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hopeatermeetsgodzilla · 3 years

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Chapter 7

Ichi shook his head, bits and pieces of ice falling off of him as he dragged himself onto a higher surface. He stood up, looking around him. First order of business: find his brothers. “Ni? San? Where are you?” San needed physical input to situate himself.

[I’m fine, and will be there soon. Just let me warm myself up a bit.] Ichi sent a wave a reassurance to Ni, giving the okay. The weak king wasn’t there (yet) so they could take a second to get their bearings back.

“Uh... look up?” Ichi raised his head in confusion, eyebrows rising up in shock when he saw San, looking down at him from a higher up surface.

“How did you- Get down from here, San!” Ichi yelled, the youngest brother nodding wordlessly and sliding down the slope. He was still giggling to himself when his older brother angrily grabbed his arm and dragged him close.

“Sorry, brother Ichi.” San said with a shrug as Ni came into view. “Hi, Ni! Wow, you look grumpy.”

Indeed, Ni looked even grumpier than usual. [It’s cold and I can barely gather energy and I have a headache from the soundwave and there’s a chunk of ice stuck in my pants-] “I hate it here.” Was what he finally settled on after his psychic tirade. “Can we just go? Maybe sink an island or two with a storm for warmup?”

“We still need to gather enough energy to travel, Ni.” Ichi reminded him, getting a groan from him as he was also dragged close. “Quit complaining, it’ll only take a few hours.”

“We don’t have a few hours.” San suddenly informed his brothers.

Ichi looked at him, looking unimpressed. “And why would that be?”

“Because-” A jet of blue fire suddenly burst out of the ice, startling Ghidorah and making them a few steps back, Ni immediately going to stand before his brothers for defense.

A few seconds later, the weak king emerged, long, wet hair drying in a few seconds from the leftover heat. “Ghidorah.” He hissed.

“... Godzilla.” Ichi answered disdainfully as Ni hissed right back at him and San hid behind his older brother further, shaking.

(Because... the weak king has been patrolling the area since yesterday.) San finally informed them telepathically, an air of resignation hovering over his corner of their telepathic link.

{Why didn’t you say anything earlier!?}

(I tried to yesterday.)

[Brother San.]

(Yeah, what is it?)

[The weak king possibly showing up just after we finally free ourselves is NOT a ‘guess what’ situation!]

(Don’t get angry at me, you’re the one who didn’t want to know anything!)

{Ni, San, now is not the time for bickering.} Ichi cut them off, eyes narrowing at Godzilla. {It looks like we’re gonna have to fight. San: you’re on lookout. Ni: focus on gathering energy while I distract him. The moment it looks like he’s going to attack, I want you to attack right back. Keep him on his toes while I start gathering enough energy to teleport us.}

[How do you know he won’t attack the moment you opens your mouth?] It took Ichi a moment to remember Ni’s psychic powers weren’t nearly as developed as his, but by the time he remembered, San was already half-way through his answer.

(Because he’s tired. Very tired. Quite a bit more than us, actually.)

{Looks like we’re not the only ones who slept while humanity tried to rise above, brothers.} Ichi smiled as he took a step forward, Godzilla growling at him. This should be easy. “Finally came to submit to us?”

“Fuck off with that shit.” Godzilla snapped right back, hair flashing brightly at the outburst. “Here’s your options: you quietly stay here and don’t do shit while I go wake up Scylla and you triple-fucks get frozen again with minimal damage for all parties involved, or I pull out you entrails and skip rope with them.”

[I’m gonna kill him.]

{Patience. Him trying to negotiate proves he’s not in form to fight us right now.} Ichi cackled, making sure all of Godzilla’s attention was on him, and not on Ni who was concentrating, or San who had climbed to a vantage point. “Oh please, you’ve never beaten us on your own before. You’ve always had the help of your little moth, or had slaves following your every orders baiting us.”

None of the Ghidorah were sure Godzilla not jumping them at that was a testament of how tired he was, or of a patience he developed while they were asleep. This said, he did narrow his eyes and bared his teeth, a low growl building up in his throat. “And there’s always three of you trying to fuck everything up.” He noted bitterly. “Doesn’t it get tiring for your brothers to not have free will?” Ichi closed his eyes at that, outrage belonging to his brothers filling his being.

[Did he just-!?]

(That bitch!)

[Alright, how am I killing him? I kind of just want to go for the head.]

(No, draw it out and make him beg for death with how much pain you’re putting him in.)

[How much pain are we talking about?]

(I’m thinking make lightning run directly through him starting by his gills, and amplify it gradually?)

{Ni, San, while I am loving the both of you indulging in your inner sadists, we have more important things to focus on.}

[At this point, it doesn’t really matter. I’ve gathered enough energy to fight him physically.]

(And he’s on the edge of snapping. You just need to make him a bit angrier.)

{Well, San, we’re standing right in front of him and I’m telling him how weak he is. That used to be enough to make him attack in a blind rage. Do either of you have suggestion?}

[You let me jump him.]

{Very tempting idea, but if you just lunge at him, he’ll be able to counterattack quite easily. San?}

(You either tell him how bad of a king he is, or you tell him how weak his little nap made him.)

{Let’s go with that. Any objections Ni?}

[I’m not going to fight him.]

(Once Ichi is done enraging him, you’ll get your fight.)

[Then, I have no objections.]

Ichi opened his eyes, sneering at Godzilla. “My brothers chose me as our leader. It was an unanimous decision. Which is more than can be said about you.” He tilted his head in mock curiosity. “Tell me, how many of your ‘friends’ follow you out of fear of getting killed like your rivals? And how many would turn against you if they learnt of how weak you had gotten?”

Like always, San could be relied on to tell someone’s weaknesses, Godzilla jumping at them with a furious roar. And like always, Ni could be relief on to defend them, grabbing one of the weak king’s arm and throwing him beyond the ice. Now, to collect energy to get out of here...

Godzilla landed on all four, his claws making an horrible sound against the floor. Metal? Humans figured out metal again? Didn’t Battra kill the last ones- He was snapped out of his thought process as Right- because that’s how Godzilla made the difference between them, who stood where when they weren’t fighting- jumped at him, one of it’s legs raised and ready to strike down.

