyu answers an endless list of his questions. He diligently takes notes, and Tsuyu allows him to make some more detailed sketches of her tongue, hands, and feet. After a while he starts asking questions about her family (apparently frog-people lay eggs), what she wants to do with her life now that she is no longer enslaved and has options (she is working as a maid to save up money for an education). She lives on the south side of town, in a small house with her parents and two younger siblings. She likes working in the castle, although the manager of the domestic staff can sometimes be a little strict. She likes being assigned to the exchange students, it makes her job more variable and interesting. In the summers when the exchange students are absent, she primarily works in laundry, although the soapwort tends to irritate her sensitive skin.
“Do you ever do any other general cleaning?” he asks, slurping the last of his tea. The notebook lays open on the table, waiting for the ink on the more complex drawings to fully dry before he closes the book, lest they smudge. The sun is starting to set, painting the library a light pink. Tsuyu nods.
“Yes, ribbit. Washing, drying, and pressing clothes takes about two days each time, and we do it twice a week. It’s clothing for the whole staff, maids, cooks, government officials, and the royal family, so it adds up. We do laundry on Mondays and Tuesdays, then again on Thursdays and Fridays, so that leaves me on general cleaning duty on Wednesdays and Saturdays.” Midoriya nods.
“What areas of the castle do you clean?”
“Mostly the east wing. I prefer cleaning the bedrooms, it’s more like changing linens, cleaning fireplaces, beating the rugs, re-organizing clothing, stuff like that. The west wing involves a lot of polishing old suits of armor and cleaning all those stained glass windows which just sounds awful.”
Midoriya takes a bite of the last cookie, humming.
“What’s involved in cleaning the north wing?”
Tsuyu freezes, eyes wide.
There is a long tense silence, and Midoriya finds himself growing anxious.
“We don’t talk about the north wing,” Tsuyu croaks. Midoriya frowns. Is it that much of a secret?
“Why not?” he asks. Tsuyu just shakes her head.
“No. Do not ask me about the north wing again.”
Midoriya sets his tea cup down, leg starting to bounce.
“I had some other questions…” he mutters, biting at his lip. Tsuyu stares at him blankly, and he looks up at her through his eyelashes.
“Where is Takami’s bedroom? He doesn’t stay in the east wing with us, and–”
“No. Next question.” Midoriya jerks in surprise. He wasn’t expecting that one to be a secret. His curiosity grows, enough for him to push his luck.
“What does he do all day? I hardly ever see him, and–”
“No.”
“Alright… Why doesn’t he eat with us?”
“No.”
“Why aren’t we allowed to touch anything that belongs to him?”
“No.”
He grows frustrated, starting to tap a fingernail against the edge of his teacup.
“The painting,” Midoriya says, a tinge of frustration seeping into his voice. Tsuyu hesitates. “The painting in the Queen’s study. It has King Enji, the former queen, and four Todoroki children, Tsu. Queen Fuyumi was second in line for the throne, she had an older brother. Who is he? What happened to him?”
“Don’t,” she whispers, voice low and scared. Midoriya’s eyes widen. “Don’t, Midoriya. Do not ask these questions. You must never, ever bring him up, do you understand me?”
“But–”
“No, Midoriya. We do not speak of these things. Do not ask me, do not ask anyone, ever. He does not exist, and you saw nothing. Do you understand me?”
“But–”
“I said, do you understand me?” she snaps, suddenly standing from her chair to loom over him. Midoriya swallows nervously, shrinking down under the glare of her enormous, black eyes.
“I… I understand,” he mutters. Tsuyu nods. She quickly gathers the empty plate and teacup, casting a glance outside. The sun has set a little more, the light dimming from pink to a dull orange.
“I must leave before dark. Thank you for the conversation Midoriya, I had a pleasant evening. Please remember the library closes at seven,” she croaks, giving him a brief little bow. She scurries out of the library in a swirl of skirts, the door shutting gently behind her.
Midoriya stares at the closed library door, watching the orange light fade to red.
October 8
Things here are… interesting. We have started a class on the fundamentals of military strategy with Captain Inui which is going fine. He seems intent on teaching us a strategy game called chess that northerners play, it's supposed to help us put some of the things we are learning into practice. We play in pairs, and most of the time I play with Prince Shouto. The prince is… quiet. I’m trying to make friends with him, but he just… stares at me with this blank look on his face and gives me one word answers. I don’t understand what his deal is, as far as I can tell I don’t think I have offended him in any way. He’s just… odd.
A lot of things here are odd. I have noticed a few peculiar things that I cannot seem to rationalize as anything that makes any logical sense, and they are driving me crazy. Prince Shouto is weird for sure, he never makes any facial expressions, he never laughs, he doesn’t even seem capable of casual conversation. The staff in the castle are not much better. Nobody talks, everybody just moves silently and clings to walls like they are afraid of being noticed. When I do manage to pin someone down (usually Tsuyu, since she’s in charge of the exchange students) and ask a question I just get short, nervous answers before they run away. It’s like the entire castle is constantly on edge and scared of something that I can’t identify. I don’t think they are scared of the queen, not like I hear people used to be of King Enji. Although the royal family is odd, they are never mean or malicious in any way.
There are an incredibly large number of bizarre things, most of them concerning Ambassador Takami.
As far as I can tell, Takami is essentially not here. I never see him in council meetings, he never attends court, I have never seen him have conversations with diplomats, nothing. He seems to occasionally have private meetings with the queen, but that’s it. I sometimes see him in the halls or hanging out on the roof, or sometimes he flies in through a window just to say a quick hello before he flies off again. He’s impossible to pin down, and some days I don’t see him at all. It’s like he’s a ghost.
Whenever Ambassador Takami disappears, nobody, for any reason, will go and get him. They will not even deliver messages, insisting instead that whatever it is can wait until Takami returns. I don’t think he is hunting, as the queen only allows him to hunt and bring back prey on Tuesdays. What else could he be doing? I wanted to go and just ask him something myself, but nobody will say where Ambassador Takami’s room actually is. It’s not in the east wing where the royal family and the visiting students stay, that much I know for sure. I don’t think he stays in the west wing either. We spend most of our day there in various conference rooms, and it seems to be all administrative offices and the Queen’s private study. The rest of the castle is all servants quarters, the kitchens, the library, a banquet hall, a ballroom, and the main throne room, and the north wing is off limits. For the life of me I cannot figure out where Takami sleeps, and at this point I’m beginning to suspect he just sleeps on the roof or up on the mountain somewhere.
Even when I do see him (usually either up on the roof or flying around too fast for anyone to actually speak to him) it is only between the hours of about ten in the morning to about four in the evening. I never, ever see him after sunset. I don’t think he sleeps that much, he always woke up right at sunrise while we were traveling, and went to sleep at a rather normal hour. (Do harpies go into torpor when subjected to colder climates? Note to self, find book on avian physiology.)
Aside from all the weird things surrounding Ambassador Takami, there are a few other things that just… bother me.
There is a single family portrait hanging in Queen Fuyumi’s private study, showing the late King Enji, the former queen, and four children. Her highness is, very clearly, the second oldest child in the painting, and is accompanied by a young Prince Natsuo and a toddler Prince Shouto. The oldest child is a teenage boy with pure white hair and blue eyes that I have never even heard of. I tried to ask Tsuyu about the oldest Todoroki sibling in the painting, but she just told me to never, ever mention him ever again. I can only assume that he died as a teenager, and his death must still be a sensitive subject for the royal family.
Tsuyu, and all the other castle staff, flat out refuse to stay on castle grounds after dark. They will not say why. And, most annoyingly, nobody will tell me why the north wing is off limits. I can accept that we are not allowed up there, but I just want to know why . Kirishima thinks there is an alchemy laboratory up there that conducts secret government experiments, but that seems rather ludicrous. Kacchan thinks that’s where the Todoroki’s vaults are with all their gold and jewels, which makes a bit more sense. I don’t know what I think, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Tsuyu looked scared when I asked her about the north wing, and I can’t imagine a treasury eliciting that kind of reaction.
What on earth is up there?
“Ughhh… I can’t believe we are having an actual exam. I didn’t think this trip would be like… actual school…” Kirishima groans, slumping down in his chair. His tail wraps around one of the legs of his chair, and he fists his big, clawed hands into his spikes of brilliantly red hair. He has a textbook on the fundamentals of magical theory open on the table in front of him, and a half dozen scattered notebooks filled with hastily scrawled notes and several (poorly drawn) doodles of some kind of old dragonkin war hero he seems to idolize. Bakugou smacks his hand down over the book that Kirishima has open but is definitely not reading, a vein practically popping out of his forehead as he yells.
“Shut up shitty hair, you’re just a shitty fucking student. That’s why we’re here aren’t we? To learn and become the best fucking generals you’ve ever seen?! Shut up and study!” he snarls, a few sparks of wayward magic popping in his hands.
“Please do not yell, we are in a library.”
“Shut the fuck up Icy Hot, nobody asked you,” snarls Bakugou, whirling to glare daggers at the Todoroki prince who is sitting at the other end of the table, a stack of carefully organized notes in front of him. Shouto just gives him a long, blank look, and Bakugou stands up to growl in his face. “Besides, it’s your fucking library, isn’t it? Nobody is ever in here but us, I can yell as much as I fucking want!”
Midoriya sighs, anxiously bouncing his pen on his notebook. Bakugou is stressed about the exam, that’s why he’s lashing out more than usual. He always holds himself to such a high standard, anything short of perfection is failure. It would be an admirable trait, if he didn’t let the pressure of meeting his own ridiculous standards leak out as anger and violence towards everyone around him.
“C’mon Kacchan, we have to focus–”
“God, you’re so fucking useless Deku. Why are you even trying? You could ace every exam in the world, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a useless, magic-less, little fuck up!” he yells. Midoriya winces and cringes down, dropping his pen. It shouldn’t bother him, it really shouldn’t. He’s used to Kacchan’s little temper tantrums, it’s fine– “Why did they even let you come here, huh? Training you is the biggest waste of everyone’s time. Memorize all the strategy you want, but the second anyone puts you on the field you’re fucking dead. Someone wouldn’t even need magic to kill you, just a dagger. Maybe you’ll get killed in the practical exam next week, and then we won’t have to deal with your uselessness anymore!”
“Hey! That’s enough Bakugou,” snaps Kirishima. “Stop fucking picking on him.” Bakugou just sneers.
“He’s a waste of space and everyone knows it. He used to whine and cry and beg for his magic to show up, or to grow wings, or scales, or even just a fucking tail. But no, he’s nothing.” Bakugou leers over him with a sneer, bright red eyes pinning Midoriya to his seat. “How about you just pray that you'll be born with magic in your next life, and take a swan dive off the roof of the building!”
The silence that follows is deafening. Midoriya feels his face grow hot as the tears prick at his eyes, his heart pounding in his ears.
“Dude, what the fuck, you can’t say shit like that…” growls Kirishima, claws smacking into the table. Midoriya hastily starts rubbing at his eyes, desperate to hide the tears leaking involuntarily down his face. Shouto looks at them all blankly.
“I agree with Kirishima. That was uncalled for, Bakugou,” he says dryly. Midoriya abruptly stands up, rubbing at his face with his sleeve. It makes his face even more red and splotchy but he doesn’t care.
“I… I need a minute,” he mutters, turning and walking across the enormous, gorgeous library.
“Midoriya, dude, wait–”
He walks out the double doors and out into the hall, letting the heavy wood slam shut behind him and echo across the stone walls. He can hear Kacchan and Kirishima yelling at each other again, but he ignores it.
Midoriya sniffs, looking around. He’s in the big rotunda near the center of the castle, near the northern end of the east wing. The room has a huge, domed skylight made of what can only be a fortune’s worth of tessellated glass, illuminating the pale stonework under a flow of brilliant sunlight.
It’s too bright.
He walks in no particular direction, staring at his feet as he places one in front of the other. Tears are still leaking down his face against his will, so he just blindly walks through the maze of hallways. He listens to the echo of his footsteps on the stone, focusing on his breathing and not the bitter sting in his chest. He takes a few turns until he finds himself climbing a spiral staircase. It's darker here, with only a few archer’s windows letting in a small amount of dim sunlight, which is kind of nice right now. He climbs about halfway up the stairs before he sits down on a cold, stone step, dropping his face into his knees and wrapping his arms around his legs.
He lets out a long, shuddering sob.
Why? After all these years, why does it still hurt?
He’s been named heir. King Toshinori sees potential in him, even if nobody else does. He got over not having magic when he was thirteen, it shouldn’t bother him anymore. Sure, he doesn't have wings or magic or scales, but he’s smart. He can think on his feet, he can solve problems with logic and creativity, he doesn’t have to rely on physical strength. He’s worth something. He is.
He’s worth something.
He doesn’t need magic.
He doesn’t need magic.
He doesn’t need magic.
Midoriya sobs, clutching his legs harder.
It’s not fair. It’s not fucking fair.
