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Desire's Daughter Ch1
She gasps for air, desperate and sudden, bubbles drawing back past gaping lips and aching throat, and Mammon smiles.
It's taken long enough, but these sort of things can't be rushed in the end. They aren't Skull, or Fon. If they're going to create something, then they're going to do it right. Down in the dark depths of water, where light is suffocated, they reach forward. The bubbles clutter around their wrists as they press in, rolling against their skin. Such an annoying little obstacle. No matter. In no time at all, deep in the mass, another set of fingers fumble for theirs. Sighing, pleased, Mammon gives a tug. "Come on. Let's go. You're ready now." All it takes is that one smooth pull and a figure to match their own breaches past everything. With that, they release their grip. One can't baby a child forever.
Still, they're quite patient, they like to think! As they twist through the water, almost a separate liquid altogether, Mammon keeps an eye on the figure that shines despite the depths. She's clumsy, at first. Arms flailing, legs kicking, there is no grace to her at all. Against her newborn status, however, she catches on quickly. The further along they swim- the more the line blurs between otherworldly depths and common oceans- the better she becomes. Her fingers curl, scooping through the water, and her spine curves smoothly in a mimic of so many fish and seaborn mammals that they begin to pass. As she does, the bubbles still cling to her form- enhance it. They glimmer in place along her shoulders, follow the curve of her chest from collarbone to stomach, and most of the mass is past her hips. There, they form something stranger, long, make her a beautiful leviathan of a creature that snakes through the water. Mammon's pride will never stray from their own self, but still. They can't help a little bit of it spared for how their young god adapts.
Soon, both of them are twisting around one another, bubbles and darkness both, and her wide eyed confusion has been exchanged for tentative delight. They entwine their fingers, a matching set, and Mammon hums. "Almost to the surface," they observe as the sun shifts its light strangely on their skin. Their young god says nothing. All she does is blink, quiet and shy and wondrous. Perhaps her nerves get the best of her. When Mammon detaches to hit the shallows of a beach, she hangs back in the waters instead to watch. Well, that's fine too, they suppose.
In the mortal world, away from the realms of gods and Arcobaleno, away from the void-like depths inside the earth and oceans, Mammon allows themself to take proper form again. They're small, and all in black. Mark stretch down their cheeks and their hair frames it perfectly- that's what matters most. Everything else is optional, an amusing thing to toy with. Brushing their clothing off, a simple robe with dark fabric that shimmers strangely in the light, they look back to where their new god is waiting. She's only just poked her head up out of the water, wide eyes focused straight on Mammon, and the bubbles have now formed into strings of pearls that cling to hear hair. "Come on," they say, tapping their foot. "What do you think is going to happen?"
No answer is given. Instead, she seems to tuck her chin down into her chest, water slipping up over her nose. Her hair ripples over the surface of the water where it doesn't cling to her head, and the strings of pearls- separated long and loose but still connected- follow along with the movement. For a few minutes, Mammon wonders if they're going to have to drag her out. Suddenly, she surges forward. The water rushes with her, forcing her along, and she goes tripping and flailing through the shallows. Hastily, Mammon hurries to meet her halfway, wrapping their arms around her waist and arms. "Hey-!" Both of them go stumbling back together, balance unsteady, and Mammon waits until they've come to a standstill. Lips twisted, they huff up at her. "I didn't mean run before you can walk."
The pearls are no longer connected by strings. Rather, it's a whole net of them, strings shining and strange as water, and it cloaks their young god from her hair down around her bare body. When she reaches up to brush her hair to the side, she ends up pushing strings of pearls along with it. "Oh," she says, not sounding particularly remorseful. Perhaps this occurs to her, because, tentatively, she tries, "Sorry?"
"You're horrible already," Mammon snorts, reaching up to swat their fingers across her hair. Pearls bump into their knuckles. "But then, I suppose you really are mine." That's enough to satisfy them, a smirk playing on their lips. Looking out into the sea, they consider what will come next. There's no need for Mammon to wonder what this child's purpose will be. They can taste humanity's desire thick and suffocating as smoke betraying fire. All that's truly left for them to do is... "Nagi," they murmur softly, tasting the name carefully on their tongue. The young god blinks at them, and Mammon's smirk widens. "My name for you is Nagi."
"Nagi..." She repeats it, thoughtful and slow, before tucking her chin down against her chest again with pearls slipping down to partially obscure one eye as she does so. A smile has lit up her expression, and her eyes glimmer brighter than jewels. There is no one, Mammon decides, more perfect. Of course she is. They made her. "I like it."
"I know." They share this bond, one of desire, and they can feel hers curling slow and content throughout her chest. "But that's only the name I get to call you, alright? Mine alone. To anyone else, your name is..."
"Chrome." In the meadows of his oldest son, Reborn raises an eyebrow and doesn't even shift against the lone tree he's leaning against. "That's really the name you've chosen for her?" While he by far doesn't consider himself a perfect parent, at least he was able to give his sons decent names. Well, they haven't complained yet.
Then again, the ghost of a girl hiding behind Mammon isn't complaining either. She merely peeks out from behind her parent, not much taller or shorter than them, and stares at Reborn and his children with wide inquisitive eyes. What seems like a net of pearls clings to her from head to toe, shimmering in the warm sunlight of Dino's realm. While he could say a lot of things, Reborn has to admit that she's certainly a great deal different than the gods that have come before. A result of Mammon's time in crafting her, or a consequence of being born deep down in what's as a mirror of the Void?
From around the tree, Tsuna is playing very much the same game that she is, only with a considerable deal more fidgeting. He peers around one side of the tree, just as wide eyed as she is, only to scurry around the other side when she dares to glance up at him in return. Reborn, Mammon, and Dino all watch the exchange in faint amusement, wondering what exactly will happen. Mammon, in the meantime, says, "You tried to shove naming your latest onto Her, so I don't want to hear about it."
On one hand, fair. On the other hand, "I did still name him."
As usual, Dino steps in (forward, rather) with his hands held up to help calm down any bickering. "Alright, let's save that conversation for another time. We've been introduced to her, so it's only fair that we do the same otherwise." Glancing over his shoulder, he grins. "Right, Tsuna?" Instead of coming over to stand alongside his brother, Tsuna only stares at him, brow crinkled incredulously over those still big eyes. Sighing in melodramatically fond exasperation, Dino reaches over to help tug him into place. "No need to be shy. Chrome, I'm Dino. You'll hear the mortals call me 'Light and Labor' sometimes." Reaching up, he ruffles Tsuna's hair and earns a squawk. "And this is my little brother, Tsuna!"
For a moment, it doesn't seem as though the new and young god will react. She stays quite firmly behind Mammon, silent and watching. Yet right on the precipice of things seeming awkward, she steps around her parent to trot forward. The pearls that trail behind her clink against one another, rustling the long grass. Neither of his sons seem to have expected to be approached like this, both their eyebrows raised in surprise.... which is nothing compared to what happens when, once close enough, Chrome leans in close and plants a kiss to Tsuna's cheek. "Hello."
Dino bursts out laughing, a sound that seems pretty delayed compared to how fast Tsuna's face lights up scarlet. The younger brother can't make eye contact, jerking his gaze downwards, only to immediately realize that mistake. Chrome isn't wearing much more than pearl and net still. Against all odds, Tsuna's face burns an even deeper red, and his gaze jolts upwards again. Any better? Definitely not. Faced with no right options, he can only cover his face with the most strangled of noises. Reborn doesn't laugh himself, but he does smirk.
It occurs to him, watching the way Chrome's own shoulders jerk from shock, that she's not doing anything particularly out of the ordinary from her view. Why would she? Desire's children would need more than a paltry kiss to think of as particularly shocking. No doubt Tsuna's height is what made him the first target. To prove a point, Reborn pushes himself away from the tree and leans forward slightly. Well, considerably- she really is Mammon's child from hair to height. "Reborn," he says by way of introduction, although he wouldn't be surprised if Mammon had already told her about the Arcobaleno and all their names. Sure enough, with only one last befuddled glance over to Tsuna, she trots over and leans up on the tips of her toes. One kiss to one of Reborn's cheeks, and he gives her a fleeting one as well in greeting. It's a gesture he's already seen in a couple of different places, and passed on further.
There's no such greeting given to Dino, although that might be because he's still busy laughing as he rests his arm on top of his little brother's head. "What's got you so worked up?" he asks playfully while Chrome trots back over to hide behind Mammon. "I didn't think you'd react that way."
Tsuna's words are muffled. "It's different!" A pause, and one finger slides away a little so that he can peer between them. "She's..." His voice drops low. "She doesn't... have clothes..."
Pitiless, Reborn snorts. "You've seen naked people before," he points out dryly. "It's almost a part of your domain." One could say that there's a certain element of weakness to the concept of being nude, after all. A state of being that is only entered when one has no choice, or is in such a place as to have no fear of being harmed. When he thinks of being in Loyalty's oceans, coral and salt water on bare skin, Reborn feels he understands it rather well.
"It's different," Tsuna whines, finger sliding to hide his eye again and his skin still red. Ah. Reborn glances back over to Chrome, who only blinks innocently, and Mammon, who is more pointedly smirking in self-satisfaction. He's starting to understand what's going on here. Mammon didn't even have to do anything, no need to exert such effort in the first place. Before he can point out anything, however, Tsuna steps forward himself. One hand is still pressed against his eyes, keeping him effectively blind, but the other fumbles outstretched in Chrome's direction. There's a pause amongst all of them, Chrome included, before she steps forward and delicately presses the tips of her fingers onto his open and waiting palm. Burned skin folds around her fingers gently, as gently as Tsuna ever treats most other things he runs into, and then he begins to guide her off....
...But not before nearly tripping over his own feet first, and then a rock second.
Off in the distance, there's the long curling trail of smoke which signifies a residence. Much like Loyalty and Desire are closely connected, so too are Tsuna's and Dino's own realms. The boy won't have to go far before he's back in his own home that he's made for himself, or perhaps that the universe has shifted to make for him. That means it won't be very hard to go find him when Reborn himself is done talking with Mammon.
Because oh, he certainly wants to talk.
"You really did take some effort to have her look like you," he comments, watching as the last trace of fluttering purple hair and a bird nest mess disappear from view. "I'm surprised there were no marks on her face."
A split second passes, where he can tell that Mammon is deciding if they're being genuinely complimented at or subtly needled. When it comes to them, even something genuine could be labeled as the other. Apparently today is a good day, or they're coasting on the satisfaction of their daughter's existence. Mammon goes with the latter, holding themselves up proudly. "Isn't it only fitting? Even you end up reflected in what comes from you. This is what happens when you actually make a child on purpose."
"I'm standing right here," Dino remarks dryly. "Could you please imply that I'm an accident while my back is turned, at the very least?"
Mammon ignores him, because Mammon is what mortals would call a little shit. Reborn also ignores him, if only because he's more focused on the conversation than anything. Besides, it's true. Both of his sons have been accidents, events that he hadn't foreseen and hadn't put much thought into. It doesn't mean they're mistakes. "So are you making the rounds to discover her purpose, then?" he asks instead. Mammon promptly snorts.
