Chapter Text
It had been 2 weeks since Wemmbu’s parents had kicked him out, leaving him to fend for himself.
The 7 year old boy had been wandering the unfamiliar streets, sleeping in thin alleyways behind dumpsters, or — when it rained — under bridges.
He had no money to buy food, so his only option was to snatch some when no one was looking. His stealth was nothing to scoff at, since his parents always got mad when he made any noise.
The people around didn’t seem to like him. Wemmbu wondered why.
They would whisper and stare every time he walked by — most likely because of his appearance.
He had stubby obsidian coloured horns sprouting from his forehead, and a short, matchingly coloured tail limply hanging behind him. Normal features for a young demon, and demons weren’t unusual around here.
Except Wemmbu had small, feathered wings attached to his hip. They were a pale-ish purple colour.
Not only that, but also: the pale, purple tinted skin on both his arms and legs, gradiated into a black gray-ish colour.
As if to add to the overall look, Wemmbu’s eyes had the white sclera replaced with an almost void-like black, illuminating his magenta irises.
Yesterday, someone threw a small stone at Wemmbu’s head. He looked up to see a boy standing on a balcony, looking down at him.
The boy looked about twice his size but was probably only a year or two older than Wemmbu — Wemmbu was always small compared to others, and his parents feeding him so little did not help with that.
He observed the scenery.
The balcony the boy was standing on had a small, round, glass table on it with two chairs tucked into it.
The table had a flower pot filled with a few blue hyacinths and some narcissus as well as a single daffodil on it.
It was a weird combination. Wemmbu thought.
He was quickly pulled out of his thoughts when the boy laughed at him and yelled “Go away you weirdo!”
Weird.
Wemmbu just ignored him and went back to wandering aimlessly.
It was the middle of the day. Wemmbu had not eaten anything since the day before.
His legs — which he had been using for 5 hours straight — were about to give out.
He wasn’t wearing any shoes, so his feet were scraped and dirty.
He kept walking, trying to find a spot to rest in.
He wasn’t going to become immobilised in a random street of Capital City where everyone seemed to hate him. That’s how you get yourself killed!
Wemmbu stopped moving for a second, and then turned left and walked straight into an alley.
He was aiming to sit in the corner behind the large dumpster, but halfway there his legs fully gave out.
Wemmbu collapsed onto the ground, clawing himself over to the spot where he wanted to rest.
He was still sat there when the sky turned orange.
In no time it had gone fully dark. Wemmbu had long since lost feelings in his legs.
His stomach grumbled loudly, making him worried someone would hear him.
There’s no one around this late at night.
Soon the sun rose again, and — as if time had skipped forward — it set again.
Well, not so quickly. It was a long day, especially since Wemmbu refused to sleep in fear of being attacked.
Not that he could do much anyway.
He was starving, but his legs still refused to work.
The sky had gone black once again, nothing out of the ordinary. (As if any part of this situation was ordinary in any way.)
Wemmbu kept replaying everything that had led up to this moment in his head.
He couldn’t remember anything from before he was 3.
His first memory was his parents holding him with a bunch of people around. He doesn’t remember what they were saying to the people but it didn’t really matter.
When he started talking his parents seemed so mad at him.
He didn’t know what he did wrong. “Why angry?”, The boy asked his mother, to which he was met with a slap in the face that made his cheek sting.
“Your voice. It’s so ugly. Don’t ever speak again, I don’t ever wanna hear your voice again!”, his mother practically yelled at him, his father just nodded along.
Ugly.
People always asked why Wenmbu didn’t talk, his parents always called him something.
‘Non-ver-ball’, ‘Ow-this-thick’. (Non-verbal, autistic.)
He didn’t think there was anything wrong with him.
They just wanted sympathy.
His parents were always really mean to him. They got mad even if they just simply heard his footsteps, or — even more absurdly — if he breathed too loudly.
They didn’t feed him a lot, — just enough that he wouldn’t starve — blaming his small size on being a picky eater.
Whenever he got any injuries his parents would tell everyone he had a meltdown and hurt himself. They always put on an act when they were outside the house or had guests over.
They had only just celebrated Wemmbu’s 7th birthday recently.
It was a large gathering. The whole neighbourhood was there.
