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dandelion-wings · 2 months ago

Note

For the angst/gore prompts, could we please have “06: Not Realizing They’re Injured” from the first list with Kujou Sara? Especially something to do with those poor wings I sincerely doubt she was ever taught how to properly take care of.

Thank you for the ask! <3 I have to apologize for this one too, anon, because it's another one that ended up not very whumpy--more a mix of hurt/comfort and angst (and a dose of 'how much can I villain Takayuki?'), because your particular prompt sideswiped a fic idea(s)(really more a constellation of fic premises and themes) that I've been turning over for a while and just kind of. stuck to that until it was irretrievably gummed together. I hope it is still sufficiently wing-focused to earn your forgiveness!

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ETA: now on AO3.

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Kujou Takayuki has never once told Sara that she isn't permitted to fly.

She remembers his frown when she was a child, the one time she had leapt into the air to gain an advantage in training. Even though it had given her tactical superiority, he had penalized her for it when evaluating those training exercises. At the time, she had thought it about honor, about the unfairness of exceeding her peers not by outdoing them through the same efforts, but by using an advantage they did not.

When she was older, rising through the ranks in the field, she had once in extremis made an attempt to scout from the air. That time she had seen the frowns on other officers' faces before she had even landed, and understood that honor didn't figure into this at all. It was about being different, being *other*, about the fear some of her soldiers couldn't hide when reminded that she was a youkai, about the contempt some of her superiors showed when they thought she could not see or hear. About her adoption by humanity and what was required of her to uphold the Kujou name.

By the time she becomes a general herself, she doesn't need to be told to stay on the ground.

Flight might have been an advantage for her on the battlefield, but it had never been a necessity. No other tengu has served in the Almighty Shogun's military for almost five hundred years. *Certainly* none served in Watatsumi's. Perhaps she might have gained an edge by taking to the air, but she did not lose significantly by refraining.

After the war, after the Sakuko Decree is lifted, after Takayuki is removed as head of the Kujou Clan and the Tenryou Commission alike, that changes. Gliders have existed for hundreds of years, but have never before been a popular import, nor often even a permitted one; they are different and foreign, and the Almighty Shogun was so long resistant to things that were different and foreign that the Tri-Commission feared to march in lockstep. So has it been with many imports that the Kanjou Commission is only now slowly coming to authorize.

Gliders are particularly popular, due to the mountainous nature of many of Inazuma's most populated islands, where they no doubt would have been popular long before if not for the Tri-Commission's care, but the traveler had made their use seem particularly alluring and permissible. Unfortunately, it isn't only law-abiding citizens who can obtain them now that the sea around Inazuma is clear. The Doushin are struggling to keep up with bandits and smugglers who can just glide away from arrest.

Kamaji, after the third report of such in a row, orders a shipment of gliders from the Knights of Mondstadt to be distributed to the Doushin. When he tells Sara, he smiles, and nods to her wings, and adds, "Though you're fortunate enough not to need them."

Which is all but an order. Even if Takayuki *had* told Sara she wasn't permitted to fly, this would be the new head of the Kujou Clan countermanding that instruction. That the thought of spreading long-disused wings leaves her uneasy doesn't affect her duty.

---

The next such encounter occurs before the shipment of gliders has even arrived. This is a particularly troublesome group of bandits, who have escaped the Doushin twice before; when another report of their activities comes in, Sara leads her forces after them herself. They find the bandits' camp on the edge of a cliff, and when they're startled while celebrating their ill-gotten gains, it seems inevitable that the less drunken and more sharp-witted of them attempt to glide to an escape.

"You, securely bind our existing captives. You, take your troops down that way, and you, that way," Sara orders, pointing out the fastest safe routes down the cliff. "They seem to be aiming for that cliffside, so they may have a secret tunnel or hatch. I'll attempt to cut them off before I get there."

She turns away as the Doushin rush to follow her commands, and spreads her wings at the edge of the cliff. This isn't the first time she's done this, of course--flight is powered by muscles, and any muscle must be exercised. As soon as Kamaji had given his instructions, she'd begun practicing each day, finding a private place in the caverns beneath Inazuma City and attempting first short glides, then short flights, then longer ones. None have been in so open a place as this mountainside with the canyon at its foot, wind whistling through, but she trusts in her training. She could have flown this easily as a child.

