(—I carry on this empty road)
A/N: I. AM SO SORRY. I―ALL I CAN SAY FOR MYSELF IS IT HASN'T BEEN A YEAR! (no really, I finished this at 5am today explicitly because the last chapter was posted April 1st of last year and I was determined not to let a full year pass by. posted it the instant it was proofread so I'll likely come back to tweak it!)
"Um," Eijiro blurts. He can't really make out much of the massive face peering out at him, most of it hidden within the fairy fountain's bud, and what little of it there is that peeks through the small gap is shadowed, but he can tell that the giant figure is tilting her head at him curiously, sky blue eyes sparkling with excitement.
"Who are you? Wait, wait! Let me guess!" The face presses even closer, the leaves encasing the fountain rustling and straining just slightly, before shifting—again, there's a splash—so that it's her other eye peering out at him, as if that would somehow grant her some extra insight. "Are you a traveler? Ooh, I never get travelers anymore, not since it became too dangerous for people to move around. It's the worst, I used to get visitors all the time!"
Okay. Okay. It's kind of nonstop with this fairy, as she rambles with near-childlike enthusiasm, but Eijiro can try his best to keep up. He guesses, sort of, that he is a traveler—well, not sort of; he is, it's just that he's also on an important quest that brought him here. "Uh, sorry to hear that. I'm—"
"Wait, but you're not a normal traveler, right?" The single exposed eye narrows discerningly, and—as Eijiro is kind of noticing is the trend with her—she doesn't wait for an answer before answering for herself, "No, I can tell. Oh, oh, give me a second, I'm gonna get it."
"But..." A dawning realization is hitting Eijiro that there's not gonna be much he can do to get this Great Fairy on track at any pace but her own. There's lingering impatience in the back of his mind that he wants to be on his way already, be helping Katsuki now, but—but she's really not what's keeping him from that. He can't go anywhere today anyways. He's hardly going to take it out on her. "Um, okay."
"Hmmmm." The fairy's voice is somehow both light and sonorous at the same time, at a cheerful, girlish pitch that somehow still resonates as though it were about three times as deep. It's, uh, loud, and she doesn't seem to have much in the way of volume control or awareness about it.
He resists the urge to wince or cover his ears as the booming, lilting voice continues to babble at full volume barely two feet away from him.
"Okay, okay, you're not a fairy, I would obviously be able to tell that. But you're not fully human, either! There's something else about you, something special. Are you… a spirit? But no, no, I'd be able to feel if you were dead, what a silly question. Oh, this is so interesting. Maybe—hmmm... yeah... I think that's it! Yeah, I can see it now! Blessed by the gods, right? Oh! Are you on an important mission? Heroes come to Great Fairies for aid on their quests all the time, you know, the legendary hero has been to several of my ancestors. Tons of them!"
"Yes!" Eijiro's really not trying to be rude when he barely even waits for a pause before rushing to interrupt, but he's getting a vaguely familiar feeling that this might be the kind of person who's unstoppable when she's on a roll. If he wants to get a word in edgewise, he's going to have to fight for it. He somehow feels a little practiced at that. "I am, I'm supposed to—well, I'm—"
Saying, I'm supposed to defeat All for One and save all of Hyrule, suddenly feels, ah—almost presumptuous somehow? It's like he told Togata—he's really just a guy. He's not sure how he's supposed to say that with a straight face and expect people not to raise an eyebrow at him like, what, just you? Where's the army?
"I'm supposed to help Prince Katsuki? With fighting All for One," is what he settles on, quickly, before she can get started again. "I'm Kirishima Eijiro."
"Ohhhh, that's going to be a huge help!" she booms again, and Eijiro finally inches a step back, for the sake of his eardrums. "The Calamity made it sooo hard for people to travel to my fountains around Hyrule, I'm wasting away without any offerings. If it weren't for Yuyu and Mirio I'd never get any fresh air at all!"