He quickly moved out of the way, Right’s leg leaving a dent in the floor where it struck. He then quickly charged toward Godzilla, lashing out with clawed hands multiple time which his opponent quickly avoided, cackling the entire time. “How the hell have you recovered so fast- ACK!”

Right had changed strategy, raising one of his legs and kicking him in the crotch. He grabbed Godzilla’s face as he started falling forward. Right’s laughter momentarily died out a bit. “I never went to sleep,” Sharp claws started digging into Godzilla’s face, what looked like very thin and very numerous veins lighting up all over Right’s hand, seemingly travelling all the way up to the crescent moon-shaped jewel on his forehead. “So I don’t have anything to recover from.”

Right started laughing again, but his breath was cut short as Godzilla’s kneed him in the stomach, unleashing a pulse of energy right after to get him away before grabbing his braid, dragging him to the ground and trapping him under his foot, a smile appearing on his face for the first time today. “If you think I’m gonna fall for the old energy absorption trick just after you woke up, you’ve got another thing coming!”

But Godzilla was so caught up in the ecstasy of almost killing a Ghidorah… (Uh, Ni? He’s starting to charge his Energy breath. You need to get out from under there.)

[Noted.] … that for a minute, he forgot they were three of them. Right rolled himself onto one of his side as much as he could, only to use the momentum to roll himself onto the other, standing up and barely avoiding Godzilla’s Energy Breath, avoiding it for a few seconds as he ran.

Not because it ended up hitting him, but because Godzilla suddenly stopped, a shocked look on his face. I’m out of energy!?

“Oh...” Right smiled with a mouth full of needle teeth, his hands lighting up. “Out of juice already?” He then raised his arms, and bolts of lightning surged out of his fingers, making Godzilla momentarily blank out out of inexorable pain as he was hit. When it finally stopped, it was because his throat had been grabbed, claws digging painfully into his gills and dragging him at a speed he still couldn’t proceed after the shock.

And then, Godzilla was thrown into the pool of icy waters in the middle of Ghidorah’s former icy prison, breaking the thin layer of ice that had formed in the meantime and Right cackling the entire time. When he resurfaced, Right was finally calming down, and Middle and Left were floating.

“I thought you wanted to kill him?” Left asked Right as he floated up to join the two others.

He scoffed, giving his hand to Middle for an energy transfer. He was, after all, the one who had been closest to Godzilla’s Energy Breath. “He’s weak and tired. I want a real challenge.”

Godzilla snarled from his position in the water. He didn’t have enough energy left to fire another beam so soon. “You cowards! What are you planning on doing now!?”

Middle cackled, raising one of his arms and releasing a burst of dark energy, the dark hole Godzilla knew they would use to get away starting to form. “Why, resume what we started before you and your slaves trapped us, of course!”

“What you starte- why the hell do you care so much about destroying humans!? They can’t do anything!”

The three of them giggled. “Who do you think freed us, you pathetic reptile!?” Middle asked Godzilla, a cruel smile on his face as the portal behind him grew. “Humans learned how to harvest your voice. Yours and the others who woke up!”

“I must say, your weak little bird friend sure has learned how to project his voice.” Left commented, reminding Godzilla that last time Ghidorah had seen Rodan, he hadn’t moved to Mara, hadn’t become the Voice of Vengeance, hadn’t a massive target painted on his back, hadn’t been beaten down enough by fate that there was a very real chance of him just letting them kill him-

“Humans did not bother with remembering us.” Right continued, the calm and cold and dead tone of his voice contrasting heavily with the shrieking cackles he emitted while fighting him. “And now, they will pay heavily for that mistake. Farewell, soon-to-be former King of Titans.”

And with that, Ghidorah disappeared in the void, leaving Godzilla to wonder just what he had missed for things to spiral out of control like that.

#today is a kaijus only event humans get out #writing #My writing #Godzilla #godzilla gijinka #King Ghidorah #ghidorah #ichi ghidorah #ni ghidorah #san ghidorah #kevin ghidorah

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ckret2 · 5 years

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Antarctica

Rodan found out how Ghidorah feels about him; Ghidorah found out how Rodan doesn't feel about them; and now, Ghidorah thinks they'd better leave the planet before they get too attached to let go.

Rodan strenuously disagrees. And he's determined to change Ghidorah's mind—by tooth and nail, if necessary.

This is part of an ongoing series of Rodorah one-shots. If you don’t wanna read the others, all you need to know is: Ghidorah (mainly Ichi) developed the crush first and Rodan doesn't quite reciprocate yet; Rodan isn't sure what the hell Ghidorah is but certainly doesn't know he's an alien; nobody goes by the names that humans assigned their species but Rodan goes by "Nido"; and Ghidorah is a mild empath (telepathically reads/projects emotions) but needs to make head contact for it to work. Links to the other fics are in the source at the bottom of this post.

###

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

It had already been night when they'd left the red sprite's island; but it felt like the farther south they went, the darker it got. Their storm changed from hot furious rain to frozen icy daggers, stinging their eyes and wings. They were so cold.

What were they doing on this rotten planet, fawning over that stupid little creature? They couldn't even speak to each other. He was afraid of their touch. They didn't even want him to know how they felt about him.

Wasn't that true? They didn't want him to know. He'd found out—and they hated it. They hadn't wanted him to know. That was true. So what was the point of staying around just because they were infatuated with him, if they hadn’t even wanted him to figure it out? What was the point, First? Why were they here?!

It was hard to see through the storm. They couldn't focus. Their vision was distorted, everything repeating, like crossed eyes but not quite. Triple vision. Second's rage and First's shame and Third's rising panic felt like claws digging into the stitched-together flesh between their necks, tearing them apart from each other.

The red sprite didn't love them.

So why were they here?

First didn't know. He was being so stupid. Maybe they should leave.

Third's terror stabbed into their scars. No! They couldn't leave now! Not when they'd finally decided to stay somewhere for the first time in their lives! They'd only been here half a month—a half month break from millennia upon millennia upon millennia of wandering frozen and cold through space—he wasn't ready to give up sunsets and sands and scents yet, he didn't want to go, he didn't want to go.

