Chapter Text
Inosuke fists the gray coarse fur of his mother, he coughs and huffs as she trudges along.
He’s big enough to walk the distance between the creek and the den they spend most of their time in, but everytime he insists his mother shoves him with her snout and flips him onto her back with ease. And everytime without fail he lets laughter bubble out of him, but quickly covers it up with an angry pout.
But recently, the sun has disappeared beneath the clouds. And white blankets of snow started to rain down.
The usual habit of refusing the ride disappears as his skin grows paler and his nose glows red with snot and mucus. His lungs can’t handle the distance anymore, he can barely walk a few steps before he bursts into a fit of coughs. His mother swaddles him up in his blanket, the one covered in kanji he couldn’t read, and she carries him in her mouth.
But Inosuke doesn’t know why, why he has become so weak, a liability to his mother.
He’s seen this in nature before, where their kids get too sick and are left behind. Or eaten for nutrients. He knows he should be left behind, but his mother doesn’t let go of him even once. She is unlike the other animals he’s ever met, but he doesn’t mind it since she’s his mom.
But kindness doesn’t carry him that far.
His fingers are dry and peeling, bathed an angry red as his hands swell slightly. Inosuke feels like he could die, his eyes feel too weak to open.
Whenever his hands unclench from his mothers fur, too tired to keep hold, his mother squeals until he starts moving again. Some part of him feels as if she’s checking if he’s alive, even though she’d be better off without dead weight.
When they get to the creek, his mother digs at the ground until it is free of snow and sets his blanket down. She drinks from the creek first before she turns and starts shoveling snow near his face. He knows the drill already.
When he became too cold to move, he couldn’t drink from the stream. Instead his mother pushed snow towards him to eat, and he understands its for him to digest.
It’s water just in another form.
But he couldn’t do it, not even with his mother incessantly prodding him with her snout. He was so very cold, and dying here would let him rest.
His mother eventually got the memo, but instead of leaving him there to finally succumb to the cold, she sat next to him. Nuzzling her head next to him. It was all wrong, because she didn’t need to die. What kind of animal died with their child? Inosuke could only tear up.
He wrapped his hands into her fur and wailed.
There were prone to predators with how loud he was crying, but the cold would much rather get them first. He wanted to keep going but he couldn’t, and his mother would die with him. For one reason he can’t ever grasp.
He cries for what seems like forever, until his tears have turned icy on his face. When the snow piles back onto them. His mother doesn’t shift, barely even breathes.
Until there's a click of a lever.
A large black net swings over them, before bunching up and trapping them in their grasp. He’s seen such nets when he watches the hunters fish in a lake nearby, to capture.
To eat
His mother finally panics, in a fit full of squeals and huffs she thrashes against their binding, standing protectively in front of him as if to shield him.
His eyes are blown wide with fear and a sense of anger. Anger to dare try and trap him and his mom. He can’t move however, and can’t do anything to rip the net off of them. Something tells him he wouldn’t be able to either way, even if he was healthy.
His eyes meet with a group of people rather than one lone hunter.
His gaze catching the man trapping them, from his fingers are long threads. Intertwined to make the net trapping them. Akin to a webs, and similar.
Like a spider.
The man flinches back when he finally catches sight of him, before turning around and barking orders towards the people around him. Its a foreign language he doesn’t know, but it’s slightly familiar. He knows the humans speak it, but Inosuke never learned what their strange sounds meant.
The people beside the man step forward, they’re dressed in neat clothing. With these squares that display their faces clipped onto their shirts. One of them had a face mask, and the other had bony fingers and weird eyes.
They speak to his mom— no, they speak to him. But he can’t understand. All he does is bare his teeth and growls, but a pup has never been scary to predators.
They must see his weakness, the way he shakes and curls into the warmth of his mother. The redness of his face and joints.
A look of panicked understanding crosses over their face and the man with the net quickly drags them forward. Closer to the group. At this point his mother has stopped fighting, instead laying her body on his to keep him warm and protected.