Everyone else in this world has something special. There's dozens of different sentient races, each with their own unique abilities and strengths. There's harpies and sirens and tengus and fairies and dragonkin who can all fly, on top of their own unique quirks like hypnotizing people with their voice or being covered in indestructible scales or making and unmaking matter just with their hands. There's unicorns who can jump through time, raiju who can channel lightning, there's selkies who can live on land and in the sea. There’s animal hybrids, nekomata and frog-people and satyrs and kitsunes. There’s wraiths and ghouls and vampires who blur the line between life and death. And humans, his own damn race, are the most diverse group of all. Human magic comes in every flavor imaginable; there's people who can make explosions in their hands, people who can control the wind, people who can talk to animals, people who can grow plants in seconds, people who can make ice and fire dance at their whim. The world is full of people who can do amazing, incredible things; a veritable rainbow of diversity and abilities and magic of all kinds.
And Midoriya is the only person, the only fucking person in the entire goddamned world who is completely, utterly powerless. He’s the only person in the world who can do… nothing.
Useless.
He shoves his face deeper into his knees, crying softly and ruining his clothes. His tears and snot and the little bit of kohl he put on this morning because he wanted to look nice (for reasons he doesn’t really understand) smear all along his shalwar. He fucking hates crying, but he cries all the goddamned time. It’s stupid, why can’t he just turn his emotions off?
Why does he always feel so much?
He sniffs and rubs at his face. He’s messing up his kohl and he probably looks like a fucking mess, and the idea of going back downstairs and looking ugly in front of the pretty prince makes him want to throw up. He sighs, shivering slightly. The cold of the stone step he is sitting on has seeped into his bones, and he is covered in goosebumps. Its cold, really fucking cold, and he shivers in his thin shalwar kameez. The little light from the archer’s window is starting to dim as the sun sets, and the temperature is rapidly dropping.
He needs to suck it up and go back downstairs. He doesn’t want to miss dinner (no matter how fucking awkward Todoroki family dinners apparently are) and he has an exam to study for.
Midoriya stands up, wincing as his knees complain after sitting at a weird angle for what feels like an hour. He glances behind him to try and gauge the approximate time from the color of the sunset outside (still orangey red, probably just past six) when he notices a door.
He turns to face up the steps, frowning.
How did he not notice a door?
Curious, he climbs a few more steps and stands in the arched doorway. The door itself is recessed into the wall, obscured in shadow. The wood looks ancient and is starting to crack in places, and the edges of the door are… blackened? What the hell? Midoriya places his hand on the doorknob. The metal is icy cold to the touch, far colder than it should be.
There’s something… off. Something in the air, something about the door… It's quiet, too quiet, he can almost hear his blood rushing in his ears. There’s cold air coming from the gap under the door, a steady draft of winter air. Something just seems… wrong.
He pushes down on the handle and–
It’s locked.
He frowns, jiggling the handle a few times. The metal creaks and groans, but doesn’t budge. He pulls back to look at the door, really look at it, and that’s when he notices. The door is quite literally nailed shut, jagged and bent nails sticking out along the perimeter and fastening the old door down to its frame.
That’s… weird.
Why would anybody literally nail a door closed?
“You’re not supposed to be up here.”
Midoriya screams and jumps a foot in the air, whirling around to plaster his back against the locked door. His heart is pounding, lungs suddenly struggling to move air.
There is a woman standing just inches away, leering into his face with a huge disturbing grin on her face. How… where the fuck did she come from? Midoriya swallows and tries to back away, but only manages to thunk his head on the locked door at his back. The woman’s smile grows.
There’s something… off about her, although Midoriya cannot exactly put his finger on what exactly is so off-putting . She is objectively pretty, albeit a little plain. Her brown hair is cut into a bob, two longer pieces framing her face, and large brown eyes set in a large, round face. She is wearing a maid uniform, her white apron stained a bit with splashes of something dark red. Her cheeks are flushed bright red, and her smile is impossibly wide, teeth glimmering. Her eyes look hazy, and just… wrong.
She is making his skin crawl, and Midoriya suddenly feels like prey.
“You’re not supposed to be up here,” she repeats, punctuating the statement with a deranged sounding giggle. All the blood drains out of Midoriya’s face. “He doesn’t like people coming up here. That’s why we locked the door.”
(That giggle… it sounds familiar. Why does it sound familiar?)
“Uh…” he glances down at the dark stains on her dress. They look suspiciously like splashes of…
No, he’s being paranoid.
“S-sorry,” he stammers. “I was just… I just needed to be alone for a bit, I didn’t mean to–”
“Shh,” she whispers, placing her finger on his lips. Midoriya catches a whiff of something metallic, and he struggles to keep his hands from shaking. His shivering increases in intensity, it’s freezing, why is it so cold? “I know, Izuku. He’s so mean to you. I’ve been watching, you know, and it’s so unfair. It was so fun to watch you cry though, you look so pretty when you’re broken.”
Midoriya needs to get the fuck out of here. Every single instinct he has is screaming at him to run, that he’s not safe here. The maid looks him up and down, licking her lips in a way that makes Midoriya want to throw up.
“I bet you would taste so fucking good. Maybe Ochako will like you too, I can bring you home and the three of us can have some tasty fun…”
(Run run run run run)
“I, uh, have to get back downstairs…” he stammers, trying to edge his way down the steps without turning his back to the deranged maid in the stairwell. Her eyes glint as she tracks his every movement, head tilting to the side in a way that looks so fucking wrong it makes all the hair on the back of his neck stand up. She lets out another deranged little giggle.
“Don’t worry Izuku, I’ll keep an eye on you, I promise. If he hurts you again I’ll stab him, m’kay?”
What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck–
“I– I gotta go,” he stammers out, turning to sprint down the stairs as fast as he can. He can hear her deranged laughter echoing through the stairwell as he sprints to the bottom of the stairs and down the hall, desperately trying to remember his way back.
He realizes with a sudden horror that he is on the north side of the castle as he runs south towards the library, legs aching and lungs burning and gasping for air as he runs away. Within a few short minutes he’s bursting into the rotunda, now dyed a deep reddish purple in the setting sun. He slumps against the smooth stone wall across front the library doors to catch his breath, panting and desperately trying to move air into his burning lungs.
He was on the north side of the castle. The locked door… it must have been the entrance into the north wing. The one place they aren’t supposed to go. Fuck, fuck, that creepy insane girl must be there to guard the door in case anyone tries to break in.
What the fuck was that? She looked human, but there was something wrong with her. There was something wrong with that door. Why was it so cold?
The double doors to the library suddenly open with a loud creak, and Midoriya struggles not to scream .
His nerves are fried, he’s anxious and jumpy and he needs to calm down.
“Oh, Midoriya. You are back.” Shouto is standing in the doorway, Bakugou and Kirishima trailing behind him. The Todoroki prince has a stack of books and notes in his arms, pretty face just as blank and expressionless as ever. Kirishima gives him a shy smile and wave, while Bakugou just looks away with a scowl. He looks… guilty almost. They must have scolded him for his previous outburst. Midoriya clears his throat, running his hands once or twice through his mass of green hair.
“Uh yeah, sorry about that. I just, um–”
“Hey, no worries man!” says Kirishima brightly, tail thumping against the floor. “We’re going to go to dinner, want to come?” Midoriya spares a nervous glance back at the hall stretching north, the hall that leads to a staircase and a door and–
“Y-yeah,” he stutters, forcing a smile onto his face. “Yeah, dinner sounds great, guys.”
He trails behind them to the dining room in the east wing.
That night when he lays in bed, tossing and turning and trying to sleep, all he can hear is her deranged, echoing giggle.
October 11
The nightingale came to my window again. Its tapping woke me up relatively quickly, and I didn’t try to ignore it this time. I got up and opened the window, and once again the little bird hopped up not the windowsill and just sat there looking at me.
I tried to pet it again, but it just fluttered away with a few little trills. I thought maybe it was hungry. Given the silver band on its leg it must have been someone's pet at some point, maybe it’s just coming back to humans for food. I had some leftover dried berries and nuts in my travel bag, so I offered it some. It didn’t take any of the nuts or berries though. The nightingale just sat there, staring at me.
What does it want? I can’t tell. It doesn’t want to be pet, it doesn’t want me to take the band off its leg, it doesn’t want food. It apparently just wants to… watch me?
I sat down and watched it back for a while. It didn’t move for over an hour, standing on the windowsill, staring.
I was starting to fall asleep sitting up when suddenly the nightingale screeched a little and flew away, back into the forest past the castle wall. The rest of the night I could hear the nightingale singing outside.
Midoriya has been staring at the ceiling for the last three hours, tossing and turning. He can’t sleep, he’s anxious and stressed and he doesn’t even know why.
(He knows why. It’s like he can feel her watching him, that deranged giggle echoing in his head, over and over.)
(And a bird, tap tap tapping on his window.)
( Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptaptap)
He huffs and pushes himself out of bed, shivering as he pushes back the layers of fur. His gaze falls to the crackling fireplace, watching as the tongues of orange heat eat away at the wood with the occasional, gentle pop. He gets out of bed, shivering once again. He walks over to his dresser, pulling out one of his coats and pulling it on. He understands why northerners dress head to toe in wool now, he keeps layering his silk and linen clothing but struggles to stay warm in the frigid castle. Maybe he can request some clothing from the palace tailor? The northern clothes look weird but he would rather be warm.
He groans, rubbing at his face with his hands. It's the middle of the goddamned night, why can’t he just go to sleep?
( Taptaptaptaptaptaptaptap)
He walks over to his little writing desk, rifling through the stack of books he has borrowed from the castle library. He thumbs through an economics textbook Queen Fuyumi assigned them, before shutting the book with a huff. He isn’t in the right frame of mind to study right now. He looks through the stack, brows furrowing in slight annoyance. A reference book on toxic northern plants, a book on northern sentient races (he was looking for information on frog-people, just out of curiosity), a mathematics textbook, a few history books.
Ugh. Of course he hasn’t borrowed any fiction books. A little book of short stories would be perfect for nights like these, when he just needs to turn his brain off and relax so he can go back to sleep.
He knows the library is supposed to be closed after seven o’clock, but surely nobody will notice if he sneaks in and borrows a few books after hours, right?
It’s silly to even have hours for the private castle library, honestly. Why would it arbitrarily close? It’s not open to the public, and it’s not like books have to actually be checked out in any organized way. The royal family, members of the government, and the exchange students can all just pluck any book off the shelves that they want, so long as the books don’t leave the palace grounds.
Midoriya pulls on a pair of slippers, buttons up his coat, and grabs the brass candle holder on his bedside table. He strikes a match, lighting the tall taper candle, before leaving his bedroom. He is careful to close the door as quietly as possible, glancing nervously up and down the hall of the east wing. It’s well past midnight, and he is quite sure everyone else is asleep.
The hall is dark, just a few flickering magelights on in the corridor complimenting the moonlight streaming in through the tall, elegant windows. There are a few tapestries decorating the walls and a long, light blue rug running the length of the hall, but otherwise the hall is rather plain. The east wing is purely residential, containing the bedrooms of the royal family and the exchange students from Yuuei, and leading to the royal baths and the library in the northern end of the wing. It is a sharp contrast to the ostentatious decor and stained glass windows of the west wing, simpler in design with little attention paid to excessive displays of wealth or power.
Midoriya quickly but quietly makes his way down the hall, guided by the light of his flickering candle. He shivers in the cold, clutching at the edges of his coat. God, it’s only fall, and it’s already freezing at night. He is growing to dread the coming winter.
It’s about a ten minute walk to the northern end of the east wing, coming out into the large rotunda that contains the entrance to the library. He spares a glance up, admiring the sea of stars visible through the domed, glass roof. He is still looking up rather absentmindedly as he approaches the library doors. He rests his hand on the door handle, about to open the door when the soft sound of voices catches his attention.
He freezes in place, looking down. There is a faint blue light emanating from the crack under the door, and the shadows of people moving inside.
Who on earth is in the library at almost one in the morning?
Midoriya leans in, curiosity driving him to press his ear to the door, straining to listen.
“A heads up really would have been appreciated, you know.” The low, chirping tone clearly belongs to Ambassador Takami. Why–
“Aw, c’mon Kei, I can’t put those kinds of things in letters, you know that.”
The second voice is low and gravelly, almost a pleasant rasp. He doesn’t recognize the second man’s voice at all. Who on earth is the harpy talking to?
“Uh huh.” grumbles the harpy, voice betraying his annoyance. “Meanwhile, how am I supposed to explain to Fuyumi that her high profile prisoner arrived in Sekoto with no arms? Chisaki Kai is supposed to stand trial, and we were hoping to get him to flip on some of the others in the Shie Hassaikai in exchange for a reduced sentence.”
“He can still talk without arms, can’t he? He deserved it anyways.”
“I… ok, maybe. But did it have to be you? He saw you firefly, what if he describes you?”
“So he describes ‘Dabi’, and either people believe it or they write him off as insane. Besides, technically I just burned down the prisoner transport. Shigs is the one who dusted his arms, not me.”
He hears Takami give a long, beleaguered sigh. There is the sound of furniture creaking slightly; a rustle of wings. The blue light spilling out from under the door flickers.
“Firefly, you need to be careful. I’m not always here to watch your back, and if something were to happen to you–”
“I’m fine, dove. I need to be involved with everything that happens if you and Fuyumi expect me to keep tabs on the organized crime groups in Sekoto, and you need to trust that I know what I’m doing. I’ve been running with the League for years. The war was far more dangerous than what we do now.”
There is another loud rustle of feathers, and a low, throaty coo.