Rage flowed back and forth between their minds like tides rising and lowering across the world. Second's rage vanished in the face of Third's plea; and First's towered up in its place. That was too bad, wasn't it, that he didn't want to go. First couldn't say he wanted to go either. No, he'd far prefer to stay here and—and have some kind of—romantic, fantastic, fantasy life with the red sprite. But that wasn't happening, was it! The key word here was fantasy! They were lucky enough that he'd let them stay on his island—probably only because they'd beaten him once and then he'd gotten injured—but the delusional dream of making a happy little aerie had been bound to fall apart eventually, and whatever delusion Third was carrying about what their life could be like on this world was going to fall apart too, and he needed to deal with that. They all needed to deal with that.

They all, always, needed to deal with that.

Third lunged for Second's neck; Second lunged for Third's. One of them had meant to go for First, or else one of them was making the attack that First had meant to make. They'd lost track of who was arguing what, they were almost losing track of their own positions. Their scars burned. They were all furious and all afraid.

They plummeted then leveled out.

What would they have if they stayed here? Look at them after only half a month, tearing at their own throats. They were going to kill themselves. This was why they always moved on, this was why they refused to get attached: because this was what they were afraid would happen. And they'd never even imagined it would be this bad. They'd never thought it would happen so fast. They never though the grief could start before they lost whatever they let themselves get attached to. But here it was, anyway.

The red sprite didn't love them.

###

Nido had never been this cold in his life.

He rarely ever flew this close to the hubs of the world—even more rarely to the left hub, where the land petered out much sooner and there were no volcanoes. Just water and ice. Water and ice and darkness.

The golden one's storm tore at Nido's wings like icy daggers. He could feel his armor softening in the rain and crumbling off of him as he flew, and frozen crystals filling the cracks.

Nido cried for the golden one, but he didn't answer. Nido didn't know if the golden one could still hear him; most of the time, Nido couldn't even see him. Occasionally he caught a far-away glimpse of him, illuminated by his lightning; his heads twisted and writhed around each other, seemingly fighting himself still. But the glimpses got smaller each time.

He'd had no idea the golden one could fly so fast. It was hard to tell, with Nido being shoved back and forth by the storm winds while the wind undoubtedly served to push the golden one faster—but he might even be faster than Nido. He was falling far behind.

He kept following anyway. Even if he couldn't see the golden one anymore, by now he was confident of his route: he was flying all the way to the left hub, the axle around which the world turned.

Nido would find him there or freeze to death trying.

###

Their legs gave out under them as they landed, and they dropped to their knees in the snow. Their blizzard whipped through the night, cold and black and white and ashen; and it reminded them too much of the moon where they had been made.

It made them furious.

Here was the hole in the ground where the little king had buried them; here were the ruined buildings and aircraft they'd left scattered behind them as they left. How long had they been buried in this frozen hell, they wondered? It seemed a fitting place to leave this world behind.

Between their recent frantic dance at the edge of the atmosphere, their struggle to disrupt a hurricane, and their hard flight today to the bottom of the world, they were sore and tired. Hardly the condition they were usually in when they left behind a planet behind—usually, the world was flattened and barren, and they had taken time to recover their strength before leaving.

It galled them to leave this world while it was still alive. But the red sprite merited that much of a mercy.

A needle pierced their heart.

No. It had to be now. While they were still resolved to go. Their necks were raw and missing scales; they could taste their own blood. But they'd reached a consensus. This infatuation was stupid—and they were stupid to stay just to pine for him if he didn't want them as much as they wanted him.

And he didn't want them. No. He'd proven that when he'd shoved his mind up against First's, stolen the knowledge of their affection—and they'd had a chance to see what was inside Nido's head. Eager curiosity, fascination, trepidation-quickly-turning-to-relief—something like satisfaction. Something like smugness.

He felt they were threatening, but interesting.

Interesting.

That was all.

They were not going to stay on his island to be a curiosity for him.

They raised their wings, stretched so high that they trembled and shook, both from the strain and the cold—tensing up for a beat of their wings that would carry them halfway out of the atmosphere.

Through the howling wind, they thought they heard something that sounded, faintly, like the cry of the red sprite's name—the way he heralded his approach.

They froze.

No, they had to have imagined the sound. It was wishful thinking. It was just the sound of the knot in First's throat tightening. They took a deep breath in—the last breath they might take for millennia—and shut their eyes.

The red sprite slammed into their side.

They toppled to the ground in a mess of flailing wings and squawks.

###

Nido somehow got his head stuck under the golden one's wing, so he was quite grateful when the golden one managed to get one of his tails curled around to smack Nido free. He tumbled into the snow, almost ended up stuck upside-down on his own shoulders with his horns stuck in the ice, but managed to flail until he'd flopped onto his back and could get back to his feet.

The golden one took longer to get up—but, Nido supposed, he had more parts to coordinate. Twisted half on his side and half on his back, one wing stuck under him and one in the air, feet kicking at nothing and necks akimbo. Nido hadn't quite figured out how to read his expressions from his faces just yet, but he was pretty sure that the thrice-repeated expression they were wearing was shock.

Shock—but then it quickly gave way to some mix of terror, confusion, and outrage, the expressions bouncing between his faces.

Nido shook himself, trying to get off as much snow as he could—futile effort, yeah—and by the time he'd decided he'd done as much with that lost cause as he could, the golden one was on his feet again. Two heads jerked forward with the middle curled back, hunched low on feet and wings, staring at him.

"Hey," Nido said, wings raised, far more cheerily than he felt.

"What." The golden one snapped the word out of one head while another hissed threateningly. He couldn't tell if they were angry or nervous.

"Ah." Yes, right, he should... he should say something. He hadn't actually planned what he would say when he reached this point. He poked his beak through the snow, couldn't find a rock to pick up, so instead just picked up a chunk of snow and flung it vaguely north. "Nest," he said.

The snow immediately blew back into his face. Honestly, it didn't add much to the blizzard.

"Nest," the golden one repeated dubiously.

"Fly nest!"

"No."

"Yes!"

"No." The three heads snarled it together, cacophonously and discordantly, lunging toward Nido as though threatening to strike. He tensed up, but he refused to flinch back or move away.

"Why?" he asked.

"‘Why’," the golden one repeated flatly. Nido hadn't taught him that word yet. How do you explain the definition of "why"?