She pauses abruptly in her lamentation to once again level her eye at him, and he can't see her mouth in the shadowed interior of her bud, but somehow he can tell she's directing the most breathtakingly delighted beam at him."Okay, Kirishima, I'm Nejire, it's great to meet you! How can I help? Wait—wait!"
There's a note of almost urgency in her voice that has him blinking as he asks, "Uh—yeah?"
"I didn't figure all of it out! Of course there's the touch of the gods, can't miss that when you're looking for it, but you're also not fully human, right? I got so sidetracked, I didn't even figure that out!"
"Oh, I mean, I'm dragon-blooded?" he offers, because she hasn't asked to guess yet. And it wouldn't kill him or anything to spend, like, ten straight minutes with her trying to guess what all else he had going on, but this is at least a little simpler.
"What! So's Eri, that's so cool, have you met her? She's so cute, you have to meet her. Oh, gosh, wow, it would've taken me aaaages to guess that that was it! Can I see, can I see?"
Before he can say sure, or even start to harden his scales, she's already talking again, but he lets the transformation ripple over his arms and hairline again, just to be polite. If she's still interested, maybe she'll be able to take it in somewhere between all the words flying out of her mouth.
"I mean, wow, I know I'm not really one to talk, being one of the most powerful beings in the land, and all, but that's crazy! Dragon-blooded and blessed by the gods! Who died and made you so special! Well, anyways, I'm not really sure how much I can help you, you know? My ancestors were able to give the legendary hero all sorts of blessings, like magic and stuff, but my power's kinda dwindled, but we've already been all over that. I'd love to help you kick the Calamity's butt so I could get more offerings, but I can't get more offerings to help you until you kick its butt, isn't that so frustrating?"
"Well," Eijiro muses, gears turning. "You… you said Togata and, um, Haya? Do... something for you, right? What kind of offerings do you need?"
A gust of a sigh erupts from somewhere hidden within the flower bud, blown out through the tiny gap between the leaves at such force it ruffles all of his hair and clothes.
"Money, mostly," Nejire says, mournfully. "Only no one's loaded like they used to be, you know? Can't travel to come see me, and can't travel to make money, either, so everyone's rupees just kind of all stay in the same place, and no one can afford to start handing it away to Great Fairies."
"Oh." Well, that's easy. Eijiro grabs his bag and pulls open one of the pouches, digging around the disorganized contents with an accompanied clinking and clattering before he finally catches a glimpse of the right color. His hand clasps around it, pulling the carefully shaped rupee out into the light. It's silver, making it worth a hundred. "How much would this help?"
Nejire doesn't answer apart from an ear-splitting gasp, and abruptly her face disappears from sight as a frantic splash clues him in to a lot of mass moving very quickly. A massive hand darts out from the gap to snatch the rupee away from him, so fast she nearly takes his arm with it, and—for a second all hell breaks loose.
The colossal flower bud begins to flex and strain almost instantly, some sort of—of powder, maybe a kind of pollen?—erupting in a steady stream from the top, and Eijiro barely staggers half a step back in alarm before the leaves encasing the bud explode outwards in a cloud of the same iridescent, powder-blue haze.
For a moment, as he throws a hand up and squints to shield against the onslaught of shimmering maybe-pollen—dude, if someone had hay fever, would this, like, kill them? There's so much—all he can make out of the alarmingly abrupt change is a spread of pale blue petals, the bud finally blooming again, ringed around a lavishly decorated pool of clear, sparkling water. It's perfectly circular, nearly fifteen feet across, and it looks deep.
Then, before he has time to process anything apart from the extravagant gold accents adorning the bank of the fount of clear springwater, and the bioluminescent plantlife that seems to make up the entirety of the area, a vast shadow begins rocketing up from the depths of the pool at alarming speed, before bursting from the surface zealously enough to shower the entire area in an impressive spray.
