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Winter is a finicky thing. It likes to show up unannounced, earlier than it was expected, and still demand the world bow before it like a petulant prince. It can do this time and time again because without fail, after enough time, the world will bend to its will, as all things eventually do.
Sometimes, winter can’t decide if it’s started just yet, teasing the trees and ferns with an icy breeze that promises much but delivers nothing. Gusts whistle through the forest, sending shivers down spines, but the sky remains clear and bright and warm. The sun still burns happily in loving arms of blue, still draws sweat from those who live beneath her, still reigns over her expansive kingdom. With no clouds marring the heavens, she can see everything, rays shining on bare earth that’s simply begging for snow. There’s none, yet, but there will be. You can taste it in the air.
These are Katsuki’s favorite days.
The air is crisp in his lungs and he feels alive with every breath, small yet powerful beneath the wide-open sky. It’s vast and endless and Katsuki loves it, loves the sense of insignificance it gives him. The heavens and gods care not what he does, so he’ll do whatever he wants—what does it matter to them if he insulted some random asshole? If he hurt some feelings or stepped on some toes? Shit like that doesn’t matter, in the grand scheme of things. And Katsuki’s all about grand schemes.
When winter finally begins to tease them for the thirty-fourth time, Katsuki says, “Ei, I’m fucking tired of this.” Because he is. He’s tired of this infernal endless adventuring. Once upon a time, he loved it more than anything, needed it, even. It used to be easy like breathing, easy like calling magic to his palms, easy like loving Eijirou.
What was once natural as anything is now miserable. That shouldn’t seem inevitable, but to Katsuki the pessimist, it is.
He’s so fucking tired he can feel it in his bones, replacing the marrow with lead and dragging him down and down into the earth. He’s tired of sleeping on a bedroll every night and waking up with a stiff neck, tired of walking until his feet crack and bleed, tired of being fucking cold.
Since it was Eijirou’s bright idea to start traveling again, Katsuki assumed he’d be the one to decide when they were done, too, but that’s gone out the window. Katsuki just can’t do this anymore, and he knows Eijirou will understand. Eijirou always understands.
It feels like they’ve been traveling for goddamn eons. Katsuki furrows his brows and frowns at his husband, hoping for a little goddamn sympathy.
Eijirou is currently shifted fully into a dragon, so no response is forthcoming. His massive body is curled around Katsuki, who’s sitting almost too close to the fire, cape wrapped tightly around himself to stave off the chill. A lifted eyebrow—which Katsuki still doesn’t understand, how can a dragon with no eyebrows raise an eyebrow?—signals Katsuki to keep talking. “Elaborate,” those eyes say, but since it’s Eijirou, it’s probably more along the lines of, “What are you even talking about right now?”
“Travelling. Sleeping on the goddamn ground every night. Eating nothing but fucking squirrels. Aren’t you tired of squirrels, Ei? Huh?”
A huffed laugh coming from a dragon sounds like the releasing of a steam valve, and the gust produced ruffles Katsuki’s hair. Eijirou sleepily nods his giant head. Curling in farther on himself, Katsuki continues, “I want a fucking bed. I want a fireplace. I want a goddamn bath.” Eijirou shoots him a knowing look and Katsuki swallows, because as much as he loves to bitch and complain, there is an actual reason he brought this up. “I want to settle down, Ei. For good. I’m tired.
Leaning in, Eijirou hums deep in his throat and nudges Katsuki’s head with his snout. It's a fond movement that can mean only one thing: acquiescence. Relief floods Katsuki even though he’d swear up and down he wasn’t nervous. Eijirou always does what’s best for him
Sleep finds them quickly, which is a skill cultivated by years of travelling by wing and foot, nights upon nights of sleeping only when it’s safe. They’ve both learned to make the most of every minute of peace.
It’s late morning when Eijirou finally shifts fully back into his human form, sliding back into it in a slow rolling wave that’s always mesmerizing to watch. Katsuki is munching on some—guess fucking what—roasted squirrel, sat on a rock and staring out over the valley beneath them, eyes glassy. They tend to camp on cliffs because Katsuki says they’re more easily defendable, but they both know it’s simply because they love to look down at all of creation. Even as winter starts to unfurl her wings, the valley below is vibrant, a viridian gash marring red earth. It’s an oasis carved into the ground by a river that’s older than time itself, one that’s been flowing since water was just figuring out how to be water. Katsuki loves it because it reeks of life.
“It’s beautiful up here,” Eijirou rasps, as if reading Katsuki’s mind, voice still smoky from his extended transformation. “What do you think?” He’s being a shithead, because he knows how Katsuki feels, and he also knows Katsuki can’t say that aloud. Eijirou is kind of a dick like that.
“It’s too fucking cold,” Katsuki snaps, because it most definitely is. It’s not the truth, really, but it’s also not a lie, and that’ll have to do.
Eijirou laughs, a sound like thunder rumbling over a distant mountain. “You’re such a baby. I think it’s nice! Winter hasn’t really started anyway so it’s not even that bad.”
“You can literally breathe fire, shithead, you don’t get to tell me what is and isn’t cold.”
“You make fire from your hands! How is that any different?” But it is different, and they both know it. They’re still not sure why, exactly, it’s different, but it is indeed different. Magic is weird like that.
Silence finds them after that and they greet it like an old friend, letting it wash over them as they eat their squirrels and pack up their small camp. They do so leisurely because they’re in no rush—they have no schedule, no plan, and no end goal. They’ve simply been wandering aimlessly for lack of anything better to do.
Well, they technically have a goal now. They have to find a place to settle down.
Once they’re all packed up, Eijirou swings his pack over his shoulder and grins at Katsuki. “So, where to now, chief?”
Katsuki chews on the inside of his cheek for just a moment, just a breath. “Guess we gotta find somewhere to live that doesn’t suck complete ass.”
“Guess so.”
Apparently, looking for somewhere to spend the rest of their lives is a tall order. They walk and walk as winter lazily descends upon them, and it quickly becomes obvious that they’ve made the right decision—they can’t do this for much longer. Not after spending much of their adult lives on the move, never staying in one place too long for want of adventure.