Her wings catch the air as she leaps off the edge, and then she's swooping down, flapping to gain speed and get past the gliding bandits, diving towards the cliff to which they're trying to flee. From now she can indeed see a too-deep shadow at the base, where bushes grow. Despite the seriousness of the situation, there's a lightness in being aloft in the open air, a *joy* in flight, that only now that she feels it again does Sara recall, dimly, from her boisterous early childhood. She smiles to herself, all the unease she'd felt when anticipating this change falling away.

The bandits are behind her now, and the cliff close ahead. She flares her wings again to catch herself in the air and adjust, so that she can turn the dive into a plunging attack before she hits the cliff-

A gust of wind hits her broadside as she spreads her wings wide. The force of it wrenches her right wing with a pull that flares into lancing pain, and then the wing collapses in on itself at the wrong angle.

Sara finds herself spiraling as she flaps only the left, desperately trying to slow herself down, to change her bearing. Shifting her grip on her bow, she closes that wing before she reaches the cliff, the other not drooping and dragging limp, and manages to plummet the last few meters and land on both feet. Her right ankle twinges at the awkward landing.

She still manages to turn and straighten and aim before the bandits actually reach her. The uncooperative wing is still alight with pain, but she grits her teeth and lets Electro crackle around her. The bandits hesitate and spread wide to flank her, putting themselves right into the arms of her Doushin.

Lowering her bow, Sara takes a step forward and collapses to one knee as the fractured bone in her ankle snaps under her weight.

---

To add to the humiliation of being carried home by her subordinates, one of her officers goes out of their way to report her injury directly and immediately to Kamaji.

He arrives in the infirmary before the medic has even finished wrapping her ankle. Sara can't even rise to acknowledge his presence properly, only straighten her back, stiffening against the urge to wince when that grinds her injured wing against the back of the chair.

"The operation was a success," she tells him, keeping her voice level even as the medic pulls the bandage tight. "We've captured the entire gang. Their leader is undergoing interrogation now."

"I'm glad to hear it," Kamaji says. "Are you all right? The Doushin told me your wing... it doesn't look good."

Sara looks straight ahead, poised to give her report as best she can. "I trained inadequately for the conditions in the field, and overestimated my ability to handle them. I will have to temporarily remove myself from field operations. That will make the Tenryou Commission's situation more difficult if any complicated matters come up, and I apologize. However, I am still fit to coordinate the Doushin's administrative affairs and handle concerns within the city."

"You can delegate the physical work to your subordinates until you recover. This is a good opportunity to season some of our new officers. If anything serious arises, I *am* the Provisional Clan Head, and willing to take personal responsibility."

Which is in theory his duty--but Sara is accustomed to being Takayuki's right hand, the reason he didn't *have* to handle what he assigned her to personally, even if she had once or twice failed him in that role. She doesn't let herself think, sitting here directly in front of him, that Kamaji also lacks the experience to handle very serious Doushin affairs on his own, but certain conversations with Masahito do impinge vaguely upon her dismay. What matters is not his capability, but her responsibility to manage this department of the Commission, and that he currently considers her unable to do so.

"It will be useful for determining which officers are ready for more advanced duties," Sara agrees. It isn't her place to argue, especially with the results of her own failures. The medic has moved to her wing, prodding at it cautiously, and Sara grits her teeth against a stab of pain.

Kamaji smiles at her. Then he looks at the medic at work, and his smile fades. "How bad is it?"

"I'm not sure, Lord Kujou," the man says. "I've never treated a tengu's wing before. I think I can splint it, but I don't know how well it will heal."

"I don't see how it would be any different from my ankle," Sara says. "I have broken bones before. So long as it's properly aligned and held straight, I've always healed well."

---

The ankle heals faster. Sara is on her feet again within three weeks, though the medics are firm about limiting how much she walks about, and free of their restrictions in six. Her wing, though, lags behind.

It hurts at every slight bump against the back of a chair or a too-close wall, hurts jagged and sharp the first time she grasps a would-be escapee from an unwary Doushin by the arm and he turns and strikes her, and burns bitter and aching if she sits or stands for too long without finding something on which to prop the unwieldy limb up. The medics attempt a frame of bamboo that leaves it stuck awkwardly out; Sara has to discard that after a day of turning sideways to pass through doorways and feeling a fool in front of her men. At no point do they feel it's knit enough to abandon the splint and exercise it again.

