Summary: The frigid temperature of the air was only fought off by her thin clothes and the child-like innocence that only a young child could have, even if hers was marred by the ugly truth of some parts of the world.
Still, the water was so pretty…
Would Papa have liked her if she was as pretty as the water was?
Time frame: Present, main story
Water wasn't something she had seen before, at least not to this scale. The sun's rays caused the water peering through the cracks in thick sheets of ice to sparkle, twinkling almost as though it knew this was her first experience with water beyond what was in a glass or more commonly a bowl.
The frigid temperature of the air was only fought off by her thin clothes and the child-like innocence that only a young child could have, even if hers was marred by the ugly truth of some parts of the world.
Still, the water was so pretty…
Would Papa have liked her if she was as pretty as the water was?
"Enough!" The sound of the slap pulled her from her thoughts and purple eyes pulled themselves away from the water and back to what was going on around her. Mama was on her knees, water glistening in her eyes while Papa was shouting, words she couldn't completely understand. Mama had always said she was really smart, that she could do anything when she grew up, but… she still couldn't understand what Mama called English. Papa hadn't wanted her to and so she still didn't understand it, no matter how hard she tried.
"I've had enough!" The words made it through her ears but didn't make any sense. What was going on? Mama was upset, which she always seemed to be, but how was this any different? Papa was just going to hurt her, not Mama, it was okay, right? "You can't stop me Mizuki, I've told you a hundred times to just get rid of her!"
Oh. From what she could understand, Papa was angry at her again. Which meant...
Fear set in.
Her purple eyes flickered nervously around, looking for any sort of escape, something, anything to escape Papa's fury.
Her feet skittishly carried her toward her kneeling mother, silently looking for her mother's protection. After all, she'd protect her, right? She always did in the past, why would it have changed now?
"Mama?" She whimpered anxiously in her birth language and tottered toward her, reaching out to grasp any part of her dress, just something to hold and get closer to her protection.
"I'm sorry..." Mama whimpered and turned away from her, much to her confusion.
"Mama-" Pain erupted in her throat and she immediately gave a distressed cry in wolfish as her feet disconnected with the floor.
"You were a mistake!" Papa's reddish colored eyes dark with fury and something deadly she couldn't identify as he used his other hand to slip something over her head and yanked it tight. "And I always right my mistakes!"
"Mama!" She cried with what air she could get into her lungs, kicking and fighting against papa's hold on her throat. "Mama! Help me!"
"You're not her daughter!" Papa snarled, and in the next second, Nico felt her body collide with and crash through something hard. Ice.
Water filled her nose and ears and she struggled fighting to get free and reaching desperately for where she hoped her mother was. Mama! Mama! Where was she? Why wasn't she helping her?
Something was dragging her down, something tied to her neck and who's weight was pulling her small body through the harsh currents of the water around her.
She was beginning to feel dizzy as she was dragged along, clawing at chunks of ice to get the sparse precious breath and fighting, fighting to escape the heavy weight that was going to kill her.
Papa was going to get his wish.
"Helpp!" She swallowed water with the wail, crying for her mother's help as she scrabbled to get ontop of the ice, "Maaama!"
"Hon…. lo…. Mi!"
Her vision was blurry, waterlogged with the water mixing with her tears, but startling white was hard to miss, white shaped vaguely like wings through her blurry vision.
"-mi! Can't… ind… mi!"
The weight tied to her neck knocked against something and she lost her grip on an ice chunk, dragging her back under the water, but this time faster, pulling back deep under the water.
The ice rapidly changed from broken chunks to thick sheets that were always just barely out of reach
The water was cold, freezing to her small body and thin clothes.
It was so cold… so cold…
And she couldn't breathe now, no matter how hard she fought against the weight, it never loosened.
Was she going to die? Die like papa wanted?
Sharp teeth brushed against her neck and she flinched violently at the sensation, struggling violently in the person's grasp, no! No! Bubbles billowed from her mouth in her fight, She didn't want to be hurt anymore! No more hurt!
"Stop-" The person covered her mouth before all of the bubbles could escape her mouth.
To her surprise, the hurt never came. These teeth didn't hurt her, rather, they saved her. They sliced through the rope binding her neck and dragging her down deeper into the water and the person responsible started kicking upward toward the dark ice even as her vision began to fade.
Kotori! Now!
A small explosion rippled through her body and she felt herself be propelled up. It's okay, you'll be okay, I promise.
Amber eyes of her savior flashed briefly in her swimming vision all before she found safety in the blackness.
"-ico!"
Nico jerked awake into throwing her body up into sitting up and narrowly avoided knocking skulls with the owner of the very same amber eyes that she had just seen in her dream.
"Hurry and get up and get dressed, we have to go," Umi told the mage briskly and placed an empty small suitcase on the bed in front of her. "Pack enough for a couple days, I will send Maki up to help you, as I need to go change."
