Blackfeather Woods Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you amongst cocktails.

Potema rn:

She was on a poppy fueled haze for the past few days. It was necessary. Everytime she saw the children move she wanted to hurt them. Then herself. It was a vicious cycle of internal pain and poppy numbness that continued at a faster and faster pace every time she was forced to feed them.

@Vaati had been keeping an eye on her, making sure that his siblings were fed. She had said little to anyone every since they were born, glaring at her son everyone she was forced to give her milk to children who should have died like their siblings. 

She didn't even bother eating the dead ones. Like with many things concerning them, it was enough to make her vomit. She ate whatever she was given. 

Her life seemed autonomous, controlled by someone else. The only thing that she had power over in her life was how many poppy seeds to take this time, though even that was rapidly falling out of her hands.

Coincidentally or not, his life had aligned so well with his sister's — Cicero had soon fallen back to old habbits, raiding his poison stashes for whatever he could spare. Sheogorath had upkept them poorly so he had gathered some before winter would fall upon them. Cicero had otherwisely stayed away from Potema and the brood, but he had tried to spend as much time as he could with his @Damien — whether his brother wanted to or not — and most of his time was spent in a haze, in pain, in a pain that felt good. @Relmyna had tried to take care of him and it was likely because of her that he wasn't already dead now. She had noted he was no longer Sheogorath, but she did not seem to care; perhaps because her own life was laced with indecision and uncertainty where her path would lead, where she should take it, and therefore she stayed simply here because she had nothing else left after the atrocities that Sheogorath had made her commit.

So much time was lost and Cicero had nothing more than a mere few flashbacks and whatever others told him he had done to remind him of the beast's actions. His actions, he reminded himself while he chewed on some weeds and knew that it would not be long before he would be plagued by stomach aches and headaches and the will to vomit. In a pleasant haze of pain Cicero wandered through the forest, not even realising he was headed for the sister he had tried his best to stay away from that time.

Her natural aversion to her children either forced her to the corner of the den or, when all else failed, out of it. She was never strong enough or conscious to pull herself out of the Glen, remaining there. It was her tomb, some luicid part of her said, her punishment for whatever sins the Gods had blamed them for.

Her paws, made unsteady by the opioids flowing through her body, got her only so far. She collapsed on the shore of the small pond, barely shivering at the chill of the water. FFfffuck, Her words slurred, a delayed reaction to the sudden sensation at her side. She rolled over, her paws tripping and sliding under her. No, She said to her body, stilling.

Everyone was convinced that it was sins the gods punished them for, but Cicero was convinced that this was all the doing of the gods in their own wicked pleasures. Mephala lusted for their blood and lust, so perhaps that was why they were created this way. He'd never put much stock into the words of the gods, but if they had any say in any of this, then he was sure it was as orchestrators and not as punishers.

His delayed senses picked up the sound of her words before they picked up the soft thud of the fall. He halted and looked to the side, to see a pond with a white figure at its shores. It didn't take long to realise who was there even in his pain-induced state of hazy pleasure. Cicero was quick to recognise the state that she was in, for he had been there many times — was there many times, too, these days — and he made his way towards her. "Sister," he said, his voice cool and distant, even moreso through the poisons he had taken, upon reaching her side and he nosed her ribs, almost as if he truly thought that would help her get up.

Potema loses herself as she lays on the floor of the Glen. Her mind dances away from her body, floating somewhere above in an unknown realm. It is a Sight, though it brings nothing substantial to her, or nothing that she will remember by the time she becomes coherent again.

She is awakened by the nose at her ribs, though her senses are delayed. Her eye opens, looking blearly around her, before she turns and sees the pair of mismatched eyes before her, the two hues only meaning one person: Cicero. No! She snaps at him, her jaws caught in the sluggishness that preoccupied her body. Nnno!

Her reaction was understandable albeit slightly hurtful still. Cicero knew that it would take a lot of time to forgive, if ever she could, and that time might only give Sheogorath, the beast, more time to surface and ruin things once more. Ragged ears folded back as she shouted and snapped at him and he took a step backward, recoiling from her hatred even though he knew it was deserved.

"Cicero is not here to bring harm," he said, though the words feel hollow and empty for he knew he did not have control of himself as he wished he had. He opened his mouth to say he only cared for Damien in that way but it seemed even more demeaning than what she had already been through. Her eyes barely focussed on him as she snapped in his general direction. He felt pain but felt like he was very much on the opposite side of the spectrum as his sister: she delusional and he down to earth as his pain brought him here. He would need more to get to her phase, or maybe simply more time. More pain. He wondered if he enjoyed the pain so much because he deserved it.

The beast deserved it.

And so he deserved it, for he was the beast, even if he did not remember what he had done.

He did not need to remember it himself, for the effects were so vividly available to him in his daily life now. "Potema, you did not deserve that. This." The words were hollow and empty and meaningless. Words in general were meaningless. He squinted his eyes at the pain, though expression remained stoic otherwise.

The words echo in her head, seemingly coming from everywhere. Cicero is a smudge in the fog, grays and whites and blacks blending in with each other, but it his eyes that stand out. They burn through the clouds of her vision, one a hot ember, the other a cold, distant star. A voice comes from those eyes and everywhere again and Potema's snarl grows louder. Th-ff-theee-they stilll breafe! Her tongue is thick and heavy in her mouth, slowing down and muffling her words as they attempt to spill out of her mouth — and they do, like molasses would from a jar. Her body quivers with an untapped rage unable to quickly flow out of her body to match the rising tide within.

She continued to nonsensically roll around and screamed something that was hard to make out. All he heard was 'still breathe', and it wasn't a hard guess to know what Potema was speaking of then. Ears folded back and then he pressed them forward again with a pained frown upon his features. "It is only pain. You will survive this. Pain always passes." He was not so sure if she would ever be able to see him as her brother again, but then, when he looked into the depths of his own heart, he did not care. He had never cared for anybody else. He had never cared for even himself. It had always been only Damien's wellbeing that mattered to him, truly.

But that did not make him an unfeeling machine, for between Damien and himself there were a lot of wolves that he cared to in some degree; more than himself, anyway. Potema was still his sister, just as Meldresi had been his mother, and he would not see her destroyed if he could help it. He simply stood by, wishing there was a thing he could do but knowing he could not.

Her brain is overwhelmed. Poppy normally does not have this effect on the lupine body, but she has more than just an opiate addiction. Her mind is wired in strange ways that made her easily suceptible to sights, flashes from the Gods themselves that she was burdened with from birth. For a time in her youth the Night Mother Herself spoke to her, but she had squandered the blessing, and She had fell silent. But now, faced with the man who ruined her life, the brother who impregnanted her, her body weak and exhausted, her mind foggy, she snaps.

It is a soft one, a slow one, not sharp as if a dry twig had been stepped on. The struggles of her life had worn away at her slowly over the years, cracking the stone of her mind. The crevices had only increased over the past few moons, and now they fell away, all together, her mind crumbling under the weight. She sobs, as it is the only way her body can express the turmoil inside. She no longer protests her brother, merely laying there, her lungs raking and her face wet with tears. Pathetic.

She lay and sobbed, and he wished that there was something he could say to make her feel better. He had already shared his insights. Pain passed, always. But there was little use in further talking to her now. He did not want to share anything else with her, for he knew it would only bring a turmoil that only his madder part wished to see; not he.

Without a further word he turned away from Potema and he slipped into the darkness, burden of her well-being heavy on his heart but knowing there was nothing he could do to change it now, so he left her be, for anything he would say or do would only make it worse.