He finds his mind swimming with questions and fear and an overwhelming chill that shakes his bones.
The last thing he sees is the group peering over them, the man with the mask pulling said accessory off. Dark green smoke pours from his mouth, and Inosuke doesn’t know any better than to inhale.
His vision dims and he feels his mother still on top of him.
…
His eyes open a split second later to a warm room. The lights are dimmed but he can make out the weird structures in the room. There is a large blanket on him, one much cleaner and fluffier than his baby blanket.
Speaking of the blanket, it was folded neatly on a small table next to him. He would grab at it if he still didn't feel so weak, the blanket felt too far away right now and the place he slept was so very warm.
He had just woken up but he found the edges of sleep grasping him. Just one more nap, then he would be strong enough to take on everything. He’d save himself, surely.
He missed his mother.
…
This time he doesn’t wake up of his volition, there’s a hand on his forehead that’s uncomfortably cool. His eyes flutter awake to see the man with a mask there. Sitting next to him with a cup of something steaming.
He looks different, in a new change of clothes along with a long white coat. It’s odd to see, he doesn’t usually see humans wear that.
There's a tell tale prickling of fear in the back of his mind, one that told him he was stupid for resting in enemy territory. One that screamed for him to get away from the predator. Hard earned instincts drilled into him by his mother and his surroundings.
Inosuke lashes out, using his nails to scratch at the arms and push them away. It’s a pitiful attack but it gets a yelp out of the man. He then tumbles out of the blanket and hits the floor with a thud. Stumbling away from the man to escape. The feeling of pride lasts only a moment, as he feels a hand pull him back by the collar of his shirt.
Clothes he didn’t have before, he instantly detests the shirt.
He tries running forward again, pulling against the shirt to the point he almost chokes. The edge presses up against his throat and resists dutifully. Not even tearing as he claws at it and tries to leave.
The man with a mask, smokey he’s started calling him, hooks his hands under his arms and picks him up in one fell swoop.
Smokey carries him weirdly, as if he’s never held anything before. The man’s expression is one that says he’s completely out of his element when it comes to him. Growing even more so with every second that passes as Inosuke thrashed and screamed. Sounding awfully like his mother did when she protected him.
Inosuke was determined to make it as hard as possible to pick him up. He kicked and punched with his tiny fists. Pounding them into the mans chest and trying to grab fistfuls of the man's hair and pulls hard
Smokey keeps speaking hurriedly, trying to keep him under control. The only word he catches is the word
Mom
Inosuke pauses, despite the fact he knows he’s in danger. Eyes widening as he looked up at the man.
“Mom?” He calls out, he needed her.
Where was she?
“Mom.” The man repeats almost hesitantly, and it was his mistake.
Inosuke started thrashing against him with even more fervor, shrieking the word ‘mom’ and calling for her with little squeals and whines.
He even bites the man's finger when it gets too close to his face. This makes the man scream, and not long after more people come in. He doesn’t recognize them from the group before, most of them are also clad in white long coats.
A minute passes as smokey tries to speak to the group, interrupted by the screaming of a child every four words.
Eventually they must see its futile to keep him trapped, and the man holds him as far away as he can while he speedwalks to a different room. Inosuke gets put into a room with a bunch of cages. The lights already turned off bathing the room in an eerie darkness. The door closes shut on him as Smokey walks away. Gesturing for him to stay still and saying stuff he can’t understand.
Inosuke puffs his chest up and pounds on the door, ignoring the man's orders. He does so until he hears a familiar squeal behind him.
He whips around so fast it hurts his neck, but all he does is scramble forward. Skidding to a stop in front of a cage, one that was surely too small for any animal, where his mother was kept. He felt unwanted tears well up in his eyes.
His emotions seemed overwhelming, spilling over when he finally found himself face to face with his mother.
His mother ushered him closer with a huff and pressed her snout onto his forehead. The bars on the cage were so tightly packed, his mother could barely get her mouth through. He felt hiis anger rise, bubbling beneath his skin as he tried his best to hug her.
