Chapter 3: Wine, Prophecies
It was dark in Lasandu city as the princess and the fantasmin wound their way through the steep, narrow streets. The walkways were largely deserted, patches of ice and snow glinting menacingly in the freezing air. With her lamp held out but unburning, Uraraka relied on the little light that seeped out of front windows and the faint gossamers of moonlight that occasionally appeared to steer her way past Sato's Bakery and Aoyama General Upholstery into the little cul-de-sac where Yaoyorozu-Todoroki Crafts and Wares proudly stood out, its overhanging thatched roof marking it as new-built next to the traditional houses at its sides.
She straightened out her cloak as best she could, glanced circumspectly at the bird, and then knocked on the door.
Pattering steps ran up, and the door swung open to reveal a tall girl with a ponytail of striking black hair. Her high-angled eyes sparkled excitedly.
"Momo!"
"Ochaco! We were wondering where you'd gotten to!" she replied, wrapping her happily in a hug.
She let go when she noticed the mimic-bird loitering at Uraraka's side. Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, she leaned down to take a better look at it.
"So, this is a fantasmin?" she queried.
It snarled at her.
"Yes, uhm, it's a bit touchy" Uraraka clarified hastily "But it really can sing nicely. How did you know about it?"
"Oh, I'll tell you once you're inside. Don't you want to get into the warm? Your nose has turned red."
Momo beckoned to them to come in. Uraraka put away her cloak and lantern, and followed Yaoyorozu to a roaring fireplace and a wide table. The whole room seemed to ooze warmth and comfort. The unusually high ceiling and jutting, bare-wood rafters were a far cry from the traditional Lasandunian stone, and the flickering light of the fire pooled in strange corners to refract off of the glass and beads that hung from the beams above. The hanging ornaments swayed slightly with every movement, glittering far above their heads, and she wondered, as she did every time she went to Yaoyorozu's house, how she had put them up there in the first place. She stepped over the plush velveteen pillows that were scattered about, admiring the crisp new carpet that lay underneath as she passed. The woven pattern of the rug depicted a deer hunt in an earthy, straight-edged foreign style, and the image of a falling fawn jumped out at her as she approached the table to be greeted by the widely varied host of characters sat there, including Iida.
Todoroki, a boy with a fleshy purple scar across one eye and a semi-permanent look of ennui, looked up at Momo as she took a seat next to him. He had come up from Onirus with her, just before the plague, and the two now shared the grand house between them. He had personally funded the restoration of the old townhouse in Onirian style at great expense, but otherwise showed no great passion for his life as a trader. To Uraraka, he had both become a firm friend and yet remained a complete mystery.
"Toru and Shoto" (for the latter was Todoroki's first name) Momo said "were at the parade this morning. She was just telling us about the fantasmin before you came. Didn't you see either of them?"
"Not exactly…" replied Uraraka, going to warm herself by the fire.
"Awww, that's a shame, I waved and everything." Whined Toru from the table. The girl was entirely invisible apart from her seemingly self-supporting clothes. Uraraka had not noticed that she was there the first time.
"Your speech was nice" said Todoroki, without any emotion. His mismatched eyes were lazily half-lidded, and unreadable. Uraraka wondered whether he was being snide.
"Thanks! So… what were you guys up to before I came?" she asked.
A boy with straw-yellow hair, streaked at the front with black, flopped forwards over the table. He quickly pulled himself up when jabbed by the elongated, mobile earlobes of the girl sitting next to him.
"Ow, Kyoka… I get it, okay?" He pouted dramatically "I just like felt we needed to make up for the fact that we still haven't gotten around to getting drunk."
"You'll live, Denki." Shot Kyoka Jirou, unphased by his amateur melodramatics "besides, it's Shoto's wine, and he only wants to start when everyone's here."
"It's only proper form. Tsuyu will be here soon, and then we can start." Added Iida, chopping the air with his hands.
Tsuyu Asui was a priestess at the city's main temple, and could usually be found, in her loose green robes, tending to an altar or taking care of the natural springs that flowed through the sacred ground. She had a thin, wide mouth that made her look uncannily like a frog and which, paired with her long pink tongue, made those around her melt when she smiled. She was a great friend of everyone at the gathering, but her ability to get into accidents was quite unrivalled, and she was a constant source of concern to them.
"I suppose you're right" said Momo, pouring Uraraka a cup of tea "Only, she did say that the temple would close early for Dreamer's Night, so she really shouldn't be taking this long."
"Should we be worried?"
"It is kinda dark outside…" pointed out Denki.
Just then there came a knock at the door. Momo rushed to open it, and Tsuyu's voice carried to the people at the table.
"I'm sorry I'm late," she croaked "this group of worshippers refused to leave, and I was only able to close up with the help of these two lovely people."
A familiar male voice piped up genially.
"It's no problem really. We were in the area and we thought you could use the help."
Denki perked his head up, tuning on in the baritone speech. With a jump, he ran to the door.
"Eiji? Dude, no way! I haven't seen you in ages!"