He wouldn't be surprised if some of the springwater had been flung as far as Kakariko down the hill—it's certainly drenched him.
And there, half-emerged from the fountain floats the origin of the generous splash herself, and—Eijiro's never seen so much blue in his life. She's—gods, he'd known she was gigantic, but seeing her now, she towers.
She must be nearly—nearly twenty feet just from where her waist emerges from the water to the top of her head, absolutely mountainous before him, and she's surrounded herself in the color, between the giant petals, the soft blue of her clothing, gems inset in her elaborate silver jewelry, and most of all her hair.
There's so much of it, flowing freely down her back and around her shoulders, long enough to tumble nearly everywhere—most of it into the depths of the fountain, but some even spills over the edge onto the pale blue petals of the same color, and Eijiro's astounded how any being can manage so much hair.
Despite where she'd just come from, not a single drop of water seems to drip from her, or dampen the flowy material of her top or hair as she grins bright and wide at Eijiro, arms thrown high and wide in the air in a delight so pure it's blinding.
"Oh, wow," she sighs, taking a deep breath and throwing her arms out even farther like she must make use of all of the space around her she can, fingers skimming the tops of trees around them. "I haven't been out like this in ages."
Her gaze snaps to him then, crystal blue eyes glittering in unadulterated glee as she suddenly lunges for him—Eijiro yelps as she sinks halfway down into the water and snatches him close in what was probably meant to be a hug? But the end result is the entirety of both of her hands crushed against the whole of his body, from the back of his knees up to the nape of his neck, squishing him uncomfortably against the side of her jaw and cheek.
The pressure increases for a split-second, just enough to put the odd embrace on just the wrong side of suffocating, before she releases him, leaning back as he somehow manages not to collapse onto the glowing platform at the base of the fountain.
"Thank you, gods, thank you," she chatters brightly as she raises to let her elbows rest against the lip of the pool, holding herself up as she tilts her head. He's finally able to get a good look at her, while she stays mostly stationary for once, finally out in the open. She has a round, delicate face that seems youthful and kind, with large eyes, wide with a kind of innocence as they roll this way and that behind subtly painted lids as she gushes on.
"A whole silver rupee! My gods, I haven't seen one of those in almost a century. One time Yuyu gave me a red rupee and it wasn't even enough to open my bud and she couldn't afford, like, anything special for two whole months after! But you just had a silver rupee lying around! That's so great."
She props her head in one hand, and Eijiro's brow furrows in thought. A red rupee, worth twenty—an entire fifth of what he'd just given, and yet it sounds like it hadn't done much, so what was the scale of this, then? Had he actually offered enough, or was this also not going to do much for her?
"I kind of just—found it by the side of the road?" he admits, because he'd known it was a decent chunk of money, obviously. He may have sort of been living under a rock for the last hundred years—in a literal, I-was-in-a-cave-halfway-under-a-whole-mountain sense—but he clearly hadn't been before that. He just… he didn't realize how significant of an amount it would be now. "But, I mean, is it enough?"
"Hmmm." Nejire considers this, head tilting to the side, before she heaves a sigh, slumping into the water until her nose just barely rises above the surface to blow contemplative bubbles through a pout.
Eijiro drops to sit cross-legged on the platform before her, watching this display patiently as he waits for her to puzzle out her answer. After a moment or two, her mouth emerges from the surface, head lifted so the water just barely laps at her chin. Miraculously, again, her face seems completely dry.
"I'd like more, but that was probably enough to keep me in this state for around a month. Longer, since Yuyu and Mirio stop by with extra rupees when they have them. So, any help you need for the next month, I'm your gal!"
This last announcement is punctuated with her shooting up in the water once more, Eijiro having to crane his head back for a moment before she sinks back to her position from earlier, elbows resting on the bank of the fountain. Her expression turns a bit more serious and thoughtful.