Camping is a lot of work and as he gets older, Katsuki’s been less and less able to cope with it. He’s always irritable these days, going to bed cold and waking up colder, wondering why on earth a wizard and a dragon can’t make a decent fucking fire. It should be easy! They have literal actual fire magic! His teeth shouldn’t constantly be chattering, and he definitely shouldn’t be shivering enough to make his words wobble.
Maybe it’s that Katsuki’s old man bones just won’t get warm. That’s… an entirely different issue altogether, one that neither of them wants to think about. The passage of time is scary, and it’s starting to look more like a funeral procession than anything else, so they simply won’t look.
Ignorance is bliss, as they say. They’re getting older but they won’t acknowledge it.
Perhaps Katsuki’s being overly dramatic, but he’s always a little dramatic. It’s kind of his thing. Complaining about unimportant garbage is also his thing, so this attitude of his is par for the course. It’s apparently very entertaining for Eijirou, though, since he’s just laughing as Katsuki bitches and whines and generally makes an ass of himself.
After many weeks of bouncing from village to village, they’re starting to get desperate. Every town they’ve stumbled upon could be their new home, but so far, each one has been a resounding no, for one reason or another. They’ve all been too big, too small, too smelly, too loud—Katsuki always finds something to complain about, some reason to reject it, and if he doesn’t, then Eijirou will. It’s almost like they’re looking for something, though neither know what it is, exactly, that they’re looking for. They’ll know it when they find it, and they haven’t found it yet.
That desperation eventually leads them to Gaul like it was inevitable. As they approach, Katsuki realizes that this town feels different, somehow. It doesn’t feel better or worse, merely different in a way that sets his teeth on edge, and he doesn’t quite know what to make of that.
Gaul is small and plain, looking for the world like any other village. It lies on the edge of a forest, cradled by massive evergreens, overlooking a sprawling meadow that is probably gorgeous in late spring. As it stands, it’s just an empty grassland that stretches beyond the horizon, gray and desolate and simply begging for a covering of snow. The snow, however, hasn’t yet made its entrance.
Snow is a funny thing. It’s temperamental and unpredictable, playing by nobody’s rules but its own. It sometimes arrives unannounced, sweeping in even when the sun is still at her zenith, and other times it practically rolls out a red carpet for itself, so you can’t help but know it’s coming. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all, even when it should, even when the heavens look ripe for it. Sometimes it comes even when the earth isn’t ready for it, even when the trees are still fruitlessly clinging to their leaves.
Once it falls, it becomes an entirely different beast—a primordial shapeshifter that dances across barren earth. It can be dark slush or white fluff, soft and gentle or hard and icy, but there’s one thing that stays the same. It’s always cold.
Katsuki likes snow well enough when he’s indoors, when he can look out at mammoth trees with white caps, when he can see a crystalline sea sparkle in the sun, when he can just observe. He hates snow when he has to fucking walk in it. It either tries to swallow him up or trip him, and he’s still not sure which one is worse, even after all these years.
It’s probably the slipping, because Eijirou always laughs at him.
That’s not a concern at the moment, thankfully, because winter hasn’t quite arrived in earnest. There’s snow, but it’s limited to a light dusting across ramshackle roofs. It’s almost picturesque.
Gaul is small, yes, but lively; a town built in the gaps of a lattice of dirt roads that are unlike any dirt roads Katsuki or Eijirou have ever seen. The dirt was packed not by man or tool, but by hoof, by work horses tracing the same paths with heavy loads on their backs. The roads—and by extension, the town—were made by happenstance.
Despite the town existing on accident, it’s a successful farming village, though one wouldn’t be able to tell during this time of year. Their massive fields in the meadow are empty and barren, now, earth much too hard and cold for crops.
Come spring, there will be a thick layer of verdant green covering what is now nothing.
The local militia is a heavy presence, here, one that looms over every person and horse and mouse. They prowl the streets on horseback, trying to instill a sense of peace into the populace, but instead instilling something else. Fear leaves an acrid taste in the mouth, and it taints the air. These people are protected from bandits, yes, but at what cost? These people are safe from outsiders, but are they safe from power gone to heads?
Katsuki and Eijirou don’t fear them. Honestly, Katsuki and Eijirou don’t fear much of anything these days. They’ve been through too much, come out victorious despite the odds too many times, to fear cowards with swords and shiny armor and a false sense of authority. Spook a horse and it will throw its rider. Spook a town and it will do much the same.
After walking around town for only six minutes, Katsuki and Eijirou decide they don’t like this place very much. There’s something keeping them here, though, some feeling deep in their guts that won’t let them just walk away.
After over 30 years of life, Katsuki’s learned to trust his gut, so he follows it into the only inn in town, one that doubles as a small tavern. He could use a good drink, he thinks, after being glared at all day by shitheads with badges that mean nothing to a wizard and a dragon.
They might stay the night, they might not, it all depends on what they find inside.
The innkeeper is an older man that grins too wide, showing off teeth that seem too small for his mouth. His sallow skin is stretched tightly across the bones of his face, making him look desiccated, almost like a corpse. He’s behind the counter when they sit down, and he serves them “honeyjack”, a distilled mead that he brews himself in a shed out back. It’s so strong that Katsuki’s toes curl with it. It doesn’t show on his face, but he almost throws it back up, only managing to keep it down by sheer force of will.
“So, what’re you two doin’ in town?” the innkeeper asks, just like every other person who’s ever served them drinks. People are so damn nosy.
“We’re looking around for a place to settle down! This town seems like a good candidate, so we’re checking it out,” Eijirou says cheerfully, because he’s nice like that, and he loves talking to strangers. Katsuki stays silent because he’s the opposite. He’s just going to keep his head down and drink his disgusting ass honeyjack. He’s no quitter. He’ll finish it.
The innkeeper nods. “Yeah, this place ain’t bad. Our militia keeps bandits and the like away, so we haven’t had any trouble fer a long time. Nice, quiet place if you like that sort of thing. You two didn’t bring any trouble along, did ya?”
“I hope not,” Eijirou says with a gentle laugh. “We’re trying to leave all the trouble behind us. We’re gettin’ too old to be dealin’ with craziness. Some peace and quiet would be realy nice, about now.”
