Warnings: death in childbirth, implied childbirth, love and heartbreak.
Chapter One – Skyward
Love can make a person fly.
It's a sappy thought, and Taiga's proud of it, if he's going to be honest. It's the thought he's had since meeting Mirei and he's stuck with it come hell or high water because she is probably the brightest thing he's ever seen. Not that he's quite sure how because she is so awkward and uncomfortable with people. Part of her charm, maybe?
He doesn't know, but sometime the fairy tales are accurate, if they can't be true. Romance has never been his thing until now but the feeling almost makes him pick up one of those books, if only to laugh and say love is nothing like this.
It's so much deeper.
The urge to see her is almost stifling. So he follows it.
He can't stop walking until he's running. And then he's crying.
He doesn't know why.
He remembers that first moment so clearly, it's like an overlap, seeing a little girl on a battlefield with blood in her hair and eyes wild. All of her emotions were laid bare. Her nails were sharp and her tiny form ran past the current one, the lost-looking (because she's not a piece of paper ready to be written on, she's a lost person who found him and who gives a shit how sappy that is) one with her computer held protectively to her chest because it's one of the few 'things' she has left for herself.
He remembers just watching her, forgetting time existed because she was right there, looking at something he couldn't see.. and being lonely.
He remembers deciding she would never be lonely again if he had anything to say about it. And he did.
They can't find her.
He calls the others and though they aren't as frantic they are worried and it doesn't matter because they can't find her. He thinks of the only time they went to the zoo and he had lost her because she had been entranced by the butterflies and had found her stock-still because they were all landing on her arms. It had been funny then, after his heart had slowed down.
It wasn't funny now. He couldn't breathe.
His mother hadn't seen her, not in hours and there had been a very odd, sad look on her face since the night before. Taiga had wanted to ask but he couldn't. His throat was too closed off.
He just focuses on searching, on looking. His V-Pet beeps rhythmically, to the point of nearly exasperation. Taiga ignores it and ignores it. Not now, Digimaru. Not now. This is reality too. She is real. He needs to find her.
He remembers the last time she was alive.
Well, it wasn't the last because that is sentimental and cruel to her but he remembers their first real moments alone. They were clumsy, clumsy and it was awful but she was laughing then, laughing so much that her cheeks turned red under the darkness of her skin and he didn't care. And they had time to practice, and they had. All the research in the world hadn't made much difference because experience is a teacher like any other.
Some nights they had just fallen asleep with each other, the winter outside nonexistent beneath bed covers and silly stories. Other nights they didn't sleep at all, like that first one where she found purchase with a tree and he had realized he had never seen her look so alive.
Sometimes, Mirei had looked so tired even after a good long rest, and even when he had pointed it out she hadn't seemed to notice. At most she would be surprised. Then Yuuya would tell him later she was asleep next to his desk on the floor, arms around her computer. It would be adorable if it wasn't disconcerting, especially with how long it took to wake her up.
He can't stop running because there's nowhere to stop running at, no finish line. They had stopped the vitium and defeated the Demon Lords so there should have been a happy ending it should have been over so why is it everything feels very much like they never left that place?
Why can't it all just be over?
Maybe it is now, his mind whispers, the damn traitor, and Taiga runs.
He doesn't look where he's going. If he pays attention, he's going to have to think and thinking is overrated when the person you love is in possible peril and doesn't really work either. Wherever he is, it's soft and wooded and Niko has tried to stop him from going in at least three times on his own and has failed. And now he's lost and no closer to finding Mirei than he had ever been except for the fact that the sun is setting and all he can think of is that her hair makes him think of the dusk sky.
He follows the sun, blindly of course, because you're not supposed to look.
Taiga's ears catch something and it is soft at first. But that may just be because of distance. It is faint, sniffles and sobs from what seem like freshly created lungs.
Taiga almost stop running. It could be a distraction. It could not be Mirei at all.
Then the sobbing comes alive again, so much quieter.
He goes and his shoes crunch on fallen, dead leaves and he almost slips in the mud. He can't move forward. Time has frozen as the leaves keep falling but there it is.
It. He doesn't know what the gender is (or if the fellow even has one.) but he can only walk closer, mind stuttering to a half like a careening train.
There's a baby here. Abandoned maybe? It's crying loud enough to be. For some reason that he doesn't really understand, he shudders.
The wind seems to move too slowly, the air is thick like someone bled through it and he has no clue how to handle this. He keeps walking until the baby is visible. And so is what it's laying on.
He kneels down to the wailing child, sees the soft fabric it's laying on. White and black and purple and bloody- His brain stops. Little purple eyes blink back tears at him, purple eyes out of his own face, only darker. Or a chubbier version of it. He reaches out, noticing that the little boy isn't crying now, just staring at his fingers. He touches the fuzz on their head and pets it before he can stop himself. The baby makes a gurgling noise, spit bubbles forming in their mouth.
Taiga thinks he knows what to do, but he doesn't really have any idea. He scoops up the baby, careful with their head and swallows. He recognizes the x shaped straps, the leggings curled up like a nest where the baby's body had been laying, the white shirt folded like a pillow. There were no shoes and for some reason that was the most absurd part. Even with the dried blood staining bits of the fabric, the shoes were gone. Had she left them somewhere?
Why had Mirei been all the way out here?
He wants to think about this, but as he holds the gurgling little boy, all Taiga can do is cry.
Akiho is the one who finds him after it's long turned dark and the baby has fallen asleep in his lap. His tears haven't stopped entirely yet but he can't make any more noise. Akiho somehow sees him (it occurs to him in some distant way that he knows almost nothing about her or Rina, but her even less) in the dark and hurries over to him and her eyes go wide. He can't care. He doesn't know what to do. He just stares at her blankly, helplessly.
She goes to examine the clothes and a piece of paper falls from the pocket. He can't see the words too well, so she reads it aloud. There are tears in her eyes and he's never seen it before.
"I love you," Akiho reads. "His name is Lark. I'm so sorry."
The rest is a bunch of chaotic symbols that they don't know or Akiho refuses to translate right now as she takes the baby – Lark, his child- he realizes in some part of his soul that isn't numb. She rocks the sleeping infant and Taiga can't help but crumple and cry again, softer this time.
He thinks he remembers, the exuberance on their faces way back when, the innocence of childhood immortality. But it had not been long enough for a baby to develop as well as this one. It had been four months, at most. Yet here he was, and Mirei wasn't.
She had made her choice. She had not chosen her life. And Taiga isn't sure what he would have done if she had.
A/N: Today is torture my friends day. I declare it. The last one before may. Enjoy everyone. Please drop a review if you can. I really appreciate it.
Challenges: Diversity Writing Challenge I10. a multichap with exactly 8 chapters (and now I have doomed myself), Valentine's Advent day 11. write an alternate ending to one of your stories, Valentine's to White Day Advent 2015 day 11. write about a birthday, marriage, or birth. Or any combination of those, and gameverse boot camp prompt 39. change