Work Text:
Sportacus vaguely recalls a passing memory of remarks made by other numbered heroes; something about hot air and waxy wicker baskets. About a few stakes in the dirt being enough to tether home to the ground. He is out of his body as he sprints down the damp dirt road green with disuse and rounds the corner of a rusted barbed wire fence. Vaulting over into the pasture, all he can think of is the distant, lighthearted chiding of his predecessors - what would they think of him now? Now, faced with ten tons of angry, blazing steel, Sportacus cannot begin to imagine. He drowns in every word of warning about becoming too reliant on technology, losing touch with your place in the natural world, becoming too comfortable - letting your guard down.
Sportacus watches desperately as the navy blue canvas flickers and melts across her groaning skeleton, and in his subconscious mind’s dissociative last grasp at normalcy, he thinks of the glistening brooks of home in their lazy pursuit down the jagged hillside.