"Please. We know what domain she is born for. I told you, didn't I? She was made with purpose." That said, Mammon turns on their heel and goes to trot off where both their children have wandered off too. Someone's a fussy parent. Despite that thought, Reborn pushes himself away from the tree as well and follows after with Dino trailing behind. While he would never give Mammon the satisfaction of knowing it, he's also intrigued in the creation of a new god. This is the fourth now, and each one has been intriguing in their own way. Gods are still such new creatures... and this is Desire's first. Something that isn't born of Chaos for once.
There's a lot to learn here.
Telling Tsuna's realm from Dino's is a simple matter, although the change is slow and subtle. The same sky seems to stretch over both, so blue as to make one's chest ache and with only the occasional passing cloud. Tall grass and shimmering wheat begin to grow shorter. At first, the plants of Tsuna's home only peek out from inbetween the much taller fields. It's not something that lasts long. Soon, they appear in clusters, and then batches, and then it is through fields and fields of softly burning orange flowers that their legs pass through. The "burning" descriptor is by no means any sort of exaggeration. From the petals, soft flames flicker. When night eventually comes, mirrored in this realm as the mortal earth, they'll serve as excellent guideposts to Tsuna's home. For now, they're simply a soft and pleasant warmth. No burns mar the skin of visitors, or catch their clothes aflame. Past all of it, small and cozy, is a house much like the ones of a certain little village from not that long ago.
Chrome is seated in front of it, a blanket draped over her shoulders and a wooden bowl cradled in her palms. A quiet pleasure emanates from her, serene and content while she looks up at the sky. She only drags her gaze away when Mammon is close enough. "It's nice," she says, unprompted, as Mammon settles down besides her. "It's warmer than anywhere else."
Reborn knows she isn't wrong. There are plenty of places that are hotter than Tsuna's home, sand enough to scorch, the sun bright enough to cook whatever is left out to its touch. Deserts, and plains, and thick swamps that trap the heat within. Yet there is nowhere warmer than Tsuna's home. Nowhere that welcomes the tired and the lost as well as this place does so, with its cozy house and burning flowers. "I see he's made you at home," Dino says, standing besides Reborn and smiling a little. "Is he still fussing about your clothing? Or, well, lack thereof?"
Before she can answer, Tsuna pops out as if summoned and stands there in the doorway with his brow still drawn tight. The color of his face has cooled down a little, now more a soft pink than a shade of red that could cook an egg. He still looks as flustered as ever, holding out some clothing that's in his arms to Chrome, and he almost seems pleading despite saying nothing. Chrome seems oblivious to his dilemma, or she's doing quite an impressive job of ignoring it, and focuses on what he's offering. After a moment of purely visual inspection, she shakes her head softly. Another small and despairing noise comes from the very back of Tsuna's throat and, yes, there he goes again back into the building. Still calm, Chrome takes a sip of her soup from the bowl. It only occurs to her to offer any sort of answer after that, and she tilts her head to the side. "He says... I'll get cold. Or burn myself."
Reborn's mouth twitches upwards slightly. "I think Nana left more of an impression on him than I did," he says aside to Dino, not upset at all with the observation. Even with what Lal and Colonello said, there are still a lot of unpleasant things within him. They shouldn't be passed onto someone else. He is more than enough. Nana was a good woman, anyway. There are a lot worse people that Tsuna could have become fond of, and taken inspiration from.
A soft laugh leaves Dino as well. "I'm sure she'd be glad to hear that."
All of this must be going over Mammon and Chrome's head, and the former makes sure to lean closer to their daughter. "Ignore the nonsense they spew. It's a regular occurrence."
Chrome ducks her head a little. "It's nice to hear things," she says. Well, that's no surprise to hear. It matches everything else about her. Once again, Tsuna ducks out from his home and holds out the most simple of garments: deep green in color, long sleeves, doesn't go far past the legs. Ignoring the rest of them once more, Chrome inspects this one a little longer than the first, and it's almost expected when she gets up to her feet. The net of pearls still clink together as she comes closer, ducking inside with the clothing in tow, and Tsuna heaves out a sigh of relief.
"That bothered?" Dino asks, half sympathetic, half amused.
Tsuna's look is exasperated and more than a little strained. "She'll get cold," he whines, exactly as Chrome said. "That's why mortals wear things!"
Mortals do a lot of things for numerous reasons. Vanity is prevalent in a lot of animals, although none do it quite so finely as mortals or creatures larger than any of them. Some are just picky. Reborn doesn't point all of this out to his youngest. Helping him find his purpose had been enough handholding for his life, or at least a good few centuries. He'll learn when he learns, one way or the other. To the side, Mammon steals Chrome's abandoned bowl and finishes it off purely because they can.
When Chrome comes out, fitting the outfit easily and with her pearls gathered up in her arms, not all traces of pink leave from Tsuna's face. Some continue to linger, dusted across his cheeks and overall warming his skin. This time, at least, he's less hesitant to offer his hand to her once again and he meets her eyes unhindered. "Come on," he says encouragingly, a little floundering. "I know how it feels to not know what to do, so, we can look together, right?"
She doesn't correct him. Instead, she silently takes his hand and rubs her thumb across charred skin. The smile that blossoms across her face is tiny, pure in its little trace of happiness. "Okay," she says, agreeing without any fight. When Tsuna takes her away this time, it's in a crackle of embers popping and the faint smell of burning wood; they're gone.
"I thought you'd object a little more," Dino says, voicing Reborn's own thoughts much more politely to Mammon. "You seemed rather possessive of her." Certainly, they've been hoarding their little daughter's existence deep within the seas and core of the world.
Mammon licks their lips clean of any food, eyes flashing gold as they look up at father and son. "It'll be a good lesson for her," they say simply. "Besides, who am I to get in the way of myself?"
Tsuna is kindness.
There are a few other things he is, of course. He is clumsy, and easily startled, and not at all particularly subtle when he glances at her from beneath his bangs. Still, above all else, below all else, he is kind, and Chrome likes the warmth of his fire-ruined hands when he holds onto hers. "Mammon helped start the bet that made me," he tells her as they sink their feet into the muddied waters of a swamp, 'searching' for her purpose. Reptiles that could take down a human lurk within the waters, drowsy under the heat of the sun peering inbetween the foliage, and pay them no mind. They slosh through unimpeded. "But I don't really know much more about them than that."
Chrome hums, watching as a crane watches them with its long talons curled around fragile branches. "All Mammon told me about Reborn is that he's more dumb than people think, and that he almost ended the world."
Tsuna makes a face at that, tongue sticking out barely between his teeth. "He'd throw me in the deep end of a lake if I told him he was stupid to his face." Alarm suddenly strikes him, and he tugs on her hand a little. "Don't do it either!"
"I won't." There's no reason for her to, anyway. Mammon's opinions aren't necessarily her own, and Reborn had been perfectly civil to her. "Mammon likes dark places, and secrets, and having all sorts of things," she tells him instead, giving him information that he hadn't before.
In turn, Tsuna tells her, "Reborn's sense of humor is horrible, and he can shoot anything in the world but likes flicking things at Dino to keep him on his toes." Together, they smile at each other, sharing little things about their origins up until chatter different than nature's sounds can be heard up ahead. Best he can, helps her onto the wood which has been carefully strewn about, and she balances herself on vines that have been used to connect things together. Oblivious to a pair of child gods making their way upwards, the humans continue to work. Their home is so carefully constructed, she marvels, held aloft from treacherous waters which hold all manner of creatures and can rise far too high when the rains come. "They're really clever," Tsuna promises her, although it doesn't need to be said, and guides her through the little settlement.
Gods are bound to humans. Tsuna tell her this as they go through the various buildings and paths that have been carved out by mortal hands. Any god that comes into being serves a purpose, and it is from humans that purpose comes from. "I don't mind," Tsuna says when they rest for a while, watching a pair of mortals inspect fruits from the local plantlife. "Reborn wouldn't like it, but he's an Arcobaleno, so he doesn't have to deal with it at all. But I don't mind. I used to because, uh, there were a lot of people wanting help, all the time, and it was a little overwhelming." His tongue flicks out, wetting dry lips and giving an outlet for his nervousness. "But it's hard to be alone this way, too."
Not being alone.... Drawing one leg up, Chrome wraps her arms around it and rests her chin on her knee. Never being alone.... It sounds so different from what she's been used to, down in the dark with only one other person for company. Is that what she wants? So new to her, she can't decide. Leaving it in the back of her mind for now, Chrome glances over at Tsuna. "So what kind of humans are you bound to?" she asks. Mammon had never told her that. Chrome had never asked, either, so she can't call it a failing on her parent's fault. Besides.... Even if she had asked, she's certain that she would have been told to learn it for herself.
"Oh, uh...." For a moment, he seems uncomfortable. His hands fiddle with each, fingers wrapping around finger, and his toes curl uncertainly. "It's sort of... vague? Dino's is easier. Any human that works or is doing something tries to talk to him. I've heard there's another god that controls the woods and other places like that? So they're-" Pulling his hand away from the other, Tsuna tries to gesture only to let it flop down in the end. "...Simpler." That's not really an answer, and they both know it. Fidgeting for a while longer, he offers his hand to her once again. "Hold on, I'll just show you? I think there's...." He drifts off for a moment, eyes brighter, gaze further away, before he snaps back to where they are in that moment. "Yeah, there's something I think that matches."
When she puts her hand in his, they're somewhere else again. No longer is the air heavy with water and heat. Instead, it's dryer, cooler, and shrubs have cracked out a home in harder earth. It's not quite a desert.... but not quite the plains, either. It is somewhere inbetween, and there are a pair of figures laying on the ground nearby.
One is dead.
The other isn't.
The one who is dead has gore marks through his torso, blood pooling out thick and heavy from the holes to gather thickly on the ground. However, that isn't what has killed him. His death is in the way he is sprawled against the earth, head tilted at an odd angle with a neck that shouldn't be bending as it is. Freshly dead- they arrive even as his hair is still fluttering to a stop against his bloodied skull. Besides him, behind him, the one who is alive is scrambling up onto her feet. A knife is in her hand, too big for her grasp, and wildness shines in her eyes as she watches the deer which is shaking its head still. A warning. It's taken out one of them, and it will take her out, too.
Except it won't.
Tsuna's sudden quiet presence behind the woman says it won't. No joy lies in his expression as fire alights from the center of his forehead, and curls to life around his fingertips. Such somberness doesn't match how bright his hands are as he reaches to touch her- first at her knuckles, then at her spine, and finally leaving a dusting of embers through her hair. Her skin is still pale and her cheeks still red with adrenaline. Now, however, her eyes are sharper. Focused, ready. The deer charges, desperate and not ready to die- and neither is she. She dives forward, antlers whistling past her spine, and her knife slashes out in her roll past. Deer are not sturdy creatures when it comes to their legs. Sticks could hold them upright better. All it takes is one deep slash, and it crumples to the ground with a screech that rattles down to Chrome's ribs. Panting, flushed with exertion, the woman leaps forward and digs her knife in deeper.