"Of course, I can't really do anything major right now. More money would help, but a lot of the Great Fairies' power is tied to locations, too, you know—our fountains are all linked. Right now… I could probably offer you a little extra protection—like, like, your clothes! The clothes you've got on right now, if you gave me… hm, five bokoblin horns for the pants, and five for the shirt, I could use the horns to give them an extra layer of protection—it'd shield you from just a little damage! Different kinds of clothes need different sources, but those could give you different effects, too. Oh, I'd love some blue nightshade to enhance the state of Yuyu's scouting armor—she'd be unspottable!"
Eijiro's attention snags at the offer of extra protection—there certainly can't be too little of that, and he's more than happy for the possibility as he reaches for his bag. He rummages around in the same compartment he's sort of stuffed full of bugs and lizards, and a thought occurs to him as he does.
"You said—a lot of your power is tied to locations. Is there something I can do at the other fairy fountains that would help you here?"
He isn't looking at her as he asks, mostly focused on trying to find the bokoblin horns he knows he's stuffed in there, but he hears the deafening sound of her hands clapping together, and then yelps and nearly falls back as suddenly her face is way too close.
"Yes." There's an eager glint in her eyes as she beams at him, and he leans back on his hands for, like, a couple more inches of personal space. "That's perfect! 'Cause you travel, right? So if you see another fairy fountain, you can stop by and leave a big offering! Oh, oh, that would be great."
Nejire sighs, posture slumping a little in thought as she props her head in her hands and informs him conversationally, "A ton of the Great Fairies actually left after the Calamity—not all the fountains are so close to actual towns anymore, you know? They're suuuper hard to reach, so when the offerings got cut off because of all the monsters everywhere, a lot of Great Fairies decided to go somewhere safer rather than go without. Of course, my family's been watching over Kakariko Village for a few hundred years, so I couldn't really go anywhere."
"So—the other Great Fairies in Hyrule, are they all gone?" It's… an odd concept, somehow. Even before, he's fairly certain that the average Hylian went their whole lives without meeting a Great Fairy, though a fair amount might be lucky enough to see a fountain if they made the effort. Still, it's a given that the fairies are there, that they watch over the land and aid where they can.
The notion that they could just—be up and gone one day is… jarring, somewhat.
"Not sure," Nejire chirps, a slight shrug pulling at her gigantic shoulders. "Like I said, all the fountains are linked, so I know they're around, but distance isn't really a thing. 'Around' could mean two kingdoms over. Anyways, you'll probably need a lot more money to empower the other springs, since they're so remote. But as long as you have enough, even if you find one that one of my cousins abandoned, just call my name! I should be able to pop up and help! The more springs around the kingdom to be renewed, the more protection I'll be able to give."
She beams, and Eijiro nods.
He's not really sure where he'll get the money—he knows he's got a decent sum right now, but not decent enough that the hundred rupees he'd just given Nejire hadn't made a big dent. He still hasn't counted, but basically—if he really wants to help out, he's going to have to figure out a source of income more consistent than welp, guess I'd better hope I run into more money stashed in forgotten chests along my path!
"I'll see what I can do," he says, before returning to digging around in his bag, pulling out bokoblin horns as he comes across them, a small pile growing quickly beside him. "In the meantime," he flashes her a grin as he fishes out a sixth and seventh, before returning his attention to rooting around for more. "You can help me out with that protection now, right?"
The fairy's eyes light up. "Oh, you bet!"
Hours later, when Eijiro finally tears his gaze from Kakariko's clearly well-loved statue of Bakusatsuo, it's odd how many ways he feels settled, satisfied. It goes beyond the warm feeling that washed over him when the god's voice had, impossibly, addressed him again, and it goes beyond the following relief of the monks' spirits once again dissipating into a newfound vitality at the god's will.
The aches from the hard travel here have mostly eased over the course of the day, but they've been replaced with newer, milder ones—the kind he associates with getting stronger, without having pushed himself too hard. It's not as though he could have pushed too hard, anyways—not when Ta'loh Naeg shrine had felt, even more than the trials on the Great Plateau, like one simple hands-on lesson.