“I hear ya,” say the innkeeper. They idly chat for another minute or so before the innkeeper bids them farewell, disappearing up the stairs to do whatever it is that innkeepers do all day. Katsuki watches him go and is glad to be rid of him. Something about him is off-putting, like he’s a half-step away from truly human. It’s like he was hastily taken apart and stitched back together again slightly misaligned, just wrong enough to be inhuman, but not quite enough to put your finger on. If he knew what the uncanny valley was, Katsuki would call it some uncanny valley shit.
It takes them less than an hour to learn that the innkeeper has a daughter. Her hair is black as night and her eyes are so red that they seem to burn through you from the inside out. When she smiles, she shows off razor sharp teeth that gleam in the candelight, though it’s difficult to draw a smile out of her at first.
She’s tiny and feisty and Eijirou is immediately enamored. He’s always had a soft spot for kids—especially ones that resemble himself or (more so) his husband—so it’s unsurprising, really. It was kind of a foregone conclusion that Eijirou would fall in love with a firecracker in the shape of a girl, and that Katsuki would eventually fall in love by proxy. Anything Eijirou loves, Katsuki will learn to love too, just as the moon always trails after the sun.
When they first see her, she’s trying to wipe a table that’s much larger than she is. She stands on the edge of a chair, on her tippy-toes, leaning and leaning and stretching and stretching to reach the other edge. She leans until the chair wobbles precariously beneath her, making her yelp as she desperately tries to steady herself. Then, once she’s stable, and after a moment of consideration, she does the whole thing all over again. Wash, rinse, repeat. It’s cute until you take a moment to wonder why a child so small is working in a tavern in the first place, and with no supervision, no less. That’s the first clue that something untoward is happening here.
Curious, they try to talk to her, to find out what’s going on here. When Katsuki first approaches her, she kicks him in the shin and Eijirou laughs so hard he has to go sit down.
Eijirou doesn’t get anywhere either, but at least he didn’t get kicked in the shin, so it’s not a complete wash. They try their best to coax her into answering their questions, but she’s defensive in a way a child shouldn’t be, in a way that sets Katsuki’s teeth on edge. It’s familiar and that’s bad.
As much as they want to find out what’s really going on, her fangs are bared, and it’s easy to tell that no progress can be made today. They decide to spend the night after all, because Katsuki notices the way she flinches when someone moves too fast or speaks too loud, and he knows what that means. He knows all too well.
The innkeeper takes their money and Katsuki feels filthy.
Surprisingly, their room is pretty nice. The bed has a real mattress and the window is huge, looking out over a sleepy little town that they might’ve made a home in, if things were different. As it stands, the whole place feels tainted. Sometimes negative energy—energy like Mitsuki’s—can leave an imprint on a place, and those attuned to magic can sense it. Now that they’re actively suspicious, they both notice the corruption for what it is, and realize it’s the cause of the unsettled feeling they had earlier. It’s what kept them in Gaul. Katsuki and Eijirou aren’t sure what the source of the taint is, but they suspect it’s from the toy soldiers playing protector. In truth, the innkeeper is a powerful presence, and his energy has soaked into the very foundation of the village.
They sleep fitfully that night, plagued with nightmares of darkness and raised fists. Katsuki wakes up in a cold sweat and Eijirou wakes up crying.
In the morning, they eat breakfast in silence, both lost in thoughts of the girl. She’s here again, this time bringing out plates of food, even if some of them burn her little hands. She whimpers and Eijirou instinctually stands to help, arms outstretched toward the girl, but the innkeeper snaps, “She’s got it. Kio’s a real pro.”
Kio is not a real pro. She is a child.
Katsuki and Eijirou look at one another over their food, silently deciding what to do. They’re both thinking the same thing—they want to get that girl the fuck out of here. But they must decide if they want to act now, with almost no information beyond circumstantial evidence and gut feelings, or bide their time and learn more, risking further harm to Kio.
The decision is made for them when the captain of the militia saunters into the tavern that afternoon. His laugh is a booming sound, almost supernaturally loud, and it echoes in the small room, reverberating off the walls. Kio reflexively cowers when she hears it. Katsuki notices and he grinds his teeth. The innkeeper greets the captain like an old friend and it quickly becomes obvious that the innkeeper is well-protected in this town. He’s in good with the militia and that means Katsuki and Eijirou have to be smart about this, if they want Kio to be okay. They have to find out for sure what’s going on, and they have to have an airtight escape plan that can get them out of town without being caught.
They’re not afraid of the militia, of those paper tigers, but there are simply too many soldiers for Katsuki and Eijirou to realistically fight their way out while protecting Kio. Her safety is their priority, and thus they must get her out undetected.
This is going to be a fiasco, without a doubt, but it’s not like they really have anything better to do with their time. Wandering around almost aimlessly gets agonizing after a certain point. It’ll be nice to have a concrete goal again, not some ambiguous ambition, not just chasing after an ideal home that might not even exist.
During dinner, when they see Kio giggling and playing with her dolls without a care in the world, they realize how little they truly know about her and her life.
She seems happy and healthy. Just because she flinches around strangers doesn’t mean that anything bad is actually happening here. She could just be easily startled, which is a pretty normal thing for kids her age. Hell, Katsuki could even be projecting, seeing in this child what he would’ve seen in himself at that age. The innkeeper may be a weird old man, but he’s not Mitsuki. He might not be anything like Mitsuki.
When they’re debating whether to stick around or not, winter finally catches up to them. It snows heavily during their first night and the by morning, everything is covered with it, glittering in the sun.
Neither of them are particularly keen to trek through the snow, so they take it as a sign that they should stay.
So, they settle in indefinitely, watching and waiting to see if they can find out the truth. They tell the locals they’re thinking of settling down here, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. They’re looking for the evil that taints this place. It has to come from somewhere, and if it’s truly coming from the innkeeper, they could never forgive themselves for abandoning Kio.
At first, Kio is suspicious of them, which is completely fair of her. They’re two grown men who sit around and stare at her sometimes, something that would make anyone nervous.
The ice is broken with a flower.
