A quick note before we begin

Content warnings for: emetophobia, suicide ideation, and animal death. There's also some existential stuff going on throughout, if that'd be in issue as well.

Tread carefully, dear reader!

Since this was my first long fic, I ended up discussing some things in the notes below each chapter that I felt needed to be touched upon as they became relevant. I'm leaving those untouched (for the most part) along with the rest of this fic since that is how I want it to be presented. (future raen here. i might be removing those notes. lmao.)

This takes place shortly after the end of Book 2.

 

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While strictly speaking he didn’t enjoy the actual process of it, Azama did enjoy the benefits of meditation. He felt that was perfectly understandable, as simply sitting in one place, doing nothing but thinking for hours on end was not what most would consider ‘fun’, but being able to sort through his thoughts, one by one, until he was able to clear his mind of worries and doubts allowed Azama to be at peace with himself and the world around him, and he found that sensation immensely rewarding. Even if he was interrupted and unable to fully reach that state of tranquility, it prevented the negative emotions that a solider like him was sure to accumulate from building up and weighing him down as much, allowing him to be even a little bit more comfortable in his day to day life.

To Azama’s displeasure, the castle he had been summoned into was not particularly good for meditating. It was a fairly large building on an equally large plot of land, but that much space didn’t really amount to a whole lot when the castle housed a couple hundred soldiers, many of whom Azama suspected had never heard the word ‘quiet’ before. He first attempted to meditate in the castle’s library, but in contrast to his expectations it ended up being the furthest from the kind of place he was looking for.

Of course, there were a few people who used the space that stayed quiet; Olwen and Reinhardt spent their time browsing the tomes of the library together, and Katarina -despite her perpetually blank expression- seemed to enjoy spending her downtime looking through the collection’s many chronicles of past wars. Tharja also remained relatively quiet, but her near constant muttering of things Azama dare not repeat unsettled the monk, making it a bit difficult -but not impossible- for him to tune her out and concentrate on his meditation. The library was also where Cecilia and Lilina would teach Nino how to read, a task they gave themselves they learned the young girl -despite what her proficiency with magic would suggest- was illiterate. Raigh, the final semi-permanent resident of the library would try to remain aloof to whatever lesson Nino was being taught and keep his nose in a tome that was indubitably far above his own capabilities, but would often join in and try to help teach the fellow Elibian mage how to read when his curiosity and desire to show off his own skills reached a breaking point.

Azama found no issue with the three of them choosing to use the space to teach the fledgling mage such a fundamental skill, as the library was indeed open to everyone for use, but what Nino’s presence brought was far from desirable. Elise, Delthea, and Nowi -three of the most… enthusiastic members of their army- often came to the library seeking out Nino to partake in whatever games they had come up with that day. He supposed it couldn’t be helped that children would seek each other out, but that didn’t mean that their constant interruptions of his meditation sessions would be appreciated. The only time those three ever left Nino alone to her studies would be when Tharja’s patience wore thin, forcing the trio to flee in gleeful fear to avoid the curses she would start throwing around. While the girls would be out of the library for at least a day following such an incident, the library wouldn’t be safe to inhabit for at least as long, if not longer.

Forfeiting any hope that the library would be of use, a few weeks ago Azama had asked Anna, who was the one in charge of day-to-day operations and spending, if she could look into possibly expanding the castle. She initially seemed reluctant, but today she came to him with a smile on her face, claiming to be bearing what she called ‘good news’.

“I spoke to the zoning council about this, and while it isn’t going to be cheap, we’re already in the process of adding a wing to the castle that’ll be able to house another hundred Heroes or so, which’ll be great for boosting our ranks! All those nasty bureaucrats supporting the Order of Heroes were initially reluctant to foot the bill since they were afraid I would embezzle half the funding again, but there’s no problem that can’t be solved with a little blackmail!”

Azama was unsure how she had so spectacularly missed the point of his request that he couldn’t even act surprised at how fundamentally different this Anna was from the one that had allegedly originated from his own world. This was the exact opposite of what he had intended, and his continued inability to meditate away the stress from all of this was surely going to give him a massive migraine.

“Did I say that out loud? Oops!” Anna put her finger to her chin, letting out a sinister giggle that sent chills through Azama, “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about that, since you’re really really hard to dig up any dirt on. Anyway, if you have any other suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them!”

“Ah… that’s… really great. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind.”

At this point he considered going to meditate in his living quarters again, but upon recalling his neighbors he decided to not bother trying. Hector’s room was directly next to his own, and while the young man demonstrated incredible prowess on the battlefield, he was also very, very, very loud at night. Azama had tried to discuss the noise level with him countless times over the previous year, but Hector had either forgotten by the next night or flailed around while asleep to the point where he was nearly constantly knocking things over.