He didn't know how else to convey what he wanted to ask, though. Why was the golden one leaving? What had Nido done wrong that was so awful that he'd rather be down here than in a nice proper warm volcano? Surely this wasn't where his true nest was! There were no decent volcanos at the hub of the world! He looked around, wings spread demonstratively at this icy hellscape, showing that there was nothing here worth—

Oh. Oh, that was—there was a hole in the ground. It was as miserable and frigid as the rest of the hub, but it was the right shape and size to be a nest. Was this— He'd wondered for some time whether the golden one had been born from a volcano that had gone cold before his egg had finished incubating. But this hole in the ice was so much worse. He hopped closer to the hole, studying it in horror.

Even through the blizzard, he could tell that the hole was just large enough to hold the golden one.

"Nest?" he asked, looking at the hole. "Golden one nest?"

The golden one didn't make a sound.

Nido looked at him—he was seething with rage, teeth bore, shoulders hunched, wings slowly raising in threat. Nido tumbled back just in time to avoid the golden one as he pounced, sliding between Nido and the nest. Had Nido gotten too close to his turf? Was he not welcome there? After how welcome the golden one had made himself at Nido's nest? If the golden one had been one of Nido's kind, Nido would know how to handle this situation, he'd have known not to get this close to the nest of someone he'd lost a fight to without an invitation, but dammit, the golden one sent so many mixed signals—following a loser home to his nest instead of leading him to the winner's nest, touching him like they'd mated a hundred times and like he wanted to eat him at the same time—Nido had no idea how he was supposed to read any signals he gave off anymore—

Nido stared, now even more confused.

The golden one wasn't defending his nest.

He was tearing it apart.

###

Damn the little king, the vile stupid creature who had fought for the machine makers before they'd even made machines, the dumb beast that didn't know they were going to shackle him and make him their war machine if he didn't kill them first, the dumb beast even now already enthralled by the bug.

Damn the bug that pried into their heads with sharp psychic fingers, seeking to needle into their memories and suck out their identities through her proboscis, like their history and pain and all the names they'd left behind were nectar for her to feed on.

Damn the machine makers that had found their prison and turned it into a lab, an art gallery, a tourist attraction, just a display where they could stare at them through the ice like they, living frozen creature, breathing frozen creature, were a mere statue.

Damn this cold black-and-white ashen wasteland with its cold metal and glass buildings that looked like the arid airless moon where three hatchlings had been ripped apart and stitched together into a monster and forced to learn to fly.

Damn the red sprite for following them like he cared, and for seeing so easily that this was the kind of hell they'd come from.

The hole was buried under ice now—along with every evidence of machine maker life he could sweep down into it. They wondered if any had still been living down here. They hoped so. See how the machine makers liked being frozen alive while an alien stood above and did nothing to help them.

Then they rounded furiously on the red sprite.

He looked so pathetic. (Third, numbly resigning himself to the inevitability of numbing space, distant and observationally: he looked so pathetic. Second, sneering and snarling and demeaning and disgusted: he looked so pathetic. First, aching with agony for him, fearing for his health and safety: he looked so pathetic.) Half of his magma armor was cracked and crumbled—he looked like an oversized hatchling going through an ugly molt. Ice lined the cracks. They thought they could see exposed, wrinkled skin beneath the rock. He was shaking from the cold.

This was the creature who just yesterday had gone to sulk in a volcano because it was lightly misting. And look at him now—absurdly, having followed them almost all the way to the south pole, shivering so hard he was shaking off his own armor!

... Followed them into a blizzard of their own making, to ask them to come back home.

Why?

"What?" they snarled again, demanding an explanation, haltingly, in the few words they knew: "What Nido—fly—near? What Nido fly near Gidiwi?" Why? Why?

He stared at them for a moment, and they were afraid he hadn't understood the question—that they'd just spat gibberish at him. But then he said, "Nido, Gidiwi—" and a new word. He hopped on one leg, clawing and biting at the air with his other foot, making a couple of false battle cries—then looked at them hopefully and repeated the word.

The little pantomime was so—so charming—First had to force himself to look away. "Aha," they said softly. "Fight."

"Yes! Nido, Gidiwi fight. Nido—" He spread his wings and flopped backward to the ground, sending massive puffs of snow up around him, simulating his own crash into the ocean, and said another word that they took to mean lose. "Nido lose," he repeated. "Gidiwi fly, Nido fly. Gidiwi nest, Nido nest. Gidiwi fight, Nido fight. Gidiwi east, Nido east. Gidiwi west, Nido west. Yes?"

He was following them.

He was following them because he'd lost to them.

Not because he wanted to. Not even because he found them interesting. But because he'd lost. This ugly little world and all its rituals and rote etiquette, the bowing at the end of battles, bow and scrape and you won't be killed—and follow the winner, too, was that it? He did it because he had to?

No. He hadn't followed them to ask them to come home. He'd followed them because he thought he had to.

That island wasn't their home. That wasn't their nest, this wasn't their mate, and this wasn't love. He didn't love them. He'd do whatever they forced him to, no doubt—but they would know he did it out of fear and duty. He didn't love them.

They had no ties to him.

And they were going to leave.

They had to leave.

###

For a moment, Nido had almost been afraid that the golden one was going to attack him. Not that he wasn't always down for a brawl—but he could feel himself losing his armor; and a hi-how-ya-doing fight was very different from a you'll-never-trespass-in-my-territory-again brawl.

But then the madness in the golden one's eyes abated, and he looked away from Nido.

"Gidiwi fly far," he said. "Nido nest. Gidiwi no nest."

No nest. No Nido's nest or no any nest? "Golden one fly where?"

"Where," the golden one said dully. Another word he hadn't learned.

"Wh—what? Fly what?" Why did they have so few words?!

He turned over the question for a moment—a bit long for Nido's tastes, considering the weather that he'd like an excuse to get out of—then said, "Up."

"Up." Up, what did he mean up. Surely he didn't mean up as in towards the sky—obviously you have to go up when you're flying, but that says nothing about where you're going after that. Did he mean up as in west? There was no west from the hub. Did he mean west from the perspective of Nido's nest? He pointed in a vaguely northwestish direction, and asked, "Up?"

"Up." He pointed his heads straight up toward the sky.

So that was what he'd meant. Somewhat irritated, Nido said, "Yes. Fly up, fly down. Where?"

"Ihi. Where." He got the word now. He lowered his heads slowly, and each one said, with increasing emphasis, "Up—up—up. No down."

What, did he plan on staying in the sky the rest of his life. Nido spread his wings wide. "What."