The deer thrashes... up until it doesn't. Up until it goes completely still.
Already the embers are fading out from the woman's hair, and she nearly collapses across the creature's corpse. Breath rattles through her lungs, shakes her bones. Tsuna doesn't leave her side. He keeps his shoulder alight on her back, waiting. What he's waiting for soon becomes apparent. Once adrenaline has shattered its course through her, the woman drags herself over the deer's corpse and crawls over to the fallen body of her own companion. In the heat of the moment, there'd only been the threat to focus on. Now, with two gods watching in silence... The woman kneels besides the corpse of someone she once knew, and weeps.
"When they don't have anyone else to help them," Tsuna says quietly, his voice somehow penetrating past grief-torn sobs, "then that's my domain." From his forehead, the flames begin to subside. She'd never noticed it before, but now Chrome realizes that there's a small scar right there in his skin. When the fire is completely extinguished, his bangs fall into place, and the scar is hidden once more. Instead of someone whose eyes had glowed brighter than anything and who'd cradled fire in his bare hands, there's only a boy standing there now. He's only a boy with sad eyes and near black hands resting on the shoulder of a grieving woman. "I try to be there when I can, but there's so many people... and I can't help them when they're at their weakest." Stepping into place besides the mortal, Tsuna slowly presses his knees into the earth as well. While one hand stays touching her, a glow emanating beneath the cracks of skin, his other hand begins to reach out to the corpse before it pauses. Uncertainly, his fingers curl into his palm. "I can't help them when they reach the end of their lives... whenever that is. I don't even know what happens to them afterwards. I wish I did."
With her pearls still wrapped around her shoulders over her new garment, Chrome only has to fold the dress beneath her knees as she too kneels besides the corpse. Unlike Tsuna, however, she is on the other side, away from him, away from the woman. Where his hand is resting tentatively in midair, her own reaches over to rest along his knuckles. Surprised, his eyes rise up to meet hers. "I do," she tells him. "I can." There are questions on the tip of his tongue; Chrome doesn't give him a chance to voice them. Instead, she redirects her attention to the body waiting inbetween them.
He's still warm, lingering with leftover life and the weight of the sun. Yet all of him is slack, completely unlike a person whose heart still beats. There is no tension in his limbs, no breath in his chest, none of the various minute movements which give away a life resting inside its home of flesh. Only one thing is left within the body, and it is that which calls to her. Taking her hand away from Tsuna, she rests her fingertips along loosely gaping lips. It calls to her, the thing that made this person unique, and she in turn calls to it by virtue of her existence. Drawn upwards, all it takes in the end is for her fingers to slip inside his mouth. Liquid greets her fingertips, an uneasy shade of green which clings to her skin as she pulls out from it with a pearl pinched in her grip. The green sheen to it begins to melt off once it is in the air, away from its body. When it is completely clear, all white, she adds it to the netting she carries.
All the while, she doesn't look up into Tsuna's eyes. She doesn't dare attempt to read the silence which hangs between them. Instead, she rises up to her feet, and goes to tend to the other which calls to her. So many things call to her, honestly, but it is the deer that is closest to her focus right now. She does very much the same to it as she did to the mortal man, and draws shimmering shining thread from its mouth. For much longer than she needs to, Chrome fusses over adding it to the rest of the net.
It hasn't escaped her notice how humans view death. Oh, she knows the best out of them all. She's seen their grief, like the woman's grief behind her, and what a painful deep thing it is. It is the reason for her existence; Mammon has told her this already. Death is the one place where humans cannot go, where they will never have a chance to go and then return as they can with anywhere else on their mortal earth. And to that they cannot know, do not know... They fear it.
They feared it so much that they desired stronger than anything for something to be there, waiting for them.
Yet she is a creature born of fear, born in the depths, born from the twisting monster Desire can be many a time. Mortals still fear death, and no doubt will fear her-
The rough crinkled texture of Tsuna's hand on Chrome's shoulder startles her and, unable to stop herself, she looks up into his face. No fear rests in those wide brown eyes, or weighs down that soft mouth. No- the look on Tsuna's face shines. Nowhere else has she ever seen a look like his, and her heart beats painfully hard within her chest. No other time has she ever felt so strongly as her parent, filled with the sudden vicious longing to always have that look directed towards her. "That's why I thought you felt familiar," he whispers, awed, relieved. "We're the same. I mean-" Flustered, his hand begins to slip from her shoulder, and Chrome has to react quickly to lay hers against it so that he doesn't leave her. He jolts, looking back up to her eyes again, and who knows what he sees there in her face. All Chrome knows is that his cheeks grow rosier at it, and he keeps talking. "I know we're not the same, like, the way me and Dino are similar, because we're both Reborn's sons, but, I could tell looking at you! I just didn't realize what it was! But we're..." His fingers knead anxiously against her skin, fidgety, and he ducks his head down. "We're the same. We're both here for the mortals.... for the same purpose."
Are they? Perhaps they are. It seems so easy to believe that when Tsuna says it with such gentle firm conviction, and Chrome has to duck her own head as well when she feels a warmth spread along her own cheeks. If there's something she's supposed to say, she's not sure she can figure out what it is. All she can think of is a soft, "Good." From beneath her bangs, she peers up, and smiles slightly at the flustered expression which has taken over Tsuna's face again.
If only the setting were nicer, like at the sea that Chrome can recall from her very first memories, instead of over the corpse of a deer with a crying woman behind them.
That's probably what, in the end, has Tsuna help her to her feet. "Have the mortals been told about you?" he asks, the world around them begin blurry with that amber light which says they're inbetween places.
"Some have." Chrome shrugs. "Fishing villages, and things like that, which live near the oceans and seas. Then Mammon got impatient, and wanted to show me off to you and your family." She says it without judgment, not minding very much. That's just how their parent is, prideful of the things that they have and wanting recognition for it as much as they want their own secrets no one else can be privy to. Some of that is in Chrome too, surely, passed down in the same way as the color of her hair and the comfort the darkest places have for her.
She knows what will come out of Tsuna's mouth before he says it. "Then, let's hurry, and tell them!" His hands tug along hers, and she doesn't stop him. "They'll be happy to see you, I'm sure of it."
Will they? Chrome isn't sure. At least, she's not sure until she actually listens to Tsuna go to the mortals and speak of her. When Mammon had told the mortals of her, it had been in their own way. They had spoken of her net of pearls which carried everyone who lived and who would live, and of her long reach which would find them no matter how far they went off into the ocean or got lost in the depths of the waves. Tsuna is so very different. He mentions the pearls, of course, how she fetches their souls and takes care to always keep them with her, but.... There are other things.
Like her soft hands, caringly picking them up when their bodies have given out underneath the weight of their lives. Or her eyes, deep and beautiful, looking out for them from the day they being their lives to the end of them. He talks about her smile, soft and radiant, beautiful as the sunset shimmering over water.
Chrome has to leave the village for that one. Considering the way Tsuna was fidgeting and blushing the entire description, she thinks he's a little thankful.
....But she comes back. But he finds her. And they keep going, from village to settlement to camp, to anywhere where mortals have settled down and mind those they share their lives with. At first, it's in the same flickering way as usual, appearing and disappearing as fast as only gods can go. Yet soon, they begin to slow down.
It's the little things, at first. Tsuna points out the horses off in the distance of a village, well cared for and allowed their freedom, so they go to visit the creatures dedicated to his elder brother. A visit deep into the jungles has him shyly show off his own animal avatars on earth. Some are only tiny little things, able to curl up in her arms with no trouble and lick with raspy tongues at her chin. Others are larger, stronger, and she's quiet as she watches the enormous cat deep within the jungle trees slip trough the jungles after watching them in turn. When she soon gets too overwhelmed by the constant presence of mortals, Tsuna is more than happy to walk with her and her alone to the next place, and their feet go across dirt- no tricks.
That's probably what starts it. From then on, they walk with one another, and take in the world which is still so new to both of them. She, especially, has to look at everything with new eyes. Tsuna is no stranger to long journeys; it's a fact he tells her one night when the stars shine in a colorful sky. He tells her of his own confusion when he was young, of the places his father and brother would take him, the things they would do. Chrome listens attentively to every tale. It doesn't escape her that they are creating their own tory, similar yet different, with every step they take. When they stop at the latest gathering of humans, no matter how large or small it is, they both find plenty of work to tend to with their focus where it is. It would be a lie to say that there isn't a kind of comfort in routine.
The day they first met seems as though it only just happened, a meeting of yesterday, but she knows that it's been many months when they take off through snow instead of flowers. Around them, the trees tower high and their sturdy branches carry loads of snow that has yet to touch the ground. A reverent silence fills the air, and she marvels when they come across tracks in the fresh snow.
It is here that they find the wolf.
Both of them feel it, although they sense different things. In Tsuna's eyes, an aching sadness shines once more, and she can feel the tug in her own heart towards something that is starting to wait for her. Such things aren't uncommon. With their domains being what they are, something is always calling for the embers of Tsuna's kindness, or the comforting foam of Chrome's realm. That means parts of them are always elsewhere, scattered across the world. It's only her focus which is there with Tsuna and which can feel the cold beneath her bare feet. If not for how there path takes them through the forest, perhaps they would never have truly come across the weakened creatures which lie in the forest.
In the pristine white snow, the wolf's dirty pelt stands out. Once upon a time, perhaps it had been a lighter color. Chrome thinks she can see parts of its true hue past dirt and sweat and worse things. Yet he has had a rough life the last few days. Now, he is filthy. Worse, he is starving. Even with how curled up he is in the snow, the hollow of his stomach is painfully apparent. He's weak. He must be. That does not stop him from baring his teeth at the gods, his muzzle curling up and disrupting the thick frozen blood which has gathered on a relatively recent wound. All creatures know what the gods are. Their eyes see different things than that of humans.
Still. His teeth are bared.
That must be what has Tsuna's attention captured, his hands raised placatingly, but Chrome's eyes are elsewhere. It isn't for no reason that the wolf is where he is. In the white of the snow, a raven's pitch black feathers stand out more than the wolf's pelt. He's not dead.... not yet. Breath still raises his chest, and his eyes still flick deliriously about. Even from a distance, Chrome can tell that much. The true sadness is how slow his death is coming to him. Whatever injury that has grounded him and is responsible for the slightest flecks of blood which are scattered about the snow, it isn't enough. It hasn't taken him away from his suffering and misery, into her arms. Her heart aches for him, just as much as it aches for the wolf that will soon join the raven if it stays for any longer. "Why doesn't he leave?" she asks Tsuna quietly, not understanding why a wolf would lay with his prey.
"He won't abandon kin," says a voice that is most certainly not Tsuna's. Blinking, Chrome looks up and finds a boy whose appearance seems to be a little older than hers or Tsuna's, and yet not as old as Dino is. His eyes are dulled steel as he looks over the pair of them, and his black hair lies plainly on his head. A patch of bright red cloth is attached to a part of his cloak.
"Family?" Tsuna echoes, surprised, and almost flinches back at how sharply that stare goes to him.