Wemmbu — as the neighbourhood charity case — was the center of attention. But it was all fake, all the attention, all the smiles, they were temporary.
“Can’t we just get rid of him already?”, Wemmbu heard his mother say late at night, when they thought he was asleep.
“But what will we tell everyone? That he ran away?”, he heard his father talk back.
“But that’s exactly it!” “Huh? How’s that gonna work? They’ll search for him all around! The neighbours love him, for whatever reason.”
“We’ll bring him to the other side of the city, tell everyone he ran away, play the destroyed parents who just lost their child. No one’s gonna question us on that!”
“...”
“He should be asleep right now. This is the best time! We’ll bring him to the railroads and drop him off somewhere they’ll never look.”
Wemmbu heard his parents shift and then footsteps.
He pretended to be asleep, better than his parents knocking him unconscious. They’ve done that before.
That’s how the purple boy ended up in this random alley isn’t it?
Then suddenly he was — once again — snapped out of his thoughts as he heard something.
Footsteps.
Wemmbu froze and started breathing as quietly as possible, his tail curling at the tip ever so slightly.
He really hoped whoever it was wouldn’t come over to his spot. People weren’t supposed to be up this late let alone wandering around: it was the middle of the night!
The footsteps grew louder as a shadow fell over the thin road.
His heart dropped. This is bad.
The large dumpster he was sat next to opened, and the sound of something being thrown inside could be heard, followed by the sound of the dumpster closing.
Wemmbu hoped whoever was there would just walk away and not notice him, but of course — as his luck would have it — the mysterious person walked deeper into the alley.
Wemmbu inhaled sharply, while snapping his head up to see a man with a large build.
The man had fluffy blond hair, kind of like a lion’s mane with some brown dreads at the front, and a pair of soft looking cat(?) ears. Behind him there was a large, furry tail, gently swaying. A lion hybrid probably.
He was wearing a bright orange blindfold for some reason.
The lion hybrid looked at the purple boy, who was staring at him with his empty, wide eyes.
“Hey…?”, the man awkwardly tried to initiate, slightly raising his arm towards the boy.
Wemmbu flinched, frozen for a second, before his arms shot up in a shielding position above his head. His small black hands were trembling.
“No no no, don’t worry! I-I I’m- I’m not gonna hurt you!”, the man stuttered quickly, in an attempt to soothe the boy.
Wemmbu slightly lowered his arms, still keeping them raised just in case.
“I’m ManePear, but just Mane is fine too!”, the man — Mane — smiled. “What’s your name?”, he tilted his head.
The boy blinked, — as if thinking for a second — slowly reaching into his pocket to pull out a crumpled birthday card he had been given a few weeks prior by one of his neighbours.
He uncrumpled in and held it up to Mane.
Mane looked at the top of the card. It read: ‘Happy 7th birthday Wemmbu,” in big, bubbly letters. He also glanced over at the date in the corner.
“Wemmbu, is that it?”, The lion questioned, to which Wemmbu responded with a nod.
“You don’t speak?”
Nod.
“But you understand what I’m saying, yes?”
Nod.
“You here by yourself?”
Nod. A hesitant one.
“Have you eaten anything today?”
Wemmbu shook his head.
“Got any family?”
Wemmbu froze. His eyes started to fill with tears, his hands beginning to tremble again.
Mane started panicking. “Uh- huh-? Uh no no don’t cry! Wh- What’s wrong? Uhhhhhh.”
“Do you want me to help you find them…?”
Wemmbu shook his head very quickly. He did not want to go back.
“That’s a no then. Hmmm, do you wanna come home with me then?”, the lion suggested, to which Wemmbu did not respond, instead just staring.
It wasn’t a no. Mane thought to himself.
He picked Wemmbu up and propped him onto his legs. The boy promptly fell down, his legs refusing to carry his weight. Mane caught him by his shoulders and then picked him up, carrying him instead of having him stand by himself.
He didn’t resist, he was too tired. Mane took this as even more of a sign that the boy wanted to come home with him.
The lion hybrid seemed nice, so Wemmbu chose to trust him, at least for now.
On the way there, Mane kept talking about his treehouse and his brother — FlameFrags, or Flame — who was a tiger hybrid apparently.