"What-" Nico struggled to properly digest the alpha's words around her already swimming mind. "What the fuck are you talking about Umi?"
"Now's not the time Nico," Umi brushed aside her concerns and strode toward the door. "Please listen and do as I ask, and as for what you change into right now, don't wear anything super flashy."
With that, the secretive alpha who had spoken more to her in this moment than since she had gotten here, was gone.
What the hell was going on? And more than that, what the fuck was that dream?
Her heart was still pounding, racing at unhealthy speeds while her chest heaved for breath and she tentatively brought a hand up to her neck where she had just felt rope being cut through by the sharp canines of a werewolf.
What the hell was that? It felt too real, like it was something that had actually happened, not something she had somehow dreamed up.
Everything was going too fast.
"Fuck…" Nico brought her other hand to her forehead, ruby red eyes slightly unfocused as she took a moment to just sit there and think.
That dream felt like a memory, not a dream. A memory that wasn't hers and wasn't one that she had accessed through an image like she did here and there. If it really was a memory, whose memory was it? She wasn't connected to the pack like the rest of them were and supposedly only Kotori had access to memories and even then, she said that it was just minor access, so what did Nico just experience?
She had just seen someone nearly die at their father's hands and had experienced the entire event through their own shoes. They were so young, around the age of the average toddler, who would do that to a child? Who would try and nearly succeed in killing their own child, their own flesh and blood?
It had to be Eli or Maki, as Kotori, Umi, and Nozomi's relationships with their parents were all public in some way or another, but… Nico had her suspicions. After all, she had spent a lot of yesterday learning about a certain redhead's past and childhood by one of the ones that raised her and by the redhead herself.
This memory, this chaos aligned with what little Maki had opted to mumble about her birth family, being very reluctant to disclose any information about them under the guise of being too young to truly remember much of it. Especially with her bonds with Umi and Kotori that according to her, would've dulled and made the memories fade over time.
Still, if this was a real memory… Then what in the world possessed that man to have children if that was how he was treating them?
"Nico-chan?" Maki's red hair popped into the room, appearing about as wide awake that Nico didn't feel, and she blamed werewolves' natural connection with the moon. "Are you…" the redhead, clothed in a hoodie, some average jeans that she pulled off unreasonably well, and a jacket draped over her shoulder, trailed off. Her sharp violet colored eyes made it's way around the room, taking everything in and apparently coming up as not very impressed as she gave a rather heavy scowl, "we don't have time for this."
"Time for what?" Nico snapped instinctively, would someone just give her some god damn information? "I'll tell you what I don't have time for! Having some scary ass dream and being woken up by a heartless Umi at what," she reached over and turned on her phone, only to have the numbers, 'one-thirty' staring back at her, "one-fucking thirty in the morning!"
"I'm sorry you had a bad dream Nico," Maki narrowed her eyesand strode deeper into the room, "but stop being dumb and self-centered in this moment for one second and use your brain for crying out loud! Now get up," she dropped her jacket at the foot of her bed and pushed up her shirt up to her elbows as she approached Nico's closet, "and change. I promise, you do not want to see my taste in fashion mixing in with your fashion-"
"Shut up for a second," Nico snapped back as she pushed her blankets off, even though she could still feel her heart going two-hundred miles an hour, "and answer a question."
"Sure," Maki deadpanned as she picked up one of the duffel bags on the floor, which Nico had no memory of being there previously, "as though we have just an endless amount of time to be wasting arguing-"
"Did your father try and drown you?"
Maki instantly faltered and Nico winced, now that, was bad wording on her part.
"Look," Nico took a deep breath and tried to calm down, because Maki Nishikino pissed her off on an hourly basis, unfortunately. "That dream I had, I know it wasn't just some random dream, it felt too real, so I figured it was a memory of yours or something- Maki?"
The redhead had turned on her heel and engulfed her in one of the largest hugs of Nico's life.
Maki smelled like peppermint and paper with the faint acidic hint of chemicals, like she had been working with something chemistry related. Her embrace was warm, if abit tight, and the redhead's even breathing and body heat did wonders on her spinning out of control mind. Something about her got on Nico's nerves, but another larger part of her comforted her, soothing the racing of heart and the panic in her heart and mind after the dream that had made Nico believe she was well and truly dying in that moment.
Her arms came up and her hands rested tentatively on Maki's shirt. Hesitant to touch the clumsy werewolf when they didn't know each other very well and from what she had gathered so far, Maki wasn't a hugger.
"I'm sorry," Maki's breath tickled Nico's ear, the soft words ticklish against her skin. "I'm so, so, sorry you had to go through that," she whispered, "I never wanted anyone to experience that horrid memory…" her voice broke, "…not even myself."
"So it's yours then?" Nico asked for confirmation and felt Maki nod against her shoulder.