Yet nothing happens besides that, or at least not immediately. "Ravens and wolves know each other well," he says coolly, slowly glancing down onto the pair of creatures that are between three gods, now. "Ravens are clever, and see farther than anything stuck to land. Yet they can't do anything on their own... They can't take a deer or other creatures down. It's not uncommon." When he strides closer, the wolf only gives him a passing glance. There's no warning or threat, as to Tsuna and Chrome. All he does is stare brazenly at the god that looms over him. "What is rarer.... is to see a wolf that would abandon his pack for a raven."
If he understands the conversation which is going on over his head, the wolf makes no show of it. All he does is curl ever tighter around the raven's weak body.
"He's going to die," Chrome points out, quietly. For the first time, the other god's eyes go to her.
"It's what he's chosen to do." His hair sways in line with the tilt of his head. "So he'll die."
Awkwardly, Tsuna shifts as if to step forward but ultimately doesn't. "Uh... You're Kyoya, aren't you? Kyoya Hibari? My brother mentioned you. You're a god of the wilds."
Suddenly, all dullness leaves Hibari's eyes, and they sharpen in interest right towards Tsuna. "So you're connected to that annoying person..." Even at the same time that Tsuna is raising his hands up to try and calm him, Hibari's own also rise up... with his fingers curled around two weapons already. "I want to see how you do, then."
"W-Wait-!!" But there's no waiting. Hibari launches himself forward, already swinging, and Tsuna immediately turns tail to run. Chrome finds herself left in the snow flurries the two leave behind, blinking in bewilderment as her hair becomes dusted with white. Rather belatedly, she turns around to stare in the direction the pair have already disappeared to. Despite the surely impressive distance, what's even more impressive is that she can still hear Tsuna yelling.
Ah. Well. It's not her problem, she supposes.
The wolf and the raven are also technically not her problem. She is free to continue on, where she will surely meet Tsuna at the next village or town or group of travelers. At the same time.... Chrome stays in place. Her eyes drift back to the pair: the raven's fluttering weak chest, the wolf's curled lip, their blood mingled together in the snow. Kyoya's words echo in her head. It's what he's chosen to do, so he'll die. Never has she wondered if death has been right or wrong, no matter the circumstances. It happens, whether anyone likes it or not. Even now, she knows there is nothing wrong with it. So why does something different from the usual tug pull in her chest as she keeps her eyes on the pair that will go into death together?
Quietly, with all the crunching of snow to give away her movement, Chrome moves forward and the wolf lets loose a low rumbling growl. From the back of his neck down to his spine, hair rises and bristles- a warning sign. A last chance. Chrome doesn't ignore it, only she doesn't do as it demands either. Instead, she steps closer and closer against the wolf's protest. Ever tighter, he winds around the raven's fragile body, or as best as he can without crushing his companion's delicate bones. A bird, after all, doesn't have the sturdiness of land creatures. The force of his growls turns into snarls, and the same force reopens the wound across his muzzle. Blood, thick and slow, begins to crawl down through his fur and cover his bared teeth where it pools in his lip. Does it hurt? He doesn't act as though it does. His love, his desire, ignores all pain. That, almost more than anything, is what has her reach down towards them.
Teeth dig deep into her arm.
In all her memories... Chrome can't remember being hurt before. Such things couldn't reach the depths that she was born in, and her parent had been so proud in keeping her safe away from harm. As the wolf's teeth piece her skin, dig into muscle, Chrome realizes how fortunate she's been in that regard. Even Tsuna has felt pain, his hands burned and charred as they are. The others too. Even if this is all a simple wolf can do.... It is enough for her to not want to deal with it again, if she could. She flinches, fingers jerking and spasming. A part of her hand is trapped within the wolf's maw, stopping her ability to move them right. His snarls rattle up through her bones, echo through her veins, and her blood joins his from where it has gathered in his mouth.... And, bound together, both drip down to splatter onto the snow.
Even if it hurts, however.... "You won't be able to kill me," she tells him, voice quivering and soft. Tugging against his teeth would do nothing, so she stays still. "You won't even be able to wound. It will heal the second you remove your mouth. I'm not going to hurt you, or him."
There's no arguing with a wolf, however. At least, there's no arguing with this wolf, who snarls into her skin regardless of her words. When she takes yet another tentative step closer, trying to reach around him, he shakes his head violently and she goes stumbling. Her blood, his blood, it goes scattering through the air and stains icy wood and bright snow. Soon enough, however, he gives up, panting hotly against her arm. Who knows how long he's starved, only that it's been long enough that he doesn't have the energy for such shows of aggression. Once more, she steps closer, and, once more, he tries to shake. When she's close enough, however, he stops. Anything else.... could risk harming the raven whose feathers her fingertips are just a breath away from. If his teeth are not enough, then he is helpless to watch as she scoops the raven up to her chest where she cradles him.
But even if it's not enough... His teeth stay anchored to her flesh, his paws stumbling through the snow as she begins to walk away. It is awkward to carry on this way, her feet tripping over hers and his alike, and yet she is still able to carry on despite his weight. So she does. She walks through the snow, through the trees, on and on and on. It's not long after she breaks through the forest line that the wolf's fangs begin to slip from her flesh.... and then from her arm completely. As she said... Blood drips back up her wrist, and flesh stitches itself together without prompting. In no time at all, it is as she was never touched at all.
Even without his grip on her, the wolf follows. Through fields, through woods, through long plains with nothing much on them, the wolf follows after her. Chrome is a god, and the world is hers to waltz through as she pleases, especially with her domain as large as it is. She could vanish in the blink of an eye, away from the wolf's eyes and his nose. She doesn't. All she does is cradle the raven to her chest, sharing the sound of her heartbeat with it, and glances back. Every time she does so, there is the wolf. He is weak. Starving. Blood stays gathered on his face, occasionally cracking or tearing to drip more sticky trails down the side of his mouth.
Their journey isn't a simple one. Rather, it's not so easy for him. Her own is fairly straightforward, only she's not the one who has to worry about scavengers circling through the air, or predators snarling at the creature which is invading their territory. Occasionally, she stops to watch him, wondering if she should intervene. It never becomes necessary. The scavengers stay distant, fine with waiting for some time, and the predators... Sometimes they attack the wolf, leaving him with more scars. Most of the time, however, they're fine with only watching to make sure he gets no ideas. Perhaps they can smell death on him. When he gets close enough once again, his eyes on hers, Chrome restarts her journey.
Eventually, the cold smell of winter leaves them, and something heavier claims the air. Sea salt is only a distant thing, at first. Chrome uses it to guide herself- or maybe more to allow the wolf some assistance. From the ocean's darkest depths, she emerged. It is child's play to return. If the wolf understands her gesture, she hasn't the faintest idea. As she glances back to him in this final stretch, he is in even worse condition. How long they've been walking, how many days and night have passed, she has to admit she hasn't been paying attention to such details. It all blurs together to her. In contrast, the wolf carries the marks of their journey. His injuries are scattered across his body, infection having found fine breeding grounds. Saliva drips thickly from his jaws, uncontrollable. When she looks at those eyes which have been watching her for so long, now she finds them glazed over, unseeing. How he can even still follow her when he nearly collapses with ever step, when he can't see her, when his nose must be filled with the scent of his own blood...
Chrome knows. She carries the reason within her arms, and feels the raven's breath as only the faintest wisps.
When they arrive past trees and grass, over sand dunes, the ocean is spread out wide before them. The horizon where night sky and ocean meet is nearly indistinguishable from one another. Where the full moon which hangs above is reflected down below. Now, at this time, the ocean is a mirror. All is the same within it. Boundaries blur. The void reaches past earth's lines, from within it, and it touches itself. Even when Chrome steps into the waves that softly lap against the shore, her presence barely disturbs the reflection that has been set up. Icy water curls around her ankles, then up to her knees, claiming more skin and flesh with every step she takes. She looks back, waiting for the wolf follow her. He pauses at the water's edge, swaying, running on not even the very last scraps of his energy but rather his own intense will. Perhaps not even his will.... but his own desire. With a lurch, he steps forward, splashing clumsily into the water after her.
She's already waist-deep by that point, and that's as deep as she needs to go. Here, the Void's presence is everywhere instead of that place far beneath the waves. When she lets her arms lower into the water, the raven's dark feathers match so perfectly with it all. It's a surprise, almost, that his plumage doesn't shine with the stars too. Instead, under her quiet gaze... he begins to become nothing more than that. Nothing more than his feathers, beak and eyes and legs disappearing into the dark waves. Behind her, the wolf keens. She'd though his voice had long gone out, but no- it's there. The sound carries up high into the air, fills it completely with his grief and anguish. His splashing becomes more intense with ever step, head raised back as he tries to fight his way through the salty waves. Deep in a winter forest, has he ever even swam before? It doesn't matter. Crying, gasping, dying, the wolf presses forward.
In the water, now eerily still, the feathers have lost all semblance of sticking to a solid form. Instead, they are spread out now all along the water's surface in a connected pool of their own- as if someone had strung them all together in a blanket. The wolf's head falls, hitting the water, and he's strange, now, too. His body ripples strangely as he makes his way through the water, only the top of his head and back showing now. When he reaches the feathers, all spread out as they are, his head rises up- and then keeps rising up, a cloak, hollow, draped over the body of a boy with soft skin and a blunt nose. Stepping back to the shoreline, Chrome keeps her eyes right on him.
Despite the lips and teeth which could form words now, if he cared to, the boy doesn't stop to speak them. The same kind of despairing keen is warbling out from his throat as he shoves his new hands into the water, past void-black feathers. He digs, splashes, searches through everything until he's elbow deep and pulling. What little she can see of his muscles flex with the effort of it, fueled by desperation, and the boy that was once a wolf never stops. He stumbles, and slips, the sand beneath his feet not kind to such actions, and he does not stop. Not until he's suddenly stumbling back, the body of another in his grasp. A ragged gasp of exertion tumbles from his mouth, but he holds strong. With a sort of adoration, he bears the body of the boy with the raven-black hair and raven-feather cloak determinedly. When his partner takes his first breath, long and wet and shuddering, the wolf boy hisses, teeth bared. Nothing has hurt him. Not physically.
No words disturb the quiet sea air. There's only the sounds of their breathing as both boys steady themselves in the water. Droplets cling to the raven boy's eyelashes as he raises them, staring down at his partner. He is quietly lovely in his own way, towering a good few hands above the other and bird-bone-light in his lankiness. His dark hair is slick with the weight of the sea, clinging to neck and face alike, but he barely notices. All of his attention is on the other. Fingers that are just a little too long slowly trace up along the face of his companion, and his knuckles push back the furred hood that covers his face. The wolf boy isn't quite handsome, a fresh scar still healing from cheek to cheek and his short blond hair sticking out wildly from salt. Still, there is no denying there is something beautiful in his brown eyes that shine as he and the raven boy look at one another. They look at one another for a very, very long time.
And then, eventually, slowly, they look to her.
Chrome smiles.
A single knock at his door is all it takes to draw Tsuna's attention back to his home, and he's opening the entrance in a heartbeat. His skin is still flushed, sweat sticking to his temples from his running, and he stares in utter befuddlement at the trio that is now before him.
