A COLOSSAL thank you to the lovely Proma, Amanda and future helpers for the very awesome Beta help, as well as my lovely wife, Rebornfromash for joining me in the creation of this Soul Eater AU. Ever since I was a little kid, Where the Wild Things has always my favorite book. I was always one for crazy imaginative adventures. Now that I'm older, I know the true meaning of the story. Ash and I would like to show you all what it means to be a Wild Thing using our favorite crew. Hope you all enjoy.
Without further ado, "Let the wild rumpus start!"
Chapter 1: A Childhood Lost
It's a mystery how children find homes in places they never expected, or even knew existed. More of a wonder how most are able to withstand having these places taken from them at a young age. Adults disdainfully refer to it as "Make Believe" and "Imagination." They try their best to make it sound pointless and silly, when it was once something they themselves held dear to their hearts. Who could despise creativity? Imagination sought happy things, candy mountains, fun-filled adventures around the house and summer days on the beach. In the time the brain allows children to daydream, they are royalty, proud owners of such worlds. Unfortunately, their reign cannot last forever, and maybe this is the reason most grown-ups turn bitter. No child ever suspects reality to turn into sea foam, to cover their forgotten sandcastle-bring it down with a dull crash. No king or queen is ever prepared for the day of their dethroning.
Maka Albarn found a way to rebuild the dreams that her previous world crushed.
It was not without loss, though, nothing of worth ever is.
When she was a wee thing, her mother and father both read to her constantly. The material they read could never be agreed upon, so often times she would hear dear mother shouting at her father for filling Maka's head with nonsense. From the age of five, she learned a kind of guilt for the fanciful things she once adored, and learned to speak differently around her mother. She forced herself to quit her daydreaming and focus on the reality of life, secretly wondering why her mother thought to take away her only solace. Maka's reality was less than desirable; the quarreling of her parents made her childhood short-lived and tinged with bitterness. It was the menacing thing that hung constantly above her head, threatening to spill. And spill it did, wearing down the walls and flooding the rooms of the Albarn residence with indescribable loneliness.
The remains built an entirely new household.
She never forgot the world she created though.
On her eleventh birthday, her mother gifted her with a journal and a kiss on her forehead. She told Maka, "I have to go away for a while to figure some things out. Write some stories for me for when I see you again, baby."
Maka was too dumbfounded to even cry after her mother left. She wondered yet again why her mother snuffed out her creativity so long ago if she wished for Maka to call upon it now. What could she possibly say? For a year, she stared blankly at that godforsaken journal, waiting for mama to come back and scold her for not writing anything, waiting for the familiar smell of her lavender shampoo and soft, worn sweaters.
On her twelfth birthday, she got a call from her mother. "Mama can't come home yet sweetie, I still have some things for take care of." Maka hung up before her mother could tell her she loved her. That night, when her father sent her off to bed after cake and vanilla milk, and after she refused his offer to read to her, she climbed out her window and ran to the backwoods, journal and pen in hand. The full moon was high and offered her all the light she needed. She climbed her favourite tree, and once she settled in, she began scribbling furiously.
She did not write of reality, like her mama might have wanted.
She wrote of the world she created as a child; she wrote for herself.
It was like that phone call with her mother burst the carefully constructed dam that had kept the roaring waters of her vivid imagination at bay. The words poured forth, page after page of incredible adventures on her island of sunshine and snow angels.
Days passed, one after the other into weeks, weeks into months, months into years, and Maka came back to her tree with more and more stories brewing and aching to be written.
Oddly, every time she began writing, she'd be pulled from her reverie by a rustling in the bushes, followed by a low, rumbling kind of growl. She might have been scared, except the noise always sounded more antsy than anything, almost human, but not quite. It reminded Maka of the many times her mother grumbled, fed up with her childish hyperactivity. "Be still." She'd never forget the tone. Echoes of that impatient grumble lingered with this strange noise in the night. She'd wait a while, ears keen and eyes searching, but find nothing of any danger-probably just another possum.
Night had fallen, covering the earth in depths of shadow. All slept soundly in the warmth of their lairs, snug safely and warmly beneath their respective furs. However, with the slumber to overcome those harboring a beating heart, there awakened a being which could only be feared while in the midst of rest, treading alone down paths of dead leaves and distorted trunks carrying the sickly stench of wood rot. At so late an hour, he began to stride through the forest, no purpose other than distance to calm himself. He didn't expect to encounter anything but the expanse of trees and faint echoes of animals, but the scent of something familiar heightened with each step he took towards the barrier that divided the woods from the outside world.
There are nights when Luna de Sangre sleeps, cloaked in the dark of the indigo sky. On those nights, the barrier weakens, and foreign scents slip through openings in the air currents, into their sacred home. He awoke from sleep many times to shake off bad vibes that crawled their way under his skin. Some nights, he smelled unclean things and others he would catch the scent of a sole creature who made routine visits to the other side of the sea, and he would try to picture the life of this intriguing soul. A nameless wanderer, he assumed, who needed something much better than what the unforgiving outside world offered. He remembered that feeling, searching for some place to call home.