On the other side of his room sat Shigure’s living quarters, which brought its own set of issues. The boy clearly wanted to become a professional singer, but he refused to sing around other people outside of life-or-death situations. In order to get around what seemed to be a pretty prominent issue towards achieving his career goals, Shigure would practice in his room when he thought nobody was nearby. Meditating, by nature, is about as quiet as a single person could get, which lead to many instances where Azama’s meditation was interrupted by the melodious sound of Shigure’s voice coming through the wall, thinking he was alone in the residential wing. Azama couldn’t justify trying any course of action that might make Shigure’s apparent stage fright any worse, so he couldn’t possibly tell the child to stop singing, but that also meant that Azama wouldn’t be able to use his room for meditation at any hour of the day.

Desperate for a place that was quiet and tired from his now year-long search, Azama then opened himself to the possibility to utilizing the great outdoors. Knowing it would be too loud near the castle from the many people who chose to use the space for training, he began searching the surrounding woods for a suitable location. Azama walked, and walked, and walked for hours, but he couldn’t seem to find a place that worked. In the places where the growth wasn’t too dense, there was either someone already training in solitude, signs that the area was frequented by animals, or ground that wasn’t suitable for sitting upon for an extended period of time. He resolved that if he didn’t find one by the time the bell for dinner rang, he’d accept that it just wasn’t meant to be and move on his life.

Just as the sun began to set, Azama thought he had found the perfect clearing for meditation; it was level, free of animal tracks and debris, and close enough to the castle to head back if urgent matters came up but not so close as to be too exposed to the cacophony of the army’s dutiful training. It seemed almost too good to be true, but he figured there was no point in not trying it out after coming this far.

He took a seat, allowing his body to relax a bit.

A deep breath in and a slow exhale let some tension leave his body.

He closed his eyes, took another deep breath, and relaxed a bit more.

Taking another deep breath, he began to tune out the sounds of the world around him.

The gentle breeze rustling through the trees, and the faint sounds coming from of the castle soon began to fade out, as Azama-

*THUD*

Azama flinched, having not expected such a loud noise to disturb him. He debated ignoring it, but another thud, followed by yet another coming in front of him, almost in rhythm, piqued his curiosity.

He cracked open a single eye, expecting the sound to have been nothing of importance and that he’d be able to return to his meditation in a moment.

To his dismay, it wasn’t nothing.

It was a very large grizzly bear, waddling in his general direction.

That was nearly the antithesis of ‘nothing’.

“Oh dear,” Azama muttered, making eye contact with the hulking beast. Based off the amount of drool pouring from its mouth and the feral, bestial look in its eyes, the bear seemed very hungry, and Azama could only guess that he would look particularly delicious to any starving animal, let alone one that could easily take him down given the chance to.

As if by divine inspiration, he recalled a quarrel he overheard two of the Valentian recruits have a week ago over the differences between what you should do when approached by different types of bears. He slowly rose to his feet, knowing that playing dead would be a quick way to meet an untimely demise at the hands of this particular species of hungry ursine. He maintained eye contact with the bear as he began to back away in the direction of the castle, careful to not allow his attention to falter.

That ended up being a mistake, as in his focus on the bear he failed to notice a root protruding from the ground which Azama promptly tripped over, causing him to tumble to the ground and curse his lack of foresight for putting him in this position without a weapon.

The moment he hit the ground, Azama instinctively clawed has way to his feet and broke out into a full sprint, refusing to give the bear a chance to exploit his moment of vulnerability. He ran towards the castle, each step of the way echoed by the heavy thud of the bear’s paws hitting the ground behind him as it gave chase, determined to not let its prey escape. Azama had long ago come to terms with the possibility of his life coming to an end on the battle field, but getting mauled by a bear? While being impaled didn’t particularly strike him as a fun activity, getting eaten alive was even higher up on his list of things he’d describe as so fundamentally unpleasant he’d rather die.

After feeling like he had run for hours on end, scratched all over from the branches and shrubs he hadn’t quite dodged along the way, Azama broke through the tree line around the castle with the bear hot on his heels. In the distance, around half a kilometer away, he could barely make out Hinoka and Setsuna along with a few other members of the Order of Heroes backlit by the setting sun, possibly having a pleasant evening chat, but when Azama opened his mouth to yell, to scream, to do anything to get their attention, his throat was too sore to make any noise. Cursing his voice for failing him the one moment he needed it most, he began to pray to any deity that would listen for somebody to notice his predicament. As if on cue, Setsuna turned towards him and Azama cursed himself for not specifying to whoever had listened to his pleas that he needed someone who would realize the urgency of the situation within the next decade.