"Why," he asks quietly, wheezing, "is everyone naked?"
It's taken long enough, but these sort of things can't be rushed in the end. They aren't Skull, or Fon. If they're going to create something, then they're going to do it right. Down in the dark depths of water, where light is suffocated, they reach forward. The bubbles clutter around their wrists as they press in, rolling against their skin. Such an annoying little obstacle. No matter. In no time at all, deep in the mass, another set of fingers fumble for theirs. Sighing, pleased, Mammon gives a tug. "Come on. Let's go. You're ready now." All it takes is that one smooth pull and a figure to match their own breaches past everything. With that, they release their grip. One can't baby a child forever.
Still, they're quite patient, they like to think! As they twist through the water, almost a separate liquid altogether, Mammon keeps an eye on the figure that shines despite the depths. She's clumsy, at first. Arms flailing, legs kicking, there is no grace to her at all. Against her newborn status, however, she catches on quickly. The further along they swim- the more the line blurs between otherworldly depths and common oceans- the better she becomes. Her fingers curl, scooping through the water, and her spine curves smoothly in a mimic of so many fish and seaborn mammals that they begin to pass. As she does, the bubbles still cling to her form- enhance it. They glimmer in place along her shoulders, follow the curve of her chest from collarbone to stomach, and most of the mass is past her hips. There, they form something stranger, long, make her a beautiful leviathan of a creature that snakes through the water. Mammon's pride will never stray from their own self, but still. They can't help a little bit of it spared for how their young god adapts.
Soon, both of them are twisting around one another, bubbles and darkness both, and her wide eyed confusion has been exchanged for tentative delight. They entwine their fingers, a matching set, and Mammon hums. "Almost to the surface," they observe as the sun shifts its light strangely on their skin. Their young god says nothing. All she does is blink, quiet and shy and wondrous. Perhaps her nerves get the best of her. When Mammon detaches to hit the shallows of a beach, she hangs back in the waters instead to watch. Well, that's fine too, they suppose.
In the mortal world, away from the realms of gods and Arcobaleno, away from the void-like depths inside the earth and oceans, Mammon allows themself to take proper form again. They're small, and all in black. Mark stretch down their cheeks and their hair frames it perfectly- that's what matters most. Everything else is optional, an amusing thing to toy with. Brushing their clothing off, a simple robe with dark fabric that shimmers strangely in the light, they look back to where their new god is waiting. She's only just poked her head up out of the water, wide eyes focused straight on Mammon, and the bubbles have now formed into strings of pearls that cling to hear hair. "Come on," they say, tapping their foot. "What do you think is going to happen?"
No answer is given. Instead, she seems to tuck her chin down into her chest, water slipping up over her nose. Her hair ripples over the surface of the water where it doesn't cling to her head, and the strings of pearls- separated long and loose but still connected- follow along with the movement. For a few minutes, Mammon wonders if they're going to have to drag her out. Suddenly, she surges forward. The water rushes with her, forcing her along, and she goes tripping and flailing through the shallows. Hastily, Mammon hurries to meet her halfway, wrapping their arms around her waist and arms. "Hey-!" Both of them go stumbling back together, balance unsteady, and Mammon waits until they've come to a standstill. Lips twisted, they huff up at her. "I didn't mean run before you can walk."
The pearls are no longer connected by strings. Rather, it's a whole net of them, strings shining and strange as water, and it cloaks their young god from her hair down around her bare body. When she reaches up to brush her hair to the side, she ends up pushing strings of pearls along with it. "Oh," she says, not sounding particularly remorseful. Perhaps this occurs to her, because, tentatively, she tries, "Sorry?"
"You're horrible already," Mammon snorts, reaching up to swat their fingers across her hair. Pearls bump into their knuckles. "But then, I suppose you really are mine." That's enough to satisfy them, a smirk playing on their lips. Looking out into the sea, they consider what will come next. There's no need for Mammon to wonder what this child's purpose will be. They can taste humanity's desire thick and suffocating as smoke betraying fire. All that's truly left for them to do is... "Nagi," they murmur softly, tasting the name carefully on their tongue. The young god blinks at them, and Mammon's smirk widens. "My name for you is Nagi."
"Nagi..." She repeats it, thoughtful and slow, before tucking her chin down against her chest again with pearls slipping down to partially obscure one eye as she does so. A smile has lit up her expression, and her eyes glimmer brighter than jewels. There is no one, Mammon decides, more perfect. Of course she is. They made her. "I like it."
"I know." They share this bond, one of desire, and they can feel hers curling slow and content throughout her chest. "But that's only the name I get to call you, alright? Mine alone. To anyone else, your name is..."
"Chrome." In the meadows of his oldest son, Reborn raises an eyebrow and doesn't even shift against the lone tree he's leaning against. "That's really the name you've chosen for her?" While he by far doesn't consider himself a perfect parent, at least he was able to give his sons decent names. Well, they haven't complained yet.
Then again, the ghost of a girl hiding behind Mammon isn't complaining either. She merely peeks out from behind her parent, not much taller or shorter than them, and stares at Reborn and his children with wide inquisitive eyes. What seems like a net of pearls clings to her from head to toe, shimmering in the warm sunlight of Dino's realm. While he could say a lot of things, Reborn has to admit that she's certainly a great deal different than the gods that have come before. A result of Mammon's time in crafting her, or a consequence of being born deep down in what's as a mirror of the Void?
From around the tree, Tsuna is playing very much the same game that she is, only with a considerable deal more fidgeting. He peers around one side of the tree, just as wide eyed as she is, only to scurry around the other side when she dares to glance up at him in return. Reborn, Mammon, and Dino all watch the exchange in faint amusement, wondering what exactly will happen. Mammon, in the meantime, says, "You tried to shove naming your latest onto Her, so I don't want to hear about it."
On one hand, fair. On the other hand, "I did still name him."
As usual, Dino steps in (forward, rather) with his hands held up to help calm down any bickering. "Alright, let's save that conversation for another time. We've been introduced to her, so it's only fair that we do the same otherwise." Glancing over his shoulder, he grins. "Right, Tsuna?" Instead of coming over to stand alongside his brother, Tsuna only stares at him, brow crinkled incredulously over those still big eyes. Sighing in melodramatically fond exasperation, Dino reaches over to help tug him into place. "No need to be shy. Chrome, I'm Dino. You'll hear the mortals call me 'Light and Labor' sometimes." Reaching up, he ruffles Tsuna's hair and earns a squawk. "And this is my little brother, Tsuna!"
For a moment, it doesn't seem as though the new and young god will react. She stays quite firmly behind Mammon, silent and watching. Yet right on the precipice of things seeming awkward, she steps around her parent to trot forward. The pearls that trail behind her clink against one another, rustling the long grass. Neither of his sons seem to have expected to be approached like this, both their eyebrows raised in surprise.... which is nothing compared to what happens when, once close enough, Chrome leans in close and plants a kiss to Tsuna's cheek. "Hello."
Dino bursts out laughing, a sound that seems pretty delayed compared to how fast Tsuna's face lights up scarlet. The younger brother can't make eye contact, jerking his gaze downwards, only to immediately realize that mistake. Chrome isn't wearing much more than pearl and net still. Against all odds, Tsuna's face burns an even deeper red, and his gaze jolts upwards again. Any better? Definitely not. Faced with no right options, he can only cover his face with the most strangled of noises. Reborn doesn't laugh himself, but he does smirk.
It occurs to him, watching the way Chrome's own shoulders jerk from shock, that she's not doing anything particularly out of the ordinary from her view. Why would she? Desire's children would need more than a paltry kiss to think of as particularly shocking. No doubt Tsuna's height is what made him the first target. To prove a point, Reborn pushes himself away from the tree and leans forward slightly. Well, considerably- she really is Mammon's child from hair to height. "Reborn," he says by way of introduction, although he wouldn't be surprised if Mammon had already told her about the Arcobaleno and all their names. Sure enough, with only one last befuddled glance over to Tsuna, she trots over and leans up on the tips of her toes. One kiss to one of Reborn's cheeks, and he gives her a fleeting one as well in greeting. It's a gesture he's already seen in a couple of different places, and passed on further.
There's no such greeting given to Dino, although that might be because he's still busy laughing as he rests his arm on top of his little brother's head. "What's got you so worked up?" he asks playfully while Chrome trots back over to hide behind Mammon. "I didn't think you'd react that way."
Tsuna's words are muffled. "It's different!" A pause, and one finger slides away a little so that he can peer between them. "She's..." His voice drops low. "She doesn't... have clothes..."
Pitiless, Reborn snorts. "You've seen naked people before," he points out dryly. "It's almost a part of your domain." One could say that there's a certain element of weakness to the concept of being nude, after all. A state of being that is only entered when one has no choice, or is in such a place as to have no fear of being harmed. When he thinks of being in Loyalty's oceans, coral and salt water on bare skin, Reborn feels he understands it rather well.
"It's different," Tsuna whines, finger sliding to hide his eye again and his skin still red. Ah. Reborn glances back over to Chrome, who only blinks innocently, and Mammon, who is more pointedly smirking in self-satisfaction. He's starting to understand what's going on here. Mammon didn't even have to do anything, no need to exert such effort in the first place. Before he can point out anything, however, Tsuna steps forward himself. One hand is still pressed against his eyes, keeping him effectively blind, but the other fumbles outstretched in Chrome's direction. There's a pause amongst all of them, Chrome included, before she steps forward and delicately presses the tips of her fingers onto his open and waiting palm. Burned skin folds around her fingers gently, as gently as Tsuna ever treats most other things he runs into, and then he begins to guide her off....
...But not before nearly tripping over his own feet first, and then a rock second.
Off in the distance, there's the long curling trail of smoke which signifies a residence. Much like Loyalty and Desire are closely connected, so too are Tsuna's and Dino's own realms. The boy won't have to go far before he's back in his own home that he's made for himself, or perhaps that the universe has shifted to make for him. That means it won't be very hard to go find him when Reborn himself is done talking with Mammon.
Because oh, he certainly wants to talk.
"You really did take some effort to have her look like you," he comments, watching as the last trace of fluttering purple hair and a bird nest mess disappear from view. "I'm surprised there were no marks on her face."
A split second passes, where he can tell that Mammon is deciding if they're being genuinely complimented at or subtly needled. When it comes to them, even something genuine could be labeled as the other. Apparently today is a good day, or they're coasting on the satisfaction of their daughter's existence. Mammon goes with the latter, holding themselves up proudly. "Isn't it only fitting? Even you end up reflected in what comes from you. This is what happens when you actually make a child on purpose."
"I'm standing right here," Dino remarks dryly. "Could you please imply that I'm an accident while my back is turned, at the very least?"
Mammon ignores him, because Mammon is what mortals would call a little shit. Reborn also ignores him, if only because he's more focused on the conversation than anything. Besides, it's true. Both of his sons have been accidents, events that he hadn't foreseen and hadn't put much thought into. It doesn't mean they're mistakes. "So are you making the rounds to discover her purpose, then?" he asks instead. Mammon promptly snorts.
