IT’S CAPTAIN HARLOCK WEEK KIDS. Which means I have absolutely nothing prepared and spent the whole evening scraping this together. pls just take it as it is.
day 1 is supposed to be your favorite tochiro, and what an unfair question, I love them all. so have a little thing with a tochiro in it instead! this is set in modern AU/the Lights Will Guide You series.
Of A Feather
They've just finished cleaning out the den of a much hated rival when Tochiro approaches him with a squawking bundle.
you can also read it here on AO3!
They've just finished cleaning out the den of a much hated rival when Tochiro approaches him with a squawking bundle.
"What the hell is--"
"We're keeping him," Tochiro announces, pulling the sheet off the cage with a flourish, "Isn't he adorable?"
Harlock has to disagree. Inside the cage is a rather large bird, mostly black with crimson accent feathers, and beady little eyes that have murder within their depths. It shrieks even louder when exposed to the light. He can already tell that Tochiro has fallen in love.
"It's ugly. And loud."
"He's perfect," His best friend coos, "Aren't you, Tori?"
"...you didn't seriously name it 'bird', did you?"
"What's wrong with that?" Tochiro questions defensively, "Do you have a better one?"
The truth is, he doesn't. They're both garbage at coming up with fitting titles for anything; the only reason the Arcadia sounds remotely passible is because they stole it from a book of old folktales. (Harlock had personally like 'Deathshadow', but Emeraldas had stared at him blankly until he withdrew it from the table.) But naming a sorry excuse for an animal 'bird' was extra uncreative. The bird flaps its wings, nearly shaking the cage out of Tochiro's hands.
"I'm not sure bringing it along is such a good idea."
"It'll be fine." Tochiro insists. Harlock doesn't believe him for a second.
He makes a good case for returning the bird to the wild. It's a rare breed of parrot, though it looks more like some carrion eater, and it's not domesticated in the slightest. Tori only eats certain kinds of fruit, but chews relentlessly on anything within reach. The bird hates everyone in the crew, save for its savior Tochiro, and barely tolerates Harlock's presence. Tori is obnoxious, messy, and has very few redeeming qualities.
However, the discovery of a broken and badly healed wing that prevents the bird from flying straight destroys that argument. That, and Tochiro's puppy eyes are impossible to say no to. So the bird stays.
Tori never gets any better. He sheds feathers everywhere, stashes food in hidden places on the ship, and makes sure to make enough racket for an army. They find torn connection lines and trashed circuitry with suspicious claw marks, but Tochiro just laughs and fixed whatever his pet breaks. Harlock has to fish the clumsy thing out of the ocean more than once. He knows most of the crew are only joking when they say they're going to finally kill Tori, and yet he also wouldn't be surprised if it actually happened one day. Harlock instates a ship-wide 'no pets' policy. It gets broken on more than one occasion.
But life goes on. Things return to a rhythm, or they find a new one, just like whenever someone new arrives. It's not the worst thing to have ever happened on the Arcadia.
And then, everything falls apart.
The world goes so dark so fast. There are suddenly more important things than a ship, or playing the noble pirate, or a dumb bird he never wanted in the first place. His best friends are dead and there aren't enough answers in the universe for why.
One year, three months, and eight days later, Harlock strikes the deal that puts him behind bars. In exchange, everyone else's criminal records are erased. A little girl in southern California gets protection and is provided for, though she'll likely never know her parent's history. The warship Arcadia ceases to make port. And then, he waits.
Six months after that, they offer him the job.
Kei asks if he wants her to bring the bird along. The northeastern US probably isn't the best place for a tropical animal, but the thought of leaving Tori behind, or worse, handing him over to a zoo, doesn't sit well with him either. If it was anyone else's bird, he would have said to hell with it, but Tori is Tochiro's. Abandoning him would feel like accepting that there was nothing more to be done, and that is unacceptable. Maybe it's a bit of stubbornness. Maybe it's a bit of nostalgia, a bit of pity, a bit of wanting to hold onto any last thing that he can.
It's funny to watch it all play out again, but with different people. An office, albeit a secret one, is different than a ship's bridge but Tori manages to create havoc anyway. Pencils, pens, and computer cords get shredded. Snacks are stolen, only for chewed wrappers to appear later. Someone mentions they're probably breaking ordinance laws by keeping an exotic parrot within the city limits. Again, the bird stays.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." He warns Zero when he walks past with a handful of grapes. He blinks at Harlock, holds a grape in front of Tori, who then devours it before chirping. No blood is drawn. Harlock hasn't seen such a peaceful, much less affectionate, display since, well, before all of this. Tori headbutts Zero's hand in search of more treats.