It’s fine, he’s dealt with this same situation many times before. When his mother got stuck behind a fence or a dense forest.
As long as his skull can squeeze past the bars..
He gestured for his mother to move to the side, which she did with an exasperated snort. He tried his best to force his head past the bars, the baby fat on his cheeks flattening uncomfortably before he got his head through. It was a sort of awkward position to move from, but he’s done yhis thousands of times.
He reached his arm up to dislocate his right shoulder, there was a sting of pain that dulled every time he did it. The only thing he let go was a little hiss og pain.
The string of pops and cracks that followed after always managed to scare his mom, he could see her in the corner of the cage. Huffing impatiently. A low whine in her tone as if to display concern. It was necessary.
Soon after he pushed his left shoulder against the cage's bars until it cracked. From there on it was fairly simple, and took no less than a second for him to slip in.
His least favorite part was putting his limbs back in place after dislocating them, it was always more work and pain then it was worth. At least in his mind, and surely his mothers mind as well. With another round of cracks and stifled yelps he jumped into his mother.
His mother nuzzled into him with a grunt, she looked more lively, as if she had more food in her. Yet her fur was in disarray, and she had a hole punched through her ear. Looped through it was a tag. His face scrunched up at the sight, as he made a soft grabbing motion.
His mother shook her head, turning the other way to hide it. Instead she nudged him to the floor and laid against him.
He kept his fists in her fur and hugged her even tighter. It was uncomfortable on the floor of the cage, the metal cool against his skin. The only thing in here was a tray with water and dried food. It was lonely, and sad.
He would never let her rot in this cell for long, never.
He would get her out
He would
He buried his head into the fur of his mother and sleep came easy.
…
He wakes up to yelling, there's a muffled sort of shout coming from outside the door that rouses him from his sleep.
His mother had shifted during his nap, now finding her laying in front of him to block him from view. She was still awake, cautiously watching the door, staying eerily silent.
The door to the room opened and the lights flicked on, causing him to flinch back. Rubbing his eyes with a whine as it flooded his vision. After he adjusted to the light he saw three people standing outside the cages. They were yelling at one another.
He couldn’t see their faces, since his mother had pressed him back into the furthest corner, but he recognized one of them by their clothes.
Smokey.
He held himself in a reserved manner, hunching in on himself as the other two yelled. Presumably at him. Inosuke didn’t know that they were saying, but he knew they were angry.
There's a sigh and all of them eventually spread out, keys in hand. He could see each of them walk around and peer behind each cage and into them. It was only then did he realize that there were other animals in the cages. They looked a lot worse for wear then his mother did.
They were all around them in different cages, and he didn’t even notice. Animals weren’t supposed to be that quiet, yet these ones… they didn't so much as move, flinching whenever the people came close.
He held back a low growl, humans were worse than he thought.
There was a small scuffle in the corner of the room, as Inosuke eyed a small weasely-beared animal bare its teeth at one man.
This one was weird though, he’s never seen an animal quite like it. Not only that but the animal lacked claws to defend itself, and had flat human teeth. Was this even an animal at all? The white furred animal stared down the human before they backed off. Muttering a few… words?
This animal could speak the same language the humans could!
He stared in equal parts awe and confusion, as he tried to figure out how such an animal could exist. If perhaps the animal was actually like those weird powered humans.
But no, Inosuke could tell the rodent wasn’t.
Inosuke has see a few of those animal humans before, they smelled different from true animals. It’s like they had this scent that seemed to follow them no matter what they laid on top. Not only that but they felt different too, they talked and walked differently. He could just feel it within himself, he knew.
The rodent, even from the corner of the room, was an animal.
An interesting one.
He didn’t get to think about it for long, because soon enough he felt a gloved hand grasp at his leg.
He instinctively kicked out with a yelp, wrenching his leg free from their grasp. The person had happened to sneak up behind their cage, and had seen him. Inosuke jumped to the middle of the cage so they couldn’t grab him, not that there was much room in the cage to do so in the first place.