"Please. We know what domain she is born for. I told you, didn't I? She was made with purpose." That said, Mammon turns on their heel and goes to trot off where both their children have wandered off too. Someone's a fussy parent. Despite that thought, Reborn pushes himself away from the tree as well and follows after with Dino trailing behind. While he would never give Mammon the satisfaction of knowing it, he's also intrigued in the creation of a new god. This is the fourth now, and each one has been intriguing in their own way. Gods are still such new creatures... and this is Desire's first. Something that isn't born of Chaos for once.
There's a lot to learn here.
Telling Tsuna's realm from Dino's is a simple matter, although the change is slow and subtle. The same sky seems to stretch over both, so blue as to make one's chest ache and with only the occasional passing cloud. Tall grass and shimmering wheat begin to grow shorter. At first, the plants of Tsuna's home only peek out from inbetween the much taller fields. It's not something that lasts long. Soon, they appear in clusters, and then batches, and then it is through fields and fields of softly burning orange flowers that their legs pass through. The "burning" descriptor is by no means any sort of exaggeration. From the petals, soft flames flicker. When night eventually comes, mirrored in this realm as the mortal earth, they'll serve as excellent guideposts to Tsuna's home. For now, they're simply a soft and pleasant warmth. No burns mar the skin of visitors, or catch their clothes aflame. Past all of it, small and cozy, is a house much like the ones of a certain little village from not that long ago.
Chrome is seated in front of it, a blanket draped over her shoulders and a wooden bowl cradled in her palms. A quiet pleasure emanates from her, serene and content while she looks up at the sky. She only drags her gaze away when Mammon is close enough. "It's nice," she says, unprompted, as Mammon settles down besides her. "It's warmer than anywhere else."
Reborn knows she isn't wrong. There are plenty of places that are hotter than Tsuna's home, sand enough to scorch, the sun bright enough to cook whatever is left out to its touch. Deserts, and plains, and thick swamps that trap the heat within. Yet there is nowhere warmer than Tsuna's home. Nowhere that welcomes the tired and the lost as well as this place does so, with its cozy house and burning flowers. "I see he's made you at home," Dino says, standing besides Reborn and smiling a little. "Is he still fussing about your clothing? Or, well, lack thereof?"
Before she can answer, Tsuna pops out as if summoned and stands there in the doorway with his brow still drawn tight. The color of his face has cooled down a little, now more a soft pink than a shade of red that could cook an egg. He still looks as flustered as ever, holding out some clothing that's in his arms to Chrome, and he almost seems pleading despite saying nothing. Chrome seems oblivious to his dilemma, or she's doing quite an impressive job of ignoring it, and focuses on what he's offering. After a moment of purely visual inspection, she shakes her head softly. Another small and despairing noise comes from the very back of Tsuna's throat and, yes, there he goes again back into the building. Still calm, Chrome takes a sip of her soup from the bowl. It only occurs to her to offer any sort of answer after that, and she tilts her head to the side. "He says... I'll get cold. Or burn myself."
Reborn's mouth twitches upwards slightly. "I think Nana left more of an impression on him than I did," he says aside to Dino, not upset at all with the observation. Even with what Lal and Colonello said, there are still a lot of unpleasant things within him. They shouldn't be passed onto someone else. He is more than enough. Nana was a good woman, anyway. There are a lot worse people that Tsuna could have become fond of, and taken inspiration from.
A soft laugh leaves Dino as well. "I'm sure she'd be glad to hear that."
All of this must be going over Mammon and Chrome's head, and the former makes sure to lean closer to their daughter. "Ignore the nonsense they spew. It's a regular occurrence."
Chrome ducks her head a little. "It's nice to hear things," she says. Well, that's no surprise to hear. It matches everything else about her. Once again, Tsuna ducks out from his home and holds out the most simple of garments: deep green in color, long sleeves, doesn't go far past the legs. Ignoring the rest of them once more, Chrome inspects this one a little longer than the first, and it's almost expected when she gets up to her feet. The net of pearls still clink together as she comes closer, ducking inside with the clothing in tow, and Tsuna heaves out a sigh of relief.
"That bothered?" Dino asks, half sympathetic, half amused.
Tsuna's look is exasperated and more than a little strained. "She'll get cold," he whines, exactly as Chrome said. "That's why mortals wear things!"
Mortals do a lot of things for numerous reasons. Vanity is prevalent in a lot of animals, although none do it quite so finely as mortals or creatures larger than any of them. Some are just picky. Reborn doesn't point all of this out to his youngest. Helping him find his purpose had been enough handholding for his life, or at least a good few centuries. He'll learn when he learns, one way or the other. To the side, Mammon steals Chrome's abandoned bowl and finishes it off purely because they can.
When Chrome comes out, fitting the outfit easily and with her pearls gathered up in her arms, not all traces of pink leave from Tsuna's face. Some continue to linger, dusted across his cheeks and overall warming his skin. This time, at least, he's less hesitant to offer his hand to her once again and he meets her eyes unhindered. "Come on," he says encouragingly, a little floundering. "I know how it feels to not know what to do, so, we can look together, right?"
She doesn't correct him. Instead, she silently takes his hand and rubs her thumb across charred skin. The smile that blossoms across her face is tiny, pure in its little trace of happiness. "Okay," she says, agreeing without any fight. When Tsuna takes her away this time, it's in a crackle of embers popping and the faint smell of burning wood; they're gone.
"I thought you'd object a little more," Dino says, voicing Reborn's own thoughts much more politely to Mammon. "You seemed rather possessive of her." Certainly, they've been hoarding their little daughter's existence deep within the seas and core of the world.
Mammon licks their lips clean of any food, eyes flashing gold as they look up at father and son. "It'll be a good lesson for her," they say simply. "Besides, who am I to get in the way of myself?"
Tsuna is kindness.
There are a few other things he is, of course. He is clumsy, and easily startled, and not at all particularly subtle when he glances at her from beneath his bangs. Still, above all else, below all else, he is kind, and Chrome likes the warmth of his fire-ruined hands when he holds onto hers. "Mammon helped start the bet that made me," he tells her as they sink their feet into the muddied waters of a swamp, 'searching' for her purpose. Reptiles that could take down a human lurk within the waters, drowsy under the heat of the sun peering inbetween the foliage, and pay them no mind. They slosh through unimpeded. "But I don't really know much more about them than that."
Chrome hums, watching as a crane watches them with its long talons curled around fragile branches. "All Mammon told me about Reborn is that he's more dumb than people think, and that he almost ended the world."
Tsuna makes a face at that, tongue sticking out barely between his teeth. "He'd throw me in the deep end of a lake if I told him he was stupid to his face." Alarm suddenly strikes him, and he tugs on her hand a little. "Don't do it either!"
"I won't." There's no reason for her to, anyway. Mammon's opinions aren't necessarily her own, and Reborn had been perfectly civil to her. "Mammon likes dark places, and secrets, and having all sorts of things," she tells him instead, giving him information that he hadn't before.
In turn, Tsuna tells her, "Reborn's sense of humor is horrible, and he can shoot anything in the world but likes flicking things at Dino to keep him on his toes." Together, they smile at each other, sharing little things about their origins up until chatter different than nature's sounds can be heard up ahead. Best he can, helps her onto the wood which has been carefully strewn about, and she balances herself on vines that have been used to connect things together. Oblivious to a pair of child gods making their way upwards, the humans continue to work. Their home is so carefully constructed, she marvels, held aloft from treacherous waters which hold all manner of creatures and can rise far too high when the rains come. "They're really clever," Tsuna promises her, although it doesn't need to be said, and guides her through the little settlement.
Gods are bound to humans. Tsuna tell her this as they go through the various buildings and paths that have been carved out by mortal hands. Any god that comes into being serves a purpose, and it is from humans that purpose comes from. "I don't mind," Tsuna says when they rest for a while, watching a pair of mortals inspect fruits from the local plantlife. "Reborn wouldn't like it, but he's an Arcobaleno, so he doesn't have to deal with it at all. But I don't mind. I used to because, uh, there were a lot of people wanting help, all the time, and it was a little overwhelming." His tongue flicks out, wetting dry lips and giving an outlet for his nervousness. "But it's hard to be alone this way, too."
Not being alone.... Drawing one leg up, Chrome wraps her arms around it and rests her chin on her knee. Never being alone.... It sounds so different from what she's been used to, down in the dark with only one other person for company. Is that what she wants? So new to her, she can't decide. Leaving it in the back of her mind for now, Chrome glances over at Tsuna. "So what kind of humans are you bound to?" she asks. Mammon had never told her that. Chrome had never asked, either, so she can't call it a failing on her parent's fault. Besides.... Even if she had asked, she's certain that she would have been told to learn it for herself.
"Oh, uh...." For a moment, he seems uncomfortable. His hands fiddle with each, fingers wrapping around finger, and his toes curl uncertainly. "It's sort of... vague? Dino's is easier. Any human that works or is doing something tries to talk to him. I've heard there's another god that controls the woods and other places like that? So they're-" Pulling his hand away from the other, Tsuna tries to gesture only to let it flop down in the end. "...Simpler." That's not really an answer, and they both know it. Fidgeting for a while longer, he offers his hand to her once again. "Hold on, I'll just show you? I think there's...." He drifts off for a moment, eyes brighter, gaze further away, before he snaps back to where they are in that moment. "Yeah, there's something I think that matches."
When she puts her hand in his, they're somewhere else again. No longer is the air heavy with water and heat. Instead, it's dryer, cooler, and shrubs have cracked out a home in harder earth. It's not quite a desert.... but not quite the plains, either. It is somewhere inbetween, and there are a pair of figures laying on the ground nearby.
One is dead.
The other isn't.
The one who is dead has gore marks through his torso, blood pooling out thick and heavy from the holes to gather thickly on the ground. However, that isn't what has killed him. His death is in the way he is sprawled against the earth, head tilted at an odd angle with a neck that shouldn't be bending as it is. Freshly dead- they arrive even as his hair is still fluttering to a stop against his bloodied skull. Besides him, behind him, the one who is alive is scrambling up onto her feet. A knife is in her hand, too big for her grasp, and wildness shines in her eyes as she watches the deer which is shaking its head still. A warning. It's taken out one of them, and it will take her out, too.
Except it won't.
Tsuna's sudden quiet presence behind the woman says it won't. No joy lies in his expression as fire alights from the center of his forehead, and curls to life around his fingertips. Such somberness doesn't match how bright his hands are as he reaches to touch her- first at her knuckles, then at her spine, and finally leaving a dusting of embers through her hair. Her skin is still pale and her cheeks still red with adrenaline. Now, however, her eyes are sharper. Focused, ready. The deer charges, desperate and not ready to die- and neither is she. She dives forward, antlers whistling past her spine, and her knife slashes out in her roll past. Deer are not sturdy creatures when it comes to their legs. Sticks could hold them upright better. All it takes is one deep slash, and it crumples to the ground with a screech that rattles down to Chrome's ribs. Panting, flushed with exertion, the woman leaps forward and digs her knife in deeper.
The deer thrashes... up until it doesn't. Up until it goes completely still.
