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+--- Thread: Blackbeak Bluff didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back (/showthread.php?tid=31126)
didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back - Tux - December 02, 2018
i hope you stare in the eyes of God and ask
for forgiveness and i hope whatever you believe in gives it
to you but remember—
i am not God
(x)
Nomi's return had done so much to soothe his budding sorrow, but he still felt as if any moment he'd wake up and it'd all be some kind of vile farce, some kind of twisted dream. She'd be gone, and so would Wildfire, Sequoia, and Kiwi, because that seemed to be all he was destined for. One day he'd wake up and he'd be the last one left at Drageda, and it wouldn't even be his — he was no fos goufa. He was just Tux.for forgiveness and i hope whatever you believe in gives it
to you but remember—
i am not God
(x)
He knows that soon he's going to break. He can only bite back so much, and when it call comes back up it can't happen when he's surrounded by everyone he aspires to be. Everyone who's managed to be better than him. He tells himself that he'll only be gone until he can force it back down — he'll be gone all afternoon for sure, maybe as far as tomorrow morning. He tells @Blixen and @Antumbra that he wants to prove himself as rauna, that he is going away for the night and he will be back soon. He ignores the darkness upon the horizon. It's going to rain, he thinks, but he can handle a little rain. For now he missed the danger, the crackling energy that would soon batter the coast.
He moves from Drageda and stays tight upon the coastline. He doesn't come across the stark-masked woman (@Caiaphas) as he skirts around the Sound, but he can smell her, and he can smell more as he moves past. There's @Wildfire in the bushes, @Sequoia in those trees, and @Kiwi on the ground. Maybe they didn't even come this way when they left for — well, wherever they were going — or maybe they were just around the corner. But every time he turned around he was met face-to-face only with his own grief.
It is the unbecoming of a boy, the becoming of a man. He sobs and howls until he can sob and howl no more, and when it's all over he collects himself, draws himself to the cliffs, and turns to face the stars.
RE: didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back - Ephraim - December 03, 2018
Ephraim hadn't seen Tux since returning to Drageda. In the wake of several of their members defecting, he wanted nothing more than to catch up with his many-toed childhood friend and see how he was doing, but for a large man, Tux was awfully difficult to find. It never occurred to him that Tux might not want to be found. Surely losing his mother and sister was a huge blow. He thought he could relate, but losing his family in the storm when he was young wasn't the same as watching half of one's family turn traitor when they were old enough to understand the implications.
At last, he managed to pick up a recent scent trail leading out of the territory. With a swish of his tail and a backward glance, Ephraim took up a trot and began to tail Tux out along the coastal cliffs. Perhaps luckily for both of them, Tux had a significant head start and Ephraim heard nothing of his friend's sobbing in the far distance. Night came quickly, and something else. The air felt charged and it made the hair along Ephraim's shoulders prickle, but he couldn't place it, so he ignored it.
He found the black-and-white Kru with his face turned up to the sky. With a soft whine to announce himself, Ephraim crept forward and seated himself nearby, allowing Tux to have the first word if he wished. Now that he was actually here, he felt a little stupid about coming without even asking—what if Tux didn't want to see him?
RE: didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back - Tux - December 03, 2018
There was a softness to Ephraim that Tux couldn't seem to figure out. It contrasted directly the foreboding, crackling energy that came from the sky that like Ephraim, Tux did not understand. He turned his massive body (as he thinks: when did that happen?) towards his childhood friend and offers him a thin smile that is slow to form.
I'm glad you're home, friend,he says, drawing closer. Ephraim has lost the round curves of youth and has becomes something angular and stretched thin — at least compared to nomi, and he can only assume it's the same when compared to himself, too.
What happened, over there?
RE: didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back - Ephraim - December 06, 2018
"It's good to be home," he breathed, reverting momentarily to the tongue he was more comfortable with. He hoped that someday in his future, he would fit in better with the Dragedakru by mastering their language, but for now, it was still a stretch for him to find the right words. Sometimes his tenses got mixed up. It was challenging, and it was sometimes nice to slip into something a little more comfortable. The common tongue came naturally for him. There was no thought required.
As his eyes skipped over Tux's golden markings, he let his ears lay back comfortably and basked for a moment in the comfort of a friend at his side. He surveyed the charged sky for a moment while collecting his thoughts for Tux's question. It was tempting to lie and pretend he had seen more than he had, but he knew Heda would refute any claim he made about participating in the war, so he chose to be honest... mostly.
"We won," he said with a triumphant smirk, "there were..." Frowning, he slipped back to common: "casualties on both sides. I saw a guy bleeding from his throat." That wasn't true at all but no one could prove it. "I mostly trained," he went on, "with the other Goufas and Etoille." Come to think of it, Tux was about the same size as Ephraim's adoptive father. Maybe sometime they could spar. He'd been working on a way to best a large opponent like Etoille, but they'd departed before he ever achieved victory, and he had suspected Etoille was going a bit easy on him anyway.
"I'm Skayona now," he announced, unable to hide the spark of pride in his voice, but he didn't dwell on the subject. He would have loved to talk endlessly about the things he'd learned with Trigeda's naturalists, but there were other things to talk about. Like, "what happened while we were gone?"
RE: didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back - Tux - December 07, 2018
"What happened while we were gone?"
How was it possible that both so much and so little had happened all at once? The days in which he'd spent waiting on nomi to come home had stretched on and on and on. He had spent time with almost nobody, because there was always some small-to-significant fire to put out. Like,
when Bat left for a second time and didn't come back
when Mallaidh returned to Drageda
when Silkie had gone missing, and came back hurt
Like when his mother — natrona — had left, and taken his sister along, too.