"Heyyy! I wasn't expecting to see you here." Kirishima responded. "Mina and I were actually just on our way to see Hanta."
By now the group at the table were leaning well in to properly eavesdrop. Apart from Uraraka, none of them were home-grown Lasandunians, and they had all come from such a vast array of homelands that none of them had any clue where Denki could possibly have known the travelling bird-masters from.
"Hanta Sero?" inquired Momo politely.
"That's him! He still working at the tinker in the south side?"
"Well, he was; but I'm afraid he's gone back down the ridge to visit his family in Adhesia for the festival period. He left a week ago."
Ashido and Kirishima groaned. They shivered, in their thin Capcana-woven clothes, and began to conspire.
"Well, what are we going to do now?"
There was a pause. Uraraka could imagine the cogs in Denki's brain slowly turning.
"Would it be okay if these guys joined us?" he said, turning back to his friends at the table "I know them from the Stavilar dragon ranches."
"They have been awfully nice to me" Tsuyu chipped in.
Momo, looking quickly between her pleading friends and the two helpless strangers, opened the door and glanced at Todoroki, who took it as a signal to stand. His hair was separated neatly into two colours: white and red, and as he nodded and headed into the cellar the shades seemed for a second to tangle at the front.
"I'll go get the wine."
XXX
Uraraka sat next to Iida, idly sipping at her sweet wine and trying desperately not to meet the glare that Ashido was shooting her. She knew that the ire was probably well-deserved (she had, after all, forcefully floated her away earlier that afternoon) but right now she just wanted to drink and talk to her friends and forget about the suitors. The dying, broken suitors.
"Damn, this wine is seriously good!" exclaimed Kirishima from the opposite end of the table, shaking her from her thoughts. His pointed teeth dribbled a little of the liquid gold, at once improper and endearing. A strong smell of alcohol pervaded through the room.
A small smile, barely noticeable to the untrained eye, graced Shoto Todoroki's lips as he poured the redhead another glass. Uraraka guessed that this sudden bout of expression could only be the result of his heavy drinking.
"I was impressed when I first came here, too." He said, with a barely detectable slur.
"It's a shame we only get to drink it for special occasions." Asserted Denki energetically "Otherwise I'd be drinking it all the time."
"Normally, I would tell you that it's bad for your health, but I suppose that it is tradition to become inebriated on Dreamer's Night." Iida upbraided with the swing of a hand, nearly knocking over Uraraka's cup.
Ashido's ears perked up. She ripped her gaze from Uraraka to stare at Iida, dumbfounded.
"It's tradition to get drunk?"
"Well, for lack of a better term… Yes."
"Sweeeet!"
Todoroki poured her another glass, just as Yaoyorozu put down hers to speak.
"Oh, getting drunk is certainly part of the tradition, but there is a greater meaning to it." Her eyes twinkled as she continued, and her arm raised as an orator's before a crowd "Sweet wine gives you vivid dreams, and the dream that you get on this night prophesises the year to come! What an excellent system, don't you think?"
"It's never been all that effective for me, though…" sighed the invisible girl.
"Really?"
"Last year I didn't even dream at all!"
Jirou shuffled a little in her seat.
"I dreamed of my lute last year, and it broke just after the summer solstice."
"Wow, so it actually worked?" enquired Ashido, now looking around excitedly "What did the rest of you guys dream of? Did it come true?"
Iida had dreamed of his brother, who was attacked by a marauding knight in the late autumn. Denki had dreamed of thunder, and had later protected a blacksmith from lightning during a storm. Momo and Tsuyu had both dreamed of the city temple, and had been unpleasantly surprised the very next day when a weather-beaten column had crumbled. Finally it came to be Uraraka's turn.
"I, uh, I dreamed of Omochi." She stumbled hesitantly.
"Oh, isn't that good? What happened?"
There was a calculated and false innocence in Ashido's tone, as if she were casually applying pressure to a wound, probing at the site of injury.
"No, that is- Omochi was the name of this fluffy white goat that I had, and whom I loved dearly. When the famine came I- um, I ate her. I think maybe the dream predicted… that."
"That's pretty rough"
The pink girl's tone had turned unexpectedly soft.
Toru took an enormous swig of her wine, which disappeared quickly into her invisible mass, before exclaiming:
"This whole year has been pretty rough, let me tell you!"
"When I arrived, all I could think about was how much I should have brought my father along" cut Todoroki "so that the plague-curse would get him. Or at least he could suffer like the rest of us here. This winter was hell on earth."
"I'm amazed that we didn't see it coming. All the adults dead, children tending the fields… of course there were going to be food shortages. They do say that sorrows walk hand-in-hand." Pondered Yaoyorozu. "Although hindsight is twenty-twenty after all."
Uraraka went to pour herself another glass, but couldn't quite reach. Iida helpfully did it for her, and the last of the sweet-wine was emptied into her glass. She pinged the empty bottle off-handedly. The sound echoed through the room.
"Sorry, I think I've just finished the wine."
She handed Todoroki the empty bottle, and he studied the label for a bit before standing up. He put it with the other four decanters that they had consumed over the course of the night.