"Yes."
Wow. Nico's hands clenched around Maki's shirt, "god, Maki, your birth father tried to drown you."
"I know."
"You nearly died, damnit, you would've died…" Nico whispered and squeezed her eyes shut. "You were abused, hated, and thrown out like some sort of trash… what kind of child has to go through that?"
Nico would've been just learning how to sing…
...and Maki would've been skittishly hiding from her father before being sentenced to death by her own father.
Nico wanted to throw up.
What would've happened if Nico's soulmate was killed at such a young age?
Not to mention, what would the world have been missing out on?
Sure, Maki pissed her off and grated on her nerves most of the time, but the redhead was invaluable.
The world wouldn't be the same without her and her dorky clumsy ass in it, but…
...but it almost had lost her.
"How much of the memory did you see Nico?" Maki asked quietly, "did you see what happened after I came back around?"
Nico shook her head, not trusting her stomach and the part of her that felt well and truly ill.
There was a moment of silence before Maki spoke up. "I want to show you something, but you have to trust me, otherwise it will hurt. I want to show you the ending of that memory, please, if never again, just trust me right now, Nico."
Nico hesitated. "What…. Am I trusting you to do?" she asked, a bit hoarsely and fought the continued nausea.
She felt Maki shift and the red head pulled back till she was able to look at her, able to see the serious, but awkward timidness in those striking purple eyes. "Let me into your mind," the redhead spoke quietly and slightly cringed, no doubt at the frown Nico pulled, "just this once." Maki looked steadily at her, "I just want to show you the end of that memory and the bits and pieces of a few others."
Another intrusion into her mind? Her mind was her own, wasn't it? What was everyone's obsession with sharing minds?! But… Nico searched Maki's eyes, looking for any signs of malicious intent, and yet… she found none. The redhead wasn't lying.
"I promise Nico, I won't take advantage of you, just… please… you need to see this…"
Nico hesitantly nodded, "...Okay… I trust you, Maki…"
Something nudged her mind and Nico's eyes widened as it pressed against her mind and her gaze immediately shot back to Maki's, locking on the werewolf's calm, unchanged expression as she quickly brought up her mental walls.
Through her own mental walls, Nico could hear music, slightly jazzy pop music with hints of classical and lofi vibes, but it wasn't coming through her ears. No, Nico could hear the music through her skull, the music emanating from the thing that was pressing gently against her own mind.
"It's just me," Maki whispered, and Nico reluctantly lowered her barriers, causing the music to be louder and other quirks and qualities of the thing she now knew to be Maki's mind.
The clumsy dork's mind was massive, a testament to her knowledge and mental prowess, and music eminated from it's very being, the rhythm and flow of music changing and shifting with each of the redhead's very thoughts and feelings. Unlike her usual self, Maki's mind wasn't clumsy, awkward, underskilled, or unsure. Rather, Maki's mind was like a well oiled machine, a thousand systems working at a hundred miles an hour and skillfully switching back and forth between tasks, ideas, and feelings, without hesitation. Her mind was bold, loud with it's unique blend of beautiful music, and unfaltering in any way, unlike the redhead was outside of it.
However, her mind also had something along the edge of it, well, one bit was at the edge of it, and the other occupied a larger, deeper area of her mind. They were both separate but also part of Maki's mind itself, and had a very different feel to each of them than Maki's mind. One of them, the deeper, more centrally integrated part, was almost dormant, as though it was currently asleep or inactive, causing it's warm and sunshine-like atmosphere to adopt a sleepy, sluggish flowing river aura, yet the aura was very close and loving, if not very motherly and parental.
"That's my bond with Kotori, so it's a bit of a door into her mind" Maki told her quietly, "Kotori's far away and sleeping," Well that explained why it was dormant, even if the whole thing was weird to a ridiculous level to Nico.
The other part, the bit more surface level bit must've been Umi then, which was confusing, as it gave off the soft sound of smooth guitar and mimicked a galaxy in a way, even if there were traces of a machine at work, almost as though the alpha was meticulous to a ridiculous extent.
"I don't understand, any of this," Nico admitted abit uncomfortably, "can either of them tell you're pressing your mind against mine?"
"Umi can," Maki replied, "but she won't say anything about it unless you bring it up, and it's okay if you don't understand, I just…" she cleared her throat awkwardly, "you need to see this to understand, alright?"
"Okay… I trust you…"
Nico's vision turned dark.
Nico's senses returned to her coughing violently and crying, her small face pressed into thick cloth as she coughed and spluttered.
"It's okay," a high pitched voice in wolfish soothed around the wind rushing past Nico's small ears, "I promise you're safe now, nobody's going to hurt you now…"
A mind brushed against Nico's and Nico clung to it, clung to it's strength and warmth. You're okay, pup, the voice was low for a female, but still an alpha female voice, she's with me, we'll protect you, you'll be okay, I promise.