“During the war I was here to keep you safe,” Takami warbles, voice laced with worry. The other man gives a low, raspy chuckle. A few footsteps, a sudden bright chirp.
“We kept each other safe. I can handle myself, Kei,” the man says in a low, soft tone. Takami lets out another indignant chirp, and the man’s voice drops to a low, gravelly mutter. “Besides, birdie, my information got you Chisaki and his whole alchemy lab, didn’t it? I saved a little unicorn girl.”
His voice drops even further to a low whisper, and Midoriya has to press his ear against the door to make out the rest of the conversation.
“I think I deserve a reward for all my trouble,” he whispers. There’s a long moment of silence, followed by another slight scrape of furniture. There is suddenly the sound of feathers rustling and snapping, and Takami lets out a low, trilling coo.
“Fuck,” Takami gasps, sounding breathless. “Are you almost done picking out your stupid books or can we take this back upstairs?”
The man laughs again, and Midoriya leans in further. What the hell is going on in there?
“Relax dove, I just need one more. I was looking for the reference book on toxic plants, you know the red one? Shigs wants to look for a substitute for unicorn blood so he can make more of that poison, and–”
Midoriya yelps as he leans forward a little too far, creating a deafeningly loud creak as the door to the library shifts under his weight. The blue light filtering out from under the door abruptly goes out, and there is suddenly the loud snap of wings and the loud clatter of a chair falling over. Midoriya tries to catch himself but falls with a loud yelp, stumbling through the cracked open door and into a tangle of limbs on the library floor. It’s pitch black in the library, and everything feels like it's been turned upside down. As he tries to untangle himself from the carpet and get his bearings, Midorya hears the loud sound of an animalistic hiss, more feathers snapping, and the rusty creak of metal. He finally stands up, running to where he knows the nearest desk is to flick on a magelight lamp and–
Nothing.
The library is completely empty. A chair has been knocked over, and one of the couches has been shifted slightly out of position, but there is no other sign that anyone was ever here. There is a loud metallic creak, and his attention is drawn to the open window. The window pane sways back and forth in the perpetual wind, creaking on rusted metal hinges.
He walks over to the open window, leaning out to try and catch a glimpse of Takami and whoever he was talking to. It’s almost pitch black outside, nothing but sparse moonlight highlighting the black forest beyond the castle wall. He looks up, trying to catch the silhouette of enormous wings blotting out the stars, but only sees the outline of the mountain against the night sky. Sekoto peak rises to the north, the jagged edge of a melted crater obvious even in the dark. Distantly in the forest, he can faintly hear the sound of a nightingale singing.
Midoriya’s hand grazes something soft, and he looks down to find a single crimson feather on the windowsill. He picks up the feather, frowning as he runs scarred fingers through the soft vanes.
What on earth was that? Takami has some kind of informant in the Sekoto criminal underground?
But… why? He’s an ambassador, he shouldn’t have a role in Sekoto law enforcement. Should he? Anxiety grows in his stomach, mind racing. There’s… there’s something wrong. Takami’s behavior has been odd since they arrived. Hardly anybody ever sees the harpy, and Midoriya has not seen him attend more than a single meeting with Endeavor diplomats. He speaks to Queen Fuyumi directly every few days, but only in private, and is hardly ever seen outside of a few fleeting interactions in the halls.
Something’s wrong, but he can’t pin it down.
There has to be something that explains everything, right? The pervasive aura of fear plaguing the castle staff, Takami’s long absences, the off-limits north wing, the missing eldest Todoroki prince…
The answer is there, if he could only see the connecting threads.
He lets the single crimson feather drop to the floor, reaching out to close the window with a rusty creak.
October 11
Prince Natsuo left today, he’s off to study at the medical school in Hosu. It’s interesting, I think, that a member of the royal family is studying to become a doctor. It’s not typical, most royals stick to the inner workings of their government, even if they aren’t the ruling monarch. If something were to ever happen to Queen Fuyumi (god forbid), Prince Natsuo would be next in line. Weirdly enough, the queen doesn’t seem particularly worried if Prince Natsuo decides to just… do something else with his life. If something were to happen to her, would Natsuo abdicate in favor of Prince Shouto? It’s hard to say.
The goodbyes were awkward to watch. Fuyumi and Natsuo seem to get along decently well, but neither of them seem to have a strong relationship with their youngest brother. It’s not hostile or anything just… awkward. Like they don’t know what to say to one another.
It’s sad, honestly. I like Shouto, even though he is quiet and awkward. He means well, and he’s actually really sweet once you get to know him.
I think about him a lot. I like spending time with him, even though he doesn’t talk much. He always listens to me when I ramble, and he doesn’t seem to mind. Sometimes he gives me a little smile, or asks questions, and it lets me know he actually cares about what I’m saying and isn’t just tuning me out. I’ve slowly gotten him to talk to me a bit more. He likes horseback riding a lot, and he really likes to read poetry. He does this thing where he tilts his head and the corner of his mouth goes up in this little half smile and he just…
He’s beautiful.
I just wish he wasn’t so sad.
Midoriya gets knocked to the ground for the twelfth time in the last fifteen minutes, all the breath getting forced out of his lungs as his back slams into the ground. He groans, rolling over to clutch at his own stomach, eyes screwed shut. The dull practice knife is still clutched in his hand, until a boot kicks the blade out of his grip. He yelps as pain flares in his hand, the knife skittering away and across the training ground.
“I win again, Deku,” laughs Bakugou, leering over Midoriya’s prone form on the floor with a wild smile on his face and magic sparking in his hands. He just groans in response, opening one eye to give Bakugou a dirty look from the floor.
“I… I give up,” he coughs, groaning again. Bakugou cackles.
“‘Bout time, it’s no fun winning against you, fucking nerd. Gimme a real challenge.” Midoriya forces himself to sit up, one arm still clenched around his aching stomach. His hand is throbbing where Bakugou kicked the knife out of his hand, and he tries to fight back the tears he can feel welling up to the surface. Bakugou doesn’t help him stand up, but doesn’t keep pushing him either, bright red eyes giving him a long, serious look. He finally rolls his eyes, looking away as he grumbles under his breath.
“Go sit down, Deku. You’re not going to improve if you keep pushing yourself to the point of injury,” he mutters, too softly for anyone but Midoriya to hear. He stares at Bakugou with wide eyes, but slowly nods. He… he’s never seemed to care if Midoriya gets hurt before. Has something changed? It’s… confusing. The angry blond refuses to make eye contact, however, so Midoriya just hobbles away to the sidelines.
The deafeningly loud crack of ice draws his attention to the other side of the practice ring, where Kirishima and Shouto are sparring. The prince has cast an enormous wall of ice, continually twisting and weaving and trying to protect his left side. Kirishima yells as he simply twirls in place, smashing his powerful, scaled tail directly through the ice. He barrels through the break in the ice at full speed, smashing his rock-hard head through and punching Shouto on his unprotected left side with his massive clawed fist. It sends the prince tumbling across the floor, random spurts of ice trying to hold the dragonkin back as he simply brute forces his way through the obstacles. Kirishima is almost on top of him, so Shouto wildly casts a dome of ice around himself on the ground. Kirishima growls in frustration and starts trying to punch through the several feet of ice, thunderous cracks ringing out every time he strikes and breaks off another chunk.
Midoriya takes a seat on the edge of the practice ring, sighing in exhaustion. God his hand hurts.
“Oi, shitty hair!” yells Bakugou, face twisted into one of his mean-looking smiles as he pops off explosions in his hands. “Give Icyhot over there a break. I need someone who I can explode without breaking.” Kirishima abruptly stops trying to smash his way through Shouto’s ice, whipping around to give Bakugou a beaming smile with his bright, serrated teeth. He always does that, lights up like the fucking sun every time Bakugou talks to him.
“Sure thing, man!” he says brightly, jogging over to Bakugou with a big stupid grin on his face. Midoriya chuckles to himself a little as the dragonkin practically throws himself towards the mage, not flinching at all as Bakugou detonates his hands in his face. The explosion hits slightly off-center to his right, and Kirishima follows the momentum pushing his right shoulder away to spin on his claws, bringing his enormous tail whipping around to slam into Bakugou’s chest and send him flying. The blond cusses violently and uses his explosions to start throwing himself through the air, Kirishima giving out delighted laughs as they spar.
God, Kirishima’s head is just full of rocks and sunshine, isn’t it?
A huge rush of steam rises from the other side of the training ring as the dome of ice around Shouto melts, revealing the still panting form of the prince inside. He looks slightly angry, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve, mismatched eyes staring at something distant. He pushes himself up with a grunt and starts walking over to the edge of the training ring where Midoriya is sitting, limping slightly. He doesn’t give Midoriya a second glance as he sits down next to him with a huff, crossing his arms over his legs as he stares unblinkingly at the sparring match.
Midoriya turns to look at Shouto, a slight anxiety in his stomach. The prince is hunched over, defensive and closed off, staring across the practice ring. There's dirt and mud on his clothes, a slight bruise on his cheek. Midoriya notices with a pang that Shouto is shivering, breath still coming out in a cold mist. His nose and hands are slightly blue, he must be freezing.
He only ever uses his ice when they spar, and it’s become increasingly obvious that the prince is utterly incapable of regulating his body temperature without an equal use of his fire. He can only fight for about twenty minutes before he starts shivering and turning blue.
It’s probably out of line, but Midoriya scoots closer. Shouto doesn’t look at him, but starts to lean ever so slightly into the warm body at his side, another violent shiver racing through him. Midoriya grits his teeth, trying not to flinch as their sides press together. Todorkoi feels like ice.
“Hey,” he offers, stomach tied in knots for reasons he doesn’t understand. Shouto gives him a little glance out of the corner of his eye. He lets out another breath, a few ice crystals blowing out of his mouth.
“Midoriya.”
“You, um,” he stammers, looking down at his scarred hands. “You seem cold.” Shouto looks ahead. He nods, ever so slightly. His shoulders tremor again, and he shifts to tuck his hands into the center of his body. Midoriya bites his lip.
He shifts closer, pressing their sides fully together. Their legs touch, and he subtly leans back to halfway place his arm across Shouto’s back, hand bracing against the floor right behind where the prince is sitting. The prince stiffens, breath catching in his throat. Midoriya winces, about to pull away when Shouto relaxes, shifting his weight until he is leaning his shoulder into Midoriya’s chest.
Shouto is still frigid to the touch, but suddenly Midoriya feels like he’s overheating.
They watch the sparring match in silence for a while, while Shouto’s shivering slowly subsides. Warmth and color start to come back to his nose and hands, and he stops breathing out plumes of frost. The ground shakes when Bakugou blasts Kirishima straight into the dirt, blasting through several feet of packed earth and creating a crater in the center of the ring. The dragonkin, like always, pops out of the hole in the ground with a big smile, utterly unharmed.
“He’s strong,” mutters Shouto, breaking the silence. Midoriya gives him a little look out of the corner of the eye. His mismatched eyes still look far away.
“Who, Kirishima?” he asks. Shouto shrugs.
“Both of them.” Another long silence. “Kirishima’s technique is all over the place, and Bakugou is reckless. I should be better than them.” Midoriya hums, watching as Kirishima manages to punch Bakugou in the stomach and send him flying across the ring.
“They go for your left side,” he mutters, starting to bounce one leg. Shouto stiffens up slightly, but doesn’t say anything. “It’s the obvious choice. You can only cast ice from your right. It leaves your left side open, so they go for that. You can make up for it a lot of the time, but they’re fast, especially for big hitters. Kacchan is really mobile, and he always stays on your left.”
Shouto stays silent, glaring forwards. He doesn’t move away, however, staying halfway curled up into Midoriya’s chest. It feels like there’s butterflies in his stomach. It’s probably crossing a line, but he feels brave. Midoriya takes a deep breath, leaning in slightly to touch their heads together. Shouto doesn’t move.
“Why don’t you use your left side?” he asks in a soft whisper. Silence. “You… with all due respect, your highness, you’re cutting your potential in half. You have two kinds of magic. That… that’s incredible,” he mutters shyly. He pulls his head away, turning instead to stare at the side of Shouto’s face. The prince is still staring forwards, face impassive but hands starting to white-knuckle grip at his shirt, arms still crossed across his chest. Midoriya swallows nervously.
“I… I would kill for that,” he whispers, looking down and away, biting his lip. “And I… I’m not trying to be shitty, or... But, I don’t understand. I sit here with, with no magic, not even a spark, and you have two incredible elemental powers and you just… you cut your potential in half. Why?”
Shouto doesn’t answer him for a long time, staring blankly and watching Bakugou and Kirishima train.
“Do you know about my father, Midoriya?” the prince finally says. His voice is low, flat. Empty. Midoriya looks up, eyes darting across the prince’s face.
“I… I know of him,” he says. God, how can he keep this diplomatic? They never talk about the war, or the terrible things that happened. King Enji has been dead for three years, but his ghost still haunts the relationship between their two countries. And even if he was responsible for terrible terrible things, he was still Shouto’s father. The father who raised him, who taught him his first words and cheered when he took his first steps. A man with a family, with people who cared about him as a person. That must be… difficult to reconcile.
”I… I know he was a complicated person,” he offers. “His… political decisions were… they were wrong, but I’m told he was an excellent tactician, and he won many battles. I’m sure… I’m sure you saw a different side of him, as his son.” He hopes that was the right thing to say.
