To the fae he loves
PROLOGUE
It was a long, quiet night. The insects chirping in the grassland, the owls staring into the eerie darkness, the streetlights of the mostly empty neighborhood twitched multiple times before seemingly giving up on its purpose.
You couldn't quite call it a neighborhood, not really.
Only one family lived there, The Nakamura family, though they were never aware of the fact that they lived alone in the neighborhood. They lived happily in their blissful ignorance.
Next to them, lived an old lady, a quite troublesome old lady according to them. She always scolded them for seemingly trivial reasons, came banging on their door for food or to complain.
Truly, a troublesome, old lady.
The family living opposite to them they adored. A husband, a wife, and two sons. The sons usually came to play with their own child, sadly their child always seemed to ignore them.
Maybe there was one person in the family who wasn't ignorant, who wasn't fooled by these illusions.
Weirdly that one person was a 2 year old child, a human child.
The long, quiet night was disrupted by a shrill scream.
Inko Nakamura woke up screaming and crying, victim to another nightmare. She shivered and shook as she recalled the events of her nightmare.
Kenji Nakamura, her husband, stirred beside her slowly.... almost as if he was used to this, almost as if it was a daily occurrence. He straightened up slowly, tired eyes looking at his wife who was in a panic.
"Inko, be honest with me.... why has this been happening?" He asked, while rubbing slow circles on her back. He tried to eliminate any traces of sympathy or pity from his voice, but alas, to a paranoid ear anything is dangerous.
He continued, “It has happened too many times for me to let this go again, please Inko.”
Inko shoved his hand away, with so much force it hits the headboard. He winced, not so much because of the physical pain.
"I do not need ur pity Kenji." She said each word with disgust. Her eyes searching the room before she found what she was looking for.
"Do you seriously see this as pity?" his voice a little louder than before.
Inko ignored her husband as she tried to entangle herself from her blanket, almost tripping over it in the process. She rushes to the crib where her son, Izuku Nakamura, lies sleeping without a single care in the world. Her precious baby that she gave birth to, her whole world. She sobs in relief, her brittle fingers clenching the wooden railing of the crib so hard her knuckles turned white. She's too weak to keep standing though, her legs give out and she's on her knees. The carpet, she feels, is piercing her skin, reminding her and at the same time somehow distracting her from everything that she fears as she continues to cry. She hears shuffling in the background and turns around so fast she swears she hears her neck crack.
"DON'T COME NEAR US!"
Now this, wakes up the carefree baby that was sleeping in his crib. He wakes up, big doe eyes searching in the dark, and starts crying as he sees no one. His little hands reaching out into thin air for his mother. Inko stands up and takes him in his arms, noticing how even her small baby is straining her arms, noticing how weak she has become. She coos him back to sleep, whispering loving things in his small, human ears.
"There there my love, Mommy's sorry, I'm so sorry"
Kenji Nakamura stares at the scene occurring Infront of him. The fallen blanket almost acting like a physical barrier, reminding him of how disconnected he is to his family, almost foreshadowing a future where this continues to be his place.
But honestly?
It was an ordinary day at the Nakamura's.
Inko Nakamura stares at her fingers, at how weak they look, at her bitten nails. She stares as she cuts the vegetables needed for an omelette.
"Dear! Breakfast is ready"
She looks down, staring at her baby who was wearing a comically yellow shirt with dark green pants.
He's playing with a piece of dough, seemingly confused on what to make out of it. He rolls it on the floor, some of the dough sticking to the floor and some to his small fingers, she sighs.
"Izuku, baby I told you not to play with that on the floor, it becomes really hard to clean after it sticks." She picks him up, with little less strain this time and starts pealing the dough of his fingers. She notices how small they are, how human, how there are no long finger nails, how these hands have no magical powers in them, no strength in them.
She flinches at her thoughts and rushes to put her baby on the feeding chair.
Her anxious thoughts begin to pick up, about how they could come any moment now, how they'd so easily recognise a human child when they see one. She picks at the skin near her nails, which is now almost always bleeding, and if not bleeding, healing.
"Inko?"
That pulls her back to reality.
No.
No none of that is true.
We escaped and now i'm with Kenji.
We are safe.
"Yes?" she says in a voice so low even she barely hears it.
Kenji sighs, the type of sigh that doesn't allow him to let go of his worries, of his anxiousness.
"Breakfast?" He gives a small knowing smile. He knows, no matter how many times he asks for the truth, it won't work. So he'll help how he can. He'll help distract her from her worries, from her past.
"Oh yes! Of course I'm so sorry I got distracted"
He sits next to Izuku, subtly noticing how his mom suddenly becomes a little more alert. But he doesn't mind that, he understands. Everyone is protective of their child, it might take some time for her to accept him as Izuku's father, or for Izuku to accept him as his father, but he'll be patient. He'll give it his all.
He reaches over and lightly pinches Izuku's cheeks.
"Are being a little trouble maker now, Izuku?"
He giggles, such a pure, sweet sound over all the silent chaos.
It was an ordinary day at the Nakamura's.
"Honey, im home!" Kenji announces as he removes his shoes.
