Yotsuba!&...

[sunflowerfairy]

Characters: Yotsuba Koiwai and you!
Setting: The meadow, the mailroom, and most of anywhere else.
Format: I'm starting in prose, but I'll match you.
Summary: A catch-all post for the Individuation event.
Warnings: Other than a crying Yotsuba, I can't think of anything right now.

At first, the shadows following her had been a little scary, mostly because Yotsuba didn't know where they came from or why they were following her. But it was kind of fun to have them follow her around, like they were all playing one huge game of follow the leader! So, she didn't mind them following her into the mailroom and laughed a little as she looked inside her mailbox..and pulled out a photo of her Daddy hugging her, Jumbo next to them, and the family next door-Ena, Fuka, Asagi, and their Mommy-surrounding them in the background. Surprised and happy, Yotsuba's eyes shined as she looked at the photograph before showing it to the shadows.

"Look! They're all here! Daddy and Jumbo and Fuka and-"

"Those aren't them. That's a lie, Yotsuba." That voiced surprised her, not because it came from one of the shadows, but because it sounded like Jumbo! "It's not! And why do you sound like Jumbo?! It's a good photo-oh.." As she spoke, Yotsuba kept looking at the photograph, just to make sure that it wasn't a lie..but slowly, it changed so that it showed her in a dying wasteland with her family and friends dead all around her.

"No..everything's gonna be fixed..and I'm not alone.."

Here, Yotsuba could be found sitting here with her sketchbook, crayons and Little Yoba, trying to draw what she thought was going to be the actual future. However, she didn't look very happy, and while she did make an honest attempt at it, it was very hard to draw when the souls of the people you loved kept belittling you. Eventually, while they were still there, Yotsuba mostly just hugged Little Yoba and weakly spoke to Daddy and Jumbo, who kept telling her that they didn't love her, that if Daddy hadn't adopted her, he might have been saved, and that Enoch, Diarmuid, and everyone else was going to break their promise and leave her too, all alone in the horrible place she saw.

This..was way too much for her to handle. Eventually, despite a few optimistic comments to the shadows and asking them why they hated her now, Yotsuba just started crying on Little Yoba and talking to her dolly. "Yotsuba doesn't even know what adopted is..do you know, Little Yoba?"

Yotsuba had a tendency to run around and explore, and this wouldn't change that..but she would be looking for Enoch, answers..and silence. She's pretty much free to bump into your characters, even though she'll be more tired than usual, and even though her collar will slowly become lighter, though Yotsuba herself won't notice until someone else points it out.

Comments

[sunflowerfairy]

"That story's a lie, Yotsuba. You didn't save Daddy or me. You're not a hero. You're just a useless kid."

Shadow Jumbo's comment got to Yotsuba and she sighed before speaking again. "Even Daddy and everyone else?"

[myblueskies]

"Everyone! Especially your daddy, that's what heroes do and Yotsuba is a great hero." He ducks behind the theatre and brings up his hand with Yotsuba, she is wielding a sword.

"Yotsuba was the greatest hero of all time, even though she was really small and didn't know what lots of words meant she was really brave and always tried her best. She was a really good friend and helped everyone, especially her daddy who loved her very much."

He only had one adult puppet and that was Eridan, so Yotsuba's daddy was a troll, but hopefully she would understand. He popped on stage and waved.

"That's Yotsuba's daddy, and one day where Yotsuba lived a huge whale came to attack!" He dropped the troll puppet and held up a whale on a stick. "Whales are really big, as big as steam trains and it wanted to eat all of Yotsuba's friends!"

He made the whale roar, though he wasn't really sure what sound whales actually made.

"But Yotsuba wasn't afraid was she?"

[sunflowerfairy]

"No..she really isn't. She was just a waste of time and energy, especially considering that we could have been saved instead of her." "Well, the kid is a liar, Koiwai. What do you expect?"

Yotsuba bit her lip at the conversation the Shadows were having and forced herself to not cry and focus on the story Romeo was telling her. While the words would have made her really happy normally, they just felt like a hollow lie now, thanks to her sorrow and the words that Shadow Koiwai and Jumbo were flinging at her. Especially since it seemed that Daddy and Jumbo didn't love her anymore.

However, she couldn't help but smile a little at the whale. She didn't know much about them, but she liked how they looked, and she knew they lived in the water.

"No..Yotsuba wasn't afraid."

[myblueskies]

"Of course she wasn't becaue Yostuba was a hero! So she marched over to that whale." He did so, moving the puppet closer to the whale. "And help up her sword. 'Bad whale' she said, 'Yotsuba won't let you hurt Yotsuba's friends!' And the whale roared again.

'Raaaaaww I will eat all your friends, because I have no friends and so I don't want anyone to have friends. I will eat them all. Raaaaaaw.'

And hearing that Yotsuba was sad because everyone should have friends! So she put down her sword and went to give the whale a hug.

'Yotsuba will be your friend, because no one should be sad or alone!" And the whale was so happy! He agreed to leave the town alone and never eat anyone ever again, then he let Yostuba climb on his back and took her swimming into the ocean." Puppet Yotsuba climbed on the whale and Romeo moved them both.

[sunflowerfairy]

Yotsuba couldn't help but smile at that story. Even though she was still smarting emotionally from what her father and Jumbo had told her, that was a sweet story. While she loved cows, it would be awesome to have a whale as a friend and swim with him!

"It would have been better if the whale had eaten her. Then we might have all been friends and have actual bodies."

