Archive of Our Own ^beta

There was a stench in the air; burned sunder and decay, a thick waft of pitch black dust clouds floated heavily over the ash stained snow. Debris and rubble housed what little remained of the once abundant life home to the Adlivun, at least that was what was written in the tattered books sometimes unearthed by the tilling war machines rolling over the land - patrolling the territory. They themselves have not been alive long enough to have witnessed an Adlivun as beautiful as shown in the few illustrations found in those books.

Huddling under a caved wall, a freezing draft shot through the cracked stone and wood and they pulled the white bear-pelt closer around themselves, shivering violently. Their bare feet were violet and red from the cold, their fingers and toes numb and useless.
The bear pelt concealed their body amidst the fresh snow falling from the sky, the lingering taste of death had left their tongue lax. No sound was made by them, their breath disappearing into the soft fur. It was somewhat of a safe haven, something to hide away in and feel in control. The bear the pelt had been taken from was one of pride and strength, it would lend them its tenacity. It had to. They pleaded with the spirit of the bear - not only for strength but also for guidance.

A shot rang thundering through the silence of the night. The bullet tore through the weathered wood. A pained gasp escaped their tired lips. White hot pain surged through their body as the pelt's fur smeared with blood. It stuck to their back like a leech. Gone was any semblance of foolish comfort. The bear had made its choice, all had abandoned them.

They screamed then, so loud and curling, a guttural sound of fury from deep within their soul. The wall bowed further, creaking and wailing in chord with their cry. Somewhere further away the gunman stood and chewed his bruised and dry lip between his teeth, a scowl etched into his creased forehead.

"We were hunting bears, why does that sound like a bobcat in heat," a second man stepped from the thicketh, pushing his hands onto his hips.

"I think I just killed a kid," the gunman said, his expression remained pulled taunt.

"You think," the other man asked, lifting his hand to shield himself from the low light of the sun.

The scream persisted for a moment longer, then another - the gunman absently wondered if they didn't need to breathe. Then it died down, a couple of miserable coughs followed the ebb of the scream.

The second hunter said: "Should we not check?"

"I don't know, man, could be a trap," the gunman said, fiddling with the chest band of his rifle, "those war-hungry bastards have been finding new and creative ways to swindle you out of your own heartbeat."

"Didn't you just say you think it was a kid?"

The gunman grunted dismayed. He did say that.
"You go then."

The other man laughed, "Nah, you shot it. You deal with it. Not my fault you fear children more than nothing else in the world."

He grumbled something under his breath before stepping closer to the ruined building.

They could feel the gunman approaching, sense it in the shift of the wind and the shuffling of powdered snow underneath their feet. It felt as if their heart stopped and they bit their lip so hard it broke open and böotched the front of the pelt with blood as well. The gunman's steps drew closer, soon they would see their miserable form, bleeding and hiding. Fury in their blood boiled over, hot tears burned their frozen skin, and they surged forward - lunging for a broken pipe, they cut their palms on its ragged edges but the pain was lost to them and the blood oozing from their fingers froze solid immediately encasing them and locking their hands firmly in place around the pipe.

They whipped around and blindly swung for the gunman. Nothing mattered but the sound of metal crashing against anything within reach. The bear pelt was still stuck to their back, its weight pulled on the wound there and the pain only spurred them on. And they were screaming again, raw.

With an ear splitting crunch and clang, followed by a muted thud the gunman went down unconscious. They had hit him right over the head. Satisfied, they lowered their arms clinging onto the pipe. With a last feral snarl toward the other hunter, blood loss got the better of them - they swayed and tumbled over, passed out in the snow; the polar bear pelt draped over them like a shield, dwarfing their tiny body. They were but a malnourished child after all. Their body was so cold the snow beneath their trembling limbs never melted.
From a few paces away the other hunter starred in bewilderment, the child had charged at his partner like a wild beast. Thank the Aeons, their arms were spindly and weak, so he supposed the gunman would live, but the child was a different story. Carefully he made his way toward the two contrasting figures on the tundra's ground. The gunman grunted in pain and the child wheezed beneath the pelt. He walked past his partner to take hold of a corner of the child's pelt, lifting it slightly. Immediately the child contorted in agony, the hide of the pelt had fused with the blood and dirt on their back, the wound looked nasty from what he could make out. The closer he looked the more he feared the child would not make it through the next few hours.