"Sun, far far far. Yes?" When he said "far" it still sounded more like "fire." "Gidiwi fly far far far, far far far."

Nido felt a chill in his bones that had nothing to do with the blizzard. He understood now. The golden one was leaving the planet completely. The golden one was flying up to outer space.

And certainly, Nido would never see him again if he did.

"No!" he roared. He'd barely started to get to know the golden one—he'd only just gotten used to having him in his home. He wanted to get to know him. He wanted so much to get to know him, this strange three-headed golden warrior, this enigma shaped half like Nido and half like the kind of underwater monster that would eat Nido, this, this—

This alien.

Was that what he was?

"No," Nido said again. "No fly. Here." A word he'd never taught the golden one. "Not far, not near—here." He bent, picked up a clump of snow, and dropped it straight back between his feet. "Here."

"No."

What had Nido done wrong?! All he'd wanted was to figure out how the golden one felt about him—was that an unforgivable insult?! Were aliens not allowed to find out each other's feelings?! Why were they build with feeling-transmitting spots on their foreheads if they weren't allowed to find out each other's feelings! "Please stay," Nido said, "I'm sorry! I don't know why you want to leave, but I'm sorry!"

And of course the golden one didn't understand. He stared at Nido for a long moment—with pity? with sadness? with anger?—then turned away from Nihimdo, one head at a time, and crawled away into the storm.

Nido hopped after him, still pleading uselessly: "We fought. You won. I met your challenge. That means I follow you now and it means you—you—you should want to be followed. That means we're—we're suppose to get to know each other! We're supposed to be—sparring and exploring the world and finding empty nests, and eventually, if we like each other enough, we're supposed to be mates—and you're already way over that threshold for liking me enough, so I don't—I don't know what the problem is! I don't know what I did wrong! I— Are you an alien? What is it an alien wants? What were you expecting? How do I give it to you?"

"Stop." The golden one turned his heads away every time Nido tried to hop into his view.

"No! You stop! Stop trying to leave! I don't even know what I did wrong! If you just show me—"

"Stop." The golden one flung his wings out, startling Nido back. But he wasn't trying to knock him away; he was lifting them high, preparing to do that thing he'd done yesterday when he's shot into the sky with one flap.

He said something Nido couldn't understand. Nido heard the word that the golden one had called him, once, before Nido had told him what his real name was. He was afraid that what he was hearing was a goodbye.

He stood there helplessly as the golden one stretched his thin wings toward the sky and planted his feet wide so that the hurricane didn't blow him over. The words they both knew were useless, the words that might help were ones the golden one didn't know. What else could Nido do?

He stared at the golden one.

And then he tackled him.

###

They were not expecting a frigid pile of volcanic roc to slam its full weight into their side.

They went down hard, First and Second's faces slamming into the ice. Third lifted up first, shook his head to reorient himself, and shrieked furiously at the red sprite. By the time they'd righted themselves, the red sprite was high above, almost vanishing in the blizzard, circling like a bird of prey eyeing its next meal.

What the hell did he want? What difference did it make to him if they left?! Were they going to have to rip him apart to leave?

So be it.

They lifted into the air with a crackle of lightning between their wings. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Where. Was. He.

They didn't need to search long. With a screech, he came for them, talons outstretched. The flames trailing from his wings had long been extinguished, but they still felt his heat long before he touched them. They parried him with one foot, and he wheeled away, disappearing once more into the dark and the storm. Another cry, and he attacked again. They almost got their claws around him this time, but he stabbed at their ankles with his beak, plummeted out of their grip, then twisted around and flew off into the dark again. A third time he cried and attacked, coming at them from the side; but the angle wasn't right for him to get his talons in, and he barely touched their wing before wheeling off to try again.

His attacks were weaker than the first time they'd fought. Did the cold affect him that much? Or was he still feeble from his fight with the bug? Pathetic. They'd thought he'd made a full recovery, but—

Talons pierced their back.

They shrieked, as much in surprise as in pain. He'd dropped on them from above. He hadn't cried out before attacking—they hadn't even realized they'd been listening for that until his silent attack. Clever animal! They writhed beneath him, trying to throw him off and keep flying at the same time.

The red sprite held on ferociously, one set of talons digging into the muscles around Second's spine, the other sunken deep into the meat of their left shoulder. Every flap was agony. They curled their tails backwards, whipping them across his back; but he dropped his head into the sunken groove between Third and Second's spines for protection and took the beatings with muffled caws and flinches. They could feel the thorns of their tails' rattles snapping off against his armor.

The talons around his spine hurt too much for Second to do more than hold his head stiff, squeeze his eyes shut, and hiss; so Third twisted around, lightning dancing around his snarling jaw, trying to aim over their shoulders. The red sprite lunged forward and snapped his beak around Third's neck—hell, was the inside of his mouth barbed?! Third snarled, his lightning dissipating into static, unable to get in a good shot without risking the tip of the red sprite's beak piercing through his throat.

If First hunched his neck back, his face was even with the red sprite's. He could even look him in the eye. The red sprite had to stretch himself out diagonally across their back in order to grip Third's neck without letting go with his talons. His throat was stretched out and exposed. All First had to do was snap his jaw shut around his vulnerable neck and this would be over.

He didn't.

He couldn't.

He looked into the red sprite's eye—into his bizarre alien animal mania—and he couldn't.

Two voices screamed in his head for him to bite, and he couldn't.

Instead, he twisted further and sank his teeth into the red sprite's shoulder. The red sprite shrieked, let go of Third's neck, and bit for First's instead.

And as he did, the side of his head brushed just close enough to the side of First's that First could hear his...

Euphoria.

The surprise of it nearly knocked them out of the air. The red sprite was euphoric. Breathlessly ecstatic. They were trying to kill him and he was having the best time of his life.

Yes, beneath the euphoria, there was fear in him—but it wasn't fear of death. It wasn't fear of losing, and it wasn't fear of them. It was the same fear that was driving them to leave: the fear that he might soon have to grieve for something he had lost. Was it them?

Strange, how strange—they thought the way to avoid grieving for something lost was to have nothing to lose. Instead he was... trying to avoid losing it.

He didn't adore them the way they adored him. But he wanted to fight them as badly as they wanted to hold him; he got the same heady rush they did. His heart pounded the same way. He didn't want them the exact same way that they wanted him, no, but, when they were fighting—he wanted them just as much.

