He has been avoiding
@Silkie, but with the departure of his mother and siblings, his frosty heart (and shoulder) are more willing to forgive. Silkie had the same chance that Wildfire had given him — to leave alongside their sister, their mother, their friend — and had chosen the same as Tux. Perhaps being lost for so long had taught him a lesson: that Drageda was to come before
anything and
anyone else.
Curious to see how well his brother is handling things, he departs from the edge of the cliffs where he so often watches the stars (and where once, he had watched the stars with Silkie, who had suggested they squint to see the stars better) to find the brown-masked young man.
A younger, more impressionable Tux would have shrank beneath his brother's calculative, stoic stare. But he's grown since then, and he's angry about all of the things Silkie is angry about, too. As much as he loves nomi, she is not infalliable in his eyes anymore. She has been gone too long for that. Whatever nostalgia had plagued him upon her return was still there, it just came and went in waves. He bit it back as much as he could. He was a soldier, a kru, and he wouldn't let anything, not even his dedication to nomi, get in the way. As much as he loved his mama, she'd torn his world in two. As much as he loved his sister and his friend, they had left him behind.
And well, out of all of the siblings that Wildfire could have left him with, did it have to be Silkie? Hei,
he rejoins, and this time there is no Étoille to size him up. It's just Tux and Silkie, and whatever tension is between them. You stayed,
he says, forcing the tenderness that threatens to creep up back into the deep-dark of his chest.
No,
he retorts derisively,
You shouldn't have.
Silkie had likely only been forgiven so easily because they were still young, or maybe because they were
heda's offspring. Now they were
kru more than they were children. With their mother and sister branded
natrona, a thought that frightened him (as a son, a brother) and infuriated him (as a young man loyal to Drageda) at the same time, he was sure in his belief that any future incidents of unapproved ... youthful wanderlust ... will be met with a much heavier hand.
It is hard for Tux to say that he doesn't blame Silkie on some level. But at the end of the day, Silkie was here and his momma was not. Kiwi was not. And he supposed that was what mattered.
But you stayed,
he mutters.
Maybe that's enough.
speech is trigedasleng, phone post
Tux's unreadable face suddenly becomes hard, and something vengeful lights aflame in his solemn brassy eyes. We are better than them,
he says, curating his hurt and grief into something infinitely more productive — fury. He is too young and inexperienced to understand the depth of Wildfire's hardships; it wouldn't matter to him anyway. She is natrona now and as much as it hurts, she has made herself dead to him. It was an insult to him that she thought he might come with her — it was an insult to him that Kiwi and Sequoia had.
Brothers,
he says, clutching the metaphorical olive branch with tentative, wary fingers. Drageda was stronger if they weren't at odds, and through their continued loyalty and hard work, they would become the next generation of Dragedakru. He steps forward to look at his kin through fresh eyes, having looked through him for so long. We should do something. Here,
He lifts a paw and rends his teeth through the top side, drawing blood which spills on the rock at his feet.
The same thought had echoed within Tux's own mind as he slid his teeth across the back of his paw — jus drein jus daun, blood must have blood. To watch theirs drain together upon the rock in which they stand is symbolic to him in the way that things often are to children. He lifts his gaze to Silkie, and adorns a half-cocked smile. Are you ready to stand up?