“My father used to hit me.”
Midoriya freezes.
“...Oh.”
“He was obsessed with the war.” Shouto says, voice still bizarrely flat. His eyes are distant, like he is reliving memories but refusing to feel them. “He… he wanted to win, he wanted to win more than anything in the entire world. It wasn’t even political after a certain point, or economic, or religious, or whatever bullshit he spouted to the public, or even to us, to justify the war. I think he stopped caring about how much the war was costing us after a while, what it was costing the country. He just... It burned him up inside, knowing that King Toshinori was winning . Knowing that someone could beat him, at anything.” Shouto shifts a little, and Midoriya holds himself so still he’s stopped breathing. “It became his obsession, beating Toshinori. That’s when he bought my mom.”
Midoriya feels his breath catch in his throat.
“She's an ice mage, a really, really powerful one. He thought that he could breed a successor, a son who would be the greatest battlemage who ever lived. A son who could wipe Yuuei off the map and win the war for good. It took him four tries.”
Four. Four children. Shouto, Natsuo, Fuyumi, and… The missing son, the one in the painting in Queen Fuyumi’s office. The one nobody talks about. The one who’s name Midoriya doesn’t even know.
The one who was, very clearly, the oldest, and must have been next in the line of succession.
“He finally got me,” Shouto mumbles, starting to push his face into his arms. “It took him four tries but he finally got me. Fire and ice, a perfect balance. I was supposed to be his weapon, his way to finally win once and for all. He trained me every day. For years and years, and… He doesn’t pull his punches, even when it’s a child. Even when it’s his own child. Even if his child is six years old.”
“Your highness, I–”
“He hit mom too. Burned her, over and over again.” Shouto says. His voice is starting to crack, the smallest bit of emotion finally cutting through. Midoriya’s mouth clicks shut. “He… She was pregnant four times, but I never saw them sleep in the same bed. She was terrified of him. I don’t think he gave her a choice.”
Shouto takes a long, shuddering breath, hands gripping into his shirt.
“She snapped. She saw my left side, the red hair and the blue eye, and all she could see was Enji. She was so terrified of him, and all she could see when she looked at me was him. She tried to boil it away.” His hand comes to rest of the red, faded scar around his left eye, hand shaking. His breathing picks up, hyperventilating, voice starting to shake ever so slightly. “I never saw her again after that. Once Enji didn’t have his wife to burn, he moved on to my brother and I.”
The bottom drops out of Midoriya’s stomach.
Natsuo doesn’t have any burn scars. The missing son from the painting. Did Enji–
“Fire has brought nothing but suffering to our family. My father was a monster, and the only thing he ever gave me was this.” Tododoki holds out his left palm, a single, tiny orange flame coming to life in his hand. It flickers and waves in the wind, before he closes his fist around the little flame, putting it out. “It’s his fire. It’s his legacy. His legacy of burning, of murder and torture and suffering, and I refuse to let him have that. I refuse to use my left side, his fire. I’ll only ever use my mother’s ice. This family has seen enough flames. His fire dies with me.”
There is a long, tense silence. Midoriya’s stomach twists, mind racing at a hundred miles an hour. Shouto folds in on himself, burying his face in his legs. He sniffles, ever so softly, and Midoriya’s heart shatters.
He reaches out, gently placing his scarred, ugly palm on Todorki’s left hand. The prince startles, jerking his head up, finally turning to look Midoriya in the eye. His eyes are wide, tears threatening to spill over his white and red eyelashes, breath coming out in a fast little pant. Even when he’s having a breakdown, he is so quiet. Midoriya gently picks up the prince’s left hand, pulling it palm up in between them. He gives Shouto a soft smile, and the prince’s eyes widen just a little more.
“It’s your fire, your highness.” Shouto tries to jerk his hand away, but Midoriya holds him firmly in place by the wrist. “Do it again. Make a flame.”
The prince stares at him for a long moment, more emotions than Midoriya has ever seen him display flashing across his face. Anger, sorrow, disgust, fear, they all flash across his pretty face in rapid succession. He finally settles on a slightly angry look, brows creased and eyes narrowed in indignation.
He eventually capitulates, a tiny little orange flame coming to life in his hand. Midoirya gives him another soft smile.
“See? You just made that, your highness. Not your father, you. That fire came from you.” The prince’s mouth drifts open, but the words seem to catch in his throat. “It’s your fire, your highness. Nobody else’s. It's your choice what to do with it. Fire is fire. It isn’t evil, it isn’t destined to be used to cause pain and misfortune. It’s an element, it’s magic, and all magic can be used for good, or for evil.”
“It hurts people,” Shouto whispers. “Fire destroys people. It burns people alive, it changes them, takes away their future, their sanity, their face… I– I refuse to let my fire do to me what it did to– to him.”
“Then don’t.” Midoriya cups his hands around the prince’s palm, looking down at the gentle little flame there. “It can be what you want it to be. Yes, fire burns. But water drowns, ice freezes, air cuts and earth crushes. Fire burns, but it is also warmth. It is the light in the dark, a torch guiding us towards a better future. It’s passion and excitement and life. Use it, your highness. Use it and make it yours. You have the power to change what fire represents to you, to your family. It’s your fire, not his.”
Shouto stares at him, soft gray and bright blue staring into green. The flame in his hand flares and dims, wavering along with his emotions. He finally tears his eyes away, looking down to stare at the orange flame dancing in his palm. His hands shake.
“I…” he whispers, voice softer and more delicate than Midoriya has ever heard.
“INCOMING!” Kirishima yells, and Midoriya barely has time to scream and push Shouto to the ground before the dragonkin sails less than an inch over their heads, slamming into the wall with a thunderous crack . He bounces off the wall, crashing into Midoriya and Shouto’s heads, flailing in the air. His tail whips and smacks Midoriya across the head, instantly dazing him, and his body collapses onto the prince. Bakugou cackles from across the training ring.
“Give up yet, lizard boy?! I can blast you all fucking day!” he yells, explosions going off and filling the air with the distinct, burnt-sugar smell of his magic.
It ruins the moment, but later Midoriya cannot forget the sight of soft gray and burning blue.
October 12
The nightingale came to my window again.
It just taps and taps at the window until I let it in, no matter how long I try to ignore it. It still hasn’t let me touch it again, which is fine I guess. I still don’t know what it wants, but it seems content to just sit on my windowsill, staring at me.
It’s peculiar behavior for a bird, but I took the opportunity to draw it. It’s the most detailed drawing I have ever managed of a bird, because I have never had the chance to draw a bird that is standing perfectly still for over an hour.
Like most common nightingales it is a dull, grayish brown, with black eyes and a small, yellow beak. Its wings, however, are a curious shade of deep, blood red. I have honestly never seen such a thing. Could it be some kind of cross breed? Regardless, I was able to capture every curve of its feathers, the shadows and shades of its plumes, the delicate lines of its tiny legs. The band around its leg is incredibly detailed, and I dedicated quite a lot of time to capturing the tiny embossed leaves and flowers on its surface.
It is rather pretty, for a nightingale, if rather odd.
I showed the bird the painting I made, which I know is silly, but the bird seemed to appreciate its likeness regardless. Only once I was done painting it did the nightingale finally fly back out the window. I could hear it singing, even after I closed my window.
So peculiar, isn’t it?
Midoriya is sitting at yet another awkwardly silent dinner, pushing around the meat on his plate. It’s always like this, the Todorokis eat in utter silence, seemingly unbothered by how fucking awkward it is, while Midoriya sits here and feels like he’s about to spontaneously combust. He can’t even be distracted by the food. Northern food is… very different from southern food. They’re having a dish called rouladen for dinner tonight, yet another food that Midoriya has never heard of and finds that he hates. It consists of pickles, bacon, and onions, wrapped in strips of beef and then covered in mustard.
It’s revolting, and Midoriya silently curses whoever came up with the concept of pickles.
All he wants is rice. Please dear god, just one bowl of rice.
He glances over at Kirishima, who has already enthusiastically cleared his plate and is starting on his second helping. The dragonkin eats an insane amount of food, and apparently has no taste buds because he will eat anything with an equivalent level of enthusiasm . Bakugou is almost done with his food, red eyes distant and focused on something else, lost in his head. The blond has some weird appreciation for northern food, and has been writing down some of his favorites so he can request recipes from the kitchen staff later. Prince Shouto and Queen Fuyumi are almost done with their plates as well, eating politely and silently.
Midoriya looks back down at his plate, another gross-looking packet of mustard-covered meat and pickles left to go, and gives up.
He’ll just wait for dessert and hope that’s enough.
Thankfully, he doesn’t have to wait long. Within a few minutes a few maids arrive carrying plates of apple strudel. Thank god, something that’s actually edible. His mouth starts to water as a slice of strudel is placed in front of him, starting to pick up his spoon to dig in when he catches the eye of Tsuyu. The frog girl is helping serve dessert tonight, and she places a plate of strudel in front of Kirishima across the table.
Midoriya glances around the table. Everyone is busy with their own plates, paying little attention to whatever is happening around them. He glances back at the door, watching as Tsuyu follows the other maids out of the dining room.
“Excuse me,” he says, standing up from the table with an awkward smile. “Just running to the restroom.” The queen and prince just look up and give him a little nod. Bakugou scowls at him.
“Don’t gotta announce to the whole table when you need to take a piss,” he grumbles, before stabbing his spoon into his strudel with a little too much force. Midoriya ignores him, Kacchan always finds something to get annoyed over. He excuses himself from the dinner table with a brief little bow, turning to walk calmly out the door and into the hall. He looks to either side, and catches a glimpse of long, sea-green hair tied into a bow turning and disappearing around the corner. He jogs after her, almost stumbling over the carpet when he turns the corner, just barely catching up to the small cluster of maids making their way back to the kitchens.
“Hey, Tsuyu!” he whispers, trying to get her attention. The frog girl turns with a soft ribbit, the tip of her overly long tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth.
“Midoriya?” she croaks, turning around. The other maids keep walking, chattering amongst themselves. They haven’t noticed that Tsuyu is no longer with them.
“Hey, can I, uh-” he stutters, catching his breath from jogging down the hallway. “Can I ask you something, in private?” Tsuyu blinks her gigantic eyes one at a time, hands held in front of her body awkwardly.
“Sure.” She waves him into a side corridor that Midoriya never even noticed, opening a broom closet just big enough for the two of them. She shuts the door, and Midoriya has to shove himself halfway into a mop bucket as she flicks on the dangling magelight over their heads. Tsuyu stares at him expectantly, hands held up to dangle in front of her like she always does.
“Uh,” mutters Midoriya, flinching as a mop falls halfway on his head. “This is… an interesting location.”
Tsuyu’s tongue darts up to clean her eye, staring at him without blinking.
“...Right. Listen, Tsu, I know I’ve had questions before, and you can’t always answer–”
“Midoriya, I told you, we don’t talk about the–”
“Yeah, yeah, you don’t talk about the north wing. Or the boy in the painting. Or where Takami goes,” he says, slightly exasperated. This castle has far too many secrets. “I just… Can I ask one more question?” The frog girl stares at him for a minute, before letting out another ribbit. He’ll take that as a yes, then.
He leans in to whisper, even though they are shoved into a broom closet and there is absolutely, positively, no possible way that anybody is hiding in here with them (especially NOT a creepy brown-haired girl who he strongly suspects is following him around and watching him almost every day).
“How… How did King Enji die?” he asks. “It’s just… Prince Shouto told me a bit about him. And… I can tell it's a sensitive subject. He said a lot of things, but he didn’t tell me what happened. How he died. I know it probably doesn’t matter, in the end, but I just… everyone in this castle is always walking on eggshells, there’s so many things that are just… off about this place, and I can feel it. There's something wrong, and I just, I know King Enji must have been a part of it.”
Tsuyu freezes in place. She licks her eyeball again.
“You… you don’t know?” she asks with a soft croak. Miodirya shakes his head.
“No. All I know is that he died three years ago, and then Queen Fuyumi took the throne, even though she wasn’t next in line. And I know, I know you can’t say anything about the oldest Todoroki brother, but–”
“Midoriya, stop talking,” Tsuyu croaks. He instantly clicks his mouth shut. She lets out a long sigh, looking spectacularly frustrated.
“Look, there’s a lot of things we don’t talk about, and there is good reason for it,” Tsuyu says. “I keep telling you, we don’t talk about it, but you keep finding more and more questions, more things we don’t talk about.”
“But–”
“Okay, okay,” She sighs, rubbing at her face with her overly-large hand. “If I tell you, will you swear to never talk about this again?”
Midoriya nods enthusiastically, leaning in. A bottle of cleaning solution falls on his head with a dull thunk.
“Yes, I promise Tsu. I won’t say a word to anyone. I just want to understand.” The frog girl sighs, making the sign of the cross, before leaning in to whisper. He leans in, trembling in anticipation.
“Midoriya, do you believe in demons?” she asks, voice low and scared. He frowns, pulling back slightly.
“I… what? No, of course not. There’s no such thing as demons, there has never been any evidence of such a thing,” he says. Tsuyu fidgets anxiously, tongue flicking across her cheek.
“Demons are real, Midoriya,” she mutters. “And Sekoto has a demon of its own.” He feels the hair on his arms start to prickle up. She looks so serious, staring at him with her big, unblinking frog eyes.