“Poor thing,” the hunter said, pulling out a short knife from his belt. With as much tenderness as he could muster with his own hands having begun to go numb in the cold he lifted the child's head. Their eyes were framed by deep, dark circles, signs of frostbite and necrosis disfiguring their face. Wild, snowy hair that matched that of the bear's pelt they wore fluttered in the surging wind.
As a hunter he knew there was no use in mourning unwilling prey, what was done was done, the child had put up a decent fight – so he lifted the blade and put it to the child's jugular, it would only take a second and he doubted the child was aware enough to even register the pain. He had freed many a-small animals that had gotten caught in the crossfire, from their misery before, never a human child, though.

Just as he took a deep breath and set to pull the knife over the child's neck; their eyes flew wide open. They stared at him, a wild cocktail of rage, pain and fear in their gray eyes and suddenly they were flailing like a salmon, writhing and yelling and thrashing around. The hunter stumbled back, the knife fell from their grasp. He gasped a startled laugh; he could have sworn that kid had already left the realm of the living and he was only going to do them the honor, but alas; “You got quite the fight in you, little cub,” he said.

If the child understood him they didn't seem to care as not a moment passed before they weren't already trying to maul the hunter, cracked fingernails dug into his arms and that little beast but actually tried to bite him. He grabbed them by the neck, they weren't particularly heavy, not at all if he was being honest, and hoist them over his shoulder. The child screamed at that. kicking their legs and attempting to turn around and bite the hunter's shoulder.

“Settle down, little cub, can't leave you out here if you refuse to die the easy way,” he said, then mumbled under his breath, “I'd feel bad just letting you freeze to death.”

The child did not settle down, but at least they seemed tired enough to stop the biting.

From the ground the gunman came to slowly, he held his head and whined.
“Tiny brat got one solid forehand, gotta give them that.” He hissed in pain and added a disgruntled, “shit.”

The hunter laughed while securing his grip around the still flailing child.
“They got you good, I can see that.”

“What are we gonna do with them, though. Can't exactly keep it like a pet. Neither of us know the first thing about child rearing,” the gunman took a look at the way the child was bleeding out as they spoke but still got enough fire to make a fuss, “especially one of that caliber.”

“Nothing we can't figure out along the way,” the hunter said cheerfully, and began to walk back toward where they had come from.

The gunman sputtered, exasperation written over his face;”You grow attached way too fast,” he yelled, then said, “Hey! Wait for me, my head hurts like a bitch.”

The child, who was now facing him from over the hunter's shoulder, snarled at him. Their teeth were surprisingly clean, considering how feral they seemed and their eyes were sharp and aware, even through the blood loss. For a moment the gunman thought, a possibility came to mind.

“Do you think they could be one of those,” he asked his partner who only shrugged.

“Maybe,” he answered, “I've dealt with many feral and aggressive beasts before, this one on the other hand seems to be more so scared than overtly aggressive. They are just a child.”

They had passed out again halfway over the hill the strange man was carrying them and only woke up to find themselves wrapped in a light blanket in an almost suffocatingly warm room. Stroking over the scratchy fabric of the blanket they took a look around, wooden walls, some paintings, a small wooden dresser and a corded rug. Again they stroked over the blanket, the fabric felt weird under their still numb fingers, unfamiliar and it made them angry.

They whipped their head around, searching around the room, trying to find their pelt but it was nowhere to be seen. Panik surged within their mind and they began to shake. They stumbled off the bed they had been sitting on, getting their legs tangled up in the blanket and falling face first onto the rug on the floor. It must have been loud enough of a ruckus, because not long after the hunter tore open the door staring down at them fighting to untangle themselves. An amused chuckle left the hunters mouth and they snarled at them.