A thunderstorm troubled the waters in the distance.
"You're absolutely pathetic!"
The words left her somewhere between wanting to scream and wanting to throw up. Never in her child days had she imagined raising her voice like that-at him of all people. It'd been years- loads of hard work managing his horrible drinking habits and late night escapades; nothing but that since the divorce. Day and night Maka pondered how-why her mother left her to deal with the mess that was her father, alone. She found herself growing up much quicker than most kids she attended school with, didn't have much of a choice. Her father had turned into a depressed alcoholic who barely made it to work most days. Maka filled the cupboards and the fridge. She mopped the floors and paid the bills on days he was late with the checks. It was sad- for he used to be much better than that. She did everything she imagined her mother did for them.
"Makaaa, my darling angel~ I can explain-"
"I don't wanna hear it!"
Not anymore.
About a month ago, things started looking up. She was getting top grades in her classes at school and her Father seemed to care about it, enough to try and cut his booze intake and late night escapades. Maka contemplated being a bit nicer. She'd come home from staying over at Tsugumi's, stopped by the grocers to buy all the ingredients needed to make his favorite dinner. The number of bottles littering the living room floor jerked her back into the harsh reality of her father's condition. And the icing on the cake, was the sight of her father with some chatty and overly-touchy brunette. She supposed some things would never change.
"Ma'am," she began, trying to calm down by taking deep breaths, but it did nothing for her. "You're not welcomed here." She threw the groceries on the countertop and yanked the the front door open. Her father watched a potato and an onion drop and roll lazily across the kitchen tile. "Please leave."
The woman threw her this look of "I don't take commands from underage girls," and when her father did nothing to remedy the situation, she growled and stormed past them up to her room. Prying open her drawers with enough force to break them, she emptied a couple of personal belongings into a backpack, muttering curses and phrases under her breath that would surely sound foul if blurted aloud.
"Good for nothing-!" a pink sweatshirt landed ungracefully on the bed.
"Womanizing-!" a couple of paperback books. "Pitiful excuse for A-!"
"Sweetie, the lady is gone now!~" Her father barged in uninvited, reeking of beer and God knows what other manly odors. Needed a damn shower. He slurred terribly on his words. "I really tried this time." He whined and hiccuped. "The liquor store had a sale on my favorite beer and it was tempting me!"
"No you did NOT try, papa." Maka seethes. "You NEVER try hard enough, that's why mama left." She tried to keep composed; pissing off a drunk person could turn into dangerous business. She'd lived with her idiot father long enough to know. But she was fuming, fists balled so tight at the sides her knuckles turned white. She turned her back on him and finished packing her bag.
"Where are you going?" he asked, suddenly serious.
"Away."
"Why do you hate me?"
Was he really starting this now? She exhaled harshly, debating whether to scream at him until her throat was sore, or give him the silent treatment. Reaching under her pillow, she pulled out her journal. It was time to leave.
"Maka, tell me!" he whined in a higher pitch. She winced when he knocked over her desk lamp, but continued packing.
"Maka, answer papa. It was the lady wasn't it? She was only a friend." He tried to lay a hand on her shoulder, but Maka briskly shoved it away.
"You." She sneered. "You just don't see it, do you?" She bit back a laugh; he'd take it literally in his state. None of it was funny. "You're a disappointment, as a husband, as a father-hell-as a person."
"Angel-!"
"I'm eighteen," She quipped. "Enough with the nicknames, please."
"But pumpkin," more annoying whining. "Y- you shouldn't use such b-bad language with your pa-"
"A curse, that's exactly what you are to this family-what's left of it anyway!" she snapped, swinging her bag over her shoulder. "Everyone who gets close to you ends up hurt." She grasped the broken desk lamp in her hand and waved it in front of him. "You. Break. Everything."
He deflated visibly at Maka's harsh words. A part of her wanted to feel accomplished that she got her true thoughts through to his thick skull, but she also wanted to cry. Not in front of him though, she'd never show him any kind of sympathy.
"Papa is lonely," he slips between wet sobs. "Please don't leave papa. Maka Lilith Albarn, don't you dare-!"
"I'm going now." She steeled, shoving past him and out the front door.
A light breeze welcomed her as she began her silent trek away from the house, down the streets and across the highway. A trip to the woods on a misty, late spring day was just what she needed. Maka felt the quietness from daily life wrap around her body the further in she ventured. The sounds of cars and people faded into the distance within minutes. Slowly, she became aware of the woodland orchestra; the chirping of songbirds, the audible buzzing of may beetles and gnats, the scurrying of chipmunks across the grassy floor. A small smile graced her face as the soothing sounds and the scent of a lake bombarded her senses.
The clearing was her favorite place when she was younger. She can still remember the first time her father took her here to fish, and a giant tadpole bit her bait by accident. It was the first time she ever saw her mother put down her book to laugh. Froggy was her first pet, and boy was he trouble, but she loved him. One day, he climbed out his tank and leaped out the window. That was the last she saw of Froggy, and probably the end of her mother's smiling days. When her mother left, her father didn't feel like taking her out here anymore, so she made the trips herself. Many years had passed, and this area remained the same. It was the only constant in her life, the only thing that never changed or left for good.
