Blackfeather Woods slow motion

It was his sister that he looked for that day. He had not forgotten that she had somehow found out — and told Cicero — about their little mistake with Xan. How unfortunate. Even more so that Cicero might never know it was not really Xan that had done this — that it was Luke, a wolf that Cicero had once met but hadn't seen again until that fateful day. Unless, perhaps, he could orchestrate such a thing.

The only thing that could fix his sister's trust, Sheogorath felt, was more truth — he knew what happened, after all, and he could tell her everything... Well, maybe almost everything. He mused over what he would say to her as he made his way towards the den. He and Relmyna had left the spiderling glen as soon as the weather'd improved enough. Today he returned there alone, hoping for a heart to heart with @Potema .

if you've got time Alisha? :D & maybe pups later, but i'd prefer the two of them for the start of the thread. :)

PP-ing puppies because you are puppies <3

Again Potema laid, curled in her bed, again in the Glen. Her children were sprawled about her body. Her front paws were tucked around @Ganondorf, mostly to keep him from chewing their bedding once more. @Koume and @Kotake were tucked near her rear leg, at the warmest part of her body. @Vaati was laying precariously over her back, rising with her breaths. She barely shifted, afraid of waking them. She had expected her children to be more mobile than this; puppies slept a lot. Her eyes were half closed, but she was not asleep, not yet. Movement outside the den made her eyes open and she gingerly pulled herself out to look at who it was. Cicero, She said levelly. Normally she would have greeted him with joviality, but she was still wary of her brother. He was the only of the two to be there when her children were born, but she did not enjoy the company much.

Sheogorath had hoped that helping with the pups would have increased Potema's trust in him. He had protected them from Nemesis, from her brood, and he had helped move them when winter was harsh. But when he arrived he realised that the damage done must have been worse than he thought. There was nothing that could not be repared, though.

"Hello, sister," he said, a smile slipping onto his face. It was a smile uncharacteristic of Cicero these days, perhaps, but it was one that he had often held as a child. One that his sister had once missed on his face. "I wanted to talk to you about what happened. What Xan told you."

He looked at the pups, giving her a chance to put them out of hearing range if they wished, though he didn't think they were old enough to remember or pick up most of the words, anyway. After this brief silence in which he made sure no one else was in hearing distance he continued: "It's... Complicated, more than what he told you — Cicero told you." He looked at her with a frown that denoted some form of sympathy and worry. He knew that Cicero feared him, so what would be better than to make his own sister think it was the other way around?

He looked up at Potema, the worried frown still on his face as he spoke again. "It was someone else who hurt me, who did what Cicero told you about. He just... Thinks it was Xan, but I never wanted..." He looked away, ashamed, or pretending to be, anyway; he was a scout, a spy, an observer and, in the most freakiest of ways, an empath. He just chose not to use his empathy for good.

This conversation struck Potema as strange the moment she heard him speak, despite the bright smile that she had so missed on her brother's face. His speaking patterns had changed so suddenly. Had Cicero been younger, she might have written this off as merely a shift in interest, or him finally growing up, but Cicero was an adult, had been an adult for a year now. She is taken off guard by his use of I , then by his shifts from he to Cicero. It makes the woman feel even least comfortable than she did when he arrived, but she listened nonetheless. No matter what change came over Cicero, when he sought someone else out, it meant something. 

She did not move her children away from the conversation, their slumber too deep for her to worry about eavesdropping, more perplexed by his shift in pronouns and POV even as she accepted his admission. She blinks at his final words. Cic....Cicero, She begins hesitantly, unsure what to call this...person. Who did it then? Xan must have some direct correlation between himself and the actual rapist, why else would Cicero do...that...? Did you...did Cicero..know him?

Ears shifted back and he looked sorrowfully at Potema as she turned to speak back to him, a flare of worry on her face. He could imagine how his words must sound strange, as it was the first time he had ever admitted to being someone else; even if he was lying about the details of the matter... Somewhat, for he had certainly helped spur on Cicero's pain-filled retaliation on the boy.

He looked away briefly before turning to face her again and saying: "It was a wolf named Luke. I'd met him before. I didn't think much of him, didn't think he would hurt me like that. He was very different when I met him that day..." He looked away again as though in shame. "Cicero thought it was Xan when he was put down by him once. He doesn't know it was Luke, because I... This is... It's hard to explain, but he's a — a different person. He didn't mean poorly, he just... doesn't know he's wrong." He looked like he wasn't too sure how to explain and just hoped his sister would believe him an innocent in all this.

She had not known, or seen the dual personalities that beheld her father, nor should she call her own whispering voice one such as this man. Her mother had spoke of it before, in passing more than an actual lesson. She did not know how to go about this, the truth of Cicero's and by extension Xan's rape, and the revelation that there was another man in her brother's body. There was a silence after his speech, her mind absorbing the information given. She raised this question first before continuing on: If you are not Cicero then what would I call you?

It was a lot to process for his sister, he realised, and he was not surprised. Truthfully, he wasn't too sure if it was smart to inform her of his condition — but all he had were these few moments at the steering wheel to achieve what he wanted. And if Cicero got to have a sibling to love, well, it wouldn't be fair if he didn't get a similar thing.

"I guess most just call me Cicero still, but I prefer Sheo," he said as he looked at his sister, who would no doubt recognise his middle name. "Look, I know it's a lot to process. But I couldn't just... You deserved to know." He smiled meekly, though it was all a charade, a grand play that he and everyone around him played a part in as puppets. But considering all that had happened, it was not a hard act to keep up; the lies were only within his emotions, not within the facts.

She did not know what to say.

The revelation that there was another person inside of her brother, who had control of his body and his mind, who can make decisions without the other's permission, frightened her. She stared at Cic- Sheo, trying to see if there were any physical differences between the two of them. Nothing. That was another spine-chilling thought, that this personality could be the malignant one, and the other the normal one - was Cicero ever normal? Was he ever not malignant? 

Her head throbbed with pain and she furrowed her brow. Sheo... She eventually said, raising her eyes up to meet his gaze. I need a minute...to think,

"Of course," said Sheogorath. He hadn't expected her to take it all in and accept it so easily, and so he took this rejection of sorts in stride. "I just — you're the only one I've told, sister. Can this stay between us?" He gave her an uncertain look that said he expected her to honour such a promise. He'd told her in confidence, and hopefully she wouldn't tell anyone — least of all Damien — lest his plans would be wrecked.

"You can call for me if you want to talk about it more or have questions," said Sheogorath. He waited a moment more before leaving, wanting to hear from her mouth that she would not tell anyone else about the information he'd given her today.

It will, was the last words she said before she turned, away from him. She was unable to look at him anymore without her head hurting. She tried time and time again to remember if she had noticed a difference in Cicero's mannerisms before, enough to suggest that it wasn't Cicero. She wondered if Cicero was aware of Sheogorath as much as Sheogorath was aware of Cicero. She wondered if the self-inflicted wounds were one of their ways of lashing out against the other. Her mind spun, the idea of a separate personality being within her brother's body still too much for her to grasp. She curled up around her children, her eyes not closing but staring ahead at a random point, mind racing until she eventually drifted off to sleep.