“Calm down, little cub, let me help you,” he said but when he stepped closer they snapped their teeth at him and screamed. It didn't take long for them to tear through the flimsy fabric of the blanket and once free they made a break for the door. The hunter couldn't quite take a hold of the tattered shirt they wore before they were already running into the larger living space.

“Grab them,” the hunter yelled.

“You let them out,” the gunman shrieked.

It took about thirty four minutes until the dust settled. The living room was laid in ruins, smashed cutlery was scattered over the floor, two picture frames had cracked after slipping from their fastenings on the wall, the couch was torn open on one side and the newspaper that originally laid on the coffee table now rested half burned in the trash.
The child was curled up behind the sofa, the bear pelt they had been so adamant about finding pulled snugly around them so as to only have the tip of their nose show from underneath. They were snoring quietly.

The gunman and the hunter were sitting on opposite sides of the couch, catching their breath. After a moment the hunter leaned over the torn armrest, looking down at the now sleeping child.

“They are kinda cute like this,” he said, “They look peaceful resting there.”

“That beast destroyed our living room, nothing even remotely cute about that,” the gunman retorted.

Another moment passed before the hunter spoke again; “We had been hunting bears. I believe we were quite successful, don't you think?”

“Not the kind of game I had in mind, no,” the gunman said rubbing his face, “Shit like this is why polars are off limits, I swear to the Aeons.”

The hunter laughed, then gasped.

“What,” the gunman asked irritably, “What is it now?!”

“Nanook,” he said, snapping his finger. The sound caused the child to stir slightly in their sleep.

“No,” the gunman deadpanned.

Nanook stayed with the two men for another fifteen years. Well, they hadn't had much of a choice in the beginning as anytime they had tried to escape the hunter would track them down sooner or later, grabbing them by the neck like a disgruntled bear sow carrying her disobedient cub back to their den. They never understood why these two wanted to keep them around. They were old and ragged, retired soldiers who had build a house in the woods far away from the active war grounds, one was gruff and and never quite looked them in the eyes, the other was far too forthcoming making it appear forced and unnatural as if he was making himself remain in that state else they'd simply cease to exists. They were also madly in love, Nanook wasn't daft enough to not have noticed, and they treated them like their child. And gradually they would open up to the two men.

The idyll wouldn't last, though, when nightmares plagued their every moment spent asleep some of these days. Memories of a time before the forest and the snow hunting their sleep.

Nanook was shaking and crying silent tears as pain went through their tiny body. A whip came down hard on their back, their thighs, their arms, their hands, their feet. Discipline, Punishment, Torture, it didnt matter what the officers called it, it remained the same old bloodbath.
They were a prisoner before having ever tasted freedom, the encampment on the southeastern tundra had held their parents and had taken them from them as well. Nanook couldn't even make themselves remember their faces.

Some may come to wonder what they were being whipped for; the answer was amusement for the officers, mainly. On paper, on the other hand, they would later write Acts Of Disregarding Authority. Nanook had slipped on the frozen ground and scraped their knee.

They were cannon fodder. Nanook themselves and many other children their age. They only came to realize that as band after band of children were shepherded into large vehicles, doors locked with steel. And they had tried to run then, get away, survive, but the officers pulled them by the hair and hauled them into the back of the vehicle where at least fifty other children were staring into space like puppets.

At the front, where gunshots rang like clockwork and the explosions of bombs echoed into the late night, the cars were emptied out and the children got sorted into multiple groups of twenty, tagged to each other by heavy steel chains. Each assigned a number and a quadrant. Then they were led by a low ranking officer to somewhere farther into the field where they were told to wait. The officer would never return.
Many children cried through the night, others took their own life by jumping into one of the many open landmines, taking at least four or five of the children chained closest to them along into death. The air reeked of blood and decay and gunpowder and Nanook could never forget the feeling of absolute helplessness.

With the two men they were able to dress these wounds and attempt to make amends with the pain in their soul. That persistent ache and flutter of their heart, bouts of fear and anger. They had learned the only way out is if they tear all the walls down, else they'd suffocate and drown. But the hunter always showed them patience, and the gunman remorse. They felt like they could breath without spitting fire, like they could move without showing the world their claws.

