the wildest hath not such a heart as you

when i walked forth upon the glittering grass

The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass.
I do remember well the hour which burst
My spirit's sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was,
When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,
And wept, I knew not why; until there rose
From the near school-room, voices, that, alas!
Were but one echo from a world of woes—
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.

- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Laon and Cythna; or, The Revolution of the Golden City

-

Izuku dreams of a field of sunflowers, of himself standing in the middle of them with leaves brushing his skin and twigs beneath his feet. The sky is reddish-grey near the horizon and blue in the edges like a vignette, colours rich as silk, soft and pastel as they come. Rain falls softly around him, droplets dripping off gold petals and green leaves and landing into muddied puddles with a spray of water, but he can't feel any wetness on his skin, and the circle of dirt around his feet stays perfectly dry.

He lets out a soft exhale. Safe, he thinks. I'm safe here, wherever here may be. This place feels like toeing his shoes off following a long day and saying tadaima, or getting comfortable with a stack of books in his lap, or huddling into Kiku-no-Hana's chest after seeing a particularly gruesome spirit. Izuku feels warm here, safe and warm and content like he's never been before.

Something large brushes his arm, and he lazily looks downwards to see a sunflower's sepal wrapped around his wrist, nearly enveloping his hand with its sheer size. The sunflower shies away when his gaze lands on it, flicking a few beads of rainwater off its leaves with the motion, but it doesn't release his hand; instead, after a moment or two, its stem stretches upwards until its petals are brushing Izuku's ear. Go, it whispers. Its voice is the space between the wind and the leaves, the stars and the darkness, the seed and the ground, rather than an actual, tangible thing. Go, Little Boy of Green. Go.

The rest of the sunflowers in the field join in, smudges of yellow and green and brown swaying in the non-existent wind. Go, they chant breathily, a chorus of rustling leaves and fluttering pollen in the countryside air. We will wait for you to come.

There is a tug in Izuku's chest, an invisible cord urging him to go forward, but still, he hesitates. His feet feel rooted to the ground as if he's a plant himself, anchored and heavy like a metal ball and chain sinking into the sea. The plants urge him louder and stronger than before, a breeze transitioning into a gust into a typhoon. We will wait for you to come. We will wait for you. Go. Go!

Izuku steps forward, and wakes up.

He lurches into his body with a gasp, stumbles, then falls to his knees, pressing a hand to his chest in a futile attempt at slowing his rapidly beating heart. His eyes are blown wide as a foreign feeling, something that buzzes and thrums inside him like a live wire, runs through his veins and trails up his calves and thighs before eventually settling in his stomach. He dry-heaves and tries to ignore the feeling in order to get some semblance of air into his lungs.

When his mind finally stops feeling so fuzzy, Izuku raises his head to look up at his surroundings. There's a lake on his left, dark as spilt ink in the night, with only the waning moon and a few meagre stars reflected in its surface. Trees stand between the lake and Izuku, shadows making contorted shapes in the flickering lamplight, and a hiking path winds its way through the trees before disappearing up a nearby mountain. A wooden sign, with the edges blackened as if burned a long time ago, stands to Izuku's right. If he squints, he can faintly make out the words Musutafu National Park.