Work Text:
Solace - noun
as in relief
- a feeling of ease from grief or trouble
Seiko drifted back to awareness slowly, the painful throbbing of her body faint and distant. Shit, she thought idly, They’ve got me on the good stuff…
Her chi was pitifully low, the dregs of her borrowed power barely bolstering her own as her body tried to heal. Her heavy, aching eyes didn’t want to open as she crawled begrudgingly to consciousness, there were people in the room with her. Impossible to ignore the snoring, and something was pinning one of her hands down.
A soft groan escaped as she tried to tug her hand free, pain spiking threateningly at the movement. Right, never mind then. Seiko grit her teeth and dragged her eyes open, the dim light stabbed like one of her warding nails, involuntary tears welled up as she slammed them shut again. Fuck she hated getting hurt, pain in the ass.
After a few slow breaths to resettle her chi, Seiko tried again. Eyes squinting open cautiously, the light was still agony but it was endurable. The bland off-white tile above her offered no explanations for why she was here. There’d been… There’d been some jackass, smug little shit. Tricked her. Damn, egg on her fuckin’ face.
God… This is why she hates leaving Kamigoe City, shitheels like that wouldn’t be able to do shit if she was on her own turf. Why the fuck did I leave? A headache throbbed low in her skull as she frowned up at the blurry ceiling, There was… A ritual…
Like the clap of a sōzu tipping, the memories rushed back in. The cursed trunk, Momo shrunken and vulnerable, the iron bull that ambushed her… Forgetting Momo.
With a gasp Seiko tried to yank her hand free, a weak croak the only sound she could make as her body screamed in pain. She looked down and the desperate fire in her guttered out, Momo was slumped over the side of her bed, asleep. Momo slept as she always did, hard and with her whole body. Mouth open as she snored and drooled over Seiko’s blankets, one hand tangled in the blanket over her knee and the other holding Seiko’s hand.
Seiko blinked past the burning in her eyes, for a second Momo wasn’t almost 17, almost a grown woman, she was 6 years old and so small. She was the toddling baby Seiko had raised, passed out after a long day of being a child. There was no point in longing for times past, she knew it, but she couldn’t help back ache for the days where all of Momo’s problems had been small enough for her to solve.
Momo shifted in her sleep, snoring stuttering as she nuzzled into the blanket, fingers flexing around Seiko’s. Relief was a greater painkiller than any drug, staring down at the easy cast of Momo’s face, there were other people in the room, she could hear the snores and muffled breathing of sleeping bodies, but she couldn’t look away from Momo.
Seiko didn’t fight back the tears, hot as blood as they poured down her face, Momo was safe, sleeping. Normal sized, not smaller than her hand, not fading from her memory, not crumbling inward into a pygmy destined to spend it’s existence begging to be acknowledged. Just her precious grandchild, drooling in her sleep as always.
Alive, thank God. Her breathing hitched, pain flared dully through the medication, Seiko wanted to sit up, to pull Momo into a hug, drag her back to the shrine and never let anything touch her ever again. Her stupid, wounded body screamed as she tried to sit up; the hand Momo was holding tightened. Somewhere under the screaming relief Seiko heard the soft padding of bare feet over lino.
“Settle down hag, you’re already beat to shit. No need to make it worse.” Turbo Granny loomed over her, wild hair tangled around her head as she frowned down at Seiko, “This what happens when I leave your asses? You get tossed around by some weakling like a bitch?”
“Shut up… You bastard hag.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You should be grateful I’m not eating your ass right now.” Turbo Granny’s voice was soft, low enough not to wake anyone. “You’re one stupid shithead y’know.”
“Yeah… I know…” Seiko sighed, letting her eyes slide closed.
“Sleep Seiko,” Her voice was almost gentle under the snarl, “I’ll keep your brats safe, for now.”
A yokai’s aura could never be called kind, and Turbo Granny’s was no exception. Hatred and spite coiling into Gordian knots laced with spikes, cruel and cutting; but humans are good at adapting, and Seiko had lived with this aura for months. It was easy then, to let the aura flare in thorny warning over them, to let her cool water thread it’s way around her spikes. The kids slept on peacefully and Seiko rubbed her thumb carefully over Momo’s knuckles.
“Thanks… You rotten tangerine.”
Turbo Granny creaked out a rusty laugh and Seiko let herself fall back to sleep, safe under that blanket of hate.