“What do you mean?” he asks. Their quiet voices seem to echo in the tiny broom closet, the single light over their heads swinging back and forth. Harsh shadows dance across their faces. Tsuyu looks… scared.
“There was a… A lot happened, three years ago. I was a house slave back then, working in the manor of one of the wealthy merchants here in the city. I didn’t start working in the castle until after the war ended, when I wasn’t a slave anymore and Queen Fuyumi started hiring non-humans to try and set an example of equal treatment. There were… incidents. Sightings. Deaths,” she whispers. She wrings her hands, eyes blinking one at a time. “The city was in a panic Midoriya.”
He swallows nervously, looking down at the frog girl with growing apprehension.
“What happened, Tsu?”
“There… there’s a labyrinth,” she whispers. “Under the city. Miles and miles of tunnels, it’s supposed to be almost impossible to navigate.” Midoriya nods.
“Kirishima told me about the labyrinth, about how he used it to escape Sekoto. That’s where he first met Takami.”
“A lot of slaves escaped that way,” she whispers. “There was an underground network, people you could talk to. All the slaves knew about it. A route to freedom, if you were willing to take the risk. But the labyrinth… the rumor is that they dug too deep, trying to make more tunnels. Something got loose. The demon of the labyrinth.” Midoriya’s heart starts to thud in his chest.
“How… how did-”
“People saw it, Midoriya. It had no skin of its own, it stole people's skin and stapled strips of flesh onto its body. It was thin, so thin you could see its bones, no matter how many people it ate. Its eyes glowed, and it could open doors into hell. Hellfire is blue, did you know that? Cold and blue. Word spread, people were terrified. King Enji sent soldiers into the tunnels, trying to kill the demon.” She leans in further, starting to tremble. “One hundred and fifty seven, Midoriya. One hundred and fifty seven people disappeared, swallowed up, never to be seen again.”
The bottom drops out of his stomach.
That… that can’t be…
“King Enji didn’t give up, he kept sending soldiers into the labyrinth, trying to kill it, and that's what made it mad.” Her eyes blink, one at a time. “It gave the king one warning. One. It burned the mountain.”
The hole. The enormous obsidian crater at the top of Sekoto Peak, the one that is larger than even a fire mage could ever possibly make. The one that he was convinced must have been made by a dragon.
That’s not… this isn’t possible–
“Enji didn’t listen. The demon gave him three days to pull the soldiers out of the tunnels, but he didn’t listen. It burned the mountain, and then three days later it killed him.” Midoriya feels like he can’t breathe. “There weren’t even any burn marks in the room where he died, it was like he couldn’t even fight back. It just… tore him apart. When they came to clean up the body, there was blood everywhere, he bled to death in minutes .”
“There… there must have been an assassin, a resistance group in the tunnels, there’s no way–”
“The day after Enji died, Prince Touya disappeared.”
He freezes.
(Touya. That name. He’s heard it before. Where has he heard that name before? It’s cloyingly familiar, on the tip of his memory.)
(Why, why can’t he remember where he’s heard that name?)
“What… What happened to him?” he asks, voice starting to tremble ever so slightly. Tsuyu licks her eyes again.
“Nobody knows. He just… vanished. Things started happening, in the months leading up to his disappearance. He was always rather withdrawn. He tended towards isolation, but nothing like the last few months of his life. He went from occasional court appearances a few times a year to dropping out of the public eye completely. It all started when one day he just suddenly… snapped. Burned three guards alive, turned them to ashes, and nobody knows why. Blood started appearing in the stairwell with no pattern, no reports of staff missing, no bodies ever found. People started hearing screaming at random times, like the prince was having random fits of rage for no reason. Nobody except Takami and his family ever saw him for the last few months he was alive, he stopped leaving the north wing entirely. They say he started sleeping during the day and staying awake at night, starting random fires, started getting paranoid. It’s like he was being… haunted, hunted down and marked for death, tortured for months before…”
Tsuyu takes a deep breath, hands wringing nervously.
“Most people think he got taken by the demon, that he got caught in the crossfire, because of where he lived.” Midoriya looks down at her big, black eyes, anxiety growing. “The entire royal family lives in the east wing, where you’re staying. They’ve always lived there, for generations and generations. There have only been two exceptions, two Todorokis who lived away from everyone else, in the north wing.”
“The first was Queen Rei, the wife of King Enji. She went crazy too, before she disappeared ten years ago. The second was Prince Touya, who disappeared three years ago, the day after Enji was killed by a demon.”
“What… how does that connect to–”
“There’s an entrance to the labyrinth in the castle, Midoriya. That’s how the demon gets in and out, how it got into the castle to drive the prince mad and kill the king, how it stole Rei and Touya. The entrance to the labyrinth is in the basement of the north wing.”
The walls are starting to close in, there’s a ringing in his ears.
“That’s why it’s boarded up, off limits. None of us go up there, except for two people. Do you know how Takami first came to Sekoto, Midoriya?” Her voice croaks.
Midoriya shakes his head. Takami was a prisoner of war, but the details have never been made public.
“He was Prince Touya’s pet, Midoriya,” Tsu mutters, eyes looking a little sad. “He lived in the north wing with him. They were close, inseparable. Nobody ever saw them apart, and there were rumors… They say he was there when Touya was taken. He… I don’t think he ever got over it. Every time he comes back to Sekoto, he stays in their old bedroom, in the north wing. Even though nobody is there anymore, even though that's where Touya was taken, even though he knows the entrance to the labyrinth is right under his feet. I… I think he’s waiting, waiting for the demon to come back one day. I don’t know if he wants revenge, or if he wants the demon to take him too, so he can be with Touya again. I don’t know.”
Tsuyu casts her eyes down, letting out a sad sounding croak.
“The only other person crazy enough to go up there is this one girl, she used to be Touya’s personal maid before he disappeared. She cleans the north wing, takes care of Takami when he’s here, goes up there every day even though… The Queen sometimes escorts men up there, alchemists and priests and doctors… She never says why, never explains herself. But we know why. She’s trying to get rid of the demon, bringing in anyone who might be able to perform an exorcism and get rid of it for good. But it doesn’t work.”
“...What do you mean?” he asks.
Tsuyu blinks, slowly, and her tongue darts out to lick up the side of her face.
“It’s still happening, Midoriya. Less often than it used to, but sometimes we can hear it. Screaming in the middle of the night. People in the city still go missing. Fires, blue fires, are seen attacking people and wagons. Just a month ago a prisoner transport wagon went up in blue flames, and the prisoner’s arms were eaten. He saw… They say he saw it. Stapled on skin, blue fire, glowing eyes. Nobody ever talks about it, except in hushed whispers in back hallways, after dark in taverns far from the castle, far away from the ears of Takami and the royal family. Still, to this day, the Todorokis have never made an official statement. They’ve never confirmed what happened. It’s all rumors, tales passed down amongst the castle staff, reported sightings of the demon, even now, three years later.”
Midoriya feels like he can’t breathe, his hands are shaking and his ears are ringing and he’s dizzy. His tongue feels like lead in his mouth.
The man Takami was speaking to in the library the other night, he was talking about THAT prisoner, wasn’t he? Chisaki Kai, the leader of the Shie Hassaikai who arrived in Sekoto with his arms missing. That man… he’s involved in all of this, somehow.
Takami knows what's happening, what’s actually happening at the root of it all.
What secrets is the harpy hiding?
“....Why?” he whispers. His voice trembles. “Why, why won’t anyone talk about it? Why won’t anyone just ask the Todorokis what happened?”
Tsuyu gives him a long, dark look.
“Because, Midoriya. Thou must not speak of the devil, or he shall appear.”
October 13
I don’t understand what’s happening.
This stupid nightingale keeps coming back, almost every night. I fall asleep, only to be woken up at around midnight by its relentless tapping. It’s driving me crazy, I can’t sleep with the tapping, and it won’t stop until I let it into the room.
I’ve tried everything I can think of. I’ve tried to feed it, or pet it, or shoo it away, but nothing. No matter what I do, or say, the bird just sits there. It doesn’t move for hours. Everytime I try to touch it it just barely moves out of the way, before settling back on the windowsill to stare at me.
There is no way this is a natural bird behavior. I’ve never heard of such a thing. I got three ornithology textbooks from the library, and none of them mention anything like this. Is it sick? Can birds go crazy?
During the day I can hear it outside. It seems to spend most of its time in the forest around the castle, and it sings a lot. I can hear it constantly. At first I thought there was no way I was always hearing the same bird. Even when this bird was following us when we were traveling it didn’t sing this much. I thought there had to be a flock of them around here if I’m always hearing it, but no. It took me almost a week, but I am now convinced I am always hearing the same bird. It's the song, it has a repeating four note phrase that it keeps using, over and over and over again. And then I started seeing it. Every so often when I look outside, there it is, on the windowsill, or on the wall around the castle lawns, or on top of a spire or chimney. The same nightingale with the band on its leg and rust-colored wings.
Does it only come to my window? It doesn’t happen every night, maybe it’s visiting other people too. I’m afraid to ask though, what if Kirishima or Kacchan or Shouto think I’m crazy?
Am I crazy? Is the nightingale real? Am I hallucinating the whole thing?
How do I know what I’m seeing is real?
He stays true to his word. He doesn’t breathe a word of what Tsuyu told him to anyone.
It’s driving him crazy, he can’t stop thinking about it. Everytime he sees Takami he just gets this horrible feeling of dread. The harpy knows, knows what’s really going on, he can sense the secrets coming off of him in waves, smothered by a fake smile and an overly cheerful disposition. He overheard Takami talking to someone, a person, a real living person who attacked the prisoner transport. It cannot possibly have been a demon, no matter what Tsuyu says, no matter what the rumors are.
Demons aren’t real. There are so many metaphysical things in this world. There is magic, creatures like ghouls and vampires that straddle the line between life and death, but demons? Real, honest to god demons? Nobody has ever been able to show compelling evidence for the existence of demons, or angels, or gods, or any other divine being. That lies firmly in the realm of religion, the teachings of many civilizations that rise and fall, replaced every few centuries by a new group who claims to know the real answer. Northerners in particular are known for being deeply, deeply religious, it makes sense for rumors of a ‘demon’ to spread here.
But there has to be a logical explanation, a real explanation. Maybe a dragon burned the hole in the mountain. Perhaps there was a resistance group in the labyrinth that killed one hundred and fifty six guards. Maybe there was an assassin who murdered the king, and people just blamed the death on the demon. Maybe Prince Touya really did go mad, and simply died by his own hand.
(Every time he looks at Shouto, sees the way he stares off at nothing, eyes glazed over like he’s haunted by memories, he can’t help but wonder.)
(Is Prince Shouto haunted by the memories of his father? Or memories of his missing brother?)
His attention is all over the place. He can’t focus in class, he can barely study, he can’t read or draw or scribble notes in his little notebook. He can’t sleep, something is keeping him up ( taptaptaptap) and he doesn’t know why he lays awake in bed all night staring at the ceiling. He starts making stupid mistakes in training, mistakes he would have made years ago, dropping weapons and jumping in fear every time there's a loud noise. He had been getting better recently, he’s good with knives and swords, he is a halfway decent archer, and he had been starting to be able to bob and weave and hold his own against the others when they spar. But now? Every time there’s an explosion or the crack of ice Midoriya practically jumps out of his skin.
He feels like he’s losing his grip, mind fraying away at the edges.
He can’t focus, too preoccupied with trying to find a logical explanation for everything Tsuyu said, one that doesn’t involve believing in literal demons.
His sparring partners have noticed his lack of attention, and he is suffering for it.
Bakugou blasts him across the ring in a simple move Midoriya should have been able to dodge, the sword in his hand going flying. His back slams up against the wall, knocking all of the air out of him as he collapses into a heap on the ground, groaning.
His scarred hand is throbbing, he landed on his wrist wrong. Damnit, he can’t keep taking injuries to his hand.
“Where the fuck is your mind at, Deku? You’re bad, but you aren’t usually this bad.”
Midoriya groans, looking up to Bakugu’s scowling face above his own. The blond has barely worked up a sweat, soot evident across his face and clothes, his kurta half-open and messy. Midoriya slowly pushes himself up, wincing as he accidently places too much weight on his wrist.
“I’m fine Kacchan, just a bad fighter like always,” he murmurs. He slips while trying to sit up, wrist giving out from under him. Sparks dance across his vision at the pain. He definitely broke his wrist again, dammit. Bakugou sighs, grabbing Midoriya by the back of his kurta and lifting him up and off the ground. He yelps, flailing slightly in the air before Bakugou places him back on his feet.
“Not this bad. You’re distracted. Why?” growls Bakugou. His brilliant red eyes land on the arm Midoriya still has clutched to his chest, scowling like he just bit into a lemon. “You fuck up your hand again?”
“No,” he lies. Bakugou gives him a disdainful look before grabbing him by the wrist. Midoriya squeals in pain, knees threatening to buckle under him. Bakugou sighs, letting his injured wrist go and rolling his eyes.
“Yeah, right. You can’t keep fucking up your hand, Deku, you know that,” he sighs, running his hands through his spiky mess of blond hair. “If you’re going to insist on sparring with mages then you need to be paying fucking attention. I could tell, you’re off in la la land when you should be paying attention to the fight. I haven’t been able to disarm you that easily in weeks. What’s going on?” Midoriya sighs, looking away with a slightly childish pout.
