a/n: I've gotten into another big Champloo phase, but it's a fantastic series so no surprise there. ;)
A drabble about Fuu and her views on her heroes. FuuxMugen and FuuxJin.
There is a hero in her memory, and he smells like the earthy sweet of sunflowers, bathed in an ethereal light of a summer afternoon.
And her hand, tiny, is reaching out.
Her voice, small, is crying:
Don't go, don't go.
And he turns and smiles, and she can't remember his face now, but that is what he is like in her dream.
She hates her companions. Mugen snores, and won't let her get to dreaming. Jin wakes up early, and takes her out of that bittersweet summer afternoon.
She tells them.
-My father.
And she sees that they start, widen their eyes.
They care.
They have been on this journey with her this long; they have invested their lots with hers.
They will see her to the end, and how much she wants the end to never come scares her.
There are false hopes.
There are frail men that would give you no satisfaction to slug, and only a painful, empty ache when they die.
There are fathers that leave their daughters, and no matter how noble the reason, they are not there to keep their daughters' mothers from dying of illness, or to keep their daughters from strange men, or to protect and provide for those daughters.
They've done heroice deeds, but what are these deeds to Fuu, who's gone without things her whole life?
She loves her companions. Mugen will never promise her anything untrue. Jin will always look out for her.
Mugen smells like blood, and sweat, and everything intense and smoldering about battle.
Jin smells like water, like clear; like he's tried on his former-dignity to wash out those things and leave a clean.
She ought to know by now that sunflowers don't have a scent.There are heroes beside her.
Sometimes she hates them.
Sometimes she loves them.
And sometimes she wants to take them the way a fifteen-year-old girl shouldn't, really, because she aches for them both so much. Sometimes she wants to hold their hands, both at once, and walk like that, because she cares for them both so much.
They have both saved her from certain death.
And she understands, she understands that there are not always going to be men like Mugen prepared for certain torture so that she may be free her from hers. And that, when she comes to the edge of a cliff, there will not be always be men like Jin ready to die a noble death so she won't have to.
But she feels protected just to know that there is still hope.
She came on this journey looking for a hero.
She walked away with two.