On their third day in Gaul, Eijirou ventures into the forest, passively looking for a clearing large enough for him to transform, but mostly enjoying the scenery. After almost an hour of wandering, he ends up in the meadow just outside town and spots finds a flower blooming, alone in a sea of sparkling white. Its petals are blood red and soft, softer than anything he’s ever touched, even the expensive fabrics Katsuki was once decorated with. Its stem is long and leafless and it seems so perfect, like it was handcrafted by the gods for Eijirou to stumble upon, like it was made just for him. Without a second thought, he plucks it from the ground, holding it close to his chest as he heads back to the tavern.
Inside, Katsuki is playing cards with the local blacksmith, and he’s losing quite spectacularly. He’s grumbling to himself as he stares at his hand, barely noticing when Eijirou walks in. Kio is watching the game intently from over Katsuki’s shoulder.
“You should play this one,” she says matter-of-factly, pointing at one of the cards in Katsuki’s hand. He growls at her.
“What would you know? You’re like five.”
The blacksmith, a willowy woman named Reyna, laughs delightedly as she leans back in her chair. “The kid’s a bonafide genius, I’d listen to her if I was you.”
Katsuki, stubborn as ever, scoffs. “Well, good thing you’re not me, then. I’m not taking advice from some kid.”
Petulantly crossing her arms over her chest, Kio huffs, “I’m not some kid! I’m Kioko!”
“I don’t care,” Katsuki grunts, earning himself a gentle elbow to the ribs from his husband. “Hey!”
“Don’t be rude, Katsuki!” Eijirou chides, making Kioko grin widely and look very pleased with herself.
“Yeah, Katsuki,” she parrots, and Katsuki grinds his teeth.
True to form, Katsuki choses a different card to play, and he’s swiftly beaten into the dust. When both players reveal their hands, it becomes obvious that Kioko’s suggestion would’ve won Katsuki the game. Katsuki groans. Reyna laughs on her way out the door, richer for Katsuki’s pigheadedness.
“I told you,” Kioko singsongs, dancing around Katsuki’s chair.
Standing abruptly, Katsuki spins to face her, and the playful smile instantly drops off her face, giving way to something heartbreaking. Her eyes are wide and her legs are trembling and Katsuki realizes what he’s done—he’s towering over her, now, and she’s so, so afraid. Her lower lip wobbles and Eijirou rightly assumes she’s about to cry.
Katsuki jerkily jumps back and Eijirou falls to his knees, to be eye level with Kioko. “Hey, it’s okay, don’t cry. He won’t hurt you, I promise. He’s all bark and no bite.”
She squints at Eijirou and sniffs. “What’s that mean?”
“It means he looks scary, but you don’t have to be afraid, because he won’t actually do anything bad,” Eijirou explains, and Kioko nods, but she still seems unconvinced that Katsuki isn’t a danger to her. “I’m sorry he stood over you like that. He sometimes does stuff without thinking.”
“Sorry,” Katsuki echoes, looking a bit shaken up himself. A child should never look at anyone like that, should never be so petrified—Katsuki knows what that’s like. He’s been there, and he should never be the cause.
For a moment, he was his mother. There’s no scarier thought than that.
Kioko still looks upset when Eijirou remembers the flower in his hand. He slowly extends it toward her, like she’s a spooked horse. “You can have this as an apology, if you want. I found it in the meadow. It’s pretty, just like you.”
A smile blooms on her face and it’s warm like the sun. Tentative fingers reach out and grab the flower, and her grin grows impossibly wider when she brings it close to her face to inspect it. It was a peace offering, and she seems to know that, looking from the flower to Eijirou and back again. Apparently, she deems the offering acceptable, because she then asks, “What’s your name?”
“I’m Eijirou.”
“And he’s Katsuki?”
Eijirou nods. “And he’s Katsuki, my husband.”
“Okay,” Kioko says at length. “I’m going outside now. Bye, Eijirou! Bye, Katsuki!” Before either man can get a word in edgewise, Kioko is out the door, the whole incident seemingly swept under the rug. They look at each other, confused, then they both shrug—that’s how kids are. Now she knows them, and is perhaps starting to trust them, so today was a good day. They showed her that there are adults who are willing to apologize to her, and that’s an important lesson.
Many more days pass and they see nothing untoward. In the hours whiled away in the town and tavern, they see Kioko, and they see her father, but everything is deceptively normal. She’s just a little girl, living her life.
They start to wonder if they were being presumptive and jumped to conclusions. It wouldn’t be the first time that they jumped the proverbial gun. Perhaps they read the situation wrong, perhaps they didn’t see what they thought they saw, perhaps their guts were wrong. You know what they say about assumptions.
Their suspicions linger until they’re awoken one night by whimpers echoing up from the tavern. They’re the only guests at the inn, right now, so the sounds immediately set their teeth on edge.
Sleeping lightly and waking up at the drop of a hat are skills cultivated by years upon years of travel, and they always serve Katsuki and Eijirou well, especially in moments like this. Mere seconds after first hearing the sounds, they’re already halfway down the stairs, hearts pounding in their throats and hands sweating. Is this what they were waiting for? Is this what they were afraid of? Will they finally find out the truth?
What will they find in an empty tavern in the dead of night? Nothing good, I presume.
The tavern is—perhaps unsurprisingly—not actually empty. Kioko is there, cowering under a table with her head in her tiny hands, and the innkeeper is there, stumbling around as he tries to find her. He reeks of honeyjack and it makes Katsuki nauseous.
They act without thinking, as they are wont to do. Katsuki stomps across the tavern, distracting the shitfaced innkeeper with a bullshit request for more blankets, making sure to stand so the innkeeper will turn his back to Kioko. Drunk as he is, the innkeeper has trouble understanding what Katsuki is asking for, but that works in their favor—he’s far too busy trying to remember what a blanket is to worry about his daughter. Time for the rescue.
Falling to his knees, Eijirou crawls halfway under the table to extend a hand toward Kioko. “C’mon, baby girl, let’s get you outta here.” She hesitates for a mere breath before reaching out to take Eijirou’s hand. Her hand is so, so small in his. He hauls her up into his arms and hustles back up the stairs, bringing her into their room and gently setting her down on the bed. He pulls up a wooden chair for himself and flops down onto it.
