Chapter Text
The sound of cheers from a few onlookers. Wheels rolling across concrete. Boards grinding against rails, the soft hum that hover equipment makes as you defy gravity. These sounds, filling the air around him, were natural to Aaron. After all, he was the most at home when he was at the skate park. While anywhere for him COULD be a skate park (if he tried hard enough, anyway), there was nothing like the sound of guys chasing the ultimate thrill. Sometimes gals and enby pals too, he noted subconsciously. He didn’t judge: skating was freedom, and who was he to deny that? He himself had intentionally gotten lost in it. The wind in his orange-brown hair, the way his body split the air around him. He wouldn’t often admit it, but he too needed an escape. Video games weren’t it. He chased every single limit down to break it, raised every jump just to go higher, and was even known to ‘tactically dismount’ his board when he knew he was in over his head. This is what life should be, as short as it is. Not war. Not fighting. Yet, there was a voice in the back of his head, telling him to wake up from this dream. It wasn’t a dream, he knew, and the voice only wanted to pull him back to a sadder reality. A nightmare. He coasted, his body stilling amidst the other fluid riders, as Robin looked on from a nearby bench, perplexed. The little knight-in-training couldn’t possibly have a clue, and Aaron couldn’t possibly pray it stayed that way; what could he do, but remember the nightmare? The sounds of buildings burning. An all-too manic, slightly grating, familiar laugh over the noise. A rather horrid stench— smoke and flesh— filling the clean village air. Why that? He had seen a bystander light a cigar. Now that he was thinking about his day job, of course, he knew other memories weren’t far away. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and perhaps it was his fault for not checking the forecast, but he didn’t care about the weather until… jeez, was it only a month ago?? No way was it only a month, and yet… it felt like yesterday. The smell of ozone, the same crazed laughter, the memories of his hometown flattened into rubble… and the sight of Clay, unmoving, petrified like some sick artwork. He had basically died. The only thing that brought him back to the moment was a certain young man’s voice. It had started concerned, but was now much firmer in its attempt to pierce through the nightmare. A concerned shout, yet slightly annoyed as more than one call had been made.
“YO, AARON!! Get with us, man!”
“Robin?” Aaron turned his head, almost expecting the weight of his helmet on his head. He saw the city of Knighton, other teens and adults, various onlookers concerned, and amongst them, the tough little guy he didn’t want to scare.
“You okay there? You, uh,” Robin explained with an awkward gesture, “seem pretty tense. Like, real tense.”
The skater had to take a moment to process what he had just done. The skater, in fact, had been shoved aside for the dutiful, strong knight. The one who shows up when death and destruction are abound. The one who, frankly, had no place in a skatepark. Aaron grimaced at himself, before forcing it into a false smile that couldn’t hide the truth, as he put his Blazer Bow back on his hip, and slung his shield onto his back.
“Uh, yeah, no, yeah,” he tried to lie, “I’m- I’m totally good, man.”
“You got your Blazer out in the middle of a skatepark, and look a little-”
“I know,” he snapped. It wasn’t like him to shout, and the look he received was almost funny in its own miserable way. Half of it was one questioning the audacity of the guy who just raised his voice at the one in charge of all his tech upgrades, and the other half was genuinely taken aback, genuinely almost fearful. “I- I know,” he had to repeat softer, “I just… need a minute.”
“Buuuuut… isn’t the skatepark where you go TO take a minute?”
“You… you’re not helping. Completely right, though. I’m gonna… take a walk. See ya round.”
As his feet clopped across the concrete, he heard mumbles from the other skaters as he left. Some asked ‘what happened,’ others called him ‘unhinged,’ and one even mentioned that he had to ‘find a new park, yo.’ Yet the sharpest sting was from knowing that, having no explanation for what happened that he could give Robin, he simply left with no explanation for the jarring shift he went through. For the casualty of a skater being replaced instantly by the stoicism of a man threatened and armed.