fic: butterfly
Jul. 26th, 2017 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Fandom: Tokyo Ghoul
Rating: Teen
Warnings: The Sunlit Garden and everything associated with it.
Spoilers: Up to around chapter 101 of :re
Characters/Pairings: Arima's mother, Arima, Hairu, Rize, Furuta
Summary: A mother's thoughts on her children.
Originally posted to Ao3 November 2016.
He lets the butterfly go. Of course he does. Kishou is her son and she has never taught him anything other than to be kind.
Even through the training, the experiments, the ways they (he) have attempted to break him and reform him into their weapon, he’s never lost it.
She sees him be gentle to his brothers and sisters, Hairu especially. She is very young, almost completely unaware of what she’ll grow up to be. She wishes that she could go back to that time. But she is old now, at least by the Garden’s reckoning, and she has long lost her naivety.
She sees him with Nimura sometimes, when she ventures to that part of the Garden. Such a small, sick, weak boy. He gets taken for training and comes back with bruises upon bruises. It’s a wonder that he hasn’t been killed yet. It wouldn’t be a very good show for the Garden to put out an Investigator like that, especially with the façade they use. She’s fond of him though, if only for the adoration he has for her elder daughter and who his mother was.
She had been tiny and young, but her exuberance had filled any room she was in. No matter how much they had tried to beat her down, she had remained positive until the end. In a way, she had been the only other womb that she had considered in any way a sister.
Her mind wanders to Rize. Kishou isn’t close to her in any tangible way, nor are any of the other children. Rize’s too wrapped up in Nimura most days to notice anything, anyone, else. She hears the whispers, and she hopes they won’t do anything rash. For all the disguised hellscape the Garden is, neither of them would have any idea how to survive Outside. Especially not the one who has been bred to stay Inside her whole life, short as it will probably be.
Her youngest child is not even old enough to walk yet. She looks very similar to Rize, just a little smaller, if her memory holds. She hopes that Kishou will at least get to know her a little before he leaves. He is very skilled, a diligent student, and he is fast approaching his sixteenth birthday. The old man will probably want to place him within the CCG before long. She doesn't hear much about the Outside but the scientists gossip. He would see it as useful to have someone so young to pick off the younger ghouls.
She might even forget her hard-won dignity and beg if he doesn’t.
Every day, disguising her worsening eyesight gets a little harder. Disguising the pain that comes with dying slowly even more so. Kishou is observant; he’ll notice it before long. He noticed the minute her hair started to pale at the roots, after all. It pains her to not tell him how it will begin to happen to him someday. Someday far too soon.
Her plan goes as follows: get Kishou out, and distance herself from Rize. The baby won’t even notice she’s gone, or remember her at all, probably. One of the other mothers can raise her in her place.
She can begin to see why most of the others try to keep themselves at arm’s length from their biological children. No child should have to watch their mother die. She'll keep hers from doing so with all she has.
Rating: Teen
Warnings: The Sunlit Garden and everything associated with it.
Spoilers: Up to around chapter 101 of :re
Characters/Pairings: Arima's mother, Arima, Hairu, Rize, Furuta
Summary: A mother's thoughts on her children.
Originally posted to Ao3 November 2016.
He lets the butterfly go. Of course he does. Kishou is her son and she has never taught him anything other than to be kind.
Even through the training, the experiments, the ways they (he) have attempted to break him and reform him into their weapon, he’s never lost it.
She sees him be gentle to his brothers and sisters, Hairu especially. She is very young, almost completely unaware of what she’ll grow up to be. She wishes that she could go back to that time. But she is old now, at least by the Garden’s reckoning, and she has long lost her naivety.
She sees him with Nimura sometimes, when she ventures to that part of the Garden. Such a small, sick, weak boy. He gets taken for training and comes back with bruises upon bruises. It’s a wonder that he hasn’t been killed yet. It wouldn’t be a very good show for the Garden to put out an Investigator like that, especially with the façade they use. She’s fond of him though, if only for the adoration he has for her elder daughter and who his mother was.
She had been tiny and young, but her exuberance had filled any room she was in. No matter how much they had tried to beat her down, she had remained positive until the end. In a way, she had been the only other womb that she had considered in any way a sister.
Her mind wanders to Rize. Kishou isn’t close to her in any tangible way, nor are any of the other children. Rize’s too wrapped up in Nimura most days to notice anything, anyone, else. She hears the whispers, and she hopes they won’t do anything rash. For all the disguised hellscape the Garden is, neither of them would have any idea how to survive Outside. Especially not the one who has been bred to stay Inside her whole life, short as it will probably be.
Her youngest child is not even old enough to walk yet. She looks very similar to Rize, just a little smaller, if her memory holds. She hopes that Kishou will at least get to know her a little before he leaves. He is very skilled, a diligent student, and he is fast approaching his sixteenth birthday. The old man will probably want to place him within the CCG before long. She doesn't hear much about the Outside but the scientists gossip. He would see it as useful to have someone so young to pick off the younger ghouls.
She might even forget her hard-won dignity and beg if he doesn’t.
Every day, disguising her worsening eyesight gets a little harder. Disguising the pain that comes with dying slowly even more so. Kishou is observant; he’ll notice it before long. He noticed the minute her hair started to pale at the roots, after all. It pains her to not tell him how it will begin to happen to him someday. Someday far too soon.
Her plan goes as follows: get Kishou out, and distance herself from Rize. The baby won’t even notice she’s gone, or remember her at all, probably. One of the other mothers can raise her in her place.
She can begin to see why most of the others try to keep themselves at arm’s length from their biological children. No child should have to watch their mother die. She'll keep hers from doing so with all she has.