The entire way, Wemmbu was struggling to keep his eyes open, but he wasn’t letting himself fall asleep in some strangers arms — even if that stranger had basically told him his entire life story.
It was quite a long trip.
When they got to the treehouse, Wemmbu could barely keep his eyes open at all. They stepped inside — there was a kid on a couch inside. He turned at the sound of the door opening.
Based on his appearance and Mane's vague description, Wemmbu assumed this kid was Flame, Mane’s brother.
He had what looked like a blindfold — a black one — next to, him but wasn’t wearing it, and Wemmbu could tell he looked rather confused.
“Who is that??”, Flame asked.
Mane just ignored him and carried the purple boy up a flight of stairs.
He opened a door to reveal what looked like a guest room. It wasn’t fully furnished, having just a bed, nightstand, and a wardrobe. On the nightstand was a flowerpot with some… white roses?
Wemmbu has only ever seen red and pink roses. Never white ones.
Mane’s voice cut through the silence, interrupting Wemmbu’s train of thought again. Why does this keep happening?
“It’s not much but it should be good for now.”, the lion said, looking around the room.
Wemmbu looked up at him, as he was carried towards the bed in the room.
Mane placed him down onto the bed.
“You should sleep, you look like you haven’t slept in a while.”, he spoke again.
Wemmbu wrapped his arms tightly around himself before nodding. Mane left the room and closed the door, leaving the boy alone to rest.
He didn’t want to fall asleep. Not in some strangers house.
He fought to stay awake but the exhaustion won. He drifted off to sleep, curled up in the warm embrace of the soft bedsheets and blanket.
Wemmbu hadn’t slept this comfortably in so long. His parents had a fully furnished, beautifully decorated room for him, but they never let him sleep in it.
They always said that it was his room to other people but he was always told to sleep on the couch. They didn’t want him messing up the room.
Mane plopped down onto the couch next to his brother, who gave him a look that basically said ‘you gonna explain or…?’
Mane sighed and explained how he had found the purple boy in a random street when he was in Capital City to buy some potion materials.
A nice older lady had asked him to take her trash out because she was too weak to do it herself and her grandson was away at the moment. Mane — who didn’t want to be rude — had agreed and done it later during the night on his way out the city.
He had heard shallow breathing in the far end of the alley. His instincts kicked in and he raised his guard. He thought it might be some bandit or something, — although those weren’t really common in Capital City — so he slowly walked over to where he heard the breathing almost stop.
Imagine his surprise when he went over and saw a scared purple boy that didn’t really match any species’s description.
He couldn’t believe he thought this kid could be a threat, he couldn’t even talk! He decided to take the boy home.
Flame stared at the lion — who had by now taken off his blindfold — “So you just took a random kid from the streets, that you don’t even know, home with you?”
“Wh- Well he didn’t have anyone with him! What was I supposed to do, just leave him there to starve to death??”, Mane huffed in response to the tiger hybrid's question. It didn’t seem unreasonable to him!
“Mane.”, Flame deadpanned.
The lion sighed, “Just look at the kid, Flame.”
“We’ll see when he wakes up I guess. This is stupid bro, I’m going to bed.”, the tiger sighed back in response, before getting up and walking up the stairs of the treehouse.
Wemmbu woke up gasping from a nightmare.
He’s always had nightmares. He’d often wake up in a cold sweat, sometimes crying. Silently, — of course — he wouldn’t want his parents to hear. They’d get mad.
He turned to get off the… bed(?) to go clean his face. His legs hurt.
He stepped off the bed, before his legs — still not able to support his weight — gave out and dropped him on the floor with a loud thump.
His eyes started to fill with tears as he listened out for his parents's footsteps.
It was silent just long enough for Wemmbu to realize that he wasn’t in his living room — or outside for that matter.
He took in his surroundings, remembering what had happened the prior day. Actually he didn’t know if it was the next day or not: the blinds were down and he didn’t know how long he slept.
His tears returned when he heard footsteps from above. He wasn’t in his parents’s house, but he didn’t know what the strangers’s reaction would be if he was too loud.
When Mane came into his room he was greeted by the sight of the purple boy silently crying on the floor, and — at hearing the sound of the door opening — look up at him in terror. As if he was going to kill him or something!
Mane took a step closer to Wemmbu, who responded by raising his arms in front of his head, as to defend himself in some way.