“I just… have a lot on my mind,” he mutters. Bakugou growls, a few sparks popping off in his hand.
“Well get it out of your mind and pay fucking attention, dumbass.” Bakugou reaches out a hand, a serious look on his face. “Gimme your hand.”
Midoriya sighs, looking away as he places his injured wrist in Bakugou’s palm. He tries to focus on Kirirhsima and Shouto sparring on the other side of the ring, swirls of ice and fire dancing around the dragonkin as he uses his tail to smash through projectiles the prince throws his way. The blond pokes and prods at his wrist, giving out occasional grunts. Midoriya hisses in pain but tries not to yank his wrist out of his grip.
“You broke your wrist again, dumbass,” he growls. Red eyes look up, angry glare failing to hide a thread of genuine concern. “Go upstairs to the healer lady, forget her name. The one that looks like an ancient dwarf.”
“Her name is Chiyo,” sighs Midoriya, gently pulling his injured arm out of Bakugou’s grip. “It’s fine, Kacchan, I’ll just–”
“No. Healer’s office, now. Go or I’ll drag you up there myself,” Bakugou snaps. “I refuse to be the one to tell Auntie Inko that you fucked up your hand again.”
“Fine,” he sighs, clutching his arm to his chest. Bakugou glares at him. “I said fine! I’m going, alright? Relax Kacchan, it’s just broken this time. It’s not as bad as–”
“Not as bad as the time you literally blew your hand apart?” he snaps. Midoriya winces. “No, it’s not, but this shit adds up. Now go, before I break your face too.” Bakugou turns around with a huff, stalking across the practice ring to join Kirishima and Shouto.
Midoriya turns, clutching his broken wrist to his chest. He stalks out of the practice ring, trying to ignore the throbbing pain now radiating from his hand. He doesn’t cry, it’s not the worst thing he has ever done to his hand after all, and at a certain point he has gotten used to the feeling of breaking bones.
(No, nothing is as bad as the time he shattered everything from the elbow down.)
(He was just trying to make gauntlets that could imitate Kacchan’s magic. There were canisters full of salamander blood and essence of wolfsbane, and small tubes that both connected to an ignition point in the palm of a glove. With the press of a button, the reagents would mix in his palm and create small explosions, just like Kacchan’s magic.)
(Until, of course, one of the canisters leaked and caused the entire thing to detonate all at once, shattering his entire arm. Now all of his magic-imitating weapon ideas exist only on paper.)
He walks up the sloping trail towards the castle, the perpetual wind pulling at his hair and clothes. The sound of grass waving in the wind is surprisingly similar to the distant crash of the ocean, undulating waves spreading across the lawn like ripples in a pond. He shivers as he enters the shadow of the mountain, the temperature dropping about ten degrees as soon as he is out of direct sunlight. He looks up, eyes following the castle towers up, gaze becoming fixed on the black stone of Sekoto Peak looming over him. He studies the mountain as he walks, tracing the jagged edges where no trees grow, sheer stone harsh and cut apart by the wind. And the crater, the massive hole melted into the mountain top, shiny obsidian cooled in a massive swirl with enormous droplets the size of boulders dripping along the edges.
He sighs, stopping for a moment to stare at the hole melted into the side of the mountain, thinking.
There’s no way… a dragon is the only logical explanation.
Something blue catches his eye, gaze drifting down. He squints, trying to make out what–
There is something blue and flickering coming out of a window. He starts jogging up the last bit of the hill, panting and trying to ignore the way running jostles his broken wrist. He skirts around the main entrance of the castle and around to the side, trying to keep the blue light in his line of sight. Whatever it is keeps flicking and moving, almost like…
Fire.
Blue fire.
He freezes in place, the bottom dropping out of his stomach.
One of the upper windows in the north wing is open, plumes of blue fire pouring out, waving and flickering in the wind. The flames are crackling loudly, growing and pulsing with a bright, cerulean glow. The light is cold and unnatural, flames twisting and writhing in a way that he has never seen before.
Tsuyu’s croaking voice is clear in his mind.
(Hellfire is blue, did you know that? Cold and blue.)
He stares, watching the cerulean flames grow, licking up the stone wall and getting dangerously close to the roof. The stone window ledge starts to glow orange, like it’s… melting.
Blue fire so hot it can melt stone.
Midoriya turns around and sprints toward the main castle door, running as fast as his legs can carry him, yelling hoarsely. His legs ache and his wrist is throbbing but he runs as fast as he possibly can. He trips on a rock as he runs, sprawling across the castle lawn in a clumsy heap. His broken wrist smacks on the ground and he bites back a scream, stars dancing across his vision as he struggles to get up. He stumbles, rising to his feet and resuming his run. He finally turns the corner, running at a dead sprint towards one of the guardsmen stationed at the castle entrance.
“Fire!” he yells, voice hoarse. The guard turns, eyes wide in surprise. “Help, there’s, there’s a fire!” He runs headlong into the guard, the man catching him as he stumbles. Midoriya pants, grabbing at the man’s arms as tightly as he can. “Fire, in the window–”
The guard pushes Midoriya up, straightening out his shoulders and looking him directly in his panicked, green eyes. The man is short but wide-chested, with a blond beard braided with a few silver beads.
“Show me where, kid,” the guard says. Midoriya nods, turning and pulling him along.
“This way, in the window,” he gasps, running back to where he came from. He can hear the metallic jingle of chainmail as the guardsman runs behind him, following him back to where he saw the blue flames. He cuts across the castle lawn, around to the side of the building, turning the corner. He points up towards the fourth story window, looking back at the guard as he gasps for breath.
“The window, the fourth floor, in the north wing. Hurry, we have to get someone who can–”
The guard has stopped, frozen in place, staring up at the window. The man brings his gaze back down, pinning Midoriya in place with his eyes, brows furrowed and low.
“Kid… what did you see?” he asks, voice low. Midoriya frowns, gesturing again.
“The fire, it was–” he turns to look, words catching in his throat when he looks up and…
Nothing. The window is empty, the windowsill slightly blackened but not a single tongue of blue flame to be seen.
“No… no, there was… there was a fire, the whole window was on fire…” he mutters, eyes wide. His hand starts to shake. He turns to look at the guard, the man now staring at him with a deeply concerned look. “I swear, I swear there was a fire, it was coming out of the window, it was starting to melt the windowsill, it was blue, and–”
“Wait,” the guard stops him, drawing close and grabbing Midoriya by the arm. He leans in, eyes darting across his face. “Blue. You said the fire was blue?” he asks, voice a low whisper. Midoriya swallows anxiously but nods.
“Y-Yes sir, blue fire, it was–”
“Hush,” the guard snaps, his grip on Midoriya’s arm growing tighter. “You didn’t see anything, you hear me?”
“B-But–”
“No,” the man snaps, looming over him and yanking him close, eyes wide and scared. Midoriya can feel all his hair standing on end, dread pooling in his stomach. “You didn’t see anything. There is no blue fire, not here. Do I make myself clear?”
Midoriya nods, green eyes wide. His hands are shaking.
The guard nods, finally letting him go. The man looks up, back at the charred window on the fourth floor, hand gripping tightly at the hilt of his sword. His eyes are distant and scared, clearly trying to put on a brave face.
“Go on kid, go inside. You didn’t see anything.”
Midoriya backs away, clutching his injured hand to his chest. He looks at the guard who is still standing perfectly still on the castle lawn, eyes flicking back up to the window on the fourth floor of the north wing, the smell of smoke still in the air.
He turns and runs.
October 14
Again.
The damn bird came again.
It woke me up again, tapping and pecking at the glass, over and over and over again. I tried to ignore it. I thought if I just laid there and went back to sleep and ignored it the bird would finally go away, but it just kept tapping and tapping and tapping and it wouldn’t stop .
I finally got up and wrenched open the window, and I couldn’t help it, I just started yelling at it. Why, why won’t it leave me alone? The nightingale just stood there, staring at me, with its creepy black eyes and stained wings, the cursed band around its leg shining like a mirror in the moonlight.
I yelled and I yelled and I yelled . I just wanted fucking answers. Why, why am I being tormented by a nightingale? Every other night it comes to the window and wakes me up. It taps and taps and taps until I open the window, and then it just stands there, staring at me.
It doesn’t let me touch it. If I try to take the band off its leg it just screeches and pecks at me. It doesn’t accept food. It doesn’t do anything . It just stands there and stares at me for hours until it finally gets bored and flies away, and then I can finally sleep. If I try to shoo it away, try to hasten its departure so I can go back to bed it just screeches and flies around the room until I stop going after it, and then it just goes back to the windowsill.
Sitting. Staring.
Is Tsuyu right? Are demons real?
Is this what keeps visiting me, a demon in the form of a nightingale?
Demons aren’t real, I know that. The north is known for their religious fervor, Endeavor is a religious monarchy that rules by divine right and by the authority of their church. They are borderline fanatical, they believe in angels and demons and in the literal letter of their book. It’s not real, I know it’s not real. There has never been any evidence for the existence of demons, I know that, and yet…
Every time I hear a nightingale singing in the forests beyond the castle walls, I am filled with a horrible, inescapable dread .
They are everywhere, and they are watching.
Midoriya is walking back to his room from the baths, yawning loudly. It’s late, he’s been cramming for a foreign politics exam in the library all day and he is utterly exhausted. He hasn’t slept well since he’s gotten here, but a warm bath helps calm his easily frazzled nerves. He is dressed for bed, shirt and pants made of loose, soft linen that feels like absolute heaven after soaking in the tub, floating in blissful silence . He yawns and runs his hands through his freshly washed hair, scratching a bit at his clean scalp. His green hair is still slightly damp, but it should be dry by the time he actually gets into bed.
Midoriya feels like he could pass out for the next week, as long as no creepy, nightmare-inducing things keep happening (and if birds stay far, far away from his window). He finishes making the climb up the stairwell from where the baths are up to the royal apartments in the east wing, yawning again as he starts making his way down the hall. Most of the magelights have been dimmed for the evening, and the entire castle is starting to settle into a sleepy, dream-like state. He only makes it about twenty feet down the hall when suddenly someone is grabbing his arm, yanking him sideways and into a side corridor. Midoriya yelps and immediately flails his arms, a brief moment of panic taking over.
“Shut the fuck up Deku, do you want to wake up the entire fucking castle?”
Oh, it’s just Bakugou. Midoriya relaxes, sighing loudly in relief. Bakugou is gripping Midoriya’s arms almost painfully tightly, a perpetual scowl across his face. Kirishima is standing over his shoulder, a gigantic serrated smile a sharp contrast to the blond’s infinitely bad mood.
“Jesus, you scared me Kacchan. What do you want? It’s late.” Bakugou’s scowl somehow deepens, his bright red eyes almost overshadowed by his angry brows. He lets Midoriya go however, letting out an annoyed ‘tch’. Kirishima beams, long red tail thumping excitedly across the ground.
“Bakugou and I are going to go exploring! We want to go find out what’s in the north wing. You should come with us Midoriya, it’ll be fun!” The dragonkin apparently can barely whisper, too naturally bright and loud. He’s practically vibrating with excitement, the tip of his tail swishing erratically. Midoriya feels the bottom drop out of his stomach.
The memory of an insane, giggling woman. A blackened door that has been nailed shut. Blue flames appearing and disappearing from a window.
Rumors of a demon.
(wrong wrong wrong wrong)
“I don’t know guys,” he mutters, scratching at the back of his neck. “It’s pretty late, and I don’t know if we should be wandering around like that. We have only been here for a couple weeks, isn’t that rude? Seelie Aizawa and Ambassador Takami got us special permission to be able to come on this trip, we can’t get in trouble in our first month here…” Bakugou snorts, crossing his arms and grinning in that (almost) evil way of his.
“Just admit you’re just a scared little bitch, Deku . Poor useless Deku is too scared of seeing a ghost, he’s just going to cry and try to run back home to his mother. It’s not like he has any magic to fight off anything scary we find, all he can do is run and cry.” It’s Midoriya’s turn to scowl, stomping his foot slightly.
“Shut up Kacchan, I’m not scared of ghosts. I just don’t want us to get in trouble! We are in the royal palace of a foreign country, and the war just ended like three years ago, we should be on our best behavior. Queen Fuyumi gave us one rule, one. Don’t go in the north wing. We’ve been here less than two weeks and you already want to break it?” Bakugou’s grin gets even bigger.
“Hell yeah. Rules are made to be broken, Deku. There’s gotta be a reason why the north wing is off limits, and we are going to find out why. But if you’re too scared…” The blond snickers, and the redheaded dragonkin next to him just continues to wag his tail.
(Cold. It was so fucking cold up there. Why was it so cold?)
“C’mon Midoriya, it’ll be fun! You can stand behind me if you want, I promise I won’t let anything get ya!” Kirishima smiles encouragingly, starting to hop in place. “It’ll be fun! I’ve been in the Sekoto labyrinth and that was fine, there's no way the palace is going to be scarier than that.” Midoriya’s green eyes dart between matching red, anxiety pooling in his gut.
“I don’t know you guys, we could get in a lot of trouble…” Bakugou makes that annoying ‘tch’ sound again, a few sparks crackling in his palms.