The commotion caused smokey and the other person to gather around the cage, each time they reached their fingers for Inosuke, he had tried to swat it away. His mother would bite at them as well, now standing and fully alert.
After a while they stopped trying to reach in and grab him, they couldn’t pull him past the bars safely even if they tried.
There was a loud metal screeching above him before the cage opened up and light flooded in. There were a few more shouts before Smokey scrambled to grab him. A few attempts getting way too close for his liking.
His mother surged forward and met another attempt at grabbing him with a large bite. He heard the man scream before his mother clenched her jaw and there was a sickening crack. Echoing throughout the compound. Blood trickled from his moms mouth, but it was not her own.
Smokey let out a strangled gasp, trying to yank his hand away, but his mother kept holding firmly.
The other strangers panicked, one of them landing a blow against his mother to make her let go. His mother squealed, before backing off and pushing Inosuke to the corner to protect him.
Smokey had tears in his eyes and a bleeding hand from what he saw. He was hurriedly ushered away by what he now realizes is the weird eyed woman.
Swirly, like her eyes that spun around in spirals.
The only one remaining after those two left is an unfamiliar face, he’s an old man with wrinkles and thin wired glasses. His hair seems to be peppered with streaks of white and gray, but his original hair color seems like a vibrant orange.
He didn’t reach for them but he had an odd look of realization. As if he figured it all out.
The man spoke but Inosuke already knew he couldn’t understand, something told him however that he wasn’t the one being spoken to. His mother huffed on top of him and shifted as the man spoke. As if his mom could understand them.
No, she could understand them!
Inosuke looked at her with confusion, and all he got in return was a little nudge as she moved out of the man's way.
His mother walked him forward towards the opening, prodding him with her snout and sticking by his side. Inosuke guessed that she trusted the strange man.
Inosuke was understandably hesitant, but urged on by his mother he stepped forward. The man reached for him, and he had to fight the urge to bite him. Soon enough he was lifted up and out of the cage, and set onto the tiled ground. Then the man tried to lift his mother out too.
It was a bit sad to see, as the old man shook with the effort to carry such a large boar, but he was too excited with the prospect of his mom and him going free.
His mother was placed onto the ground with a thud, the man rubbing his sore arms. The old man shot a smile towards him when he noted Inosukes gaze.
Weirdo
He promptly looked away, instead walking up to his mother.
The man spoke again, looking directly at his mom now. His face frozen in glee, and his eyes glancing between him and his mom. He noted the man's weird grin, and his weird clothes. The bright red shoes for one, they would draw way too much attention in the wild.
Still, besides his weird clothing style, Inosuke didn’t like the man. Call it a gut feeling, how he felt when he was being watched by a predator. He could tell his mother didn't trust him either, or any human for that matter, but for now they had to.
If they wanted to get out
The man only said a couple more words before he turned towards the door, opening it without sparing another glance behind him. Clearly expecting them to follow.
His eyes fell behind them, the animals all staring at them in their cages. He found himself trying to find the white furred one, his eyes catching on him as he stared. An anger in his eyes that was hard to miss, glaring.
His mother nudged him after noticing him drifting, and flipped him over onto her back as he giggled. Momentarily forgetting about the man. His hands automatically hooked onto her fur like he had done many times before. It had felt good to be so warm and energetic, after the sickness that plagued him had left him so lethargic
It felt good to be with his mother for good now, as he nestled into her fur. Everything was fine.
She trotted out of the room and after the man, staying a good couple feet behind him as Inosuke stared at his back. Before his eyes eventually slid down towards his mother.
He stared at the tag on her ear, bobbing with each step. The one she didn’t allow him to see, was it bad? Could she herself even read it? He couldn’t understand what it was, he lacked the knowledge to comprehend it.
He frowned, looking away frustratedly.
Stupid writing
What the hell did Quirked mean anyways?