Hinoka must have noticed Setsuna’s gaze wander, as she turned to follow it. Upon realizing one of her retainers was moments from being eaten by a ravenous bear, she mounted her pegasus and made haste towards Azama.

Time seemed to slow for the monk as he realized that he legs were beginning to fail him, just moments from being saved by the very person he should be protecting. Hinoka seemed to grow further and further away as his vision began to fade out, but Azama refused to let his pace falter, letting out one final burst of speed and jumping to grab Hinoka’s outstretched hand as she flew overhead.

Hinoka immediately ascended, pulling Azama out of the reach of the bear before she dragged him up onto the pegasus’ back. Angry that its meal escaped its grasp, the bear let out a loud roar before returning to the forest, leaving Hinoka to bring Azama back to the castle.

“How did you manage to get yourself into this mess?” Hinoka asked him, trying to fill the quick journey back with something other than silence.

“Bad luck,” Azama managed to get out between labored breaths, each exhale causing pain to erupt in his chest.

Upon making it back to the castle, Hinoka helped him down from her steed, but the moment his feet touched the ground he collapsed and began to retch. His stomach began to churn, and -despite his best efforts to- he was unable to prevent its contents from violently ejecting itself through his mouth. The vomit splattered against the ground with a sickening ‘squick’ noise, causing Azama to lose whatever remaining control he had over his nausea.

“Are you alright Azama?” a voice asked, his head too rattled from trying to process everything that just happened to determine who had spoken.

“No!” Azama gasped, continuing to empty his stomach.

“I have some medicine for this type of ailment in my room, can you run and get it, Lukas?”

“Sure! Should-” Azama stopped putting any effort into processing what was going on and let whatever wretched thing was happening to his body run its course. The vomiting eventually ceased and turned into dry heaving, his throat and mouth still burning from the acid and bile that had passed through it. The disgust, the inalienable feeling of vileness from having things traverse his throat in the wrong direction lingered as the tremors wracked his body, but the heaving gradually weakened, allowing Azama to slowly regain awareness of his surroundings.

“Azama, can you hear me?”

“Ye-yeah,” he sputtered, having still not quite regained his lucidity.

“How are you feeling?” Azama recognized that this voice belonged to Wrys and felt a twinge of guilt.

“I’m alive, at least,” Azama let out a weak laugh, for a reason he couldn’t figure out. Was he trying to play this off as something that wasn’t a big deal? Was he trying to add levity to the situation? Azama pushed those thoughts from his head, telling himself that it wasn’t a question he needed an answer to right now.

“Is it alright if we bring you to my room?” the older monk asked, his words slow and gentle, “I’d like to try to figure out if we can get you to feel a little better.”

“Sure,” Azama realized his legs still felt like jelly, and added “…not sure if I can walk though.”

True to form, Azama was still hunched over on the ground in the middle of the puddle of vomit, and without outside intervention he wasn’t going anywhere.

“That’s fine,” Wrys smiled softly, draping Azama’s right arm over his shoulder “Zelgius, can you lift Azama from the other side?”

“Sure thing,” he slipped under Azama’s left arm, and together they were able to hoist Azama up off the ground.

“Is there anything I can do?” Hinoka spoke up, reminding Azama of her presence.

“I think Alfonse needs to know about that bear as soon as possible so he can inform the rest of the army to stay away from that part of the forest. We were lucky today that nobody died, and I’m sure I’m not alone in wanting to keep things that way.”

“I can do that!” Hinoka hopped back on her pegasus and flew off, leaving Azama alone with Wrys and Zelgius.

“Are you ready to go, Azama?”

Azama nodded weakly, too exhausted to make the words come out, and the two men carried him off towards the castle.

 

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Chapter End Notes

For the most part, I’m writing this as if it’s happening when I originally post it and that the sequence of events within Heroes’ world corresponds to updates within the game, but I toyed with the timing of some things in order to make the plot flow a little better.

Long things take a long time to write (did you know Microsoft Office keeps track of the total time a document has been open? I wish it didn't!), so there might be a few things that seem out of date that I ended up missing when I went back through this to update it, and a few things that might seem pretty obviously added in after the fact.

Did you know stress and sudden exertion can induce vomiting? That’s why Azama spends a few paragraphs emptying his stomach. Ew.

Parts of this chapter were inspired by something that almost happened to me in middle school and a shitpost that I had written elsewhere. Can you guess which?