A few days after that she's summoned to the Almighty Shogun's presence regarding some aspects of the palace's security. She can feel the Shogun's eyes on her splinted wing, impossible to fold completely against her back, for much of the discussion. Fortunately, the Shogun doesn't force her to recount her mistakes and explain her condition.

Instead, the next day Kamaji summons her to his office and opens with, "I received a message from Her Excellency yesterday regarding your wing." The mortification is so immediate that Sara almost doesn't hear him continue, "Once I explained everything, she arranged for help from Guuji Yae."

That explains the shrine maiden standing in the corner--not one of the bright-eyed young women or sweetly maternal figures who serve the public, but a grey-haired old woman with a lined face and keen eyes. She steps forward before Sara is able to suggest any place private for this examination and begins examining Sara's wing.

"They call this a splint," the woman mutters, and begins to undo it, her gnarled hands steady and sure.

As this was the Shogun's will, Sara simply extends her wing as far as she can when instructed and stands impassive as the woman pokes and prods at it, much more confident than the medics but no more gentle. Kamaji watches with unaccountable anxiety. His expression makes Sara have to breathe deep to quell some of her own. She has no idea what results the Shogun may wish from this examination, nor what instructions she may have given Kamaji regarding Sara's disposition if it does not go well.

Grasping the outer edges of Sara's wing, the woman flexes the joint to its fullest extension, pushing it so far past the point of comfort that Sara can't hold back a gasp as strained and swollen muscles complain. Then she folds it in to the same extent, almost as tightly as Sara has ever pinned them to her back. It can't quite make the full pivot in either direction.

"It never healed properly the last time," the woman says, waspishly. "Breaking it again has only made it worse. Did he have someone with a Vision heal it? I told him it should heal on its own."

"Heal what?" Sara asks, and at the same time Kamaji draws a breath in and says, "He did have a military medic with a healing Vision treat her. He said he didn't have time to wait for her to lie in bed."

The question's context falls into place. Sara knows she had needed tending, and healing, after her fall as a child, even with the Almighty Shogun's blessing to keep her alive. The haze of pain she'd been in afterwards had seemed to wrack every part of her, inspecific, but yes, she well could have broken a wing, plummeting from the air like that. Furthermore, she does recall the healer who tended her after she was brought to the Kujou stronghold, a man whose Vision's power had seemed another blessing on top of the one the Shogun had already given her.

"Not if they weren't used to hollow bones. They over-thickened it and impinged on the joint. And the way it's mending--have you been skimping on your grit?"

"My... grit?" Sara dislikes being so on the back foot in this conversation.

"Powder, sand, whatever you call it. Your mineral supplement. Don't tell me he listened to Mirei and you've been drinking *milk* all this time. I don't want to think about what that could do to your digestion."

"I don't have a mineral supplement."

The woman's grimace of disgust falls away a little too quickly to have been anything but performative, especially given the look that follows. Sara has seen medics giving dire news before. "That does explain why this isn't healing. And shattered into so many fragments, at that. Tengu are just like ravens in this respect. If they don't get enough grit in their diet, their bones go brittle. *Especially* the wings."

"Ah." Sara feels the air go out of her, and makes herself draw it back in. "What is the supplement composed of? I'll begin adding it to my diet immediately."

"Ground eggshells, or fish bones, or snail shells. But that's not going to fix this. It's started setting wrong, and it was already so fragmented that breaking it and resetting it would be a fool's errand. You needed to have been eating your grit the whole time to hope that this could be mended now, especially with that earlier break."

"Are you saying that it won't heal?" Kamaji asks, sounding agonized. Sara wonders again what instructions the Shogun may have given him.

"Not properly. Not such that she'll be much of a flier ever after."

