Chapter Text
Even in his young age, Kuro had the foresight to try and find a way to escape the cruel hand that fate had dealt him. If he couldn't outrun these sudden invaders, then he would try and get something else to do the running for him, lack of equestrian be damned. However, when he went to the stables, he found that not even the livestock were spared from the culling. The astringent scent of fresh blood mingled with the warmth of stale hay and horse dung. Ribbons of smoke and heat licked the crumbling supports, eager to feast indiscriminately on the remains. The distant cries that echoed made it seem like the welcoming of Hell itself.
There, in that darkened corner, as still as the corpses that lay around it, the pale and huddled figure of a child. Those large, doe-like eyes silently stared in disbelief, as if Kuro was the ghost, and not them. He knew this child, not well, but enough from the hushed voices of the adults in the village and the jeers from his fellow peers. "Inoko" was the popular nickname the other children gave them; coarse brown hair, scouring for scraps to eat, and a penchant for making these constant sniffle-snorting sounds... just like a baby boar.
Kuro never really took a liking to them, having only properly interacted only once before this fateful meeting. "Proper" being a word that could not be used to describe that situation. He and the other children had been practicing their make-believe swordsmanship, and the little runt got the idea through their head that they could join in, too. Given their unfortunate lack of communication skills, they basically beat every child that was present senseless with two large sticks. Every child except for Kuro, who only took one blow before driving off the wild piglet with much more malicious ferocity. In spite of it all, that one still hung around the fringes of society, waiting for an invitation that would never come.
He didn't know what came over him at that moment, but he felt himself reaching a bloodied palm out towards them, grabbing an emaciated wrist, and pulling.
Ao was, simply, unwanted. Not unneeded, no. In any given place or time, there was always some sort of boogeyman, an outsider, someone to gossip about or to act as a convenient target for whatever frustrations the people around them were feeling. Whether or not they knew they were, or disliked being unwanted was something not even they could deduce at the time. Other children could talk to each other, words without context, sounds without meaning. They could not even describe their own situation even if they tried. This was their normal.
This was not normal. Crying and screaming were actions very familiar, but on this scale, and to see adults doing it, no less? And the heat… that heat… Worse than any cloudless midsummer day, all shrouded within inky night. More shouting, more words they did not know, and the glitter of silver and paper-thin sticks that spawned arcs of crimson whenever they collided with a fleeing villager. Briefly, they thought of the people who housed them, those who could have been considered family. Normal children would’ve felt some sort of concern or worry or fear, but the only thought that crossed their simple mind was to do what they did best. Hide.
So, hide they did. The horses squealed and whinnied as they deftly dodged agitated hooves, making way to a cool and dark corner. There, they closed their eyes, and made themselves invisible. They didn’t know when the horses stopped their ruckus under the din of the chaos, because when they opened their eyes, they were the last living thing in the stables. Until…
The face of one of the boys from their village was staring back at them, his shocked expression illuminated by wavering flames. That was when fear finally gripped them. All they remembered of this one was that he’d beat them every time he tried to play with the other children, nevermind the fact that Ao’s idea of “play” lacked any sort of mercy or understanding. The boy reached for them, and with nowhere to pull away, they were taken by the hand and dragged out from their hiding spot.
Together, hand in blood-soaked hand, they ran.