Kioko is shaking like a leaf. She’s not crying but it looks like a near thing.
It doesn’t take long for Katsuki to return, having ditched the innkeeper downstairs somewhere, presumably still trapped in a fruitless search for blankets. He slinks in through the door and Kioko, startled, yelps, scrambling from the bed to wrap herself around Eijirou’s neck. Katsuki, who is now used to her flipping out when startled, just huffs and takes her now vacant spot on the bed.
“Hey, it’s okay,” Eijirou coos, gently detangling her from him with slow movements. “He won’t hurt you, he’s here to help.”
“I know he won’t hurt me,” she asserts, still snarky despite her watery eyes and wobbling lip. “He’s just mean.” Well. She’s not wrong.
Eijirou laughs delightedly, ruffling her hair—he’s already become so very fond of this kid. Even though he knows it will ruin this tentative peace, he does still have to ask, “Why were you hiding like that?”
Her small smile vanishes, and Eijirou instantly regrets saying anything at all. Maybe he should’ve let Katsuki be the one to ask, since she already doesn’t like him, but what’s done is done. He knew this would happen, yes, but it still felt like a knife in the gut to be the one to wipe the smile off her face. “He can’t find me,” she tells him, voice trembling and still somehow deadly serious. “If he finds me, I’ll get in big trouble.”
Uh oh. Katsuki’s eyes flash and Eijirou knows what that means. His heart sinks as he asks, “Oh yeah? And what happens when you’re in trouble?” He doesn’t want to know the answer, but of course, he asks, anyway. They need the whole picture if they want to help her, and god, do they want to help her.
Her lower lip trembles and Eijirou’s heart breaks in full. She tentatively lifts the hem of her shirt to reveal a large bruise, a deep, angry purple that sprawls across her ribs. It looks fresh. It looks like every breath hurts. She doesn’t say anything else, and she doesn’t have to. It’s exactly what they were afraid of.
“What’d you do?” Katsuki asks, because he’s an idiot and has absolutely no tact.
Indignant, Eijirou snaps, “Why would you accuse her of doing something?!”
Katsuki rolls his eyes, like Eijirou’s the one being an insensitive dipshit here, not him. “Look, I know how this shi—um, stuff—works. Something had to set him off. It was probably something really stupid or insignificant, but there still had to be something.”
“I broke a cup,” she says, not meeting Katsuki’s eye. “It was wet and slippery and I dropped it. The crash woke him up and he was real mad about it.”
“Over a damn cup?” Katsuki growls. “That’s bullshi—um, bullcrap.”
She nods but says nothing else, because what else is there to be said?
They insist on completing all her chores so she can sleep. Sleepy as she is, they can really only understand half of her mumbled instructions, but they’re two grown men, they can figure it out. They put her to bed in their room, watching her curl up in their bed for a long moment before padding back downstairs to take care of everything before the innkeeper wakes up.
It takes them almost an hour, but they eventually manage to finish everything without much issue.
As they work, it becomes more and more obvious that the innkeeper is a poor excuse for a parent. Kioko can’t even see over the bar counter and yet he works her like a dog, expecting so much from someone so small. She desperately tries to do everything asked of her and it’s sickening.
After that night, she becomes a regular fixture in their daily lives. In the morning, she eats breakfast with them, throwing food at Katsuki and giggling with Eijirou when it gets stuck in his hair. Then she spends the day following them around as they run errands, or go for a walk, or whatever it is that they’ve decided to do that day. As they walk, she runs along behind them, racing forward to tug on Katsuki’s cape and then racing off again when he snaps at her.
Eijirou was right on the money when he thought of her as a firecracker—she’s quick as a whip and chaotic as all hell. She even has uncontrolled fire magic that sometimes sparks when she gets too excited, making her a firecracker in the most literal sense of the word, and the irony is not lost on either of them. They’ve stomped out more than their fair share of tiny fires in the last week or so because of it, but neither of them seem to mind.
She reminds Katsuki so much of his younger self that he feels protective in a way he’s never felt before. Is this what it feels like to be a parent? Katsuki has never really given much thought to fatherhood before, but it’s crossed his mind once or twice in passing. He didn’t think it’d be this warm.
One early morning, Kioko bangs loudly on their door. Katsuki is on his feet first so he’s the one to open it, blearily staring down at her, who grins back up at him, bright as the sun. “I saw a bird!” she announces loudly, looking incredibly pleased with herself. “It was bigger than Eiji!” She’s recently taken to calling Eijirou “Eiji” and he loves it more than words can possibly express.
“No way it was that big,” Katsuki drawls, because he has to be contradictory, but there’s a small smile playing at his lips.
She frowns, crossing her little arms over her chest and pouting. “It was! Come look, it might still be there!”
They don’t find the bird, of course, but they end up delving deep into the forest that curls around the northern border of Gaul. The trees here are mostly conifers, spindly things that stretch up and up to kiss the endless blue of the sky, capped with glittering snow. The grass is still green beneath their feet despite the icy air, and it reminds Eijirou of summers spent by the coast—everything feels so present and so alive.
Kioko ends up on Eijirou’s shoulders, somehow, and now she’s giggling as he races between the trees. Her little hands are in his hair and they keep tugging, ripping out strands, but he doesn’t mind, because god, she sounds so happy.
She should always sound this happy.
“Forward, my noble steed!” Kioko shouts, pointing dramatically toward a clearing a few yards away. “The monster’s after us!”
Eijirou playfully whinnies like a horse, snickering when he hears his husband make a plethora of ridiculous monster noises. “I’ll get you, brave knight!” Katsuki rasps, making his voice as deep and smokey as he possibly can. “You can’t escape me!” His palms crackle and he cackles despite himself.
Katsuki gives chase as Eijirou gallops toward the clearing. Kioko whoops and laughs and is generally having the time of her life, steering Eijirou by his hair as they move over the viridian grass, gasping delightedly when they stumble into the clearing. It’s a small meadow—one reminiscent of the fields that border Gaul—and everything is so bright. There are verdant green stems pushing through a layer of snow so thin it leaves only an opalescent sheen on the earth, and flowers of gold and azure and vermillion scattered throughout. They shouldn’t be blooming in the winter, but there’s magic all around them, isn’t there?
