I'm not over-pleased with this, but it's been mostly written on my laptop since forever and I'm doubtful I'll be able to make it any better than it is now.
It's more a collection of related drabbles than an actual fic. Also apparently the universe has folded around itself so that both the Toa Nuva and the Toa Inika exist on Metru Nui at the same time. Why? IDK. Call it an AU?
We were born and raised in a summer haze,
Bound by the surprise of our glory days.
Compromise and hand-holding is the furthest most people get, if they don't ignore it entirely.
They, as a team, had disregarded it multiple times before enemies pounded it into their head that divided they would fall like dominoes, crashing and seeing each other at their ugliest before their bones broke against the tide coming in.
Compromise becomes camaraderie becomes confusion as to how you ever lived without, and then you backpedal.
It's not nice anymore, not sweet, it's is metal melding into metal and patience when the other has nothing to offer but silence and a look that could kill if it wasn't already six feet under and asphyxiated.
Unity is being able to find the scars on your partner's back blindfolded, and the silence while you remember how they were acquired.
—-
"It smells like soot."
It's the first thing Lewa Nuva says when the great Furnace of Ta-Metru starts up again, really starts up—and Tahu glares at him briefly.
"Find clean air in your own home," the Toa of Fire snaps, even though yes, it smells like soot and smog and it's not half as nice as campfire smoke. Even brimstone would be refreshing.
"Le-Metru smells like oil," Lewa says, and no one else says anything, because this city may have once been a legend but all it is now is tainted.
—-
"I think," Pohatu begins one lazy morning while there's a Kolhi game going on and the three Toa not invited are sitting by the seashore theoretically watching for enemy ships but actually just throwing seashells into the ocean and occasionally, hermit crabs.
"No one cares what you think," Tahu says, skipping a crustacean off the top of the metru wall. There aren't any rocks to aim for along the Ga-Metru sealine. It's too perfect.
There's no sand, either.
"I think," Pohatu continues, electing to ignore the interruption to his announcement, "That as long as we have our destiny, we might as well make it ours."
"You can decorate it with gemstones," the Fire Toa says acridly.
"I like his idea," Kopaka says from where he's reading something quite possibly uninteresting to anyone in the multiverse save himself.
"You think the sun shines out of his ass," Tahu retorts.
Kopaka scowls, and freezes the next missile in Tahu's hand.
"I think that's weirdly sweet, coming from him," Pohatu says, and the Toa of Ice looks pleased with himself, which comes off as more of a satisfied cat smirk than anything genuine.
Tahu skips the frozen crab so hard both ice and shell crack.
—-
"You've got to get in better control of your temper," Tahu says, quite possibly to the last person on Metru Nui he expected to have to direct such a hypocritical remark towards.
"It's junk," Onua says unhappily. His huge hands are twisting uncomfortably together in a mark of remorse. Several pipes are busted on the outskirts of Onu-Metru and there's doubtless been an earthquake warning issued, but at least nothing permanent has been done.
"I thought that was an established fact," Kopaka observes, looking sideways out of his eyes at the Onu-Metru archives in the distance.
"The earth," Onua protests. "It's nothing." He looks sadly at the dirt. "It's dead."
"It's a dead city," Gali says unsympathetically. She came up coughing after her first swim and cried in Tahu's shoulder for and hour and a half about coral and seaweed and clams.
"Weeds don't grow," Onua laments. "Even the tunnels are laminated! The dark is all that's left."
"Embrace the shadows," Pohatu offers in an attempt to be joking before he realizes what he's just said.
"I hate it," Onua says quietly. Then, "I hate it!" He brings his head down to his arms and his arms up to his head and bends his back in a movement that can shatter walls and the earth rumbles, somewhere on the island exists a shout of alarm from the Onu-Matoran in charge of the pottery section of the archives.
"Earth-brother, calm down!" Lewa pleads, but earth is always and forever the womb of creation and no mother reacts well to being barren.
"You're overreacting!" Kopaka snaps, which helps literally nothing, and Onua lets out a roar of rage and swings a fist at every incarnation of ice who wouldn't know holding life in their palms if it roundhouse kicked them in the gut.
Tahu would dearly love to see Kopaka punched, but he acts instinctively and hurls raw power at sheer brute force.
It knocks Onua out and both Kopaka and Onu-Metru are spared, but there's a burn mark on the Earth Toa's mask that's never going away and one more reminder that things aren't like they used to be. Lewa glares at Tahu for days.
—-
They meet to train the Toa Inika the next week, and it's only halfway through calling Gali a bitch that Tahu remembers the younger Toa are watching, and it's two-thirds of the way through an uppercut to his jaw that Gali remembers it as well.
Jaller looks like he's using dinner plates for eyepieces and Halhi looks scandalized, but Matoro isn't really bothered because he is, after all, Turaga Nuju's translator.
Tahu's not really surprised that he's got a new crack in his mask, Gali has a hell of a lot of fury to release because if earth is the womb of the world water is the amniotic fluid, and he's the lighthouse to her storms.
"It's a play fight," he says tiredly, after the third round of questions.
"She cracked your mask," Halhi says. She doesn't say you called her a dog, that's implied by the derision in every fiber of her posture.