Already the embers are fading out from the woman's hair, and she nearly collapses across the creature's corpse. Breath rattles through her lungs, shakes her bones. Tsuna doesn't leave her side. He keeps his shoulder alight on her back, waiting. What he's waiting for soon becomes apparent. Once adrenaline has shattered its course through her, the woman drags herself over the deer's corpse and crawls over to the fallen body of her own companion. In the heat of the moment, there'd only been the threat to focus on. Now, with two gods watching in silence... The woman kneels besides the corpse of someone she once knew, and weeps.
"When they don't have anyone else to help them," Tsuna says quietly, his voice somehow penetrating past grief-torn sobs, "then that's my domain." From his forehead, the flames begin to subside. She'd never noticed it before, but now Chrome realizes that there's a small scar right there in his skin. When the fire is completely extinguished, his bangs fall into place, and the scar is hidden once more. Instead of someone whose eyes had glowed brighter than anything and who'd cradled fire in his bare hands, there's only a boy standing there now. He's only a boy with sad eyes and near black hands resting on the shoulder of a grieving woman. "I try to be there when I can, but there's so many people... and I can't help them when they're at their weakest." Stepping into place besides the mortal, Tsuna slowly presses his knees into the earth as well. While one hand stays touching her, a glow emanating beneath the cracks of skin, his other hand begins to reach out to the corpse before it pauses. Uncertainly, his fingers curl into his palm. "I can't help them when they reach the end of their lives... whenever that is. I don't even know what happens to them afterwards. I wish I did."
With her pearls still wrapped around her shoulders over her new garment, Chrome only has to fold the dress beneath her knees as she too kneels besides the corpse. Unlike Tsuna, however, she is on the other side, away from him, away from the woman. Where his hand is resting tentatively in midair, her own reaches over to rest along his knuckles. Surprised, his eyes rise up to meet hers. "I do," she tells him. "I can." There are questions on the tip of his tongue; Chrome doesn't give him a chance to voice them. Instead, she redirects her attention to the body waiting inbetween them.
He's still warm, lingering with leftover life and the weight of the sun. Yet all of him is slack, completely unlike a person whose heart still beats. There is no tension in his limbs, no breath in his chest, none of the various minute movements which give away a life resting inside its home of flesh. Only one thing is left within the body, and it is that which calls to her. Taking her hand away from Tsuna, she rests her fingertips along loosely gaping lips. It calls to her, the thing that made this person unique, and she in turn calls to it by virtue of her existence. Drawn upwards, all it takes in the end is for her fingers to slip inside his mouth. Liquid greets her fingertips, an uneasy shade of green which clings to her skin as she pulls out from it with a pearl pinched in her grip. The green sheen to it begins to melt off once it is in the air, away from its body. When it is completely clear, all white, she adds it to the netting she carries.
All the while, she doesn't look up into Tsuna's eyes. She doesn't dare attempt to read the silence which hangs between them. Instead, she rises up to her feet, and goes to tend to the other which calls to her. So many things call to her, honestly, but it is the deer that is closest to her focus right now. She does very much the same to it as she did to the mortal man, and draws shimmering shining thread from its mouth. For much longer than she needs to, Chrome fusses over adding it to the rest of the net.
It hasn't escaped her notice how humans view death. Oh, she knows the best out of them all. She's seen their grief, like the woman's grief behind her, and what a painful deep thing it is. It is the reason for her existence; Mammon has told her this already. Death is the one place where humans cannot go, where they will never have a chance to go and then return as they can with anywhere else on their mortal earth. And to that they cannot know, do not know... They fear it.
They feared it so much that they desired stronger than anything for something to be there, waiting for them.
Yet she is a creature born of fear, born in the depths, born from the twisting monster Desire can be many a time. Mortals still fear death, and no doubt will fear her-
The rough crinkled texture of Tsuna's hand on Chrome's shoulder startles her and, unable to stop herself, she looks up into his face. No fear rests in those wide brown eyes, or weighs down that soft mouth. No- the look on Tsuna's face shines. Nowhere else has she ever seen a look like his, and her heart beats painfully hard within her chest. No other time has she ever felt so strongly as her parent, filled with the sudden vicious longing to always have that look directed towards her. "That's why I thought you felt familiar," he whispers, awed, relieved. "We're the same. I mean-" Flustered, his hand begins to slip from her shoulder, and Chrome has to react quickly to lay hers against it so that he doesn't leave her. He jolts, looking back up to her eyes again, and who knows what he sees there in her face. All Chrome knows is that his cheeks grow rosier at it, and he keeps talking. "I know we're not the same, like, the way me and Dino are similar, because we're both Reborn's sons, but, I could tell looking at you! I just didn't realize what it was! But we're..." His fingers knead anxiously against her skin, fidgety, and he ducks his head down. "We're the same. We're both here for the mortals.... for the same purpose."
Are they? Perhaps they are. It seems so easy to believe that when Tsuna says it with such gentle firm conviction, and Chrome has to duck her own head as well when she feels a warmth spread along her own cheeks. If there's something she's supposed to say, she's not sure she can figure out what it is. All she can think of is a soft, "Good." From beneath her bangs, she peers up, and smiles slightly at the flustered expression which has taken over Tsuna's face again.
If only the setting were nicer, like at the sea that Chrome can recall from her very first memories, instead of over the corpse of a deer with a crying woman behind them.
That's probably what, in the end, has Tsuna help her to her feet. "Have the mortals been told about you?" he asks, the world around them begin blurry with that amber light which says they're inbetween places.
"Some have." Chrome shrugs. "Fishing villages, and things like that, which live near the oceans and seas. Then Mammon got impatient, and wanted to show me off to you and your family." She says it without judgment, not minding very much. That's just how their parent is, prideful of the things that they have and wanting recognition for it as much as they want their own secrets no one else can be privy to. Some of that is in Chrome too, surely, passed down in the same way as the color of her hair and the comfort the darkest places have for her.
She knows what will come out of Tsuna's mouth before he says it. "Then, let's hurry, and tell them!" His hands tug along hers, and she doesn't stop him. "They'll be happy to see you, I'm sure of it."
Will they? Chrome isn't sure. At least, she's not sure until she actually listens to Tsuna go to the mortals and speak of her. When Mammon had told the mortals of her, it had been in their own way. They had spoken of her net of pearls which carried everyone who lived and who would live, and of her long reach which would find them no matter how far they went off into the ocean or got lost in the depths of the waves. Tsuna is so very different. He mentions the pearls, of course, how she fetches their souls and takes care to always keep them with her, but.... There are other things.
Like her soft hands, caringly picking them up when their bodies have given out underneath the weight of their lives. Or her eyes, deep and beautiful, looking out for them from the day they being their lives to the end of them. He talks about her smile, soft and radiant, beautiful as the sunset shimmering over water.
Chrome has to leave the village for that one. Considering the way Tsuna was fidgeting and blushing the entire description, she thinks he's a little thankful.
....But she comes back. But he finds her. And they keep going, from village to settlement to camp, to anywhere where mortals have settled down and mind those they share their lives with. At first, it's in the same flickering way as usual, appearing and disappearing as fast as only gods can go. Yet soon, they begin to slow down.
It's the little things, at first. Tsuna points out the horses off in the distance of a village, well cared for and allowed their freedom, so they go to visit the creatures dedicated to his elder brother. A visit deep into the jungles has him shyly show off his own animal avatars on earth. Some are only tiny little things, able to curl up in her arms with no trouble and lick with raspy tongues at her chin. Others are larger, stronger, and she's quiet as she watches the enormous cat deep within the jungle trees slip trough the jungles after watching them in turn. When she soon gets too overwhelmed by the constant presence of mortals, Tsuna is more than happy to walk with her and her alone to the next place, and their feet go across dirt- no tricks.
That's probably what starts it. From then on, they walk with one another, and take in the world which is still so new to both of them. She, especially, has to look at everything with new eyes. Tsuna is no stranger to long journeys; it's a fact he tells her one night when the stars shine in a colorful sky. He tells her of his own confusion when he was young, of the places his father and brother would take him, the things they would do. Chrome listens attentively to every tale. It doesn't escape her that they are creating their own tory, similar yet different, with every step they take. When they stop at the latest gathering of humans, no matter how large or small it is, they both find plenty of work to tend to with their focus where it is. It would be a lie to say that there isn't a kind of comfort in routine.
The day they first met seems as though it only just happened, a meeting of yesterday, but she knows that it's been many months when they take off through snow instead of flowers. Around them, the trees tower high and their sturdy branches carry loads of snow that has yet to touch the ground. A reverent silence fills the air, and she marvels when they come across tracks in the fresh snow.
It is here that they find the wolf.
Both of them feel it, although they sense different things. In Tsuna's eyes, an aching sadness shines once more, and she can feel the tug in her own heart towards something that is starting to wait for her. Such things aren't uncommon. With their domains being what they are, something is always calling for the embers of Tsuna's kindness, or the comforting foam of Chrome's realm. That means parts of them are always elsewhere, scattered across the world. It's only her focus which is there with Tsuna and which can feel the cold beneath her bare feet. If not for how there path takes them through the forest, perhaps they would never have truly come across the weakened creatures which lie in the forest.
In the pristine white snow, the wolf's dirty pelt stands out. Once upon a time, perhaps it had been a lighter color. Chrome thinks she can see parts of its true hue past dirt and sweat and worse things. Yet he has had a rough life the last few days. Now, he is filthy. Worse, he is starving. Even with how curled up he is in the snow, the hollow of his stomach is painfully apparent. He's weak. He must be. That does not stop him from baring his teeth at the gods, his muzzle curling up and disrupting the thick frozen blood which has gathered on a relatively recent wound. All creatures know what the gods are. Their eyes see different things than that of humans.
Still. His teeth are bared.
That must be what has Tsuna's attention captured, his hands raised placatingly, but Chrome's eyes are elsewhere. It isn't for no reason that the wolf is where he is. In the white of the snow, a raven's pitch black feathers stand out more than the wolf's pelt. He's not dead.... not yet. Breath still raises his chest, and his eyes still flick deliriously about. Even from a distance, Chrome can tell that much. The true sadness is how slow his death is coming to him. Whatever injury that has grounded him and is responsible for the slightest flecks of blood which are scattered about the snow, it isn't enough. It hasn't taken him away from his suffering and misery, into her arms. Her heart aches for him, just as much as it aches for the wolf that will soon join the raven if it stays for any longer. "Why doesn't he leave?" she asks Tsuna quietly, not understanding why a wolf would lay with his prey.
"He won't abandon kin," says a voice that is most certainly not Tsuna's. Blinking, Chrome looks up and finds a boy whose appearance seems to be a little older than hers or Tsuna's, and yet not as old as Dino is. His eyes are dulled steel as he looks over the pair of them, and his black hair lies plainly on his head. A patch of bright red cloth is attached to a part of his cloak.
"Family?" Tsuna echoes, surprised, and almost flinches back at how sharply that stare goes to him.
