A/N: Written for the Advent Calendar Challenge, Day 8 – write an AU, and for the Hat Challenge with the character Kouichi and the wings! AU. The concept of the AU is actually from an original story I'm working on, but I might expand on this story in Fanfiction terms. Preferably once the original story's done so I know I'm not getting my wire's crossed, but my muse isn't the most trustworthy one in the world… (yes, I'm talking to you, muse).
Anyway, enjoy. :D Hope it's not too confusing for an urban-legend sort of telling.
What the Heart Looks Like Inside
People could turn in to whatever their heart desired. So the legend went.
And so it shouldn't have gone, for if there were more words of caution in it, some may have met happier fates.
But as it was, desire was a fickle thing and the desire of children were even more fickle. Too black and white. Too naïve. Too hasty.
Not that there weren't adults who had those faults. But it was something inherent in children. Particularly children who had been relatively sheltered their whole lives, only for that stable structure surrounding them to fall apart.
Because boys who suddenly went lonely and bitter were quite prone to turning in to wolves, and ones who found themselves suffocating with a seed of resentment growing often turned in to vultures by the end. But not everyone. Of course not everyone. Only those who'd had strong potential. Who'd have become something grander, more powerful and more lasting if only they'd grown up differently – but such potential never came to light at the opportune time.
No-one really understood the magic behind it, nor the logic. But they did know the tales. They did see it happening from time to time. Sometimes connected. Sometimes separate incidents.
This particular incident was a connected one. More closely connected than most. Because they were twins and twins usually ended up with the same forms, the same desires.
But that didn't count for twins who were separated when they were barely old enough to remember it, and living with half a family after that. One boy living with a father with money but little family support and told his mother died. One living with a mother struggling financially but with a mother of her own to help hold things together, told his father had left them. And maybe both were the truth. Or both were lies. Or there was no clear distinction between them.
But there was one boy who had a comfortable life as far as provisions went, but not much by way of family and friends. He only had his father, and his father was busy with working and providing a fulfilled life for his son. And that work meant they were moving. And when that was put to an end by ways of a promotion and remarriage, the boy was far to settled in his lonely social life to change.
The appearance of the wolf had already begun.
And then there was the other child. Growing up with his mother and grandmother – so he wasn't often alone, having one or the other to go to, typically his too-old grandmother while his mother worked. It was an unfortunate edge in society, that. Old women survived on pensions. Young unmarried women could barely find a job unless they had unreasonable qualifications…and since this young divorced woman hadn't gone beyond high school education, she did not have that edge. So this boy wasn't quite as lonely as the other, but he watched his family struggle in a way that would have been avoided if his father had still been in their lives. And, of course because no-one talked about the full story and no-one asked, that seed of resentment grew. Maybe there wasn't a desire for revenge at the beginning, but as the change began, so did the backwards influences.
The real story was still up in the air. What separated the couple. What separated twins, identical twins at that, to have no contact with each other – to not even know of the other's existence. What even led them to meet supporting lies and half-information and memories they couldn't possibly trust. And no-one knew what made those two children embed thoughts of flesh and blood so deep in to their hearts, that turned them completely in to beasts.
In fact, there was no way there wasn't a third party involved. But a fourth. But nobody now living saw that. Nobody now living knew exactly how the events unfolded. But two parties watched the children change: one in to a wolf who starved for flesh. One in to a vulture who searched for blood.
And, of course, the two of them clashed. Vulture bit wolf. Wolf bit vulture. The vulture was surprisingly land-bound – or maybe one of his wings had gotten damaged early on in the fight. But that was of little consequence, considering the end result.
Which no-body could be really sure of either. The popular opinion seems to be they killed each other but the facts didn't quite add up. Or maybe there was a certain vulnerability amongst humans who became beasts – and human children at that, which accounted for it. Or maybe something had made them cease their fighting and withdraw, wounded. Something had made them collapse to their wounds or their loss of self elsewhere. Or maybe that undefined third party had seen it fit to tie up loose ends.
All they did know was where both bodies were found. One in a stream. One spread amongst dirt and rocks. Both broken, bloodied – and unrecognisable as the humans they'd one been, if not for the mark of the change upon them.