It was a late afternoon when it happened, Nanook stood at the fireplace, dozing about as they had already finished all their chores assigned by the two men. It was quiet. The warmth from the fire made Nanook feel lazy and comfortable. In the back the gunman was smoking a cigar, his now fully grayed hair was thin and his face had sunken over the years. The hunter was in the kitchen, whistling a tune as he chopped vegetables for a stew. He too had aged considerably.

It didn't take long before the gunman and Nanook were called to the dinner table. That was when the bombshell collided with the roof of the house, ear splitting noise echoed through their body as the ceiling caved in. Wooden splinters whipped around them, they could hear screams of agony, they could see how a beam from the roof impaled the hunter and how the gunman was crushed by the weight of a crumbling wall.

Nanook themselves got lucky. They had managed to slip under a stone carved arch in the dining room. They were trembling there, their eyes scanned the scene before them over and over, not quite processing what had happened just yet. What had been taken from them, again.

Flashes of moments back in the children's bands surfaced and muddled their vision. They were frozen in place, terrified. Useless, Powerless in the face of this ridiculous war. Outside, they could hear the rumble of rotors, the bomb must have been thrown off a helicopter, they could smell the distinct scent of a brand of gunpowder they recognized from back at the encampments. They wrinkled their nose in disgust. Angry tears welled up in their eyes.

Pain shot through their body as they pulled themselves from the rubble. Staggering over splintered wood and stone they fell to their knees in the snow and only when the snow beneath them had already dyed red with their own blood, they came to find a gushing cut right across their chest. It was bleeding profusely but all they felt was nothingness.

They sat there long enough for their wound to have already dried, the helicopter had long left when from the forest a figure came. They were tall and lean, maybe a bit stocky but elegant nonetheless. Nanook halfheartedly noted the strange glittery trail they left behind as they walked.

The figure had long silvery hair that seemed to defy gravity. It pulled Nanook into a tired haze, watching it sway in the air like clouds of steam from an engine. They wore a gentle smile as they began to sing, of all things. Nanook belatedly noticed the tears they had begun to shed at the sound of the strangers voice.

Gentle hands held their faces, a look of brilliant eyes that seemed to hold the entire world within them watched every minute movement they made as they stared back.

“Have I finally perished,” they ask the stranger quietly, not quite sure what kind of answer they would prefer.
“I'm tired of persistence. What good does living do when all this world is composed of is war,” they began to blurt out, they just bore their heart to this person they had never seen before, who was holding their face like something precious. They couldn't stop talking; “Humanity does not deserve existence if this is what they decide to do with it,” they cried, their sorrow solidified then, into hatred and a fire ignited itself in their heart. It tore open their skin, burning away at thier flesh and bones, eating its way from the inside out.
“If they do not learn on their own, if they do not end, to seek a new beginning on their own-” they were cut off by a wave of pain crashing falling over them, the hands holding their face retreated and they immediately mourned the loss.

The voice of the stranger folded over them like a tent shielding them from the intense heat accumulating within them. They sang quietly: “Oh, let the land come at you, love, with all its sand and sins a-singing. And let the world a-tumble, love, and humble you withal, keep running,” they drew closer and whispered the last few lines between the creases of their forehead, their voice soft and soothing; “It's up to you now, up to you now, love, to run.”

As the stranger uttered those last words, as they slipped away into the night – turning from billowing clouds of smoke into the wonderful veil of a shooting star and finally settling on the sky as the brilliant light of the Polaris, the heat within them shattered, it burned away everything they once were or could have been. All possibilities were erased from their being as mortal flesh caught fire and burned. They burned and burned and burned, on and on, until nothing remained of that which once was. Molten gold flooded their being, a star born and felled in the blink of an eye. Millenia shot by within seconds, but what does it matter?

Within their rage the fire burned away not only the mortal being of Nanook but as it ate and ate away at the fuel in their soul and began lapping at the ground, the star that was born devoured their parent system, nothing remained of what was once known as the Adlivun, nothing – not even the memories of the child or the man or the bear who had fought to keep but lost it all. Now they would do the taking. Nanook The Destruction was made.