“Just admit you’re scared Deku. Shitty hair and I can just go without you, just go back to your safe little bed and hide. C’mon Kiri, let’s go.” Bakugo grabs the dragonkin’s arm and starts dragging him down the hall, a few more crackles and sparks bouncing harmlessly off his hardened skin. Kirishima just shrugs and gives Midoriya a wave over his shoulder, an apologetic smile on his face. Midoriya starts muttering anxiously, eyes darting down the warm eastern hallway, then back at the mage and dragonkin disappearing down the staircase. He wavers on his feet, starting to fist a hand into his unruly mop of green hair, biting at his lip and chewing at the slightly ripped skin there.
“Wait, wait for me!” he calls out in a loud whisper, starting to run down the staircase to trail after the two teenagers. They stop halfway down the stairs, looking back up at him and waiting for him to catch up. Bakugou looks smugly triumphant, while Kirishima just looks genuinely delighted.
“Great Midoriya! You’ll see man, it’ll be fun!” He laughs, tail thumping along the stone. Midoriya just nods nervously, wringing his hands together.
This is such a bad idea, they’re going to get in so much trouble…
(The door is wrong, it's wrongwrongwrong–)
They make it down to the main entryway at the southern entrance of the castle where they first arrived, skirting around the entrance to the throne room and weaving their way up to the north side of the building. The entire palace is built on an incline along the side of the mountain, meaning that the north wing is technically on the fourth floor when compared to the main southern entrance. They arrive at another stairwell directly across from the kitchens, except this one is entirely dark, not a single magelight or torch illuminating the curling, ominous staircase stretching endlessly upwards. The stairs are tucked in the corner of the hall, seemingly forgotten. It’s a different stairwell, a different door, but…
A slow dread pools in Midoriya’s stomach. He reaches out to tug on Bakugou’s sleeve, teeth starting to chatter.
“Kacchan… are you sure about this? I’m sure there’s a really, really good reason why nobody is allowed up there…” Bakugou just shrugs him off, starting to take the first step up and into the dark.
“I’m fucking sure Deku, just go back to the east wing if you’re too scared. C’mon shitty hair, I think this is it.” Kirishima just gives Midoriya an apologetic shrug, starting to follow Bakugou up the stairs. The pitch black swallows them almost instantly, and Midoriya is left standing all alone at the base of the stairs, trembling.
He’s not scared, he’s NOT scared.
(Wrong wrong wrong wrong)
He takes a hesitant step forwards, foot landing on the first, dusty step. He stares upwards, the spiral staircase quickly disappearing into pitch black. It seems to swallow all light and sound, he can’t even hear Bakugou and Kirishima’s footsteps anymore.
Midoriya takes a deep breath and takes the first step, reaching out to clutch the ancient iron handrail as tightly as he possibly can. Before he can think too much he starts sprinting up the staircase, the warm light of the kitchens disappearing behind him.
“Wait, wait for me!” he stammers, racing to try and catch up with the two boys ahead. He fumbles half-blind in the dark, taking the steps two at a time until his eyes adjust and he finally sees the curling length of Kirishima’s tail slithering just in front of him. He lets out a relieved sigh and slows down. The three of them keep steadily climbing, up and up into the dark.
Midoriya shivers, his linen sleep clothes are suddenly entirely too thin. The rest of the castle is warm, well lit by crackling torches and bright magelights, the bright orange making the encroaching winter outside seem distant. The warmth of people and joy and torches apparently ended at the bottom of the stairs. The further they climb the darker and colder it gets, and Midoriya is starting to see his breath curl up and away in a frigid mist. His eyes have adjusted to the dark but he can still barely see more than a few feet in front of him. His scarred hand starts to ache as he grips on to the iron handrail for dear life, the metal leaching all the warmth out of his hand and arm and shooting painful cold up his palm.
It’s quiet, too quiet. Something about the stairwell swallows the sounds of their footsteps; Midoriya can barely even hear the rhythmic thunk, thunk, thunk of Kirishima’s tail thumping up the stairs. The unnatural darkness clings to him, choking him, the frigid cold crawling up his arms and across his chest, making him gasp. It’s quiet, so so quiet. He can hear his heart beating in his ears, he can hear his own ragged breaths rattling through his chest, gasping and choking on the cold and dark and dust. He can hear the sound of himself blinking, his stomach churning nervously, the blood rushing through his ears.
Even though he knows Kirishima and Bakugou are just ahead, he can’t see or hear them anymore. There is only the cold, and the dark, and the knowledge that he is, and always will be, alone.
He climbs. The staircase stretches endlessly upwards, the distance between each step seems longer and longer. He tries to look back and down, to see some evidence of the warmth and light they left behind, but there is nothing but yawning, horrifying black.
Midoriya has no concept of how long they have been climbing the infinite staircase. He feels trapped, stuck in this moment, climbing without the ability to see where he came from or where he is going. The dread crawls into his bones, settling there and threatening to lock his arms and legs into place, to give up and curl into a ball and sob, begging for light and warmth, calling out to nobody for deliverance from the stairs. There is only the cold, and the dark.
There is nothing to do but climb.
Step, after step, after step.
He is trapped, eternally, climbing up and into the dark.
After an eternity, a gentle gray light starts to emanate from up ahead. Midoriya suddenly realizes that Kirishima’s form is only a few feet ahead, tail still slithering up the stairs. He can hear their footsteps again, the scrape of boots and talons and scales against the dusty stone. He can see his breath again, the gray, frigid light slowly growing brighter and brighter.
They reach the top of the stairs, a single, dim magelight illuminating the ancient black door. The magelight is old, very old, and most of its magic has long been spent. It is a weak little light now, casting a gray-blue pulsating glow that is just barely enough to see by. The three boys stop for a moment to catch their breath, surprisingly exhausted from climbing the stairs. Midoriya doesn’t know if it's the altitude, or if there is something about the cold and dark that is stealing all the breath from his lungs, but the air has never felt so cold and thin. He gasps, leaning against the frigid stone wall. He drops his head to stare at his feet as he pants, and suddenly he freezes, eyes locked on the dusty stone floor.
There is a gigantic black stain on the floor, and in the light of the weak little mage light he can see identical stains splashed down the stairs as they curve away and disappear. The stains look old, long dry, but he can still make out the distinctive drips of whatever thick liquid made them spilling down the stairs.
Terror crawls up his throat, and he reaches out a frantic hand to fist in Bakugou’s sleeve.
“K– Kacchan, the floor…” he stammers, hands starting to shake.
“What the fuck are you talking about Dek–” Bekugou stops mid sentence, red eyes now staring at the gigantic black stain under their feet. Kirishima lets out a low, reptilian hiss, starting to stand on the tips of his claws and lifting his tail off the stained floor, carmine eyes wide.
“Hey, Bakugou… is that–” Bakugou smacks his hand over Kirishima’s mouth, a few scattered sparks leaking out.
“Don’t, don’t you fucking dare finish that sentence shitty hair. Whatever the fuck you think it is, it’s not, got it?”
But it is. They know what it is. They know exactly what it is.
(Tsuyu’s voice echoes in his head.)
(Blood started appearing in the stairwell with no pattern, no reports of staff missing, no bodies ever found.)
“Kacchan, we should turn back…” Midoriya says, voice cracking. Bakugou sneers.
“Fuck that, this just got interesting,” he says, one of his slightly insane looking grins curling up his face. “C’mon, lets keep going.” Bakugou reaches out and turns the door handle. He has to pull on it a few times because the door gets stuck, finally scraping open along the stained, stone floor. Kirishima follows him into the dark hallway, albeit less enthusiastically than before.
Midoriya trembles, panic growing, before finally following the two boys into the hall.
The first thing that strikes him is the fact that the hall of the north wing is completely and utterly freezing. There is a single, blue pulsating magelight offering a paltry amount of light for the entire hallway, but it is just enough to see his breath misting in the frigid cold. It’s dark, very dark, and his eyes take a few minutes to adjust to the gloom. There are no windows, no lit torches, nothing except the single magelight. They have come out into a long, long hallway, both extremes swallowed by pitch darkness. There is a long, dusty, dark blue rug running the length of the hall. Most of the walls are bare, save for a single unicorn tapestry on the wall about halfway down the hallway to the left. There are only a handful of doors visible, all the doors ancient and blackened, like they’re been set on fire at some point. It is silent, unbearably silent, and their ragged breaths seem so loud in the black, endless hall.
Kirishima practically clings to Bakugou, head darting around nervously, his reptilian pupils dilating widely in the low light. Midoriya shivers, clutching his hands to his chest in a vain attempt to preserve warmth.
Bakugou leads the way, arbitrarily taking a left. Within a few paces they arrive at the first door.
“Kacchan, wait–”
Bakugou ignores him, trying the handle. The door slowly creaks open, and Bakugou leans in to peer into the room. Kirishima snakes his tail around his friend’s waist, just in case. They both strain to look into the room from behind the mage and–
Nothing. It’s just a dark, dusty storage room, about half-full with old, decrepit furniture.
Midoriya sighs in relief, letting go of the death grip he didn’t realize he had on the back of Kirishima’s shirt.
“Great,” he says, voice trembling. “We looked, and it's just storage. We can go back now, right?” Bakugou just snorts, ignoring him and pulling the door shut. He continues down the hall, determined to open every single blackened door. Midoriya is concerned that the anxiety alone will kill him at this point. Kirishima doesn’t say anything, keeping his tail snaked around Bakugou’s waist, maintaining a gentle hold just in case.
Midoriya almost faints as they open two more doors, thankfully to a similar result. Half empty storage rooms that are just collecting dust. They walk directly past the unicorn tapestry, the edges old and fraying and the colors dimmed by age. The next door is locked, and no matter how many times Bakugou or Kirishima jiggle the handle or yank on the frame, the heavy door remains firmly in place. (Midoriya, for one, is eternally grateful that the door is locked, and absolutely does not want to know what is inside.)
The three of them have not been watching their feet, because within the next few steps all three of them collectively trip over a charred piece of wood laying directly in the center of the hall. The collapse into a heap of tangled limbs, curses, and a single terrified squeal. Midoriya thrashes in the dark, groaning as a wayward tail slaps him across the head, and they have to spend the next thirty seconds untangling themselves from each other and the charred wood on the floor. Bakugou manages to get up first, bright red eyes already darting around analytically. Midoriya groans and sits up, following Bakugou’s gaze.
There is what, at this point, can only generously be called a door hanging half open in front of them. It is, in reality, the charred remains of what once was a functional door, half splintered and broken across the floor. A broken piece of wood still clings desperately to the hinges, swaying and creaking in the drafty air. The room beyond is pitch black, but the distinct smell of ashes lays heavy in the air.
(They say he started sleeping during the day and staying awake at night, starting random fires, started getting paranoid.)
“Kacchan, we really shouldn’t–”
“Shut it, Deku,” he hisses, walking into the burned room. The darkness swallows him whole.
Kirishima hisses and quickly darts after him, unwilling to lose sight of the mage. Midoriya stands petrified in the hallway, trying to decide what he is more afraid of. Being left alone in this terrifying hallway, or walking into the pitch black, burned room.
The desire for any semblance of companionship wins out, and he creeps into the burned room after them.
Kirishima and Bakugou are standing in the middle of the room, just staring. The smell of burnt wood is overlaid with the smell of dust, the air stale and old. To say the room has been burnt is an understatement. The stone walls are melted into drips of obsidian, and the room is completely filled with piles of ash and splinters of carbonized wood.
The only exception is the white, untouched bed in the center of the room.
How on earth the bed escaped whatever inferno obliterated the rest of the room is beyond him. It is dressed in soft white and silver furs, roughly unmade. The frame is carved from a single piece of rich, golden wood, posts at each corner carved to resemble ravens and eight legged horses. Most concerningly, however, is the shredded length of rope tied around the headboard.
Midoriya frowns, approaching the bed. What on earth–
His foot collides with something solid and hollow.
He looks down, gaze locking with the dead, empty sockets of a blackened skull.
He looks up, seeing two other skulls laying around the perimeter of the bed, sockets empty. Staring.
(It all started when one day he just suddenly… snapped. Burned three guards alive, turned them to ashes, and nobody knows why.)
He smacks his hands over his mouth, suppressing a shrill scream. Bakugou and Kirishima instantly snap their heads to face him, eyes lighting up with alarm. Kirishima looks down, catching the sight of one of the skulls at Midoriya’s feet, and lets out a loud, alarmed hiss. His tail bristles and snaps behind him, shuffling backwards.
“What the fuck…” he whispers, reaching out to dig his claws into Bakugou’s shirt. The mage says nothing, red eyes wide and staring at the skulls on the floor. Midoirya backs up, feet shuffling and raising clouds of ashes that he now realizes used to be people. His hands are still plastered over his mouth to prevent himself from screaming, and hopefully preventing him from breathing in the swirls of ashes now trailing through the air. His hands have started trembling, and he feels tears pricking at the edges of his eyes.
He doesn’t want to do this anymore. He wants to go back to his room, hide in his bed and go to sleep and believe that this was all some horrible dream.
(Taptaptaptaptap)
“Katsuki,” mutters Kirishima, claws sinking into an absolute death grip on the mage’s shirt. “I… we need to go. This isn’t…”
Bakugou finally nods, swallowing nervously. His bright red eyes are still fixed on the blackened skull on the floor.