"Welcome back dear!" Inko comes and takes his bag as Izuku rushes from behind tackling Kenji, or specifically his leg, into a hug.
"Has everyone gone out of town or something? The neighbourhood is completely empty." Kenji says, while patting Izuku's head as he jumps in excitement.
"Oh uhm that doesn't seem to be right, how could all of them go out of town without any of them telling us?" Her fingers absentmindedly travel to her torn skin again, picking at it, trying to not get anxious.
But it was useless, Inko's intuition was screaming at her the whole day.
Run away
Protect yourself
Protect Izuku
Tell Kenji to run away and never see them again
Inko started taking shallow breaths, each breath escaped as fast as it came, never seeming to linger, never seeming to calm her down.
"I'm sure its nothing, they'll let us know when they come back.`" her husband says, trying to reassure her.
"What's for dinner dear?"
She blinked, staring at her husband for one...two...three seconds before
"Katsudon"
"Katsudon is for dinner, Izuku's favourite" she replies, a little breathless from the panic.
"Oh how wonderful"
"Sure..."
Im sure its nothing.
They can't find us here.
Outside of the fake calm of the Nakamura house, there's walking an uninvited visitor. Knocking on every door before eventually breaking through it with as little noise as possible.
In the slight glow of the night street lights, we see how the creature looks. Pelvis and waist so abnormally thin it could fit into a normal adults hands, pants that are a bit ragged but still serve their purpose-though clearly too big for the being. Scars and stitches are littered all over its upper body- without a care in the world for aesthetics. Its maroon eyes glow through the being's wild, uncombed hair and two pointy ears stick out of it.
But what's the most striking and noticeable detail of all is the human sized hammer its holding in one hand. The hammer has chains attached to it, and spikes sticking out of it, dulled through years of abuse....
Despite the hammer's size, it barely reaches half the height of the creature.
And it is only a few houses away from the Nakamura house.
Inside the house we see Inko frantically packing all their belongings and rushing around the house.
"We must leave immediately." she says while running past her husband to her child.
"Inko, think rationally." kenji says in a hushed voice. But his pleas are ignored as Inko picks Izuku up to put him onto the feeding chair, feeding him with shivering, shaking hands.
"Here honey, eat as much as you can we have a long journey ahead of us."
"Inko i understand you had a nightmare and that's putting you on edge right now, but you've had those for months! Has anything remotely weird happened after your nightmares??"
His voice louder this time, loud enough to eco across the street. Inko turns around, now face to face with her husband.
"YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME AND IZUKU, YOU COULD NOT BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND!"
"SO TELL ME"
Both of them look at each other, Kenji's plain, brown eyes staring into Inko's dull, green eyes.
The plainness of his eyes, the normalcy of it just reminds her more of why she needs to stay in this world. Why she needs Izuku to stay in this world.
"Kenji please. Just trust me this once, I'll tell you everything once we get out."
Kenji simply stares into the distance past her, this frustrates Inko, thinking he's delaying, he's wasting time questioning her.
But no.
It's not that.
"Whats....that?"
She turns around, her breath catching as she looks at the horrid creature growing larger and larger with each step.
"Inko what is that??" Do you know what that is?? Is it related to you and Izuku? Oh god what have I gotten myself into, oh god save me" he mutters silent prayers to himself, his head in his hands, as Inko turns around to get Izuku, but it seems as though even he has seen the creature.
"Mama...what is that?" He asks in the most feeble and shaky voice.
"It's okay baby, it's nothing you're just imagining it. Let's get out of here."
She rushes towards the entrance with Izuku silently hiccuping in her arms to somehow, with some luck get her car keys and race out of here.
Luck is not on her side.
Pieces of stone comes flying towards them as the creature breaks down the wall. There's blood pooling infront of kitchen, it walks into the pool of blood nearly having to crawl into the house due to its large stature.
Dark maroon eyes searches the entrance as the creature walks towards it, until it finally finds what it was searching for.
It grins ear to ear, though much of it is not seen through its hair.
"Inko Midoriya?" It has a deep, loud voice. Shaking the house, or what remains of the house as it speaks.
"No" She replies, steady and firm.
"Do not express your fear towards the deserted fae, it gives them confidence. They cannot feel your fear but they are very good at analysing body language."
"DO NOT LIE!" The fae shouts raising its arm in the air to bang it down on the floor.
"I AM." she shouts before it could do that.
"I am Inko Midoriya" She hold Izuku closer to her, his head on her chest, gently patting to calm him down.....and maybe her too.
"Good... that's good." The fae mutters to itself.
"You-" He points to Inko.
"I do not need you....but him, Izuku Midoriya? I need him"
"NO" she holds him tighter, covering his ears. Izuku winces in pain.
"Then you can die....or a worse fate, I could take you in as a prisoner!"
She shrinks herself down to the ground, trying to make herself as small as possible while protecting Izuku. She looks down at him, into those bright, green, glistening eyes and wonders
How would anyone describe these eyes as ordinary....
Then the strike comes, and the world turns black as the room is filled with the cries and screams of a child.