Sara holds herself very still against the wave of despair. She is a competent warrior and an able servant of the shogun without her wings; she's served in that way her entire adult life. There should be no import to being told that she must continue to do so. Even if the issues with the joint preclude a tengu's proper flight, perhaps she can glide, or a glider can be adapted to her, so she can continue to assist the Doushin as Kamaji wishes. Even if the Almighty Shogun desires her wings mended... surely Sara's service has been sufficiently loyal that the Shogun will not reject her for this alone. Even if that disastrous flight had begun full of joy, the satisfaction in carrying out her duties should eclipse this strange sense of loss at something she had for years voluntarily put aside.

The woman seems to sense something in her stillness, though Sara knows she's kept her feelings off her face. "Honestly, I'm surprised this hasn't happened well before this, the number of battles you've been in."

"I've never flown in battle," Sara corrects her, voice flat. "This was the first time I've attempted to fly in the field."

"Why," the woman asks, looking at her in disbelief, "would a *tengu warrior* stay grounded?"

Sara holds her tongue, because she knows the answer. She knows it, and yet to say it would be to disparage Takayuki--to suggest that he had forbidden her to fly, when he never had, when he had never said a word on the subject one way or the other. He had only frowned.

He had only impatiently had her healed in a way this woman, familiar with ravens' wings and apparently with tengu's, had advised against. He had only disregarded the same woman's instructions on her diet, knowing that it would be to her detriment should she attempt to take to the air. He had only put her in a position that destined her, when she did try to take wing, to inevitably fall back to the ground.

"We'll find a solution to this," Kamaji says, determined in that way Sara has always admired, as if she, too, would be cause to challenge the Almighty Shogun if he had to. The words barely register as what Sara had always thought her understanding of the situation shifts once again.

Takayuki has never had to tell Sara she isn't permitted to fly. He's built that limitation into her very bones.

#i don't know why i want to drag sara's brothers into everything i write for her but the urge is inexorable so i just let it happen #see previously-posted meme etc.#i did bird medical research on this but not a LOT of medical research so i tried to vague over the specifics but please forgive errors #asked and answered #why not meme i guess #kujou sara deserves nice things #ascended fic

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still-breathing-au-p3r · 2 months ago

Text

[Previous post for October 30th] [First post for October 30th]

He finally manages to hunt down the error Kirijo had pointed out and wrangle the equation into submission. Which means he can– for now at least– put math behind him, where it belongs.

He pushes the worksheets towards Kirijo and rolls out his wrists and shoulders while she shuffles them into order and tucks them neatly away. She immediately produces a new stack of paper, flourishing a little like she’s doing some kind of magic trick. And hell, maybe she is– he’s got no idea how she never seems to run out of fresh work to throw at him.

Shinjiro can only sigh in defeat. He did ask for this, after all.

Okay, so not nearly as bad as it could be. That might explain her little burst of showmanship, actually, if she’s presenting him with something that might have a chance to be interesting.

He’s joking, mostly, but Kirijo sighs with real disappointment.

He takes the packet from her and starts to read– it’s mostly about the political pissing contests of various Roman emperors. Not as exciting as he’d hoped; he’s always been interested in what regular people were up to more than anyone who lived in a palace, but he’ll definitely still take it over math.

As he gets to work, Shinjiro finds himself dwelling on how nice it is, having their verbal fencing matches again.

Back when S.E.E.S had been brand new, he’d found it incredibly annoying how Kirijo always seemed to have a prim and witty response to anything he might say. He'd thought at first that she just couldn’t stand for anyone else to get the last word, then that she couldn’t stand to let him, specifically, have it.

It had taken him an embarrassingly long amount of time to clue in to the fact that that was just how she played. Sure, he and Aki bickered for fun more than a little often, but usually as more of a lead-up to a good, hands-on scrap. For Kirijo, though, trading banter back and forth was the whole entire game.

Once he’d figured out that he was supposed to play along, chasing after the upper hand in a conversation became fun instead of frustrating. Knowing that it was always a toss-up whether his teasing would get deftly parried or if he could manage to land the hit and fluster her enough to disrupt her pristine image– it was all part of the game to him.

He’d tried not to let himself settle into that rhythm again when he’d come back to the dorms, and he’d done an even worse job of it than he had of avoiding his other old habits. Kirijo’s just too good at pushing his buttons, just like Aki.

But now– Now that he doesn’t feel the need to keep himself at arm’s length anymore, falling right back into step is the easiest damn thing in the world. He doesn’t even need to think about it.