Exactly as much.

They crashed to the ground.

They'd been too stunned to remember to keep flapping for, perhaps, the length of only two flaps; but it was enough to drop them out of the sky. Hah. Stupid. They must have already been dangerously near the ground without noticing.

The landing had dislodged the red sprite's beak. With some difficulty, they managed to roll onto their back, squashing him beneath them. He squawked indignantly, trying to push them off of him with his feet. His talons didn't stab so much as lightly prick.

With even more difficulty, they rolled off of him, getting to their feet and wings. Before he could get off of his back and on his feet, they slammed down over him, wings on either side of his wings, feet on either side of his feet, heads looming over his head. He stared up at them with wide eyes, feet curled up in the narrow gap between his abdomen and theirs. "We're not staying," they hissed, tongues thick and unwieldy in their mouths, not sure which language they were speaking but sure it wasn't his. "Even if you think you have to follow us. Even if you think you like fighting us. We were stupid to ever consider staying on an alien world. We won't kill you—that's our favor to you—so do yourself a favor and stay—"

He rolled on one side, pushed himself off the ground with his wings, and with talons and beak tore through one of their wing membranes.

Searing pain. Their eyes widened. They dropped heavily onto their injured side, their wing collapsing in the snow. The red sprite scooted out from beneath them like he was doing a backstroke through the snow, rolled over, shook himself off, and drew himself upright.

They stared up at him, too shocked to register their pain.

"Gidiwi lose," he said firmly. "Gidiwi stop."

He'd clipped their wing.

###

Nido immediately regretted everything.

He kept himself drawn up tall—he couldn't falter now, he'd just won—but he was fairly certain that he was about to die.

He hadn't meant to shred that wing as thoroughly as he had. He'd meant to leave a light gash—something that would inconvenience the golden one if he tried to fly away, but something that would heal easily and let him depart in a few days if he really, truly, desperately wanted to leave. He'd wanted to show the golden one that he wanted him to stay the same way he'd show any of his own kind.

But the golden one wasn't one of his own kind. The golden one wasn't one of his own planet. And even on this planet those that weren't of his kind didn't treat battle nearly as lightly as Nido did.

Now Nido had given him a much worse tear than he'd meant to, and he didn't know if the golden one could heal from that—what if he couldn't fly anymore?!—and—

And the golden one was definitely going to kill him.

Nido stood there, raised up to his full height like an idiot, staring down at the three faces staring dumbstruck up at him, sure he was going to get electrocuted at any moment, and he'd probably deserve it.

Slowly, the golden one began pushing himself upright. Nido stayed perfectly still, watching as the golden one got back on his feet and uninjured wing—and then, with a lurch, as he raised up onto his feet, lifting both wings high overhead, not like he was preparing to take off but so that they framed his face, all three necks raised high between them, a clear threat display. Dark blood oozed slowly from the shredded segment of his wing, five haphazard gashes that tore straight through the membrane and let the blizzard blow through.

Nido stared up at him in dread.

And then the wings and heads dropped toward him all in a rush, so suddenly that he recoiled. It took him a moment to realize that the golden one wasn't attacking him. His long wings were dropped to the ground; his heads were lowered just below Nido's. He was bowing.

He was yielding.

"Gidiwi lose," he agreed. "Gidiwi stop."

Oh. Oh, Nido hadn't—hadn't honestly thought that that would work.

Did that mean he was the one deciding what they did, now? He supposed so. Hm. Were they... supposed to be able to switch places like this?

Yeah. That sounded right, now that he thought about it. Some instinct said trading places was alright.

Tentatively, he said, "Good."

Then squawked when the golden one swept his uninjured wing around Nido, pulling him in close—for the length of one very fast heartbeat, he was sure that he was going to be crushed and eaten. The golden one was making a rumbling noise low in his chest that Nido didn't like the sound of at all.

But then he pressed two of his heads to Nido's—his middle forehead pressed to Nido's forehead, his left rubbing their cheeks together—and he was filled until he was dizzy with a cacophonous mix of adoration-infatuation-veneration and joy-relief-delight. The golden one’s right head snapped vaguely toward the other two; his left head snapped back before returning to enthusiastically nuzzling Nido's head.

He couldn't quite feel his own relief as separate from the golden one's—he just felt the both together, mingled and magnified.

The golden one had always seemed cold—but he was definitely warmer than the blizzard. And with the euphoric affection pouring into his head, he felt far less like he was being constricted and far more like he was being shielded from the storm.

He let his eyes sink shut, and he sagged against the golden one, relieved.

###

They were wanted.

They were wanted enough that the red sprite was willing to risk his life fighting to keep them. They were wanted enough that the red sprite would—in whatever ritualized regimented manner they had on this planet—fight his way out of being their follower, in order to make them his. They were wanted enough that he'd physically ground them to keep them from leaving.

And they knew very little about how love worked—for them, for him, for anyone anywhere—but if clipping someone's wings so they couldn't fly away wasn't an act of, if not love itself, then at least a form of desire equal to it—then what was an act of love?

Pulling the red sprite in close had startled him again; but his alarm had quickly disappeared when they'd showed him what they were feeling. (And they could show him what they were feeling! There was no longer a secret they had to hide!) Now, he just felt a sort of weary relief—and what they were sure was a glimmer of affection to echo their own.

First and Third wrapped around him, and they curled their wing tighter. They could stay. They would stay.

The last distant rumbles of thunder fell silent. Second looked up and watched as the blizzard began to dissipate.

###

(Replies/reblogs are welcome & encouraged! Check the “source” link below for my masterlist of Ghidorah-centric and Rodorah fics, as well as my AO3 and Ko-fi links.)

#rodorah #godzilla #kotm #rodan #king ghidorah #ghidorah #my writing #fanfic #(i love yall so much that i posted this as soon as i finished)#(... which means without proofing whoops)#(mild content warning for some 'violence is an expression of love right?' because uhhhh they're assholes)

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ckret2 · 5 years

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what are ichi, ni, and san attracted to individually?

Oh man I found my draft of this buried way deep in my docs, I meant to finish answering this ask weeks ago. How long have I been not working on this? Dang.

Anyway.