From Eijirou’s shoulders, Kioko is looking around and giggling like this is all she’s ever wanted from life. It probably is. She’s five.
Her voice echoes through the clearing and into the empty forest and it feels right, somehow, in a way that few other things do. It’s the feeling that Katsuki and Eijirou have when they’re together, and they both start to realize that maybe this little girl is part of their family, too. That thought is equal parts terrifying and exciting, but they push it out of their minds, because now is not the time, and this is not the place. They can’t adopt her—she’s not theirs to keep.
When a royal purple butterfly lazily flutters by, Kioko scrambles off Eijirou to chase after it, quick as can be. Her foot finds his shoulder and she pushes off him like a springboard, sending him to the ground and knocking the wind out of him in the process.
“Kio!” Katsuki scolds. “Be careful!”
She stops dead in her tracks, like she’s been shocked, allowing the butterfly to continue on its merry way unhindered. Katsuki squints at her, studying her tense body language and clenched fists, trying to figure out what set her off. Then he realizes—they’ve never called her “Kio” before. It’s always been kid, from Katsuki, or pumpkin, from Eijirou, or simply Kioko.
Kio is what the innkeeper calls her. Katsuki isn’t sure why he’s, well, so sure, but he is. This is the problem. “Kioko,” he says, voice more gentle than it’s ever been. “Do you not want us to call you that?” She shakes her head, looking grateful and relieved beyond belief.
Eijirou nods in understanding, finally figuring out what’s going on. “Alright, pumpkin, whatever you want! Is Kioko okay?”
She shrugs, but still says nothing. Okay, then. It’s nickname time.
“How about Ko?” Eijirou suggests. She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head.
“Ki?” Another resounding no.
“Baby girl angel?” That one gets a soft laugh, at least, but it’s still a no.
Katsuki rolls his shoulders and suggests, “What about Koko?” Her eyes light up and they know they’ve found it. She’s not Kio or Kioko any longer—now she’s Koko, and her grin is blinding.
Koko comes out of her shell entirely, after that, and it’s absolutely glorious. She’s spunky and rambunctious and Eijirou and Katsuki are both well and truly in love. They have to get her out of here as soon as they can, because she deserves to smile like this every day. She’s so full of energy, full of life, and she deserves to shine.
“Do you have a nickname, Katsuki?” Koko asks one day, looking down at the two of them from where she’s climbed up a tree. “Eiji has one, and I have one. What about you?”
“No,” Katsuki replies shortly, not looking up from the chunk of wood he’s trying to whittle. If he has to listen to this kid call him Kacchan, he’ll seriously fucking die, so there’s no way he’ll tell her about that awful nickname.
Eijirou snorts derisively, like Katsuki’s just told some hilarious joke. “Don’t lie to her, Kacchan.”
Closing his eyes, Katsuki takes a deep breath, trying to keep his anger in check. He loves his husband, he really does, but now he’s debating if it’s finally time to kill that bastard. He has it coming.
“Kacchan?!” Koko shouts, looking nothing short of ecstatic to learn this, and Katsuki instantly knows his fate is sealed. He better get used to it, because there’s no way she’s going to call him anything else. Say what you will, but Kacchan is a cute nickname, despite being fucking annoying. Somehow, it’s less obnoxious when Koko uses it, so maybe it won’t be completely unbearable. Maybe anything is better than shitty Deku whining it.
He’s still not happy about it, though, so in retaliation, he decides to start calling her ‘munchkin’. She seems delighted by this, which kind of ruins it.
He doesn’t stop, though. He likes it.
Days turn into weeks and they spend most of their time with Koko, getting to know her better as they wait for her father to slip up and give them an opportunity to get her out of Gaul.
They take the time to sit her down and explain their plan, so she can decide whether she wants to go with them or not, and so she knows that they’re not kidnapping her when the time comes. Explaining it is much easier than they thought it’d be, because she’s way too smart for her own good.
“Do you like it here?” Eijirou asks, and she shakes her head vehemently.
“No. Father’s mean to me, sometimes.” She won’t go into any more detail, and they certainly won’t ask for it, either. They know more than enough.
“Would you want to come with us if we leave? We’ve been looking for a new place to call home, and we can find you one, too. A new family, a new place to live, far away from here.”
She ends up crying for over fifteen minutes, but they’re tears of relief and joy, not sadness. Those are the only kind of tears that Katsuki and Eijirou can bear to see on her. Once she finishes crying, she starts babbling about how excited she is to leave and which toys she wants to take with her when they sneak out. She insists they let Reyna teach them how to do her hair in all sorts of elaborate styles, even though she almost always wears it in sloppy, uneven pigtails.
While they take turns practicing their braiding technique, they realize it’ll be hard to let her go once they find her a good home.
The next time the innkeeper finds comfort in the bottom of a bottle, they act. They’ve gone over it so many times that it’s almost second nature. Koko does just as they told her to do, slithering up the stairs and lightly knocking on their door before slipping inside and making her way over to the bed.
“Eiji,” she whispers, small fingers reaching out to poke Eijirou’s cheek. “Eiji, wake up. He’s drunk again.” She didn’t know the word for it, before, but she’s always been able to tell when the innkeeper crosses from tipsy to intoxicated.
Ever since that first night they’d heard Koko’s whimpering cries echo up the stairs, Eijirou and Katsuki have kept their bag packed and ready to go, for just this occasion. Because of their foresight, they can get moving almost instantly.
Koko somberly leads them to her small bedroom in the basement and it feels momentous. It’s finally happening, after weeks and weeks of waiting. Katsuki holds their bag open while Koko and Eijirou fill it with anything that looks remotely important. She has her own little backpack filled with toys and drawings, but she still needs clothes and other essentials.
Once they’re done packing, Katsuki, as the sneakier of the two adults, slips out of the tavern to see if the coast is clear. He keeps his steps light as he peers around corners, listening closely. There are patrolmen out and prowling, but they can be avoided easily enough, since the snuffling of their horses is loud enough to be heard a block away. Their hooves may be silent against the tightly packed earth, but nothing else about them is silent. It’s a great boon.
