"No, wait-
Please don't go-
----, please, you can't die-"
"don't leave me"
(this piece has a partner fic :) since tumblr HATES links though the fic is under the cut, and link to the ao3 ver will be in reblogs <3)
Kirisaki Shidou opens his eyes to a field of flowers.
It is calm, peaceful. In his hands is a bouquet of flowers, unlike any in the field. A rose, beautiful and bright red. A hyacinth, bluer than the sky above. Baby’s breath, small and innocent. And a bird of paradise, her favourite.
A gust of wind, brushing past his head, like a familiar touch caressing his hair. He turns, and standing there, alive and well, is his family. His wife, his sons, exactly as he remembered them. Alive, healthy.
He watches as his sons run in the field like the children they are, and he feels not longing, but joy. He hears them laugh and yell joyfully. It feels familiar, domestic.
They run past him, energetic as ever, in a childish game of tag. In their hands are flowers from the bouquet he holds. Baby’s breath and hyacinth, flowers that remind him of them, of their innocence, of their smiling faces.
And he looks at his wife, her hair billowing in the breeze. He can hear her laugh as she watches their sons run and play.
She turns to look at him, smiling, and in her hands is a rose like the one he holds.
And for a moment, he, too, is alive once more. For a moment, he is the man who has lost nothing, who can smile genuinely.
For a moment, he is not a murderer.
But then he takes a step towards them, and the moment fades. He blinks, and his sons are nowhere to be seen. In their place, where he last saw their smiling faces, last heard their youthful laughs, are patches of flowers, wilting and grey.
The flowers that were in their hands lay wilted on the ground.
…their flowers in his hands wilt as well, crumbling in his hands.
The feeling that rises in his chest is disturbingly familiar.
He looks up at his wife, her figure now standing alone in the vast field of flowers. She is turned away from him, and she is still. So still he could almost mistake her for a statue, if not for her hair still flowing with the gentle breeze.
And for a moment, he is the man with everything at stake. For a moment, he is the desperate doctor who would do anything to save what's left of his family.
For a moment, he is a selfish gardener, willing to sacrifice it all for the sake of one.
He takes another step towards her.
Her figure blurs at the edges.
…wait, no, dont…
He takes another step. Flowers die at his feet. He does not notice.
She does not move.
Don't leave, please-
He takes another step, and then another, reaching out his hand. Flowers die with each step. He does not Care. He does not care about the flowers. He cares about his family
With each step, the rose in his hand withers. He quickens his pace, reaching his hand out in desperation.
Please, you have to live, you can’t die!
At some point, she turns, when he is just close enough that his hand brushes against her hair, and she smiles.
Please don't leave me alone-
…And then she’s gone. Her figure dissolves into the breeze as strings of light blue, drifting away along with the petals of her rose.
He looks down at the bouquet in his hands.
Only one flower remains.
And like it, he, too, is alone.
He looks down at the trail of wilting flowers at his feet, and at the wilted remains of his family, and finally, he understands the weight of his actions. Finally, finally, he understands his hypocrisy.
And in that moment, he is a man who has lost everything. In that moment, he is the man who took and took and gained nothing.
In that moment, he knows that he is a selfish, disgusting murderer.
…
Kirisaki Shidou opens his eyes to the ceiling of a prison.
It is a once-unfamiliar sight that he is beginning to become uncomfortably familiar with.
Sitting up from his bed, he presses his palms into his eyes, choking back a sob, trying and trying to rid his mind of his dream. Trying to rid it of the memories of his murder, and of its memories of what he's lost.
…In the end, he only really succeeds in making his gloves wet.
He stands up, ensuring that his eyes are dry before changing out his gloves for a new pair. He takes a deep breath, before setting himself to work. There's no time for grieving, here. There are people who need medical attention. The prisoners’ injuries were of more importance.
…besides, he doesn’t deserve to grieve. To grieve is to make peace, to come to terms. That would be too good for a murderer like him
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cowboy au worldbuilding with the thoma
as you can see im taking some creative liberties with the giant emu by making them more diverse bc canon isnt enough for me and i have the brainworms
extra notes below the cut
standard thoma:
the original thoma and most common type available
perfect for travel, can pull wagons or carry light cargo
fast with good stamina, fastest over short distances
friendly, intelligent, energetic and quick to learn
the most diverse in terms of colors, patterns and extra traits
well rounded in all departments (theyre like the AQ horses of trigun)
draft thoma:
uncommon outside of major cities (kept by specialized breeders)
used for construction work and long haul heavy cargo transport
gentle, patient and eager to work
not built for speed but can walk for days at a steady pace without rest
dense feather coat protects them from the heat and sand
expensive to maintain and keep due to their size
theyre a relatively new type that came from selective breeding
"wild" thoma:
actually feral (aka. previously domesticated), not wild
originating from lost/runaways that have not been in contact with humans for generations
rare and elusive with a small population, sometimes spotted living near shipwrecks
people will pay top $$ for their capture
begin to exhibit adaptive mutations that help them survive the wastelands
smaller and less fluffy than their standard counterparts
dont come in many colors, mostly bays, chestnuts and blacks
hardy with incredible endurance
very stubborn, temperamental and intelligent, cant be forced to do something they dont want (like donkeys)
rarely ridden, mostly kept for crossbreeding
cattle-type thoma:
related to the standard thoma but NOT the same species
common pack animal in caravans, sometimes ridden as a cheaper alternative to the standard thoma
mainly bred for meat, hide and eggs
kept in huge open range herds that travel along worm swarms for feeding
sometimes kept as a form for anti-worm pest control
keratin crests are lightweight and used for protection and display
ranchers will paint patterns on their crests as a form of identification
not the sharpest tools in the shed, tend to bite and trample people
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If you told me this was how TI-83 binaries were structured, I would have straight up thought you were lying. JIT assembled from plaintext hex opcodes?--that can't be true. Maybe TI put that in the manual as a practical joke and nobody noticed.
...
...
...
Look at this stupid-ass hexdump. Every fucking byte of this file from 0x004B to 0x13C0 is either '0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', or 'F'.
This program is anti-compressed. Every byte of machine code is encoded as two bytes of plaintext characters.
Why would you ever do that. Why would you want your executable to stored as plaintext hex digits. It's certainly not for ease-of-editing--the file-initial "AsmPrgm" token (BBh 6Ch) prevents you from opening the file in the onboard editor--and it's definitely not for program integrity checking either. So why on Earth did TI think this was the move to make?
Baffling and upsetting. Thank god the execution model permits self-modifying and self-extracting compressed programs.
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