Yet nothing happens besides that, or at least not immediately. "Ravens and wolves know each other well," he says coolly, slowly glancing down onto the pair of creatures that are between three gods, now. "Ravens are clever, and see farther than anything stuck to land. Yet they can't do anything on their own... They can't take a deer or other creatures down. It's not uncommon." When he strides closer, the wolf only gives him a passing glance. There's no warning or threat, as to Tsuna and Chrome. All he does is stare brazenly at the god that looms over him. "What is rarer.... is to see a wolf that would abandon his pack for a raven."
If he understands the conversation which is going on over his head, the wolf makes no show of it. All he does is curl ever tighter around the raven's weak body.
"He's going to die," Chrome points out, quietly. For the first time, the other god's eyes go to her.
"It's what he's chosen to do." His hair sways in line with the tilt of his head. "So he'll die."
Awkwardly, Tsuna shifts as if to step forward but ultimately doesn't. "Uh... You're Kyoya, aren't you? Kyoya Hibari? My brother mentioned you. You're a god of the wilds."
Suddenly, all dullness leaves Hibari's eyes, and they sharpen in interest right towards Tsuna. "So you're connected to that annoying person..." Even at the same time that Tsuna is raising his hands up to try and calm him, Hibari's own also rise up... with his fingers curled around two weapons already. "I want to see how you do, then."
"W-Wait-!!" But there's no waiting. Hibari launches himself forward, already swinging, and Tsuna immediately turns tail to run. Chrome finds herself left in the snow flurries the two leave behind, blinking in bewilderment as her hair becomes dusted with white. Rather belatedly, she turns around to stare in the direction the pair have already disappeared to. Despite the surely impressive distance, what's even more impressive is that she can still hear Tsuna yelling.
Ah. Well. It's not her problem, she supposes.
The wolf and the raven are also technically not her problem. She is free to continue on, where she will surely meet Tsuna at the next village or town or group of travelers. At the same time.... Chrome stays in place. Her eyes drift back to the pair: the raven's fluttering weak chest, the wolf's curled lip, their blood mingled together in the snow. Kyoya's words echo in her head. It's what he's chosen to do, so he'll die. Never has she wondered if death has been right or wrong, no matter the circumstances. It happens, whether anyone likes it or not. Even now, she knows there is nothing wrong with it. So why does something different from the usual tug pull in her chest as she keeps her eyes on the pair that will go into death together?
Quietly, with all the crunching of snow to give away her movement, Chrome moves forward and the wolf lets loose a low rumbling growl. From the back of his neck down to his spine, hair rises and bristles- a warning sign. A last chance. Chrome doesn't ignore it, only she doesn't do as it demands either. Instead, she steps closer and closer against the wolf's protest. Ever tighter, he winds around the raven's fragile body, or as best as he can without crushing his companion's delicate bones. A bird, after all, doesn't have the sturdiness of land creatures. The force of his growls turns into snarls, and the same force reopens the wound across his muzzle. Blood, thick and slow, begins to crawl down through his fur and cover his bared teeth where it pools in his lip. Does it hurt? He doesn't act as though it does. His love, his desire, ignores all pain. That, almost more than anything, is what has her reach down towards them.
Teeth dig deep into her arm.
In all her memories... Chrome can't remember being hurt before. Such things couldn't reach the depths that she was born in, and her parent had been so proud in keeping her safe away from harm. As the wolf's teeth piece her skin, dig into muscle, Chrome realizes how fortunate she's been in that regard. Even Tsuna has felt pain, his hands burned and charred as they are. The others too. Even if this is all a simple wolf can do.... It is enough for her to not want to deal with it again, if she could. She flinches, fingers jerking and spasming. A part of her hand is trapped within the wolf's maw, stopping her ability to move them right. His snarls rattle up through her bones, echo through her veins, and her blood joins his from where it has gathered in his mouth.... And, bound together, both drip down to splatter onto the snow.
Even if it hurts, however.... "You won't be able to kill me," she tells him, voice quivering and soft. Tugging against his teeth would do nothing, so she stays still. "You won't even be able to wound. It will heal the second you remove your mouth. I'm not going to hurt you, or him."
There's no arguing with a wolf, however. At least, there's no arguing with this wolf, who snarls into her skin regardless of her words. When she takes yet another tentative step closer, trying to reach around him, he shakes his head violently and she goes stumbling. Her blood, his blood, it goes scattering through the air and stains icy wood and bright snow. Soon enough, however, he gives up, panting hotly against her arm. Who knows how long he's starved, only that it's been long enough that he doesn't have the energy for such shows of aggression. Once more, she steps closer, and, once more, he tries to shake. When she's close enough, however, he stops. Anything else.... could risk harming the raven whose feathers her fingertips are just a breath away from. If his teeth are not enough, then he is helpless to watch as she scoops the raven up to her chest where she cradles him.
But even if it's not enough... His teeth stay anchored to her flesh, his paws stumbling through the snow as she begins to walk away. It is awkward to carry on this way, her feet tripping over hers and his alike, and yet she is still able to carry on despite his weight. So she does. She walks through the snow, through the trees, on and on and on. It's not long after she breaks through the forest line that the wolf's fangs begin to slip from her flesh.... and then from her arm completely. As she said... Blood drips back up her wrist, and flesh stitches itself together without prompting. In no time at all, it is as she was never touched at all.
Even without his grip on her, the wolf follows. Through fields, through woods, through long plains with nothing much on them, the wolf follows after her. Chrome is a god, and the world is hers to waltz through as she pleases, especially with her domain as large as it is. She could vanish in the blink of an eye, away from the wolf's eyes and his nose. She doesn't. All she does is cradle the raven to her chest, sharing the sound of her heartbeat with it, and glances back. Every time she does so, there is the wolf. He is weak. Starving. Blood stays gathered on his face, occasionally cracking or tearing to drip more sticky trails down the side of his mouth.
Their journey isn't a simple one. Rather, it's not so easy for him. Her own is fairly straightforward, only she's not the one who has to worry about scavengers circling through the air, or predators snarling at the creature which is invading their territory. Occasionally, she stops to watch him, wondering if she should intervene. It never becomes necessary. The scavengers stay distant, fine with waiting for some time, and the predators... Sometimes they attack the wolf, leaving him with more scars. Most of the time, however, they're fine with only watching to make sure he gets no ideas. Perhaps they can smell death on him. When he gets close enough once again, his eyes on hers, Chrome restarts her journey.
Eventually, the cold smell of winter leaves them, and something heavier claims the air. Sea salt is only a distant thing, at first. Chrome uses it to guide herself- or maybe more to allow the wolf some assistance. From the ocean's darkest depths, she emerged. It is child's play to return. If the wolf understands her gesture, she hasn't the faintest idea. As she glances back to him in this final stretch, he is in even worse condition. How long they've been walking, how many days and night have passed, she has to admit she hasn't been paying attention to such details. It all blurs together to her. In contrast, the wolf carries the marks of their journey. His injuries are scattered across his body, infection having found fine breeding grounds. Saliva drips thickly from his jaws, uncontrollable. When she looks at those eyes which have been watching her for so long, now she finds them glazed over, unseeing. How he can even still follow her when he nearly collapses with ever step, when he can't see her, when his nose must be filled with the scent of his own blood...
Chrome knows. She carries the reason within her arms, and feels the raven's breath as only the faintest wisps.
When they arrive past trees and grass, over sand dunes, the ocean is spread out wide before them. The horizon where night sky and ocean meet is nearly indistinguishable from one another. Where the full moon which hangs above is reflected down below. Now, at this time, the ocean is a mirror. All is the same within it. Boundaries blur. The void reaches past earth's lines, from within it, and it touches itself. Even when Chrome steps into the waves that softly lap against the shore, her presence barely disturbs the reflection that has been set up. Icy water curls around her ankles, then up to her knees, claiming more skin and flesh with every step she takes. She looks back, waiting for the wolf follow her. He pauses at the water's edge, swaying, running on not even the very last scraps of his energy but rather his own intense will. Perhaps not even his will.... but his own desire. With a lurch, he steps forward, splashing clumsily into the water after her.
She's already waist-deep by that point, and that's as deep as she needs to go. Here, the Void's presence is everywhere instead of that place far beneath the waves. When she lets her arms lower into the water, the raven's dark feathers match so perfectly with it all. It's a surprise, almost, that his plumage doesn't shine with the stars too. Instead, under her quiet gaze... he begins to become nothing more than that. Nothing more than his feathers, beak and eyes and legs disappearing into the dark waves. Behind her, the wolf keens. She'd though his voice had long gone out, but no- it's there. The sound carries up high into the air, fills it completely with his grief and anguish. His splashing becomes more intense with ever step, head raised back as he tries to fight his way through the salty waves. Deep in a winter forest, has he ever even swam before? It doesn't matter. Crying, gasping, dying, the wolf presses forward.
In the water, now eerily still, the feathers have lost all semblance of sticking to a solid form. Instead, they are spread out now all along the water's surface in a connected pool of their own- as if someone had strung them all together in a blanket. The wolf's head falls, hitting the water, and he's strange, now, too. His body ripples strangely as he makes his way through the water, only the top of his head and back showing now. When he reaches the feathers, all spread out as they are, his head rises up- and then keeps rising up, a cloak, hollow, draped over the body of a boy with soft skin and a blunt nose. Stepping back to the shoreline, Chrome keeps her eyes right on him.
Despite the lips and teeth which could form words now, if he cared to, the boy doesn't stop to speak them. The same kind of despairing keen is warbling out from his throat as he shoves his new hands into the water, past void-black feathers. He digs, splashes, searches through everything until he's elbow deep and pulling. What little she can see of his muscles flex with the effort of it, fueled by desperation, and the boy that was once a wolf never stops. He stumbles, and slips, the sand beneath his feet not kind to such actions, and he does not stop. Not until he's suddenly stumbling back, the body of another in his grasp. A ragged gasp of exertion tumbles from his mouth, but he holds strong. With a sort of adoration, he bears the body of the boy with the raven-black hair and raven-feather cloak determinedly. When his partner takes his first breath, long and wet and shuddering, the wolf boy hisses, teeth bared. Nothing has hurt him. Not physically.
No words disturb the quiet sea air. There's only the sounds of their breathing as both boys steady themselves in the water. Droplets cling to the raven boy's eyelashes as he raises them, staring down at his partner. He is quietly lovely in his own way, towering a good few hands above the other and bird-bone-light in his lankiness. His dark hair is slick with the weight of the sea, clinging to neck and face alike, but he barely notices. All of his attention is on the other. Fingers that are just a little too long slowly trace up along the face of his companion, and his knuckles push back the furred hood that covers his face. The wolf boy isn't quite handsome, a fresh scar still healing from cheek to cheek and his short blond hair sticking out wildly from salt. Still, there is no denying there is something beautiful in his brown eyes that shine as he and the raven boy look at one another. They look at one another for a very, very long time.
And then, eventually, slowly, they look to her.
Chrome smiles.
A single knock at his door is all it takes to draw Tsuna's attention back to his home, and he's opening the entrance in a heartbeat. His skin is still flushed, sweat sticking to his temples from his running, and he stares in utter befuddlement at the trio that is now before him.
"Why," he asks quietly, wheezing, "is everyone naked?"