Once again, Jumbo's comment made her smile fade a little, but..only a little.

"That was a good story! Whale and dolphins are awesome, but Yotsuba's only swum with dolphins..have you swum with whales, Romeo?"

[myblueskies]

"No I haven't I never swam with dolphins either, so Yostuba is really lucky!" Romeo had never seen a dolphin before, or a whale. "What was it like swimming with dolphins?"

[sunflowerfairy]

"It was super fun! Yotsuba would toss the seaweed up and then we would try to catch it and toss it up again! It was a lot of fun!"

[myblueskies]

"It sounds really fun!" He grinned, "Does Yotsuba want to tell a story now?"

[sunflowerfairy]

"It was!"

"It would have been even better if the dolphins drowned you."

At that, Yotsuba bit her lip, but she nodded. Maybe if she told a story, Daddy and Jumbo would feel a little better.

"Um..Deep, deeep down in the sea, where there's lots of flowers and rocks, there lives a merman with his Mommy and his six daughters. The merman loved his family a whoole lot, and when his daughters grew up, they were allowed to go up and see the surface! Most of them thought it was boring, but the littlest one was really curious about it, so she always asked her sisters and Grandma about it."

[myblueskies]

Romeo sat and grinned as he listened, he had never heard a story before mermen before so he listened really carefully. "What did the Grandma say?"

[sunflowerfairy]

Thankfully, the story telling was proving a good distraction from the shadows for the moment.

"They told her about children and ships and how nice it looked on the land! So, when the littlest one grew up, she swam up the surface and saw a huuuge ship, and on that ships was a prince! The ship sank though, and the mermaid saved him by pulling him to shore!"

[myblueskies]

"The mermaid was a hero!" Romeo grinned and waited for Yotsuba to tell him what happened next.

[sunflowerfairy]

"She was!"

"Much more than you or this brat."

Yotsuba did her best to calm down before continuing on.

"But she hid herself behind a rock so that she wouldn't scare him when he woke up, and another girl with some villagers found him and help him when he woke up! But he didn't even look at the mermaid!

She loved the prince, so this hurt her a lot, and she didn't feel better when she got home! A few days later, she found out where the Prince lived, and watched him a lot..and then her Grandma told her about how she could get a soul!"

[myblueskies]

"That was mean of him!" Romeo said with a frown and continued to listen.

"Didn't she already have a soul?" He asked confused, he didn't want to ruin the story but he didn't understand how she couldn't have one.

[sunflowerfairy]

"It was..but it was hard for him to see her, with all the rocks! And mermaids don't have souls, but they live a reeally long time! For three hundred years!"

[myblueskies]

Romeo nodded, it sounded weird to him, mermaids not having souls, but then again he had never met a mermaid before.

"That's a really long time! So did she get a soul?"

[sunflowerfairy]

For Yotsuba, the concept didn't sound that bizarre, since she had never met a mermaid before and hadn't even known what souls were before coming to this place.

"It is! And she did! The only way she could get a soul was to be married to a human, so she went to the sea witch and traded her tongue for a pair of legs! They hurt a whoole lot, but they worked, and the Prince took her in!"

[myblueskies]

Romeo screwed up his face, he didn't like the sound of that sea witch! She sounded a lot like Ruana. "But if she had no tongue she wouldn't be able to talk to the prince right?"

[sunflowerfairy]

For better or worse, Yotusba hadn't drawn any comparisons to the sea witch and Ruana.

"Right! They rode horses together and danced a lot, even though it hurt her feet! The Prince liked her a lot..but he liked the girl who had found him on the sand even more, so he was gonna marry her on a boat and asked the mermaid to see it!"

[myblueskies]

Romeo looked sad, it was a sad story but he was still listening because he wanted to know what happened! "Did the mermaid girl go to the wedding?"

[sunflowerfairy]

It was a bit of a sad story. After all, Yotsuba had almost teared up at it, but the happy ending had cheered her up when she finally reached it.

"She did, and she would turn into sea foam in the morning! But her sisters visited her and gave her a knife that would let her turn back into a mermaid if she killed the Prince! But..she couldn't kill him, so she threw the knife into the sea and hopped after it!"

[myblueskies]

Romeo was glad the mermaid hadn't stabbed the prince, that would have made her a bad person!

"And then what happened?"

[sunflowerfairy]

It would have, and it would have made the mermaid even sadder!

"The Mermaid died..but she became a daughter of the air and could get a soul if she did good deeds for three hundred years! So she was good and helped people for all that time and got her soul!"

"It probably would have been better if she died though. That happy ending's rather foolish, even if it makes brats like you happy."

Yotsuba's face fell a little when Jumbo spoke, but she tried her best to smile again so that she would be brave. Even if she didn't feel like it.

[myblueskies]

Three hundred years? Just to earn a soul. Though Romeo didn't think it would be hard to do good things, even for three hundred years it seemed a little sad, but happy all at the same time.

He wanted Yotsuba to smile though so he grinned, "That was a great story! The mermaid must have been a really nice person to do good things for three hundred whole years!"

[sunflowerfairy]

It was a little sad, since she couldn't be with the Prince in the way she wanted, but she still had the chance of earning a soul.

Yotsuba smiled at the compliment and nodded as she spoke. "Yeah! She was suuper nice! And watching good kids shortened her time sometimes!"

"And watching bad children like you only added onto her time."

That wiped the smile right off Yotsuba's face.