nick furcillo (littlelunacy) wrote in valloic, @ 2023-03-26 15:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | !: action/thread/log, ~plot: future vallo, ₴ inactive: nick furcillo |
2027: Narrative
Who: Nick Furcillo, with references to his friends and loved ones
What: The End
When: 2027, following Abi's death and the First Stand
Rating: PG-13 (violence)
A routine made it easier to pretend that things were under control.
Breathe in, breathe out. Planned. Simple.
Nick got up, went to work minding the kids at the daycare, then came home and tried not to think too much about it all. He wasn’t magical, not in the way that counted. Nothing about Interitus seemed to effect his werewolf curse, and he couldn’t feel the wrongness in the air like some could. Abi too was human, and experienced the twisting of magic third-hand: in the frustration of Noct, in Ignus’s thinned, upset lips. Gladio doing extra workouts because if he stayed strong in one way, perhaps he’d stay strong in the other. In Prompto’s manic desires to keep everyone laughing.
Weirdly, Talcott and Iris seemed the least affected. Perhaps if you’d seen one apocalypse, you’d seen them all. Nick wasn’t sure if he found their acceptance more frightening than the panic. Depended upon the day.
But the routine - the routine brought him comfort. And these days? He needed comfort. He hadn’t had a panic attack in a long while until Interitus came back, and Abi had needed to grip his hand and instruct him: Breathe in. Breathe out. Routine. At the end of the day, Nick was nothing if not reliable. It had been why he’d been entrusted with being in charge of the kitchen back home at Hackett’s Quarry; he’d been thorough, neat, and trustworthy, but not so brave that he’d start shit by himself. Oh sure, throw someone bold in there with him, a real cut-up, and there might be trouble. But Nick on his own was a watch that held time. And as the days grew darker in Vallo, every second of his every hour was spent ticking with a singular mission: to keep Abi safe. The routine provided safety.
(Abi, for the record, was timid, but likely more brave than Nick in the way that counted most. When her friends were attacked, she assumed defensive stance, eyes seeking a weapon. Nick, when frightened, sought Abi.)
For the past year, Nick had ignored the werewolf drama coming from reports from the forest, despite being one himself. Unable to control his change, Nick worried, in a vague sort of way, about the werewolves losing ground in the forest. When had that started? Was it only last year? He’d always felt like a failure of a magical creature; he had never been able to learn how to turn into a wolf of his own free will, nor control the beast he became. So he was the worst sort of werewolf - the one that was just a liability - and it was easier to pretend he wasn’t one of the ones who had any skin in the game regarding the boundaries of the forests.
Which worked fine until Interitus came for the towns, as well.
He and Abi had talked with Iris and Talcott; they had plans. Plans to fight, plans to protect everyone, plans to escape if necessary. Plans revolving around what to do when the Defense Squads fought back. The First Stand, it was called. And Nick knew that plans were almost as good as a routine, really. You could go over them again and again and improve them, tighten them up, anticipate the weak areas and think around them. Nick liked making plans far more than he liked implementing them, because reality was never quite like what you assumed it would be. You figured out the safe routes only to discover too late that they were treacherous, and you reached for belongings that had been put in the wrong place, and you met at a safe house and waited for everyone to show, only not everyone did show. And you waited and you waited and you were breathing too quickly, so you did what Abi had told you to do a hundred times before: you breathed in, and you breathed out. All part of the plan. A routine, should-be-involuntary movement. But Abi wasn’t here. She should be here, that had been what you had discussed, but she wasn’t, and people were saying that the First Stand had been a failure, and that people were disappearing, and that people had died, but you knew that Abi was fine, because the plan - your plan, your routine - relied on her being fine.
And then they told you they’d found her body, and the days went gray and vague.
The brave thing to do would be to rally, to declare revenge. Nick wasn’t brave in that way, though. He was just tired, and sad, and angry, but mostly angry at himself. He should have been with her. He wanted to have been with her, to protect her or to die with her. He didn’t care which, really. It wasn’t fair. She’d escaped such a wretched night hiding from werewolves in the dark to being killed by something else just as horrible, and she died alone, like an animal on a dark county road beneath car tires.
Days past. Time marched forward. Nick breathed in and out without permission, carrying on despite his lack of interest in doing so. Other people made plans. Other people developed routines in this new awful world. Nick floated.
And when it was the Full Moon, he followed the routine. He chained himself in somewhere safe, turned into a wolf, howled and shrieked and clawed at the walls. The Moon went down eventually, and Nick turned back into himself.
There was an Interitus wraith outside his door. Watching him. Waiting for him to be human, to be easier to kill.
Nick didn’t want to die, no. But he also didn’t really care much about living. He’d fight this thing, but he was realistic. He was naked, no weapons. No one was stupid enough to leave a weapon in the cage with the murderous werewolf.
He could shout, though, he realized as the wraith’s fingers unlocked the door. He could warn people. It was early morning yet; birds were singing, people were asleep. He could yell out a warning. Whoever else was in this building might here it and save themselves, whoever else was near. He could do that.
He had a plan, then, as the wraith slipped the door open and came inside.
He thought of Abi.
Nick breathed in---