At the endearment of an alpha calling her their child, a term her father never called her, Nico felt a warmth she had never felt before. She snuggled her face deeper into the jacket she was nestled in and cried, if for no reason than relief, because papa wasn't going to hurt her anymore.
The scene shifted, shifting so quickly that Nico only got short flashes, flashes of a four year old Maki grinning and staring up at a lanky Umi teaching a ginger how to tie a tie while Kotori giggled softly in the background; a six year old Maki snuggled between Umi and Kotori and the small child pouting at who Nico could assume was Umi's mom and not wanting to get up; an eight year old Maki being tickled by Kotori, who obviously loved the young girl; etc. Snippets of the alpha-beta's childhood till all at once, Nico was thrown into a memory that had her ears ringing.
However, the ash-blonde was snarling, snarling like a wolf with her teeth bared, revealing
"You- can't have her!" Kotori's voice spluttered through the panicked, howling of a young werewolf. "I'd rather die, than let you, have her!" the growl that had been rumbling through her words grew louder and louder toward the end.
"Then I'll kill you!" Kotori was being held to a closed door by the throat by a man, Nico had hoped was only contained to the memory of Maki being almost drowned. "For, she's my child!" the man spat at her, "so you don't get a choice in giving her to me!"
"No! She's mine!" Kotori lunged with teeth bared like a werewolf, and her head hit the wood with a harsh snapping of the wood beneath her skull, but it did no damage to the angel, "she's…" she tried to lunge again but only got her head hitting wood again and so she struggled furiously, "my, daughter!"
Nico took a step back at the sun-angel's appearance. The angel seemed to be just out of highschool, if that, and her lips were blue, deathly blue. It was more obvious than ever how much magic ran through the angel's veins with how the major veins in her neck were glowing bright unearthly green, the color of her magic.
However, none of that was what really made Nico step back. Rather, it was the angel's eyes. Kotori's eyes were normally warm and golden in color, but in this memory and her ability to be standing watching it play herself, her eyes were neon green with narrowed pupils. Her eyes were neon green and her teeth were bared, revealing a secret Nico had no idea about. Kotori's canines were longer than a human's, and a green liquid leaked from the dangerous tips, werewolf venom.
Kotori was part werewolf.
"Your daughter?" The man snarled and pushed Kotori harder into the door, causing it to creak and groan under the pressure, "I gave her life!"
"I raised her!" Kotori snarled back and the sun-angel struggled some more, fingers scoring deep cuts in the man's hand and wrist, while her green eyes promised the man a painful death. An expression Nico never wanted to see on her face again.
"And I will kill her," the man hissed, "and you can do nothing about it!"
"Fuck you!" the sun-angel hissed and spat at him, spitting green venom and snarling that turned into raging howls of a mother animal trying to protect their baby, "touch my baby and I promise I will bring the fury of Sumay the goddess of life herself onto your sorry excuse of a soul!" the sun-angel lashed out, struggling furiously and spitting out insults through her snarling howls.
The hair on Nico's neck stood up on end and she instinctively shielded her eyes as something exploded, ripping through the building with the force of an atomic bomb.
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF HER!"
Umi had arrived.
The next moments were a blur to Nico, the memory being fuzzy due to Maki not being able to experience this part of the memory.
When the blurring cleared up, Umi was staring the man, now an unfamiliar wolf, in the eye, one of Umi's massive blue paws placed down against his throat with an intense crushing force, and her jaws were open with a snarl, blue saliva and venom dripping from her jaws and burning holes in the hardwood floor.
"You dared attack my mate, and my cub," Umi snarled threateningly at him, "after throwing away my cub and refusing to acknowledge your mistake and find her for years?! You try and kill my mate?! I may be young, but I will always be a better alpha, and better father than you ever will be!"
Nico turned her gaze to where Maki was, the little redhead was no where to be seen, only a small for their age lanky red-furred cub was there, nestled into the chest and belly fur of a fluffy, long legged slim ash-blonde she-wolf, who was comforting the child with soft croons and lots of licks and nuzzles, keeping the child away from the creature that had tried to kill her, once again...
Nico's eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring at Maki, the Maki she knew, not the little Maki Umi and Kotori knew. "Did…"
"Did Umi kill him?" Maki supplied, and Nico nodded. "Actually no, Kotori did."
Nico's eyes widened and her lips parted in shock. Kotori? Kotori was the one that killed him?
"He tried to attack me and her when Umi showed him mercy, and Kotori got him as he lunged, right in the throat." Maki explained with a casual shrug, "she didn't think about it, she was just trying to save me. But," she looked at Nico, "we really need to go, Nico. As in, Kotori was attacked this morning. We need to go."
Nico's lips thinned into a grimace, "okay, let's go."
There were questions she needed to ask Umi.
