I'm upset because I discovered that I really enjoy writing baby Horsemen. As usual they are all blood siblings in this one and I still don't know where their parents are or why they're not terribly upset about their absence. Also it's not obvious until halfway through this but War isn't old enough to speak properly yet. Doesn't have much of a plot or theme, I just wanted babies...
Marked as complete, but if I happen to have further urges to write tiny Horsemen then I'll probably put those here too and change the description accordingly.
War followed Fury everywhere.
She'd barely noticed at first, since there wasn't anywhere to go and she didn't much want to leave him alone anyway, but the tiny War had grown accustomed to seeing his sister's face and wouldn't bear to be parted from her for long. Now that he could walk, he had taken it upon himself to make sure she was always in sight.
Fury didn't mind mostly, but the mean looks the older nephilim gave them when Death let them play outside frightened her, and it annoyed her that War did not seem to care.
"It must be something you're doing," she said to him, but he only giggled and tried to eat some grass, which Fury had to be careful to take away from him—it turned out that taking candy from a baby was actually quite difficult, as War had a very strong grip and simply would not accept any explanation for why he had to eat his vegetables but could not also eat grass.
Being War's favorite person unfortunately also made Fury responsible for him more often than the others, which suited her just fine because it meant that Strife could no longer tease her for not doing anything useful but also meant that he was even less help than usual at first.
"Why don't you try tying his clothes for once?" Fury asked, after trying and failing to explain to her little brother that knots and buttons were as beyond her ken as his.
Strife shook his head. "I have more important things to do than help babies get dressed. That's a kid's job."
"You know..." Death chuckled, watching them bicker instead of doing anything to help Fury like a good oldest brother should. "It seems to me that only children are ever concerned with appearing childish."
Strife sheepishly consented to helping bathe and clothe War after that—as long as he didn't have War following him around all day, too.
Having a brother that didn't order her around did wonders for Fury's courage. Even if the others gave them scary looks, Death assured her that none would ever bring them to harm and she set out to wandering farther and farther from home with each day. War was ever at her side, turning back to their tent nervously but obediently following at his sister's heels. It made Fury feel reliable and she appreciated his company, even if she did not appreciate his strange fixation with grass.
"Da!"
Fury turned to look at her brother, who was pointed upwards with a wide-eyed expression, and followed his finger to the crown of a tree she was leading them past. Hanging heavy from its branches was a strange red fruit she had never seen before.
"Yeah, it's red!" War liked things that were colorful, which she imagined must be why she was his favorite sibling, since their brothers' hair was a very boring black.
"Da!"
"I don't think it's the same as the ones Death brings us," Fury said. 'Da' seemed to be War's name for Death, and no amount of correcting him would make him change his mind, although Fury knew he must know that he was wrong because she had tried calling Death 'Da' too and War had simply given her a strange look. "He said we shouldn't eat strange fruit."
"Da," War said impatiently, continuing to point up at the fruit.
"I can't reach it anyway." Fury reached out and gently took War's hand, although he simply shook her off and went back to pointing. "War..."
A strange noise interrupted her, one unlike anything Fury had ever heard before. She looked up with a frown even as War tugged on her sleeve urgently, unhappy that her attention was focused elsewhere.
"Da!"
"Shh," Fury said. "Do you hear that?"
It was a strange whooshing noise, coming from the sky above in the direction of the forest. The closest thing Fury had to compare it to was the sound Death's weapon made when he swung it, but this noise was lower, and she seemed to hear it in her stomach as much as her ears.
"War," she said impatiently, "Aren't you worried? It's getting louder..."
"Da," War answered, determined to obtain one of those colorful orbs at the top of the tree.
Fury was given no more time to ask War's opinion. A wave of white and gold burst over the canopy of the forest, wings like the ones attached to the birds Strife and Death brought home sometimes—but attached to people instead! Every one covered in heavy-looking armor, and carrying a weapon not unlike the one Death seemed to pull from nowhere while practicing.
She and War screamed as one: War's was the ignorant fear of one who had never seen much of anything before, but Fury knew exactly what these beings were and why they were here.
"Hide!" she cried, grabbing War by the hand and hurrying to the base of the tree as fast as their legs would carry them. War tripped and nearly dragged her down with him, still unsteady on his feet, and as Fury bent to help him up again she saw that he'd somehow managed to skin his knee.
"No no no," she said helplessly as War's eyes welled up with tears. "War, you have to be quiet!"
No use—War burst into tears and wailed with all the strength Fury hadn't missed from his infancy, and she could do nothing but bounce desperately and plead with him.
"War, you gotta stand up," she said, feeling moisture prick at her own eyes.
But War was deaf to everything but his own pain, screaming away as though they were safe at home and not so far away under the threat of attack. Fury took a deep breath and with a strength she hadn't known she possessed lifted her baby brother off the ground, carrying him the last few feet to the base of the tree before they collapsed together between the roots.
