I think I'm making Black Star go off the total deep-end and I LOVE it. I am really all in for his transformation. How this went from a pure SoMa to Black Star growth I don't know but strap yourself in.
It wasn't the nightmare again but it was just as vivid and Soul's heart was pumping in that marathon run. He wasn't the one under the water but that's what it felt like, air a stranger to his lungs. That was because he was screaming for Maka incessantly, pleading because he needed her to surface in order to come back to him. When he tried to sink his arm into the brackish ocean it was like forcing his fingers through muck with so much resistance he was sure he'd wretch his shoulder just from the pressure. Except as soon as he felt her fingers it didn't matter anymore, nothing was going to get in his way and keep him from pulling her to him. Soul had the strength if it was with her, for her.
He woke up gasping, sheets clutched tightly like he was still trying to pull her back with him. Soul coughed for breath but as his eyes attempted to focus in the darkness, he saw it as an apparition. A little girl, blond, her back to him as if she had been next to him but was now studying the cribs. Blond, like Maka's blond… am I imagining it? Soul moved to the night table and struck a match to light the candle but as the room illuminated the cribs were by themselves, still waiting. He sighed hoarsely to deny the tears before sliding out of bed, starting to light the lamps around the room.
As soon as there was enough shine in the room to kill the shadows he hunkered down on the floor next to the cribs where he'd left out all of his tools. They were still clean but his hands felt rusty from disuse and he had stacked scrap pieces of wood under his bed to practice the carvings before he would dare to mar the beautiful surfaces of the bassinets. He was mostly sure he'd gotten the forget-me-nots down but the more intricate pedal patterns would have to come back to his fingers through practice. It'd been so long since he carved that box, something that he'd actually told no one even after remembering all the finer details of the agonizing over Maka's gift, that he was almost afraid that the repetition would never bring it back.
But each trial on the extra wood looked better than the last. He'd even settled into the idea now, using his charcoal to leave a frame of the design on the top of each crib. Above his children's heads would rest all the flowers of love and devotion. Maybe he'd lose a finger or two to the carving but it would be worth it to show her and them because each day all he could do was cling to Stein's orders. After almost instantly nicking a finger thanks to his still sleep-addled brain, Soul sighed and clunked his head against the foot of the bed, taking a moment to wake himself up with the pattern of the stone wall. As he stared, a smile came to his face. Maybe not just wood. Maybe he needed canvas, too.
Black Star awoke early just as the light started to filter in through the window. The house was still completely silent and Maka was carrying more of Soul than just his children as she remained dead asleep, not even offering a twitch of an eye as he sat up from the bed. Why did I even mention that? Or touch her? He didn't like those questions and wanted to be free of them so he forced his steps from the room and out into the hall. After a pause to find there was still not a stir of life anywhere, he went out into the yard and strode to the barn.
The horses were lazily nuzzling around for hay and he managed to scrounge up enough of a bale to toss in front of them. His eyes searched around the rest of the yard, settling on a stump with an ax in it. At least manual labor was mind-consuming, so he went about grabbing the pieces of wood nearby and chopping them into stove-sized pieces. He never contemplated the noise he was making in the process until he saw the fright-filled face poking out of the backdoor. When their eyes met, Black Star was almost sure the head would disappear but when it didn't, he paused to say, "Crona, right?"
"Yes," came back a little shakily but the door creaked open further.
"Black Star. Sorry I didn't exactly introduce myself yesterday." Mostly because I still kinda want to kill you.
"No, I, um…" As Crona exited completely into the yard, Black Star caught sight of the worrying hands and shuffling feet. "I guess I'm sorry too."
"Not your fault. Maka's a real pain in the ass, that's all," Black Star let that fall to a grumble as he picked up another log.
"Um, no, not about Maka, and you really shouldn't talk that way about her," the second half was so quiet that Black Star almost missed it. He resisted a smirk as Crona struggled to bring his voice back. "I'm sorry I hurt your friend, Soul."
Black Star followed through with the next swing but let the ax plant in the stump. "You almost killed him." He let his fingers dig into the handle before he let out a long breath. "But I guess you didn't. I guess…" Black Star studied Crona's face, searching for defenses and finding none. "Since Maka loves Soul just as much as I do and can forgive you then I might as well."
"Thank you," Crona added a bow that forced the smirk and laughs from Black Star's mouth.
"Cut that out," he spat out with another chuckle. "Keep the bows for Maka. She's the only royalty around here."
The door creaked again and expelled just the mentioned blond, her eyes already rolling, "Crona doesn't have to bow to me."
Black Star let out a dry laugh before wiping his hands on his pants and then dusting stray splinters of wood off his arms. "What's the plan for today?"