He crouched down to his level. They never tried to make him feel safer: something Wemmbu’s parents never cared to try — quite the opposite actually. He never knew people did that. Clearly Mane knew what to do in this type of situation. (He didn’t, he actually had no idea. Flame was never the teary kind.)
“Uh, do you want some food or something…?” Mane was acting like Wemmbu was some scared animal. He wasn’t too far off actually.
That confused him. He didn’t actually know what time it was but based on how dark the room was it seemed to be pretty late at night, and the house seemed too quiet for anyone to be over. He had eaten food recently so there was no reason to feed him. But Mane was just asking him if he wanted food, and he didn’t understand that.
He realised his arms were up. It somehow didn’t seem like he was in trouble right now and he certainly didn’t want to get into any, so he quickly put them down.
He didn’t know how to respond so he just stared: that was what he always did when he didn’t know how to respond, which was often. He couldn’t exactly talk after all.
Mane noticed how Wemmbu put his arms down in a way that seemed anxious rather than relaxed, but he took the staring as a yes, for whatever reason. He — still crouching — slowly came closer to Wemmbu, making sure the boy didn’t seem too scared, and then picked him up. He figured he couldn’t stand based on the fact that he was, well, on the floor.
Walking downstairs Wemmbu could see through the uncovered windows. It looked to be basically the middle of the night. He noted that there were much more stars and the sky seemed much clearer than where he lived. Previously, he guessed. It looked really nice.
Mane placed him down on a chair by the dining table, and then walked over and started grabbing stuff out of the fridge and from cabinets. Wemmbu stared at him the whole time, and soon enough the smell of food filled the treehouse. That smell seemed to wake up the other feline, who came yawning down that stairs.
“Bro, why are you making food at 2am in the morning bro? Why are you even awake?” He yawned.
“Why not bro?”
Wemmbu looked back and forth between the 2, realising that Mane wasn’t wearing his blindfold now. Flame looked over to the table, only then noticing that Wemmbu was there. The kid was so quiet, he was barely noticeable.
Ohhhh, that makes more sense.
Flame shrugged and went back up the stairs. It was the middle of the night and he just wanted to go back to sleep.
Wemmbu followed him with his eyes, watching him go up the stairs. He flinched — ever so slightly — at the sound of a bowl being placed on the table in front of the seat he was in. He turned around to look at it.
The bowl was filled with rice, and had grilled chicken and sliced up tomatoes piled on top of it.
Wemmbu stared at it for a solid 10 seconds before glancing over at Mane, who tilted his head in confusion. He looked back and forth between the food and the lion.
“Are- Are you asking me for permission to eat the food?? You can eat it, I made it for you.”, Mane stammered when he realised that the demon(?) wasn’t eating his food. Now come to think of it… was he a demon? He looked like one, but demons don’t have wings. Hmmm… he internally shrugged.
Wemmbu started eating the food, but he wasn’t eating it like someone who had barely eaten anything in the past week, — which he was — but rather like he never had this much food before, and didn’t really know what to do with all of it. That made Mane worry a bit.
He watched Wemmbu struggle to eat any more food after eating about half the food given to him. He didn’t want to waste any food, he wasn’t allowed to. He was given food, now he needed to eat that food.
After pondering for a good 5 seconds, Mane sighed “You don’t need to eat the whole thing. If you’re full you can stop eating.” He always thought it was important to eat a lot, but the boy was clearly struggling.
Wemmbu looked at him, and he could clearly see the uncertainty in his expression. After asking him — just to make sure — whether he was still hungry or not, and receiving a quick, but cautious, shake of the head, he carried him up the stairs and back to his room.
“Well, it is the middle of the night, so you should probably go back to sleep.” He turned to leave the room after placing Wemmbu down on, what was now, his bed. “Good night.”
A light thud was heard as the door closed.
Wemmbu didn’t really know how to feel about this whole situation, but he guessed that it was better than being on the street, as well as the fact that he didn’t really have a choice. This didn’t seem that bad and this guy — Mane — seemed nicer than his parents, which felt so weird. So surreal.
Laying there, a wave of exhaustion washed over him, and he felt sleep tug at the edges of his consciousness. Ultimately, he slipped back into sleep.
He could give this a shot.