“Y–Yeah, yeah. We should go,” he finally acquiesces. The three of them shuffle out of the burned room, still staring at the skull, as if it could suddenly come to life and scream at them.
The hall is still deathly, eerily silent.
It is not, however, dark.
Midoriya is already turning to walk back from where they came, eager to go back to the door that leads down the stairs away from this horrible, cursed place, when Bakugou grabs him by the back of his shirt, pulling him close. He stifles another terrified squeak.
“Wait,” Bakugou whispers, pointing at the every end of the hall that is finally in view, and at the single source of light that Midoriya wishes very much was not there. “Look, the door…”
At the very end of the hall, there are a couple stone steps leading up to a single, small door. It is only partially blackened, handle cast from simple iron. There are more splashes of crimson on the stone steps, and a large blackened stain on the end of the long, blue carpet that ends at the foot of the steps. The splashes… they aren’t old and dry this time. They are fresh, shiny and wet, with more red smeared across the iron door handle. The silence is broken as a single, thick drop of crimson drips from the door handle, falling with a wet thunk on the carpet below. The crack under the door is glowing a soft orange, the occasional shadow flickering and dimming the light.
The room beyond the door is lit by candlelight, and there is someone, or something, moving inside.
“No, no Kacchan,” stammers Midoriya, shaking his head. “No, there is something in there, we should leave, now.”
“I… I agree with Midoriya,” whispers Kirishima, his hands starting to shake. “We should go, there is absolutely nothing good that could possibly be in there.”
Bakugou raises his hand and creates a few crackles in his palm, a serious but determined look on his face.
“Hey,” he mutters, thunking his forehead against Kirishima’s. “Whatever is in there, you and I can take it, alright? Indestructible scales and enough firepower to detonate half a city block. We can beat anything, Eijirou.”
Kirishima swallows nervously, staring at Bakugou’s face, eyes wide and scared. He eventually gives the mage a soft little nod, tail curling around his waist and holding him close.
Midoriya starts hyperventilating, feeling just a bit faint.
“No, no come on guys, this is a bad idea, this is such a bad idea!” Midoriya whispers hysterically. “You have no idea if you can actually take whatever is in there! We should go, pretend we never saw anything. Please you guys, let’s just go!”
Bakugou ignores him, turning to walk towards the last door in the hall. Kirishima trails after him.
Midoriya has no choice but to follow.
Bakugou and Kirishima place their hands on the door handle, waiting. Bakugou turns to look at his terrified childhood friend, giving him a soft little nod. Midoriya swallows nervously, eyes darting between the two other boys, begging.
He finally relents, adding his hand to the door handle, shivering in revulsion as he feels the metal is sticky and wet.
Together, they push open the door.
The first thing that registers is the blood.
The stench of thick, hot iron is nearly unbearable. It’s everywhere, splattered across the ground and the walls in a thick layer of deep, almost inky crimson. Midoriya has never in his life seen so much blood. The hair instantly stands up on the back of his neck, and he throws up a hand to cover his nose from the overwhelming smell.
The second thing that registers are the wings.
Gigantic, red wings are splayed out along the ground, completely and utterly soaked through with blood. They twitch weakly, scraping through the thick mess on the ground and smearing more thick crimson across the floor. They flutter and beat uselessly; the last, pathetic throes of a dying creature. Their owner is sprawled across the floor, and even though he is facing away from them, Midoriya instantly recognizes the prone form of Takami Keigo. He is barely moving, taloned feet scratching and scraping for purchase along the wet, slippery floor. He lets out a low, muffled-sounding moan, his bare, blood-drenched chest heaving. Midoriya instantly feels a cold fear rush through his body, realizing all at once that the harpy is bleeding to death on the floor, and if the sheer quantity of blood is anything to go by, he perhaps has minutes left to live.
The third thing that registers is the thing that is currently pinning Takami to the floor.
He doesn’t quite have the words to describe what he is seeing, or what the thing even is. The creature is huddled over the dying harpy on all fours, long spidery arms braced on the floor on either side of Takami’s head, positively drenched in the harpy’s blood. The harpy’s hands grasp weakly at the creature’s arms, talons scratching and attempting (and failing) to pull himself free. The creature is long and thin, wiry muscles standing out in sharp relief on a narrow frame, a line of prominent vertebrae protruding like a ladder along its spine. It has strips of skin criss-crossing across its body, stapled in place over large swathes of what are either bare, exposed muscle or blood-drenched scars. There are curls of smoke drifting up from the edges of its stapled on skin, the blood splattered across its body steaming and bubbling under the apparently intense heat radiating from the metal. Its head is bent low, covering Takami’s face, and the way the harpy underneath it jerks…
Is it… eating him?
Midoriya instantly feels like throwing up. An involuntary scream starts to bubble up from his throat before Bakugou smacks his hand over his mouth, silencing him. He can feel Bakugou’s hand trembling across his face, and he realizes that the normally brash mage is just as terrified as he is.
The brief scream was enough to catch the attention of the thing that appears to be eating Takami, its head instantly whipping around to stare at the three teenagers in the doorway.
The eyes that bore into him are a brilliant, glowing blue, circled by the skin of a human face it appears to have stolen off a corpse and roughly stapled onto its own. Its mouth pulls open into a wide, horrifying maw with too many teeth, and Midoriya cannot help but scream again when cerulean flames start to pour out of its mouth, curling up and away from its face and illuminating the room a cold, hellish blue.
(Hellfire is blue, did you know that? Cold and blue.)
A demon. Theres a fucking demon in the north wing.
A demon that is currently eating Takami, and is starting to stand up and come for them.
“Run!” Bakugou screams, yanking at Midoriya’s arm as he turns to bolt down the hallway. He doesn’t wait, turning and sprinting down the hall as fast as he possibly can, sheer indescribable terror clawing at his mind. His heart thunders in his chest, lungs screaming for air, desperately trying to keep up with Bakugou and Kirishima who are already halfway down the hall.
His legs are on fire, he can hear his heart roaring in his ears, he can’t breathe, he’s running and running and oh god he can hear it moving in the room behind them, sliding across the ground with a wet thump and oh my god they’re going to die if they don’t get out of here–
Kirishima yanks open the door at the other end of the hall and starts yelling for someone, anyone to come and help them. His screams echo down the stone staircase, and just as Bakugou reaches the doorway there is the horrific, wall-rattling crash of the door behind them slamming open, followed by the deafening thwum of something barreling down the hall after them.
Bakugou hesitates at the doorway. He can hear the thing chasing them crashing down the hallway, bouncing off the walls, a loud screech growing closer and closer and closer.
Bakugou turns around, eyes wide and scared, gaze fixed on the thing just over Midoriya’s shoulder. He braces himself in place, lifting his hands to point at the shadow racing down the hall, palms starting to glow with magic. Kirishima turns around from the other side of the doorway, realizing all at once that Bakugou has stopped moving and has rooted himself in place to stand his ground, to cover both Kirishima and Midoriya so they can escape. Fear crosses the dragonkin’s face in a single horrible second.
Midoriya runs, getting a hair's breadth away from Bakugou’s magic-lit hands, when he looks back.
An enormous shadow, moving towards them so fast he can barely comprehend it. It’s going to be on them in less than a second.
Kirishima reaches out a clawed hand, eyes desperate, begging.
“KATSUKI, COME ON!”
Bakugou's eyes falter, shifting for a moment from the shadow racing down the hall to make eye contact with Kirishima, an apology evident in his eyes. The glow in his hands increases, the magic getting ready to detonate as soon as Midoriya clears the doorway.
He moves without thinking.
As soon as he reaches Bakugou, instead of hiding behind him or throwing himself through the doorway first, Midoriya shoves the mage as hard as he possibly can, out the door and towards Kirishima’s outstretched hand. The dragonkin instantly grabs him, wrapping his massive tail around Bakugou’s waist and yanking him backwards into the dark, out of the hallway and out of the path of the raging creature they stumbled upon in the north wing.
Midoriya runs after them and just barely reaches the door, arms reaching forward to grip onto the doorframe when something clamps around his leg, slamming him to the floor and pulling him backwards.
“DEKU!”
“KACCHAN!”
He screams, thrashing and pulling and trying desperately to get free and run. Oh god, oh god, it’s not letting go, its pulling him backwards, his fingernails are scratching desperately at the carpet and fuck he’s going to die because he doesn’t have any magic or wings or teeth or claws to defend himself, he’s useless and now he’s going to get eaten…
The thing starts to crawl over him, heavy and hot and Midoriya screams and cries and claws uselessly, trying to get free as the thing turns him face up, claws digging into his shoulders and he is going to die, he’s screaming and he can’t breathe and–
“ – alm the fuck down, for the love of god, stop screaming Midoriya, it’s just me and you need to breathe.”
The words finally start to cut through the terror and Midoriya slowly stops scratching and flailing, breath coming out in a ragged pant.
“There you go kid, calm down. See? You’re fine, I’m not going to eat you, please stop yelling about how bad you would taste. Deep breaths, in, then out. There you go.”
Midoriya’s vision slowly clears, breathing calming down as he looks up at the very alive, and very much not half-eaten Takami above him. He swallows, his throat is dry and scratchy, his head is still swimming from the terror and adrenaline. The harpy above him tilts his head with a throaty, calming coo, wings fluttering softly behind him. He is still absolutely drenched in blood, but he does not appear to be dying.
“GET THE FUCK OFF OF HIM YOU FUCKING–” Bakugou screeches, shoving his way back into the hall with a terrified dragonkin latched onto his back, struggling and failing to pull his friend back down the stairs. As soon as he realizes that Takami is the one hovering over Midoriya he freezes, the glow of explosion magic dying in his palm. Kirishima stops struggling, eyes wide as he stares at the blood drenched harpy.
“T-Takami?” he says, red eyes wide. Midoriya pushes himself up into a sitting position, catching his breath and staring in absolute bewilderment at the harpy in front of him.
Takami sighs, sitting back on his talons, tail flaring out the rest along the floor. He flaps his blood soaked wings once, twice, before neatly folding them along his back. He looks exasperated, pushing his talons through his blood soaked hair, looking up at the ceiling. He is dressed in nothing but a pair of short linen pants, bare chest splattered with blood.
“You kids are not supposed to be up here,” he groans, rubbing at his face with his talons. Midoriya’s jaw drops. “You guys had one rule, one. To never, under any circumstances, come up to the north wing. Why the fuck are the three of you up here?”
Midoriya opens and closes his mouth in his best approximation of a fish, lost for words. Bakugou just lets out an annoyed ‘tch’.
“Oi,” Bakugou snaps, hands sparking. “Forget why we are up here, why the fuck are you up here?! Why the fuck are you covered in blood and rolling around on the floor with a, a–”
“A what, Bakugou?” Takami snaps, eyes suddenly going dark and wings snapping open. “Finish that thought. A fucking what?” The harpy’s voice drops to a hiss, talons digging into the carpet.
The three teenagers know better than to finish the sentence.
The harpy groans, dropping his face into his hands.
“He… See, this is why he doesn’t want people up here,” Takami chirps, shaking his head. “People always scream and freak out and just… He just wants to be left alone.”
The pieces start to click together, and Midoriya gasps, hand smacking over his mouth.
No way, there's no way…
Takami stands up, pushing some more of his blond, blood soaked hair out of his face, spreading his wings and starting to gently usher the teenagers back towards the doorway. The harpy gives them all a sad smile, and he left out a soft croon.
“Just go back to the east wing and go to bed, boys. And please, do not come back up here. The north wing is off limits for a reason, alright? Just… I won’t tell Fuyumi if you promise not to come back, ok?” They nod, obediently shuffling their way out the doorway and onto the fourth story landing.
Takami is about to close the door, when Midoriya suddenly smacks his hand on the door frame, stopping him. The harpy chirps curiously.
“Just,” Midoriya says, still struggling to catch his breath. “Please, just… What were you doing? With the blood, with… him? I just want to know.”
Bakugou and Kirishima give him a single incredulous look, shaking their heads.
Takami’s face looks surprised for a moment, before a little smirk curls at his lips.
“Renewing our vows,” he chirrups, a tinge of amusement to his voice.
He closes the door, locking them out of the north wing.
They walk down the endless staircase in the dark, utterly silent. The adrenaline is starting to wear off and exhaustion is setting in. The walk back to the east wing feels surprisingly long, all the halls darkened for the evening. There is a gentle quiet that has settled in over the entire castle, and Midoriya feels the tension that has settled in his chest ever since their arrival finally uncoiling.
“Hey, Kacchan?” he mutters, breaking their somber silence as they reach the east wing, each of them about to split off to their respective bedrooms. Bakugou hesitates, looking back at Midoriya with a soft, serious look on his face. He tilts his head in acknowledgement.
Midoriya clears his throat, and he has the good sense to look sheepish.
“I um,” he says, biting at his lip. “I think Shouto’s brother turned into a demon, and then Takami married him.”
Bakugou stares at him for a long moment, mouth half open. His red eyes dart over Midoriya’s face, searching, before he finally growls, whirling around to open the door to his bedroom with an angry grunt.
“Shut the fuck up Deku. God, I fucking hate you,” he snarls, slamming the door shut behind him.
Midoriya has the good sense not to bring up what they found in the north wing to anyone, ever again.