"Does there have to be one?" Maka offered back almost instantly but her mind wasn't on her words or his, too busy churning over the set up between Crona and Black Star. She was studying the tea leaves, the leftovers of their encounter and finding Crona only at his regular amount of nerves. It was a pleasant surprise, to say the least, especially since those protective feelings seemed to amplify with each passing day. She may not have her babies yet, but she had plenty to take care of in the world.
Black Star allowed her to analyze every last bit before he started closer to her. That strange part of him that had awoken the night before tried to rear its ugly but not so necessarily bad head. "I'll ask Papa to take me into town. Let you two catch up. But that means I won't be around, so think you can keep your precious little self out of trouble for a few hours?"
"You mean I get to be let out of your sight?" Maka feigned exuberant joy but let it fall into a soft smile at his annoyance. "And then when you get back I'll do you a favor."
"A favor?" Black Star raised his eyebrows.
"That's what I said," she replied curtly and dismissed the rest as she put protective hands on Crona's shoulders. "Come on, Crona, you and I get to catch up." She shot Black Star one more amused glance, finding his brow furrowing further with a mixture of displeasure and confusion as she pressed Crona through the back fence. Technically, she was famished but she needed exactly what Black Star had promised, freedom from seeing Spirit's face again this morning. Instead, she'd go to the place that she always went to avoid that old house, the sullen looks in his eyes, the unfair push and pull of being a child forced to grow.
"Maka, where are we going?" Crona asked innocently but not without a lilt of joy. Even with the tension they knew was brewing from all sides, it was a reprieve to have someone else other than Spirit.
"A place that I should have shown you," Maka chimed happily. "Consider it an apology for sending you off here with Spirit and not coming back to see you settled."
"Oh," Crona embraced the bliss for one more breath before releasing it with the air. "I'm sorry you were unhappy here."
"You still haven't learned what you should apologize for, have you?" As the forest opened to the field, Maka changed her stride, coming side by side with Crona. "When something goes wrong, it's not always your fault."
"But I feel bad," they offered back quickly.
Maka let out a thoughtful hum as she started to catch wildflowers with her fingers. "But when it's something you didn't do, weren't involved in, you don't apologize for it," she tried to correct gently.
Crona's features tumbled through the words, eyebrows moving and lips fiddling as Maka continued to guide them at their side. They settled on something that at least felt like it could spread some kind of comfort, "Spirit really did quit, you know."
"I'm sure he did," Maka answered quickly with a dryness that zapped away any of Crona's hopes.
"But-"
"It's OK, Crona," Maka tried to urge as she passed off some flowers to them. "You don't have to."
Crona fiddled away one of the flower heads with worried fingers. "He's sorry, too, you know."
Maka let her mouth open but fell closed again after a long sigh. The path had led them back to a wooded spot and Maka took their hand to tug them into the darkness, pulling quickly to the left through brambles that ripped at their skin and clothes. Maka never minded losing a little blood for this was always the only place that used to calm her thoughts. The thorn bushes opened to a trickling stream, pristinely clear and babbling in soft tones that eased even the most broken heart. Hugging each line of the shore were blossoms so delicate that the pedals were practically see-through.
"Wow!" Crona crooned as they fell to their knees, face peering close at the transparent beauties.
"I've never seen them anywhere else," Maka couldn't stop the pride from leaking into her voice. "So these have to be special. But don't pick them, alright? They die right away."
"Oh, no, I'd never," Crona reassured her as they continued to eye the tiny buds.
Maka settled next to them, watching Crona's earnest obsessive care and attention and finding strange comfort in it. She sat back on her heels and gave into the movement that was quickly becoming her first instinct when it came to self-soothing, to let her fingers delicately run along the starting swell of her stomach. It was by no means large, but the babies had definitely announced themselves.
Suddenly, Crona's eyes were not fixed on her stomach just as much as they had been on the blossoms. "So, you're going to have a baby, I mean, babies? Soon?"
"Not too soon," Maka hesitated but gave in to the gushing pride of it for a moment. "They're Soul's babies. Our babies. I kind of… hope it's a boy and a girl. A little matching pair. And maybe that they'll look like him, at least the boy. It'd be nice to…" she let out a happy trickle of a laugh, "I think that would make him happy and I can just imagine another little worrier scowling around after me."
Crona let out a trembling hand, but just like the flowers, they hesitated, unsure of how their touch might warp something so delicate.
"It's alright," Maka said softly as she daintily grabbed just their finger and guided it to the fabric. "If you're lucky, they might even move."
That made Crona wriggle in their skin slightly but they still let two light fingertips touch next to Maka's own hand. "Oh," came suddenly and slightly awestruck from Crona's mouth.
"I didn't feel them," Maka murmured almost to herself.
"No, but…" Crona brought wide eyes to her. "They're singing."
"Singing?" Maka blinked at them, her eyebrows furrowing.