It was barely even a workout, but it still felt good to get his body moving, to fall into something like mindless familiarity as a voice instructed him on maneuvers that he felt like he'd already known, once upon a time. Despite the undeniably alien nature of his mechanical opponent, otherworldly environment, and ghostly trainer speaking directly into his mind, something about going through the motions felt right.
He knows he was a knight, once―maybe that's what it had been like to do drills in the Hyrulean army. Well, you know. Give or take a few bizarre details.
The people of Kakariko have gone above and beyond to help him feel welcome―and keep occupied, even moreso. He'd lost half of his day to helping Cado―the cucco coop-owning, archery-abandoning husband of Yuyu's boss―hunt down his cuccos, most of which had escaped their coop and seen fit to scatter across the village as hectically as possible. He'd had to climb onto someone's roof to get one of them―did it need to be all the way up there? After Cado had paid him for his help, he'd earned some more from Cado's wife, Rola, for showing off his archery to light up the torches around the Bakusatsuo shrine.
Some of his new rupees went towards arrows―he'd promised Yuyu, after all, and he really did need them, anyways―and a little more went to buying a swift carrot for a distraught Koko, who'd been determined to make a good dinner for her younger sister despite her distressing lack of ingredients.
The day hadn't passed… quickly, exactly, but not so agonizingly slow as he'd feared, either. He's no less eager to be on the road to Hateno tomorrow morning, but he's relieved that the only things left in his way are dinner and a night of sleep. He won't keep Katsuki waiting any longer than he has to.
The planks of the small bridge to Bakusatsuo's shrine creak as Eijiro stands, and he takes a moment to stretch and test out his ankle and a few other sore spots―all better, noticeably. Which means no reason to delay, so―eager to rest early so that he can rise early to set off to get his Sheikah Slate fixed―he turns to rejoin Koko, who'd promised to save him a bowl of her soup in exchange for his help.
The second he steps off the bridge, a sudden nudge from his right makes him nearly jump out of his skin, and he whips around to find Togata falling into step beside him and beaming widely.
"Where do you even come from, dude," Eijiro manages, totally not sounding even a little strangled.
"Oh, you know," Togata responds brightly, which clears up exactly nothing. He brushes past his own cryptic answer to elbow Eijiro's side again, chipper as ever. "You haven't attempted to fly the coop, I see. Much appreciated!"
"Don't remind me," Eijiro groans, only a hint of his very real frustration showing through. "I just want today to be over, so I can do something about―" He gestures vaguely, as if a single gesture could encompass everything about All for One and Katsuki and almost dying just to come back a hundred years later. "―you know?"
Togata's expression grows a little more serious than Eijiro thinks he's seen it, and he places a hand on Eijiro's shoulder to stop him in his tracks before they reach earshot of the three young girls gathered around the cooking pot again.
"I do. Better than you think," he answers, and something in his tone makes Eijiro think he's speaking from a place of having been in similar shoes. It makes it easier for Eijiro to listen when he says, "But it's more important to take time now to do things right than to rush in without thinking. If you push too hard before things are in place, it might ruin everything you're trying to work for. Things can get ugly if you're underprepared."
The look in his eyes is―it's not really something Eijiro can describe, but it's just haunted enough that Eijiro won't press. And then, between one heartbeat and the next, Togata's entire demeanor shifts. His expression hasn't budged at all, not in any way Eijiro can see, and yet somehow he's chipper as ever, the grim glint to his eye replaced with a jovial gleam so thoroughly it's as though he were never serious to begin with. He claps Eijiro on the shoulder and steers him towards the girls once more.
"I have to say," the Sheikah continues, pivoting topics with cheerful ease, "Aizawa's not known for staying up as long as he did for you, today. You must have had a lot to go over! So color me curious, what did you talk about with our esteemed leader for so long, anyways?"