On the other side of the shore, a small wooden boat swayed lightly with the cool breeze against the dock. It used to be her old neighbor's, but when Joe packed his belongings and moved to another town, he deliberately left it behind for her father. Since he never went fishing anymore, Maka used it for her own endeavors- more like lazy floating, while she imagined all of the adventures she could be having, like climbing the great wall or living in a house by the beach. But no. All she had was herself, a boat, and a half empty book. The book. Best of all the parting gifts she's ever received. Maka dug out a blue pen from the depths of her backpack and began to write:
05/24/09
Dear Mama,
The sun creates many colors when it sets. The palettes are always different. Today, there's red in the sky. Red and green compliment each other nicely. When I have my own house, I want dark red furniture and mint green walls. I think it'd artsy. Or maybe not. I don't really know.
I can't do this anymore. Papa's drinking again and he has a new lady friend. She's the eighth one I've counted so far since you left. I thought he was getting better, but I don't think better is in his vocabulary. Why'd you leave me with him? Why doesn't he love us enough to try? The air in our house is suffocating now that you're gone. It always smells of booze and cigarettes. I wish you left an address on your postcards.
We were supposed to be a family.
I'm starting to believe I don't have one.
-M. L. A.
Salty droplets stained the pages as Maka finally let the river of emotions inside her run loose. She wonders briefly, if she asked Tsugumi, would she let her live with her family in their house. Tsugumi had caring, very much together parents.
It was tiring, trying to hope for better days when things kept getting worse with each passing year. She missed childhood. She longed for stuffed animals and fairy tales to be read to her at bedtime. The nightlights and the blankies. The promise that mommy and daddy would always be there to protect her from the monsters under the bed. The responsibilities of being an adult, the realization that life did not work that way, came quicker than she could prepare herself for and she hated it, hated to know all she ever wanted was a dream.
Maka wiped the last of her tears with the back of her sweater sleeve and lay down flat in boat. She shut her eyes and tuned in to the sound of the cricket parade and the water sloshing against the boards, making them creak slightly. Any fish awake at this time were probably nibbling moss gathered on the hull. The sky began to darken above her as the sun set and she fell into a light snooze. After a good while, the crickets ceased their chirping and a single ker-plop broke through the comfortable silence. The wind began to pick up, causing Maka to shiver and stir. She rubbed the rest from her eyes and reached for her journal.
"I better start heading back," she mumbled. "Papa should be asleep by now." A dark cloud uncovering a bright light caught her attention.
"That's the biggest moon I've ever seen," Maka whispered, feeling like an insect in comparison. She laid there for what seemed like days, hypnotized by the moon's allure, until the wail of a seagull severed the invisible link.
"Seagulls?"
Maka shot up so quickly the boat nearly tipped over. The wind had strengthened considerably, whisking her pigtails to and fro. Her eyes widened and jaw dropped. There were no trees anywhere to be found. The sky colored dark by ominous cumulonimbus clouds. What she remembered to be a lake now spread outward for miles and miles. Above her, shadows of seagulls cried out excitedly, struggling to keep in sync with the stormy winds. It was profound confusion. Seagulls weren't nocturnal, nor did they hang around the woods...if she was even in the woods anymore.
"Where am I?" her fingers trembled, gripping the sides of her boat-the boat! It now sported a great white sail. The fabric, worn and ragged at the edges, yielded to the current's whim. "This isn't my boat!"
Nothing made sense. She whipped her head around frantically when a violent streak of lightning pierced the clouds, followed by the tell tale crackling of thunder.
"Why am I at sea- in the middle of a storm!?"
A low rumbling sounded from below dark waters and she clung to the mast for dear life. The wind did not howl, it screamed. Rain didn't just start falling from the sky, it was driven, hard, merciless and torrential. Smack dab in the middle of a disaster, Maka felt like a vulnerable conglomeration of wood, metal and flesh. The harsh sea waves and frothy spume nearly overtook the tiny, quivering sailboat. Maka stopped questioning things out of fear and huddled closer to the mast, drenched and clutching the backpack to her chest. There was nothing she could do except shut her eyes and pray for a cessation in the brutal weather, hope that by some sick joke this is all a dream and she would wake up warm and safe in her bed. Braving a peek through thick, icy rainfall, she noticed the moon once more, but the sight caused her to shake the crazy out of her head.
The moon can't smile.
I have to be dreaming, right?
I'm not crazy!
When she glanced back at the sky, the moon was no longer there. A menacing wave took its place. Worst. Nightmare. Ever. It proceeded to grow over the boat, threatening to swallow the boat whole and toss her into a tempestuous abyss. So, this is what death looks like. She clamped her eyes shut as the wave came down and willed her body to become rock. As water overpowered the vessel, she held in a deep breath and re-played her mother's favorite mantra in her head over and over again.
Heavy stones fear no weather.