I've made some posts about who each of them are individually attracted to, but I haven't done one yet on what each of them individually finds attractive, so sure! A lot of the below will also discuss the love interests each of them has expressed attraction to, to the extent that each of their individual love interests reflect their individual tastes.

This post is 2700 words, buckle up.

Let's start off with what they've got in common—because what they've got in common vastly overwhelms their differences. All of their personal tastes have been heavily shaped by the trauma they went through, so both their collective tastes and individual tastes reflect that. Most prominently: they're all attracted to skilled/strong warriors, because 1) under the Xilien military they had it beaten into their heads that the only thing of worth about them is their ability to destroy, 2) at this point nearly all their hobbies and interests besides fighting have atrophied to nothing so fighting is the only couple bonding activity left to them, and 3) they live under constant terror that if they care about something, it will be destroyed/killed, because they ARE an instrument of destruction/death and that's the framework through which they see the universe—so a partner who can defend themself against anything that might try to destroy them is very appealing.

So you get a powerful warrior, that's gonna put a check mark on all three of their "ideal partner" wish lists.

They're also going to be collectively more attracted to people with dorat-esque physical traits. Scales, coloration in the yellow range, long flexible bodies, articulated wings, a one-head-and-four-limbs symmetrical body layout, snoutlike face with one mouth and two eyes... (When you've been around enough aliens, things like "symmetrical bodies with four limbs" and "one mouth and two eyes" are no longer a given.) Not that EVERYTHING is necessary for them to be attracted, of course, but little things add up. For example, if they were forced to choose and if he wasn't their Hated Nemesis, they'd find Godzilla more attractive than Kong on the basis of the fact that he's reptilian, he's got a tail, and he's got a row of spines down his back, and therefore he's more doratlike than Kong. However, Godzilla loses out to Manda, who's snakey, has horns, and is close to a color that dorats actually come in.

This isn't a conscious thing on their part—they don't, like, mentally tally up dorat-like traits. But if you went up to them and asked "hey, what traits do you consider hot?" and for some reason they decided to answer instead of incinerate you, the list of features they'd provide would end up pretty well describing a very handsome dorat. They don't REALIZE they're looking for dorat traits, but if you pointed it out to them they'd be like "Oh, huh. Well, yeah, basically. But a good looking dorat."

Plus some variations based on their original Dorat Sexualities; like, Ichi and Ni are both more attracted to smaller wings and longer/spiny tails, while San is the opposite. (Not that this is necessary. San looked at Gigan's itty mainly-for-decoration wings and went "yeah these are fine" and Ichi looked at Rodan's little nubby tail and went "sure, still cute.")

Other traits they've got a shared interest in: positivity, optimism, upbeat attitudes, all that, because they've got none themselves; self-confidence, courage, bravery; people who understand the war machine life—they don't feel wholly relaxed around people who don't have a kill count that can be measured in planets, they feel like they've got to keep up an artificially harmless façade not to be cast out by people who Don't Get It; someone they can see more as a "beast" than as a "person" because they feel like "people" are out of their league but "beasts" are their equals (which is an artificial divide that they absorbed from Xiliens, based on arbitrary measures of personhood like "does their culture wear clothes" or "did they invent their own technology or inherit someone else's").

Okay, so, on to their individual preferences. In order!!

Starting with Ichi! A.K.A. The Only One That Actually Has A Crush On Rodan. Most of the reasons he likes Rodan are because he hits a lot of the traits that all of them find attractive: great warrior; he's pretty upbeat; he's brave; he gives them "oh this is definitely A Fellow Animal and not a Person" vibes; they think that he's totally down with destroying the world (because they don't realize that he didn't understand that that was what they were up to); and he makes them go "oh, he's like, 60% dorat? 65%?"—because of his appearance, because he (like them) survived the oxygen destroyer unscathed, and because he could break out of their siren song mind control. So those are all reasons for Ghidorah to like Rodan.

But it doesn't explain why Ichi likes him so much more than the other two.

And deep down... deep, deep down... I think Ichi just wants to get dicked down and Rodan looks like he can do the job.

But seriously though—Ghidorah, as a whole, has been suppressing a broad swath of their emotions for an extremely long time, ESPECIALLY their capacity to form emotional connections with anyone else. Ni and San have both cracked on that front—Ni's got an ongoing crush that he deals with by burying it alive, and San's got a star-crossed love half a galaxy away that he left behind kicking and screaming—but Ichi's never cracked. He's never let himself fall for anyone. Ni and San see "keep Ghidorah isolated, independent, self-contained" as an obligation; Ichi sees it as a duty—his duty to his other two parts.

None of the three is officially the leader/in charge, but Ichi ended up the de facto leader because back when they were even worse of a psychological wreck than they are now he was the one who just barely held it together enough to corral them and keep them going. He's the team Mom Friend, assuming that the mom in question is also a hardened drill sergeant without an ounce of natural maternal instinct, and the friends the drill sergeant mom friend is mothering are two traumatized soldiers trying to escape a postapocalyptic hellscape so they can forage for food. He's done a better job of not getting attached than the other two because he's felt most strongly that that's absolutely not an option.

But then they're on Earth, one of the worlds they've struggled the hardest to try to conquer, one of the most frustrating experiences of their post-Xilien-escape life; and they've just woken up from several millennia in ice, pissed the fuck off but also disoriented as hell and keenly aware of the fact that they lost a HELL of a fight in order to have been frozen; and mentally, they're somewhat rattled apart, they're still rebooting their usual emotional shields and defenses, they're still trying to get the mental pieces put back together, and Godzilla attacks them like a minute after they wake up and their brains are definitely not put back together—

There are holes in Ichi's mental defenses that have never been there before. He's vulnerable in a way he hasn't been before. It's not that something about Rodan is more attractive to him than it is to the other two—it's that the other two keep a good solid inch of iron around their capacity for affection, but Ichi keeps a nice fat five-foot-thick steel wall around his; and right now that wall is missing. He is completely exposed to the possibility of someone swooping in and seizing his heart—and Rodan went right for his chest with talons extended. And because just that one time, that one day, he's already shaken up, he's already vulnerable, Rodan gets through when the next day he might not.

And so even though the other two can also look at Rodan and agree, yes, the things Ichi is attracted to him for are indeed attractive, Ichi falls hard and fast when the other two don't.