"Oh." Eijiro blinks, shoulders shifting slightly. "I mean, like you said, we talked about a lot of stuff?" It had been somewhere around two and a half hours of talking, after all. Aizawa had been blunt and concise, sparing no important details but clearly not one to waste time on trivial particulars that would bog things down. "I know he's told Eri about me, I guess―did he tell you anything about how we knew each other?"
Togata nods. "Of course! He said he trained you as part of a joint training exercise between the Sheikah and the Hyrulean army."
"Yeah, I―I don't know, I don't really remember, obviously, but he told me a lot about how I was―somehow I was experienced with the Zora fighting styles? And it gave me such an interesting approach that my superiors started reaching out to the other armies around Hyrule, to learn from each other. I guess I was always a part of it." He'd trained with Zora, Sheikah, Gerudo, Gorons―every army in Hyrule, and more than once, at least according to Aizawa. "I―I guess I was actually in charge of training one of those joint exercises when I drew the Master Sword."
Apparently he'd met Izuku in the process of finding his way to the sword, as well―it had… surprised him, somehow, to know that he knew both of the people trapped in the castle on his behalf so well. That he'd known Izuku even longer than Katsuki.
They reach the cooking pot, then, Koko whipping towards him with his bowl of hasty veggie cream soup so fast that she almost spills it as they arrive.
"Here!" she says brightly, pushing it into his hands, "Thank you bunches for the carrot, Mr. Kirishima!"
Which is. Weird. It makes him sound old, or something. Like a real adult, and not an amnesiac teenaged knight with no idea what he's doing.
"Oh, hey, no problem," he responds with a grin, stomach rumbling almost loud enough to drown him out halfway through―which sets Koko and Cottla giggling, though Eri just looks at him with wide eyes. He tries to look reassuring as he sits beside her, still hoping to get her more comfortable with him.
"Our hero's pretty hungry, I guess!" Togata says, patiently letting Koko ladle him a bowl as well with a kind smile on his face. There's something to the determined look in her eye and the gentle look on his face that makes Eijiro suspect she's got a fierce need to be as helpful as possible, and that Togata knows it, too, and is steadfast in letting her have that. As soon as his bowl's dished up, he bows his head in thanks, and then takes his place on Eri's other side, before leaning in towards the cooking pot with a conspiratorial look.
"Can you ladies keep a secret?" he asks, eyebrows pitched with utmost seriousness. The girls respond to it, each sitting up a little straighter and nodding forcefully. Giving them each a meaningful look, as though swearing them all to secrecy with a glance, Togata leans back once more, giving them a nod in return. "Well, Kirishima was just telling me all about his top secret meeting with Aizawa. Do you ladies want him to keep telling me? You have to swear not to tell anyone!"
Kirishima huffs a laugh, trying to cover it by shoveling a huge spoonful of soup into his mouth as Koko and Cottla cheer their yeses and Eri stares at him with imploring eyes. He gets the feeling most things are a bit of a game for Togata, but it's got to be a large part of why all these little kids absolutely love him.
"I don't know, can you guys handle information about top secret war planning between me and Prince Katsuki? It's really important stuff…" His tone is as much a performance as Togata's was, his best attempt to play along, but the girls can't seem to tell the difference.
"Yes, yes!" Cottla insists, wiggling around in her chair so much that she does spill her soup a little, mostly small splatters hitting her leg. Koko sets her own bowl aside to clean her up immediately, but she fixes Kirishima with a firm look as she does.
"You gotta tell us, you helped me make the soup so we're best friends!" she insists, which has Togata gasping.
"I thought I was your best friend!"
Koko rolls her eyes, with the sheer excess of attitude only a nine year old could manage. "We're all best friends, duh. Which is why we all get to know the secrets!"