Honestly, the patrolmen really shouldn’t give them any trouble if it comes down to it, but they’d rather not be seen at all. They could easily win that fight, but they don’t want Koko to have to see that. She’s their priority, now.
Katsuki returns to the tavern a few minutes later, breathless. “We have to go now, just follow me.” And they do.
Outside, the night is frigid. The moon is full and her light pours into Gaul, pooling on roofs and spilling over the sides, casting everything in an ethereal silver glow. Neither Katsuki nor Eijirou has ever seen her quite so large, quite so close to the earth. They can feel her gravity tugging at them, but they can’t indulge her, not now, not when there’s so much on the line.
Even with her illuminating them, the streets and alleys are filled with dark shadows, darker for the brilliance of her light. Everything is in shades of gray, like the color has seeped out of the world and into the dirt.
Eijirou cradles Koko in his arms as they creep around the back of the bakery, towards the woods. Her tiny hands hold on tight.
Many days ago, Katsuki found a clearing, one large enough for Eijirou to transform fully. That’s where they head now, because the only way to reasonably escape is by wing. They can’t head to the meadow because they’ll be noticed, even in the darkness of the night—Eijirou shines brilliantly under the light of the moon. He is much too dazzling to be seen out in the open.
The journey to the clearing is long and dead quiet. Koko buries her face in Eijirou’s neck and makes not a peep, but he can feel her trembling. He can feel her hot tears against his neck, soaking into his scarf, making it stick to his skin. He gently rubs her back and she relaxes minutely, enough to where she’s not shaking, enough to where the tears slow but don’t stop. Despite her previous excitement, she’s so, so afraid and Eijirou can feel it. It seeps out with her magic and taints the air around them. It’s acrid and bitter and Eijirou hates it, because he cares about her so much, he loves her, and thus her pain becomes his own. She sobs brokenly, and he can feel it wracking his lungs, too.
It’s a difficult task, but Eijirou eventually manages to get Koko to detach from him and reattach herself to Katsuki. She whimpers and whines, but he can’t hold her while he transforms.
Katsuki sticks close to the tree line, watching intently as Eijirou makes his way toward the center of the clearing. The transformation has already begun. His eyes flash and become serpentine as his bones shift under his skin, body changing in rippling, tumultuous waves. He gets bigger and bigger, flesh hardening to scale hard as stone, magic pouring from him and spilling out into the clearing, into the forest, into the night.
Soon enough, he’s absolutely massive, towering over Katsuki and Koko and the trees and ferns.
Koko screams. She screams and thrashes and wiggles her way out of Katsuki’s arms, crashing hard on the ground, and they both mentally smack themselves. Why didn’t they warn her that her beloved Eiji would be turning into a ginormous dragon? They’re two pretty smart dudes, so you’d think they’d have the foresight to give her a heads up about it, but no. Of course not. Because at the end of the day, they’re idiots.
Flinging her backpack at Katsuki, Koko takes off toward Eijirou, who is trying to curl in on himself to look as small as possible. Annoyed about having shit flung at him, Katsuki stutters angrily through myriad curses, but Koko leaps into the air and his jaw snaps shut.
Her bones shift and her skin hardens and she’s a dragon. That explains the eyes and the teeth and the fire magic.
Even as a dragon, she’s tiny, still smaller than even Katsuki. Her scales are pitch black and they reflect the moonlight so well as to blind. Red eyes glow in the darkness and Katsuki shakes his head, because yeah, this might as well happen. “You up for some flyin’, munchkin?” She nods excitedly, blowing a little puff of fire that makes Katsuki smirk despite himself.
They take to the air and Koko flies erratically by Eijirou’s side, doing her best to keep up, but definitely struggling with it. Eijirou slows to a leisurely pace as they soar over the frozen world beneath them. Not even the world’s fastest horse could keep pace on the rolling lands below, so they’ve nothing to worry about. They’re home free.
Up here, everything is silent. Eijirou’s massive wings beat against the air, but that’s a feeling more than a sound, a rumbling vibration that rattles Katsuki’s teeth and shakes him to the very core. Koko gives it her all, but she’s still young—and so, so small—so she tires quickly. Sleepily, she lands on Eijirou’s back, taking a moment to affectionately poke Katsuki with her tail. She then finds a comfy spot between Eijirou’s shoulder blades and curls up like a little cat, nose hiding beneath her tail. Within mere seconds, she’s asleep, snoring the way Eijirou sometimes does when he’s fully shifted. It sounds like a crackling fire.
It doesn’t take long for Katsuki to join her. He falls asleep, side pressed against Koko’s spiny back, and feels warm despite the frigid air.
When they wake up, they’re in an endless meadow, and they’re finally free.
The earth is icy beneath their feet, but they’ve made it; they got Koko out. All they have to do now is find her a good home, somewhere far away from Gaul and the innkeeper and his militia. Which means… they have to travel again. They have to sleep on bedrolls and walk endlessly and eat fucking squirrels again, everything that Katsuki’s come to resent.
With Koko here, it’s different.
They’re still sleeping on bedrolls and eating squirrels, but they also spend their days laughing and playing, teaching Koko about the world around her. She’s so curious, always asking questions that they’ve never even considered before, like why the sky is blue or how mountains are made. Those are, of course, questions that they can’t answer, but she asks them all the same.
Some of her questions do, in fact, have answers they can provide. Why are the trees so tall? Well, that’s because they’re old. They’ve had all the time in the world to grow. Will I ever get that tall? Well, you’ll certainly get taller, but I don’t think you’ll get quite that tall. Why did you save me? Well, because no one deserves to go through that alone.
Koko snores, sometimes, even in human form. She snores and it’s the snore of a kitten, a snore that melts Katsuki’s heart every time he hears it, because when she’s snoring, she’s not dreaming. And god, he doesn’t want her to be dreaming.
When she dreams, her limbs lock and her whole body trembles. Sometimes she kicks, sometimes she screams, and it’s all Katsuki can do to hold on and try to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself. In his old age, Eijirou sleeps like the dead, so when Katsuki hears the whimpers that build into sobs which become screams, he’s on his own. Panic always sets in no matter how many times it happens, no matter how good he gets at cradling Koko to his chest and whispering comfort into her hair.