It feels good to have this back. Living his life, whatever’s left of it, means building connections and rebuilding the ones he had purposefully bulldozed before. He’s lucky Kirijo is even giving him a second chance at friendship at all, so he’s not about to waste it.

There’s absolutely no way he’ll ever say that out loud, though. Especially not to her.

“Given you’re reading about Rome, that reminds me.” Her voice is a little too light and airy. Someone who hadn’t been on the scheming end of that tone before might have missed it, but Shinjiro can tell right away that she’s trying to get something out of him.

“Akihiko mentioned that you found his second awakening to be quite amusing,” she continues.

“Yeah, Aki didn’t get it,” he snorts, unable to help himself. “Bet you did, though.”

“There is a certain irony present, yes.” The face she puts on is demure, but the way she flicks a little of her hair over her shoulder looks suspiciously like preening to him. He has to squash down a smile. “You could have filled him in yourself, you know.”

“Sure. But where’d the fun in that be?” The grin he was fighting off wins and Kirijo lowers herself enough to roll her eyes at him in response.

“Yamagishi’s new Persona is Roman as well,” she tries again, casting another line. “Juno.” When he laughs, she frowns at him, apparently not a fan of his reaction. “What’s so funny, Aragaki?”

“Nothin’ at Yamagishi’s expense,” he says. “I just wouldn’t’ve guessed that for her. The whole ‘queen of the gods’ thing would’ve made me think of you, actually.”

Kirijo clears her throat a bit and pointedly does not preen again, just like how he does not feel stupidly pleased with himself over the reaction that she definitely didn’t have.

“Guess it does make sense though," he continues. "If you think about the whole ‘eyes of Argus’ thing. She have peacock feathers?”

“After a fashion, yes.” Kirijo purses her lips thoughtfully. “They are… somewhat abstracted.”

“Well yeah. Almost wouldn’t be a Persona if it didn’t get a little weird with the details, right?”

“No, I suppose it wouldn’t.” She flashes another short-lived smile and then goes back to looking thoughtful. He can practically hear gears turning as she weighs whether or not to make another attempt. “Amada’s was something of a surprise. She's called Kala-Nemi.”

He wracks his brain and comes up empty. “Don’t recognize that one. Doesn’t sound like a Roman name, though.”

“I was unfamiliar as well. And you’re correct– she’s from Bronze Age India, from a tradition that predates Hinduism. It took quite a bit of effort to find any information about her, actually. She shares her name with two other male figures from Hindu texts, and references to them are far more plentiful. From what I understand, though, she was a spirit associated with the Wheel of Time and the changing of the seasons.

“As a Persona, she excels in healing and protection magic. The new Theurgy Amada gained from awakening to her is– it’s extraordinary.” The way Kirijo says the word makes it clear that it’s a gigantic understatement.

Healing and protection, huh?

“That’s better for him,” Shinjiro says softly. The image of Amada from the other day, hunkered in on himself with guilt and nerves, is still fresh in his mind.

“It is,” Kirijo murmurs. She’s silent for another few seconds, clearly hoping that he’ll take his cue at last.

And sure, he could talk about his new Persona, like she’s been nudging him to. He could also speculate about whether he’s got his own new Theurgy. But what would be the point? The next full moon is just four days away, and then none of it is going to matter anymore.

Kirijo sighs, accepting defeat. “Pardon me for distracting you from your reading. I’ll let you get back to it.”

“No worries.” He means it, too. Kirijo might push, but unlike Aki, she does know when to call it quits.

It’s yet another thing Shinjiro appreciates about her.

#shinjiro aragaki #mitsuru kirijo #shinjimitsu #persona 3 #p3 #persona 3 reload #still breathing au #sbau main plot #sbau canon #sbau october #sbau october 30 #talksprites and fic #shinjiro pov #(everything Mitsuru says about Kala-Nemi is pulled directly from my own experience trying to research her)#(literally the only sources i could find at first were the megaten wiki and an extremely dubious zodiac website)#(that based on the phrasing it used might actually have sourced its info FROM p3 for all i can tell)#(it might not be much but at least i'm fairly certain that nothing i wrote in this is just blatant horseshit though)#(yes i know this is a self indulgent fanfic and not an academic paper but i have STANDARDS dagnabbit)

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