Or, the tl;dr version:

Ichi has been suppressing his sexuality for several times longer than the human race has existed. For a moment—just a moment—all that suppression is gone; and so he's at risk of latching on to anyone that struck him as attractive. On this day, at this moment, he wants to get dicked down, and by god, Rodan looks like he can do the job.

And with all that written... because everything we've seen that Ichi is attracted to so far fits in with what Ghidorah-as-a-whole is into, I'm not sure that I've got anything specific to list that sets his tastes apart from the collective's. I might come up with some later, but since thus far they haven't been relevant in what I've been writing, I haven't come up with any in particular. Maybe it's just the case that all the things he's attracted to also happen to be things that The Whole is attracted to. Y'all wanna suggest specifics, I'll see if I like any that I can work in?

Ni's romantic tastes are best covered here, with the explanation of why he's into San:

https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/187039340467/anonymous-said-why-did-redacted-fall-for

And honestly... that's it. That's his taste. San is his taste. His taste is San. He had a babycrush on San since back when they were three individual dorats that barely knew each other, long before they were picked up for Highly Unethical Animal Experimentation, mutated, combined, and turned into Ghidorah; and realizing that one of the two people he was stitched together to and sharing brainspace with was the dude he had a crush on was one of the primary things that galvanized him to, like, survive. And since then having a secret limerent obsession with one of the two dudes he's fused to has determined almost everything about his romantic preferences, sexuality, and entire mental/emotional landscape.

What he liked San for originally can basically be boiled down to:

1) He was less "hivemindy" than other dorats, particularly dorats of his sex—San's sex is the one that's got less control over their empathic abilities, and so it's easy for a bunch of them to get together and catch the same emotion from each other like a fast-moving contagion. San had a tendency to go less "tunnel vision" on whatever The Group was thinking about and notice things going on outside their current activity—often with such great interest and attention that it broke The Group out of the zone as well, to their consternation—but Ni, who was uncomfortable in hiveminds, appreciated that about him.

2) Ni's of the dorat sex that's got stronger empathic abilities, but also a better ability to dim the degree to which they're active—and Ni liked to not just dim his ambient empathic field but also turn it off completely, because he didn't like others reading his feelings at all times. This is uncommon enough in dorats that it actually drove their owner to take him to the vet to make sure his head was okay. (And it was okay; he was just Extremely, Extremely Introverted by dorat standards.) Most dorats thought that this made Ni super weird/uncomfortable/off-putting. San thought it made him interesting, a unique novelty worth investigating. Ni appreciated that San didn't radiate Wild Discomfort in his presence.

3) San was, like, pretty hot. For a dorat. To other dorats. Adolescent dorats. Basically he was the cutest preteen snake in the room because he looked like a 14-year-old snake instead of a 12-year-old snake.

But that... was an extremely long time ago. And basically none of it applies anymore. What's being hivemindy or not matter when there's only three of you and you're always in and out of each other's heads? What's it matter that once upon a time long long ago San thought Ni was okay for shutting off access to his emotions when now there are only two people who CAN feel Ni's emotions/thoughts and both of them are equally chill & used to him keeping his mind closed/filtered to them? What's it matter that San was a cute baby snake when they're now three terrifyingly ancient monster snakes that were mutated to look almost identical?

So, by this point? What he's attracted to is, legitimately, "whatever San is like." His preferences shift so that they're always San-centric. San is the emotional rock Ni is clinging to.

... It's honestly kind of terribly unhealthy.

So if you asked him what he's attracted to, he'd say, like, "Oh, you know... someone who's observant, attentive... someone who's curious about his environment, likes learning... someone who appreciates the little things... uhh...... someone who's closer to the left shoulder than the right shoulder........." and then he'd peter out of traits to list because at this point Ichi, Ni, and San's identities are like 75% overlapped and there's not much room left in them for their individual differences.

But he wouldn't be interested in any of those listed traits if they were in somebody other than San.

(Ni is capable of being "interested" in other people—but it's 50% "I'm interested in you as a friend" and 50% "We, Ghidorah, currently in a mood to feel like an individual instead of like three people, are together interested in you romantically." Ghidorah slides back and forth between being "three-in-one" and being "one-from-three."

San's tastes are covered pretty thoroughly in the post about why he (and the rest of Ghidorah) is into Gigan:

https://ckret2.tumblr.com/post/186622638902/more-on-the-relationship-between-gigan-and

Beyond all the reasons San likes Gigan that Ichi & Ni share—his skill in & passion for violence, his familiarity with what it's like to be an unwilling war weapon—he also likes his sense of humor, his ability to appreciate and revel in little details the way San does... and, probably more importantly than anything else, Gigan represented a way out.

All this time, Ghidorah has kept together and remained... if not "stable" in the sense of "emotionally healthy," then "stable" in the sense of "maintaining a mental balance well enough not to fall over"—but they're stable like a tightrope walker who's gotten really good at maintaining that balance on their tightrope, not like somebody who's standing on solid ground. And they maintain that balance through isolating themselves, never letting themselves get attached to any place or any thing or any one, never letting themselves linger in one spot for long, always moving on, on, on, on, back into space. They're that meme "If I keep my body moving and my mind occupied at all times, I will avoid falling into a bottomless pit of despair."

Which is all well and good, except "avoiding connecting with anything" does not adequately keep San's mind occupied, and the only reason he hasn't fallen into a bottomless pit of despair is because he's got two other people in his head just barely tugging him back from toppling in. But he's desperate for... a sense of continuity, a sense that he can invest something in life that won't vanish in three days, a sense that anything matters. He wants desperately to connect to something else—or someone else.

Gigan offers that connection—Gigan is someone safe they can connect to, because he has the same lifestyle as them. He's someone that San can let in... without them having to change their life at all.

So, that's what he's attracted to that sets him apart from the other two: he's attracted to escape routes. He falls for someone who can anchor them so they don't keep tumbling off into space, from world to world and apocalypse to apocalypse. He wants someone who can be an excuse for them to stop and hold still. Someone who's compatible with them, someone who's just like them, someone who burns worlds the same way they do, but is capable of wrapping their arms (wings? tails? whatever) around Ghidorah and holding them in one place—whether that's "one place" physically or emotionally.

He's just tired of floating through outer space in asteroids.

#king ghidorah #kotm #godzilla #rodan #gigan #headshipping #ghidorah #about my writing #headcanons #meta #anonymous #ask

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