His brow furrow, his lip thins, and when he opens his mouth he finds that he doesn't really have the words, especially if he wants to speak in the common tongue to make it easier for his friend. How does he explain that their time away had been so boring and so hectic all in the same breath?
Nothing happened until just before you came home. Mama —he cuts himself off, wincing at this terrible slip of his tongue.
Wildfire left with Kiwi and Sequoia, too. They are natrona now.Everything else pales in comparison to this one incident. But aside from this admission, he does not want to give them any more of his time.
There were casualties on both sides,he says a little slower than usual in Trigedasleng, not to mock his friend but to help him learn.
I saw a guy bleeding from his throat.Then, in the common tongue,
That's how you would say that.
He shifts his weight uncomfortably. It is shameful to know that Ephraim is Skayona, and Tux is still some dumb kru. To know that he is nomi's second, and not one of her own blood. He wants to be happy for his friend, but he still feels the anger and shame rise up like bile in his throat.
Skayona,he repeats,
that's good.He remembers what Vercingetorix said about the weather, then his hasty cover-up. But if Ephraim is a skayona, he must not think it's stupid.
What do you think of those clouds, over there?He motions at the dark thunderheads that line the horizon, approaching like some dangerous and irrevocable force.
RE: didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back - Ephraim - December 09, 2018
Natrona. He'd heard that word before. It was a word for disloyal souls who ran in the night when their wills, weak as they were, crumbled beneath the weight of the lifestyle they'd sworn to uphold. For a long moment Ephraim didn't know what to say. He didn't really know Wildfire, having only seen her in passing once or twice, and he had absolutely no idea who Sequoia was, but he remembered Kiwi. It seemed impossible that she would turn her back on Drageda and her family. It seemed impossible that any of them would. It couldn't possibly be true.
But Tux wouldn't lie, and one hasty glance at his companion told him that this was the truth. The reaction was too visceral to be anything less. Wildfire and Kiwi had both left, abandoning not only their pack, but their family. "I can't believe it," he hissed quietly, flattening his ears back as he grappled with the gravity of it. What did that mean for Heda? The penalty for treason was death, of course, at least as far as he knew, but could Heda kill her former mate? Her child? Could Tux if he was charged with it? His friend went on to repeat some of his phrases in slow Trigedasleng, which Ephraim tucked away in his mind, but he wasn't able to abandon the former topic so easily. Licking his dry lips and finding no solace in it, he asked, "Is there anything I can do?"
It seemed like a flat offer when Tux moved uncomfortably, because of course nothing he did would suffice. He didn't know it had to do with him being Skayona and Tux being Kru. He didn't even know his friend was still Kru, having assumed Tux had a rank as well, and even if he did know, it wouldn't have made a difference. Ephraim regarded his tuxedo companion with utmost respect either way. He was Drageda born and he had stayed loyal when his family betrayed. He didn't need a named rank to prove his worth, he'd already done it.
Ephraim settled down onto his belly on the cool rock and propped himself up with his elbows, turning his face to the horizon when his attention was drawn to the clouds. He could almost see the front line of the advancing storm, so clear was the division between normal sky and raging cumulonimbus clouds. He switched his tail side to side nervously. "I've never seen clouds so angry looking," he admitted, tipping his ears off to the side as he contemplated them. "You can almost smell them," he remarked, and added, "think it's gotta be more than normal old rain?"
RE: didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back - Tux - December 16, 2018
Tux was still young enough that, compared to someone like Blixen or Artaax, it would be easier for him to kill his mother and sister, and it would only get easier as time went on. As far as he was concerned, they stopped being his family the moment they'd turned their backs upon Drageda, and it was this terribly black-and-white outlook on the world that would allow him to play judge, jury, and executioner.
Still, the wound is fresh, and knowing that Ephraim wants to help him only makes it worse somehow. He sucks in a breath, steadies his limbs which threaten to quake.
I'd like to forget about them.It was the only answer he saw. He could not keep them close to his heart and fulfill his duty to Drageda. So he'd cut them out of his memory entirely, or at least burn them out the best he could.
He turns his attention back to the clouds, which fizzled and rumbled with the echoes of one thousand hooves.
I think so,he says.
I've never seen 'just rain' that looks anything like this.But a physical storm would be easier to handle than the emotional one he'd been handed.
RE: didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back - Ephraim - December 18, 2018
I'd like to forget about them. He wanted to understand the sentiment, but didn't. If given a choice, Ephraim would have preferred not to forget the majority of his family, if only so that he would recognize them in the future. Then again, his family wasn't a bunch of traitors. It was true that from his perspective, they hadn't come looking for him and didn't care when he got spooked and lost in the storm, but they weren't natrona like Tux's. It was different.
You'll forget,he offered soothingly, splaying his ears and peering at his friend in a consoling way.
I did. It just takes time.What Ephraim didn't realize was that the memories of a child were only half formed fragments, and some of those were completely made up; they were old enough now that Tux probably never would forget them, not fully, not the way Ephraim had. He had only his experience to go from, and his experience told him that given time you always forgot.
Maybe it'll rain fire,he suggested, as if that was a phenomenon that could happen in anything but doomsday prophecies,
or ice. It looks dangerous. It smells dangerous. I don't like it at all. Do you think we can do anything to prepare Drageda for it...?Batten down the hatches, so to speak, but he didn't know what to expect and so didn't know what to suggest.
For a while longer the two discussed the implications of the storm, agreeing that it would be unlike anything they'd ever seen in their lifetimes, and then headed back to Drageda's cliffs.