Laughing around another mouthful, Eijiro waits until he's swallowed to concede, "Okay, okay. You guys all seem cool enough…"
It's over two hours of information, and all of it feels secondhand, even if it's about himself―so it's hard for him to cover it in an even slightly coherent way. The girls don't seem to mind, though, so he tries his best. At some point, Haya even wanders over to join them, though she mostly keeps to herself with a mildly amused expression.
There's―a lot for him to try and summarize; he's barely scratched the surface in mentioning his history with Aizawa and Izuku and fighting styles. But for all the things he'd asked Aizawa about, his courage could only take him so far. There were some things he was just―he was just too scared to ask.
Things like details on the exact nature of his and Katsuki's relationship, or—or about his parents.
Even now, he can't stop thinking about Inko's face, when she'd talked about Izuku—heartbroken and lonely but still so, so caring. He can't stop thinking about how even after all this time, she's still waiting for her son, a lingering spirit left isolated in a part of the land no one has any hope of reaching. He doesn't know if he left anyone like that behind.
He doesn't really know how he'll forgive himself if he did.
It weighs on him, even as he tries to keep lighthearted for the girls and play up the secrecy of the completely mundane things he'd learned. It's a relief, genuinely, when Eri heaves her first yawn and Cottla catches it. Koko enters mother hen mode instantly, hopping up and declaring it's her responsibility to get Cottla to bed on time.
She immediately starts gathering the supplies she'd used to cook for them and shepherding a protesting Cottla back towards their house, so busy with her very serious, adult production that she barely seems to hear Eijiro or Togata thank her again for cooking for them.
Eri, for her part, doesn't need to be shepherded or cajoled into sleeping―she just looks up at Togata with big, pleading eyes and he smiles obligingly and scoops her up, as she nestles against him like she's ready to fall asleep right there.
"Well, I'd better get this one to bed, too," Togata comments, hand pressing to her back comfortingly. "You remember where the inn is, hero?"
Eijiro nods, relieved that the girls' early bedtime provides him an excuse to head to bed, too. The past few nights, he's mostly just kept going until he couldn't anymore―maybe he was never one to turn in early, or maybe something about spending the last century asleep has made it less appealing, but for tonight, more time spent awake is just more time kept away from doing something concrete to work towards his goals.
Even if the inn weren't within eyesight of the cooking pot, further down the same road, it's easy to tell the building by the fact that Riot is stabled under a small roof just to the side. She whinnies softly as he passes by, but when he reaches a hand out to pat her nose, she dodges past to try to get at his pack, and he laughs softly.
"C'mon, dude, you've already eaten most of my apples," he chides, edging away. "Don't look at me like that, I know they fed you today."
She snorts at him, prompting a "greedy" under his breath, but Eijiro heads inside without caving to her equine judgment. If he lets her have all his apples now, there's not going to be enough to get her through the ride to Hateno Village.
Inside the inn, the innkeeper's napping behind his desk, and Eijiro doesn't have the heart to wake him. Aizawa had said his bed at the inn was already paid for, so he's not sure it matters anyways―rather than bothering the innkeeper, Eijiro merely heads for the nearest bed, drops his pack beneath it, and sprawls beneath the covers as comfortably as he can.
He lies with the creaks of the old wooden building settling, the sounds of nighttime wildlife outside the window, and the measured breathing of the slumbering innkeeper and the three other guests, and he tries to tempt sleep to come to him easily.
Wishful thinking, really. Hardly anything's been easy since he'd woken up.
He's not sure how long he lays there, accompanied by the sounds of others' rest, but eventually it all fades from his awareness, replaced only with his winding thoughts as they pace the same circles around his mind. He still doesn't know the extent of who all he'd left behind―of how many people carry his memory in some way, and expect him back.
Spirits, like Inko, unable to move on―or those as long-lived as Aizawa―or anyone who's had stories of him passed along and is waiting on some triumphant return as the Sheikah have been―or―
Or Izuku. Or Katsuki.