"I think I have one more of this one, but that'll be the last." He said, going to fetch it.
"No more for Denki then." Joked Jirou, poking him with her long ears lobes for the third time that night.
"No fair!" He protested, slurring slightly "Objectivity, I'm not that drinked."
He was met with resounding laughter, and when the last bottle came up with Todoroki they amused themselves by initially denying him any. When the last of the honey-coloured liquid had disappeared into Toru's invisible mouth, they were all buzzing, or at least slightly dull-headed. Uraraka curled forwards to rest her forehead on the cool wood of the table.
"This is nice." She said "It's nice to be here with you guys and drink and eat and not worry about things. Why can't we just stay like this?"
"In a few minutes the new year will be upon us. Where did it go?" contemplated Yaoyorozu, staring at her hands on the table.
"I guess time flies when you're miserable." The words slipped out of Uraraka's mouth just a little too fast. Her eyes began to blur, making the knots of the wood beneath her seem to swirl and spin.
She felt Iida put a warm and comforting hand on her back. She wanted to cry, but habit held her back, and ruining the night felt like such a waste. Perhaps she had drunk too much.
"It wasn't all that bad" strained Iida through his uncooperative, heavy lips "We had each other after all."
They had. But didn't that only make it worse? That they had seen each other in such a state, done those things together, and yet remained as close as they did? Sometimes the morals that she had once held would roar back, for an instant, and she would see the people at the table for the monsters that they were. But the image flickered. She was twice their evil; how could she fear them?
From the streets around them cheers and roars burst forth, riotously shaking them from their melancholy. Midnight; new year.
They all looked at each other, sheepish smiles creeping back. They nodded, as if to signal a cue, and shouted in unison:
"Happy new year!"
XXX
By the time that Uraraka was leaving Yaoyorozu and Todoroki, it was the early hours of the morning, and the starless night was pitch-dark. She blearily fetched the fantasmin from the kitchen, where it had completely demolished the food it had been given (did mimic-birds have teeth?) and shrugged on her cloak, turning to hug each of her friends. Just as she opened the door to leave, she realised that her lantern was unlit. Todoroki took it from her and reached a hand in to grasp the candle wick, letting his magic ripple down through his pale fingers and set it alight.
"There" he said, handing it back to her "safe journey. It's not very far."
She watched the candle flame bob and sway, her drunken haze faintly obscuring the heat that exuded from it. She smiled one last time at her friends, and headed into the night, plunged into the deathly cold.
The streets echoed desolately as she waded through the black. Her lantern hissed in the icy air, and she felt her bare fingers around the handle turn frigid and harden. All that she could see by its faint orange light were the cold clouds of her breath and the shining beak of the fantasmin. She could not see where she was going, but her feet knew the way.
They climbed higher, through the pale snow that glittered and crunched like fragile lace. Here the wind howled through the dark houses, and the snowflakes it carried stuck to her frosted eyelashes. Through the freeze and the murk, barely audible over the chattering of her teeth, came a whisper.
It was hoarse and heavy with pain, deep and choked. It stuck to her skin like algid wax.
"Ochaco…"
A blue spectre crept towards her over the bleeding snow, glowing with otherworldly light.
"My child."
Its sunken eyes and wrinkled cheeks spoke of middle age. Those unblinking grey eyes, staring ceaselessly at her, seemed to suck the warmth right out of her heart. It wore the King's crown, and her father's face, and the sober white shroud that he had been buried in. His teeth dripped red, a bloody hand smearing gore across his face like a lion after a kill. Those features that had once made him so welcoming were now twisted beyond humanity, bathed in somebody else's blood.
Her heart shrieked at her as the sight of him hit like a wave; this was not him, not her father, gone away and buried in the warm earth. He was resting in the sleep of the immortals, melting in his grave. And yet there was blood on the snow and on the shroud that she had woven for him. There was a trail of red, of reality, of horror, bound to him. This spirit had taken his soul.
It twitched impatiently, drawing ever nearer.
"Ochaco, I'm so hungry… So hungry…"
She watched him mutely, head spinning with grief and fear and the heaviness of alcohol. Involuntarily her eyes filled with tears and an asphyxiating sob lodged itself in her throat. She could do nothing but scream.
"Stay back!" Her words were wet and raw "Don't come near me! Don't- don't look at me like that! Be gone! Be gone!" She swung her lantern wildly into the darkness around her, let the fire hiss through the mist of the apparition.
It clutched its stomach and its eyes narrowed into a wounded scowl. Its fluid form undulated, reforming, and she knew that her blows had done it nothing. Licking the blood from one of its hands, more animal than human, the spectre skulked away into the shadows. She felt its eyes linger on her long after it was out of sight.
And then it was gone. Uraraka started, perceiving with a jolt that her chest was heaving and her pulse was throbbing painfully in her neck. She let her head fall into her frozen hands. She needed to go to sleep, to bed.
A/N: I just realised that the formatting for this fic has gone haywire upon uploading. I didn't get any reviews mentioning it (or any at all, lol), so I'll get around to fixing it later.