"Or…" Crona lips worked for a second. "You know they've got the blood, right? That's what's singing. All the black blood."
There wasn't enough moisture in her mouth to bring any words forth, just a sickly groan that she barely cut off by pressing the back of her hand to her mouth.
"Maka?" Crona started to ease their fingers away, staring up at her face to try to read what was only coming off to them as more panic.
"It's fine," Maka forced the words, urging them to snap that still feeling in her chest like her heart had forgotten to beat. "We… we already kind of knew that, I guess, it's just…" All the black blood rang again in her head, the idea that her babies were drowning in it. No, no, Maka, don't. Remember what Stein said. They're fine. Perfect. Even if there is blood, they still have yours and Soul's too. "It's fine," she repeated with a little more air in her lungs.
Black Star had only experienced this mood with jilted ladies, so seeing it on a man was filling him with a mirthful confusion. Spirit was trudging along back towards the house after the humdrum trip to the market, huffing at different intervals as thoughts seemed to revolve on his face that spurred seconds of rage that broke away to woeful trembling of his lips. It would almost be comical if it wasn't so pathetic and Black Star was starting to wonder if he'd died and this was somehow his hell. How the fuck am I the one who has to deal with everyone's emotional problems? He cleared his throat, "So, uh, about Maka…"
Spirit's eyes were an unconvincing miss-mash of 'don't you dare talk about my daughter' and 'please, help me.' "What about her?" he spat back.
"Don't talk to her, that's my suggestion," Black Star offered back quickly with a vague shrug. "If she gets over whatever the hell she's feeling, she'll come to you, but she'll hang you over a spit if you try anything first."
"And what do you know about her, anyway?" Spirit grumbled back glumly. "You're supposed to be that idiot prince's best friend."
"Don't call him an idiot," Black Star hissed through a forced smile. Only I get to do that. "And I am. But you watch your best friend woo a girl for almost half his life and you learn from his mistakes."
Something that was probably going to be words but was cut down to a cough came from Spirit's throat before he snapped his eyes forward and away from Black Star, hiding the way his brow furrowed in thought. It was a dozen more steps before Spirit brought together the oddly jumbled question, "Half his life? Did they know each other that long?"
Black Star weighed it and wondered how much skin Maka would peel off of him if he divulged any kind of truth about her. "Don't know when Maka got there," Black Star couldn't stop the hint of anger at that as the memory of her sadness lapped at him, "but Soul and I went to Lady Marie's at maybe… 11? 12? I don't know. Both of us just wanted to fight. Soul wanted to be like his brother and since he wasn't an heir or anything, his parents didn't mind losing him to train with some lower vassal. Maka was already there at that point, and he'd probably kill me for sayin' it, but he was done for the minute they met."
She probably would kill him for this but the words tumbled just as easily as the laugh from his lips, "She didn't give a shit that he was a prince and I'm not sure anyone had ever treated him that way besides me, and especially not a woman. She was training with Stein and he walked right up, requesting an audience all fancifully and your daughter told him that if he wanted to spar he was free to fight her, but if not, he should get the hell out of the way."
"She did that?" Spirit's eyes were wide.
"Why?" A creeping had started in his skin because that was Maka, the entirety of her, that inescapable bossing and know-it-all temper that you either fell in line with or got run over by and any insinuation of anything different was completely impossible. "She's always been like that."
Spirit easily read the incredulity in Black Star's face and it fed the woe in his gut. "She was quiet for a while."
It shouldn't have started his blood boiling the way it did but without the steady, level Soul to talk him out of a bout of rage, the snap of his voice was inevitable. Especially since without Soul, who was going to protect Maka? "What's a while?"
Spirit's eyebrows jumped on his forehead before he forced them into a furrow. "I'm sure she complained enough about her drunk, trashy father and her living ghost of a mother."
"Not once," Black Star spat back quickly. "Not one fucking time. Not to me, not to him. Hell, I assumed you were both dead with the way she didn't talk about either of you."
"We might as well both be," Spirit muttered as he quickened his steps.
Black Star placed the pack on the ground purposefully, careful not to upend any goods before he lunged and grabbed Spirit by the back of the shirt. He heard the soft yack of Spirit losing the air from his mouth but even that didn't make Black Star feel right. Even tossing him in the dust seemed to scratch the surface so Black Star steadied a boot right in the middle of his chest, staring down at him coldly. "You can be if you want to. Because something tells me that you deserve how she feels about you. You earned it. And since my prince doesn't care for you, I'm not all that sure, father-in-law or no, that he'd have much to say if I did kill you. So what do you want? Death or to get the hell over yourself and hope your daughter forgives you?" He didn't wait for an answer, just momentarily digging his heel into Spirit's sternum before launching himself back to the road, grabbing the sack as he made hurried steps back towards the house.