Chapter Text
wake up,
~
The first thing he sees is Trico out of the corner of his vision. The rest is obscured by the dirt that his face is half-pressed into. She roars at something--the other tricos? He remembers there being more. He remembers...
His body lights up with pain as she nudges him forward. Away. He can't manage any noise, just gasping as he tries to breathe through the pain in his chest. Why is she pushing him away? The pain doesn't stop, and he's suddenly lifted up. It doesn't feel like Trico pulling him up by his scruff. But it's not the cold arms of the knights either. He cracks open an eye to see he's surrounded by people. Humans. He can barely recognize their blurred faces, nor their voices as they're suddenly drowned out by Trico roaring, crying out like she's being attacked.
No, no. "Trico--" he chokes on his own words. He can't let them fight her, she's not bad. He can't let anyone get hurt, Trico is already hurt. "Trico," he tries again. He lifts his arm, pain spiking from his fingers to his chest. It falls, once, and he lifts it again to try and signal her. She stops roaring. He has her attention. He swallows his fear and pain to point, say, "Go," and hope she understands that he means go far, far away from here. Go somewhere safe.
The villagers (Acano villagers? His family?) are shouting. Trico growls, low and threatening, and he aches. "Come on," he tries to coax her with his hoarse voice. He prays she can hear him over their commotion. But she always heard him before, hadn't she? She never let his cries go unanswered. She can't ignore him now. She needs to be safe. "Go," he gasps. His arm shakes, and he can't hold it up any longer.
He hears her bound forward, and feels the rush of wind as she jumps overhead. He tries to open his eyes, to see her take flight, but she's already too far away for him to make out. Trico calls out in the distance, low and mournful. The same noise she makes when she can't find him. He wants to call back and reassure her that he's here, he's fine. But he can barely even keep his eyes open now.
The villagers say something, but he can't tell if they're talking to him or not. There's a ringing in his ears that's getting louder as his body continues to throb. His head hurts and his skin is burning.
Then everything goes dark.
~
He wakes with a start to more pain.
When he opens his eyes he can actually see, there's no haziness to get around. He's in the healing house, his grandmother's home, but that's all he sees before he shuts his eyes tight against the pain. He can identify the worst points of it--his leg, chest, and head. His skin is tingling, but no longer on fire from the foreign magic pressing into him and causing his markings to burn. He opens his eyes and tries to sit up but is rewarded with more pain.
There's a weathered hand gently resting on his chest before he can even cry out. "Shh, Aji. It's alright." His grandmother is sitting next to his sleeping mat, holding a bowl full of something foul-smelling in her free hand. She smiles at him reassuringly, but her bright eyes are crinkled with worry. "Don't get up. You're safe."
"Ma... Enta..." Aji coughs, pain spiking through his chest. He wheezes, trying to breathe shallowly.
"You twisted your ankle, but nothing is broken," Mama Enta says softly as she runs her hand through his hair. Right. He fell, dragging Trico's severed tail to the... thing. He remembers limping to the caged floating ball, but he doesn't remember it hurting. "Your ribs are bruised, but at least your fever broke. The Trico did quite a bit of damage."
"Not... Trico," he says weakly. "She didn't hurt me."
"Of course," she says without missing a beat. That's the wrong reaction. No one should believe him when he says she's harmless. They were just aiming spears at her if his hazy memory is correct...
But she's gone now.
Tears well up in his eyes at the thought. He hiccups, tries to bite back on his sob because the tightness hurts his chest. His grandmother strokes his hair as he tries so hard not to cry, reassuring him that he's safe and it's all over.
Aji doesn't want it to be over, he wants Trico back. He wants to stop hurting. He wants to know what happened, if he really was able to stop that thing from controlling the other tricos.
His grandmother leaning down to embrace him doesn't stop the pain like Trico's purring does, but it at least clears up his thoughts as he sobs into her shoulder.
After a while he's scrubbing away tears and is about to ask where his papa is, when she suddenly says "Macata," in a stern tone. "Aji's awake, come over here."
His papa steps into the room, trailed by his little sister hiding behind his legs. "Aji!" she cries.
"Dimi," Papa Macata warns. "Be gentle. Aji's been hurt."
She nods rapidly, zipping to Enta and purposefully not coming any closer to Aji. Papa Macata kneels next to his mat, looking like he's seen a ghost. Aji's still sniffling, breath hitching as it pulls against his sore ribs. "I'm back," he says quietly. "I'm back," he repeats, like he can't even believe it.
"Welcome back," Macata echoes. He's never seen his papa so relieved. He strokes Aji's face gently, wiping away tears that are immediately replaced by new ones. "I'm so glad you're safe."
Aji nods and keeps his mouth shut. If he says anything, he'll cry harder. Everything was so much, so fast. Somehow it feels more real, more terrifying, now that he's back home. He wants to tell his family everything, but he doesn't even know where to begin. He just squeezes his eyes shut and leans into his papa's touch. He falls asleep like that, with his papa and grandmother's hands comforting him.
~
He wakes up again, to sharp pains through his head. It feels like there are sparks behind his eyes, and he can almost see the lights dance across his vision. He tries to blink the illusions away, willing whatever magic is still in his skin to disappear. When he looks around the room, he finds Dimi is sleeping next to him. She's wrapped up in a blanket and half hanging off his sleeping mat. No, not asleep. She's peeking out at him, her face barely visible. "Are you awake?" she whispers.