Alone in the castle, fighting a battle he's meant to be part of, waiting for him to come finish this.
How many people are relying on him now? How many know it's him they're waiting on?
"I'll get stronger," he speaks into the quiet of the open inn, voice so hushed he'd likely be the only one who could hear it even if anyone else was awake. He doesn't know if Katsuki can really hear him even when he's speaking at regular volume, but as much as these words are for Katsuki, they're just as much for himself. "I'll―it won't be like this forever. I'll get back up. And I'll―I'll get you out of there. Both of you. I'll fix this."
With every fiber of his being he means it. Now he just―has to follow through. He rolls over, arm tucked under his pillow, and settles in to try and beckon sleep once more, however long it will take.
Early the next morning sees Eijiro sitting before Aizawa again, listening to the man give him advice on the trek to Hateno and warn him of Fukukado's eccentricities. All the while, despite looking almost more tired than when he'd gone to sleep in the middle of the previous day, he's carefully and meticulously braiding a recently-woken Eri's hair into twin pigtails. She sits with adorable patience as he informs Eijiro of the high monster concentration along the long and largely uninhabited stretch between here and Hateno village, and cautions him to stay on the roads as much as possible.
When Eijiro finally nods and pulls himself to his feet―his ankle barely protests at all, to his relief―Aizawa releases Eri to let her totter off to play however she likes and levels Eijiro with a final, tired stare. "Be careful out there, Kirishima. When you return with the slate fixed, we'll discuss your next steps."
It's a clear idea of where to go next and a real promise of Aizawa's aid in moving forward―the relief that crests over him is overwhelming, and he stands a little taller after he gives a quick bow, and then turns towards the door. It's only when he's on the threshold, paused with one hand holding the door open, that Eijiro realizes he has something left to ask.
"Aizawa―sir?" He falls half a step back to look over his shoulder, and the older man meets his gaze. "I―I wanted to ask, how… how old am I?"
There's a moment where Aizawa's eyes widen, the question clearly not expected, before he seems to age several years, a sort of resigned mourning coloring his expression and deepening the lines of his face―almost like he blames himself for not expecting the question.
"Sixteen," and it's as though in saying it he comes to the same kind of grief Inko had―that to put words to his age brings it all the more stark contrast just how young that is to have the fate of the kingdom on his shoulders. "Any more specific than that… would depend how you look at it, I suppose. In around seven months it will be your birthday, but you were only six months from turning seventeen when the Calamity struck. Hard to say if you've aged some while you slept. However you want to count it―you're somewhere in that range."
Eijiro nods slowly, silent for a few moments as he files it away with the rest of the information he knows about himself only because he was told, and trying to process the ambiguity. Does he feel sixteen, or seventeen? Does he feel like anything at all? Or just―out of his depth?
With one more nod, more of a quick jerk of his head as if to jolt his thoughts on track once more, Eijiro finally begins to step forward when Aizawa's voice cuts through the space between them again.
"Kirishima," he says the name with emphasis, waiting for Eijiro to glance back again before he says firmly. "Be safe. Don't take any foolish risks."
"Yes, sir." With that, he lets the door fall shut behind him as he descends the stairs with purposeful haste, Riot already saddled up and ready at the gate below.
Hateno's waiting.
find me on tumblr at belladxne!
"Who died and made you so special?" uh, Bakusatsuo, c'mon Nejire don't you know your LoZ lore?
SO. HI. SORRY IT'S BEEN THREE DAYS SHY OF A YEAR. I want you to know that comments fueled at least half this chapter, MoyKun420's comment alone fueled like at least 600 words of this, it just... like I said, was so hard to get back in the groove once I'd fallen out. I'd like to believe the chapters shouldn't be months apart from here on out (especially because I'm not letting myself work on other projects without making progress on this one), but. Oh my god, lads, I'm so sorry. Thank you so so much to everyone who's stuck around and leaves comments!