They don’t talk about the nightmares, but sometimes Koko will sit close to Katsuki, curling up against his side. They don’t talk about it, but they don’t have to.
There are other things for them to talk about, things that seem more important, even if they’re perhaps not. After everything that’s happened, Katsuki and Eijirou can’t quite believe that Koko—a dragon—was able to live in Gaul without any trouble. Dragon hunters can be ruthless, even to children, and thus it seems like a miracle that Koko’s never been a target.
“Pumpkin, this is gonna sound strange, but I have something to ask you. Did anyone ever give you a hard time for being a dragon?” Eijirou asks one morning during his daily stretches, squinting at her from his lunge.
Koko hums thoughtfully. She’s seated on a rock, kicking her legs as Katsuki diligently braids her hair into some elaborate pattern Reyna taught him. “No, I don’t think so,” she says, “Why would someone do that? The captain’s a dragon, too, and nothing bad happened to him.” Oh, now that’s a surprise. It would’ve made sense if the innkeeper was a dragon as well, but the captain of the militia? A dragon? That’s so unlikely it’d sound like a joke coming from anyone else.
“He’s a dragon? Did anyone know?” Katsuki asks.
She shakes her head, which instantly ruins half of the braids, making Katsuki groan loudly—he was so close to being done. “I don’t think so! Father knew, though. Father told me the captain was keeping us safe, so I should be extra nice to him and not tell anyone.” For Katsuki, at least, everything suddenly falls into place. The captain was being blackmailed by the innkeeper, and that’s why the innkeeper was protected the way he was.
Katsuki is also pretty sure the innkeeper isn’t actually Koko’s father, but that doesn’t matter, now. They’re going to find her a new home away from all that.
Having two dragons around means Katsuki doesn’t even notice the cold. Koko, even after just a few days of practice, is getting pretty good at melting snow, and she’s basically a little space heater when she sleeps next to Katsuki. She helps clear their campsites and start their fires, helping them cook the raccoons and squirrels and sometimes birds she’s been learning to hunt. It’s the dead of winter, but Katsuki’s always warm.
It takes weeks of infernal traveling, but they finally stumble upon a village with a responsible orphanage. They couldn’t reasonably leave Koko with anyone but the best, and what would be better than an orphanage that’s funded by a king? It’s basically orphan heaven.
“Where are we going?” Koko asks, tugging on Eijirou’s hand to get his attention as they stroll into town.
“To the orphanage,” he tells her. “So you can find a new family.”
Koko stops dead in her tracks, ripping her hand out of Eijirou’s grasp like it burned her. She shifts instantly, trying to fly away as fast as she can, wings working double time to propel her tiny body through the air. Katsuki groans and takes off after her.
She’s fast, but he’s faster. He catches up to her quickly, snatching her out of the air with a hand on her tail, and she reluctantly flops into his arms.
“Koko,” he says sternly, brows furrowed. There’s a brief, pregnant pause before she obediently shifts back into her human form, looking very much like a kicked puppy. Katsuki frowns, because making her feel guilty was not his intention. She has no need for guilt. He just wanted her to stop.
“Sorry,” she mumbles softly, almost cowering before him, like she’s expecting punishment. Katsuki decides to nip that right in the bud.
He slowly extends a hand toward her, palm facing up, and waits. He’s trying to be as non-threatening as possible but he’s not sure he’s doing a particularly good job, so he says,“Hey, it’s okay, I’m not mad.” A tiny, trembling hand reaches out and lands in Katsuki’s open palm. “You don’t ever have to be afraid of me, remember? I know I’m scary, and I know other people are rightfully afraid, but you never have to be scared. I’ll never hurt you, munchkin, I promise.”
Large doe eyes study him for a long moment before welling with tears as she tackles him, wrapping her small arms around his neck and burying her face into his shoulder. He can feel her tears through his cape, soaking into the fur, and he hugs her back with everything he has. God, he’s going to miss her.
Eijirou finds them, then, and gathers them up into his arms without a word. Together, they stand there, just enjoying each other’s warmth. The air is icy but none of them notice.
A few minutes later, when Koko’s tears have mostly dried up and she’s standing on her own two feet, Eijirou asks, “Why’d you run off, pumpkin?”
She sniffles before screaming, “You were gonna leave me!” Her fists are clenched and she seems angry.
“Don’t you want a new family?” Katsuki asks, shocked by her voraciousness.
“No! I already have a family!”
Eijirou’s eyes widen. “Pumpkin?”
Pressing her face against Eijirou’s stomach, Koko whimpers, “Daddy, why don’t you want me?”
And Eijirou cries. He wraps Koko and Katsuki into another hug and squeezes so tight they hear a few bones pop, but none of them care. They barely notice because they’re together, as a family, and that’s all that matters now. “Oh, baby, of course we want you,” Eijirou manages to choke out between his sobs, but he seems incapable of finishing the thought, so Katsuki does it for him.
“We just didn’t think you wanted us.”
Koko pulls back and looks at the two of them like they’re the dumbest men alive, which they honestly probably are. “You’re my dads,” she says as if it’s an irrefutable fact. “Even Kacchan.”
Katsuki groans theatrically at the nickname, but the effect is ruined by the fond smile he can’t hide.
“Koko, baby, we love you so much. If you want to stay with us, you’re more than welcome to. We’re still not sure where we’re gonna settle down, but wherever that ends up being, you’ll always have a place with us.” And Eijirou’s right. She will.
The days are starting to get longer, ever so slightly, because winter is finally on its way out. It’s dwindling, like so many other things, but there’s still snow on the ground when they stumble upon Dacia. It’s a small village with maybe a dozen houses, all with thatched roofs that smell like the earth. It’s nestled at the foot of a mountain, one so tall its summit pierces the heavens high above. It seems to be standing guard over them, protective and ever vigilant, and Katsuki can’t help but feel safe.
In the tavern bathed in energy so warm it feels like summer, they see some familiar faces, and that’s how they know.
This is it. They’ve found their home.