"No," Aji says. His chest doesn't hurt as much anymore, but talking still takes effort. "I'm sleeping with my eyes open."
Dimi giggles and crawls out from under her blanket nest. "Good, cause Mama Enta said I'm not allowed to wake you up."
He tries to smile at her, but he's sure all he can manage is a tired expression. "It's okay. I was just about to go back to sleep."
"Already?"
"M'tired," he mumbles.
"Will you tell me about your tattoos?"
"Later," he promises. "After I sleep."
~
He doesn't wake up to pain this time, but rather to the smell of food. Dimi is nowhere in sight, and his best friend is sitting down next to him. "Nice to see you awake," he greets. "Papa Macata said I couldn't see you, but Mama Enta set him straight. And she sent me with this. Here," he offers Aji a bowl of something, but then seems to realize that Aji is still lying flat on the floor. "Can you sit up?"
"I think so," Aji says. He struggles for a moment, and his friend quickly sets down the bowl and helps him gain his balance. His chest aches from the movement, but there's no burning pain. No burning anywhere, even. He's abruptly cut off from his thoughts as Cosu throws himself at Aji to hug him. "Ow." So much for his chest being pain-free. He blows some of Cosu's shaggy hair away from his face. "Hi, Cosu."
"Hi?" Cosu laughs, pulling back from Aji. "You got eaten by Trico and then spit back out and all you have to say is hi?"
"Trico isn't bad. She saved me."
"It ate you!" Cosu nearly shouts. He's always been the first to defend Aji's antics, but Aji admits that this is quite a bit harder to come to terms with than his usual nonsense.
"But eating me wasn't her fault! She was being controlled!" He quickly explains. "It wasn't her fault," he says again, quieter. He picks up the bowl of soup that Cosu set on the ground.
"Aji." Cosu locks eyes with his best friend and says very slowly, "You sound crazy."
"The rest of the story is crazier," he says, dejected. He slowly starts to eat the soup. Normally, the food Enta makes to help people heal would make his nose wrinkle. But after scrounging for food in the trico's nest for days, it's the best meal he's ever tasted. "I don't know if anyone will believe me."
"Try telling me first." Cosu shovels his own food into his mouth (flatbread and vegetables, it makes Aji's mouth water but he forces himself to ignore that thought and sticks to his own soup) and keeps talking as he chews. "If I don't believe you, then you'll know the rest of the village won't, and you can start coming up with a lie."
"I'm not gonna lie!"
"Hasn't stopped you before."
"This is different," Aji insists. "As soon as my leg is better I need to look for Trico. They probably won't let me look by myself."
"Hah? You want to go and find that beast?" Cosu squints. "The adults said it looked almost dead, it won't be coming back."
Aji tenses up and his stomach twists into an uncomfortable knot. "Trico is tough. She's gotta be okay." She's bounced back from worse, he wants to say. But he didn't even see the extent of the damage. He doesn't actually know how hurt she is. The other tricos all ganged up on her. And she only got better so quickly before because he would feed her... barrels.
The knot in his stomach suddenly turns to churning and he gags. Aji's hands quickly cover his mouth, dropping the bowl and spilling it everywhere as it clatters to the wooden floor.
Before he knows it, Cosu is gone and Mama Enta is rubbing circles in his back as he dry heaves over the little amount of food he already threw up on the floor. He hears her mutter something about leaving him alone with Cosu, then, "Well you obviously didn't eat too much or too fast. How do you feel?"
He feels like he wants to cry. "I'm okay," he lies. "I'm--" his head hurts again. Aji squeezes his eyes shut, willing it to go away. There are no more knights, he tells himself. He isn't in danger. And yet...
"It's alright. You rest for now, and you can try eating again later."
~
Aji hates that he's been so tired since he woke up. He hates that he isn't allowed to move around, too. But right now what he hates most is that he's woken up in the middle of the night with a headache that burns all the way down his spine, and no one else is awake. Mama Enta is sleeping on the other side of the room in her bed, but there's nothing she can do. Can she? Mama Enta has magic, she has to because she's the healer chief, but it's not magic like this. Bright shapes cloud his eyes and it feels like when the knights would try to take him, but nothing is happening. Nothing except his head hurting and his skin burning.
He hisses, bringing his hands up to rub his eyes. It helps briefly, until the lights come back with a vengeance and pain spikes through his head.
He jolts upright, trying to escape--escape what? He can't escape, there's nothing there!
He wants to scream he wants to hit something he wants to curl up against Trico while she purrs he wants everything to stop.
He balls his hands up in a fist and slams it against his sleeping mat. The thump reverberates theough the floor to his leg and he winces, but when he looks down...
His hands are glowing.
The marks are lit up, all around his body.
Why? Why?
He still doesn't understand. The kids taken were... they were turned into the knights, he's sure of it. He knows their remains were turned into... barrels. He doesn't know how to explain it, it's just a feeling. The kids that went into the statue had the same energy as the knights. But now he can still feel that energy buzzing under his skin. It shouldn't be there, right? Nothing should be making this happen.
Panic continues to creep up his throat, slowly suffocating him. It hurts. He wants it to go away, stop hurting. Go away, please, he begs.
The magic hums louder, threatening to burn him.
Go away!
Everything explodes.