just a little thing because I'm still in my Dadxum era
this is set in the bad timeline but pretty early on, when the boys are still teens. the group they're with is rationing food but it's more like army rations at this point than starvation rations.
no CW to speak of (other than a mention of character death because this is after Splinter died)
Draxum still remembers exactly what he thought the moment he first saw the boys. They were tall. Strong. Articulate. Able to communicate and execute on plans, crude and rudimentary as they were. They were perfect.
The perfect little soldiers.
That was almost three years ago, and he knows differently now. His boys are still tall, strong, and smart, and they’ve gotten much better at planning. But they aren’t soldiers.
But still, he can understand why the humans they’ve been forced to take shelter with don’t see them that way. He knows exactly how it feels to witness their abilities as an outsider and not think of them as children at all. To only see their usefulness as tools on the battlefield.
But Draxum is no longer an outsider. He’s their father, and the only one they have left. Which is why it falls to him to take care of them.