Trembling she reached out and pulled War against her, muffling his cries in her shirt and weeping into his hair—the awful racket didn't go away, but she was too frightened to even look at their attackers, and there they huddled together until fear and tears carried them to sleep.
She woke up on a different world entirely.
Fury was back in their tent, tucked in next to War instead of Strife, and she knew without having to take them off that the furs were absolutely necessary for once: it was much colder than she was used to, and instead of pushing herself to a seat she turned around within the confines of the blanket.
Everything was just about where she remembered it, but instead of grass the ground was made of hard rock, and sitting upon it was Strife, restlessly cutting large chunks out of a block of wood.
"Strife?" Fury called, in a much wobblier voice than she would have liked. But instead of feeling better when Strife turned around and looked at her with similarly puffy, red eyes, somehow she only felt worse, and she was crying again by the time he reached out and pulled her out of bed.
"Hey, it's fine now," he said with a cracked voice, holding her to his chest. "Everyone's okay. We're all safe now."
The four of them all slept together that night, Fury sandwiched between Strife and War and Death's arm wrapped protectively around them all, and things were never quite the same for Fury after that. She lived in constant fear of the sky and rarely went outside unless accompanied by her brothers, either Strife or Death bringing her along on their routines or War, constantly pawing at the ground as though he might find that soft green grass underneath.
As a general rule the Four Horsemen took great pains to spend as little time in the same domicile together as possible, quickly discovering that shared housing arrangements got old much more quickly when they were all adults. Death had his secrets, and the rest had spent enough time alone that they each had business and interests of their own, and eventually remaining together became impractical on top of the sheer irritation several of them caused the others.
But they were still a family, and during those slow centuries when the Balance went unchallenged and their missions together were few and far between they felt the same sentiment of missing as any other being.
The other Horsemen had dismissed War's every suggestion out of hand, much to his displeasure ("We cannot harm anyone who has done nothing to earn our ire, including dragons, and if you are about to suggest basilisks you may hold your tongue because you are the only one who would ever face one without great need"), but had rather liked the idea of hunting, and so after convincing Strife to part with three spares ("I don't use them for a reason, don't come crying to me if they blow up on you") they'd set out on a completely normal, mundane hunt.
"In order for this trip to be worth our time we would have to hunt more game than we could reasonably eat," War grumbled, still put out.
"The journey is more important than the destination," Death said. "Don't look so upset. There's plenty of Creation you've never seen, and plenty of dangerous game you've never faced before."
"Not dangerous enough."
"Death," Strife interrupted, casting a gaze about them. "I hate to doubt you, especially since I agree, but I think we've been here before."
Death had chosen their route and now turned his gaze to Strife, irritation obvious even behind the mask. War only frowned. "You may have, but I haven't."
"Ah..." Fury laughed. "I didn't recognize it at first, because I never did learn the way here. But I do believe..."
"Yes," Death said. "This is where War was born."
Ruin rumbled as War stiffened in surprise. Feigning disinterest, he nevertheless cast a curious gaze about him at the surrounding greenery. "It looks remarkably healthy for having once housed the nephilim."
"The angels chased us off before we could do too much damage," Death said, and War scowled at his choice of words. We.
"I think I remember that..." Fury tilted her head. "I had never seen an angel before, so I was a little frightened."
"You cried at the sight of any bird for years."
"That I definitely remember. Especially as you never let me forget it."
"That was about when you started talking," Death went on, ignoring them. "Properly, I mean. I think you copied everything Fury said because you thought it made her feel better."
War frowned. He was forever bitter that he would always be a child with chubby cheeks and a preference for everything red, even after he'd grown much taller than the rest of them, but more than that he had difficulty imagining a time when their life was not ruled by warfare and conquest.
"It may as well be new to me," he said, thinking of so many barren realms of dust and stone. "I remember nothing of this world."
"We never did leave our continent," Death went on, ignoring War now as well. "But judging from the sorts of creatures we had to drive away from our encampment I'm sure there must be something worth hunting here, if we take the time to find it."
War repressed a sigh—that, at least, solved the problem of having more trophies than they knew what to do with, but it also meant many long days of no action, which in his opinion rather defeated the purpose of a hunt.
"Cheer up, brother," Strife said drolly, twirling Redemption in one hand. "We can regale you with stories of your childhood as we ride."
"I would rather forget."
"It is nice to be here again," Fury said, looking around. "If there were only one world in all of our campaign spared from our usual destruction, I'm glad it was this one. Things were simpler back then."
"For you," Death said, though from his voice War thought he rather agreed. "Come, before War gets impatient. Perhaps we'll even be lucky today, and find something grand enough to stop his sulking."
Strife snorted, and Fury laughed, and War allowed himself one last moment of unfamiliar emotion before kicking Ruin into a gallop alongside his siblings.