He shrugs, because the Toa Inika don't get that vitriol and venom is the only thing that's keeping them going.
—-
"Is this what destiny is supposed to feel like?"
"What does destiny feel like?" Tahu asks, for once not really wanting to question anything about the universe. You have your bright spots in the darkness.
"Comfort," Gali says after a moment's hesitation. "Reassurance."
"Home?" Tahu offers, watching the stars wink overhead. Different constellations are a plus, he supposes.
Gali is silent for a moment. "No," she says. "Never home." Rolling onto her side, she meets his eyes frankly, like she's always done. "But that's not your fault."
Privacy aside, Water Toa are wild and wind-worn and Tahu finds that out the hard way when she whirls on him in a rage, scything her axe before she thinks.
There exists ever afterward a bright pink line across his chest and right through his heartlight.
He tries to tease her that it's an arrow through his heart, but she still runs her fingers over the wound like she wants to absorb it into her own body and wear it like a brand on her chest.
—-
"Do you ever get the feeling we're losing our touch?"
If he hadn't heard himself say it, he wouldn't have believed it of himself either, so he can't really blame the other Toa for staring.
"Your mask is cracked," Gali says, not answering, or maybe it is an answer, he could never wade through the passive-aggressive shit she and the other Toa spent their time carefully molding into riddles and backhanded compliments.
"I think," Pohatu begins again, and pauses, waiting for Tahu to stop him.
Tahu puts all the derision he can muster into a glare, but says nothing.
"I think we're fooling ourselves."
Kopaka, turns to look at him with the rest, and Pohatu shuffles his feet, very conscious of the fact he's insinuating delusions of grandeur on their part. The only thing stronger than a Toa's loyalty is their pride.
"I think you need to stop talking now," Tahu tells him.
—-
Ultimately, however, the Toa of Stone is right. Lewa lashes out at Kopaka who threatens Onua who snaps at Pohatu who attacks Lewa until Tahu sets the practice field on fire (which is an accomplishment, as there's no grass) and Gali shrieks at them until her voice gives. Afterwards, Kopaka's wrist ends up broken, Pohatu's face lives up to his element and Gali tells him purple may be the ugliest color she's ever seen.
The Inika watching befuddled doesn't help. It's another reminder that the world is leaving them behind.
—-
One morning it's too much, and Lewa shoots up into the sky and screams, so loud Tahu wonders momentarily if the sonic Bohrok has returned. The Toa Nuva of Air keeps screaming when he falls, when he's caught, and everyone's reminded in the most painful way possible that sound moves through air better than most mediums and you should never, ever ask an Air Toa to prove it. Tahu keeps his hands over his ears and shouts at Onua to do something.
No amount of pleading or begging calms Lewa down and reassurance is out of the questions, so it's a blow from Pohatu that rescues their hearing.
Vakama looks disappointed as he approaches them, and tells them it's time they had a talk.
—-
The Turaga assume they're having disagreements about their job, and sit them down for a lecture that mainly consists of 'when we were your age'. It works in a way it wasn't intended to, and they all come away resolving to handle their issues themselves before they have to sit through another conversation based on the assumption that they're five years old and don't know what the word 'rough' entails in proper context.
(It means someone is punching you with your consent. They keep their fists to themselves now, but exhaustion is still the only antidote avaliable.)
—-
"Do you know what I think?" Pohatu asks again.
"Do you know what you think?" Lewa asks from a nearby seat. The bruise on his mask is healing. Far below, a Kolhi match plays. All metrus are invited, because it's a bigger occasion that way. "Do any of us really know what we think?"
"I think you should get hit with the kolhi ball," Kopaka says to the Toa of Air, because they're making an effort to be honest with their feelings.
Pohatu kicks Kopaka's ankle in an effort to be his better half, and the resumes the conversation.
"I think we might be the dead ones," Pohatu says, toying with a badly carved amulet given to him a long time ago.
"What?" Gali is the one who snaps at him this time, and Onua frowns.
"Hear me out," Pohatu protests, holding his hands up.
"The Inika are Toa now, right? The Matoran are still happy. Everything still goes on."
"Your point being?" Tahu has to admit, he's kind of curious. Hating your home is tiring, and the chances are slim some Great Being will skip them like a rock and crack the shell open.
"Things are still alive," Pohatu says simply. "Just not in the way we're used to. Our glory days are gone."
They watch as Ga-Metru scores another goal. Some things never change.
"I still don't like it," Onua mutters, much quieter than he's ever said it before.
"No one said you had to," Lewa says affectionately, using the Earth Toa's head as a chinrest.
—-
To humor Pohatu, they die. Their days merge into aimless wandering and sport for the Matoran, punctuated by training the Inika—not that the latter team needs it much nowadays. It's pleasant enough in a bland way, and Tahu finds himself almost looking forward to Lewa's disastrous experiments with electricity and the 'someday', they throw around to make themselves feel a bit better about having favorites. Confusion becomes camaraderie becomes companionship, except for the obvious bits.
Often, they spend their days in pairs of two. There's an island in their eyes and when they can get each other to speak, it sounds like waves on sand and the rustle of leaves.
The Turaga tell them their unity has never been stronger.