Greatwater Lake she was afraid of dreadful prophecies

@Urias :)

 

as it turned out crushing a bone to near nothingness did, in fact, hurt.

the intensely pulsating ache from her foot had begun to leave her lightheaded as the half-day trek ensued, sure that if she did not treat it as soon as possible she would not get the chance to do so. what is your name? the girl inquired to the man who accompanied her through gritted teeth. a disraction from the pain -- should he oblige her conversational efforts.

every muscle in her body seemed to tense up with each step forward, and it took all the willpower within her not to yelp at each mere movement. the dark-haired girl was not weak. the offspring of a warlord; a fact she reminds herself in an effort not to submit to the lingering desire to rest. 

scylla casts her eyes ahead as the treeline begins to thin and with that, the indication that the lake lied not too far away. but there was still to garner the supplies she required to treat the wound, another feat left unaccomplished. with a low, frustrated growl did she continue to hobble against the direction of the rivers current.

thanks for getting the thread up^^

her voice is modulated by the pain. it fuzzes around the edges like felt slowly coming apart and urias knows when to wince at the right times. i'm urias, he obliges, studying his own feet with his hands deep in his pockets as he walks. you?
over time her gait only grows more and more awkward. watching the strain on her face grow closer to an unidentified tipping point is like looking at a trembling suspension cord about to snap and rear. even he is uncomfortable despite his spectacular failures concerning empathy. there is something about walking with a wounded girl that makes him cagey. 
don't be so goddamn stubborn. exasperated at her crumbling attempts to hide her discomfort, he moves to her side to provide shoulderly support. he fully expects to be stabbed at.

t'was my pleasure :)

urias. scylla. she returned, opting to leave out the rest for as long as she could. if she must, she would, but disclosing an identity that tied her to many who were largely distrusted or even loathed was something scylla was hesitant to do. no matter how far from her roots she came.

don't be so goddamn stubborn.

the words light a slow burning flame that boils her blood; a phrase she took to be unjustly condescending. i do not need you to tell me what to do. narrowed brow and a venomous hiss retaliated, snapping half-heartedly at the man’s shoulder. she is nothing if not strong-willed. but the girl cannot afford to abandon his supports, and continues to rest a portion of her weight upon his frame. do not bite the hand that feeds you, scylla -- she checks herself. 

her naturally levelled head realigns itself and focuses, bright yellow. the marigold flower is bright yellow. yet if it was not to be found, another issue presented itself. the dark woods -- just beyond the lake -- it would likely have all that i need if there is none here. there is a slight tinge of anxiousness riddled within her tone, but she is careful to mask it with a stoic expression. to have to return there after so long… it was preferable not to.

gonna roll in discord to see if hes successful w/ finding the marigolds :0

what her name calls to mind are sea serpents and sinister shadows muscling their way through an ocean floor. he wants to ask then where's your charybdis but he bites his tongue. 
her teeth graze his shoulder but what she doesn't know is that he can be as stubborn as her. they hobble together towards the lake as the trees thin out. its visible now, a pale grey disk in the fields mirroring the overcast sky. just beyond it like a wolf's lower jaw, the jagged horizon of a forest. it is dense and stout and dark, despite the slight fog that wreathes the branches.
once they are close enough to clearly see the reeds and flowers framing the lake, urias pushes forwards, walking just ahead of her. he noses through the plants efficiently and carefully, eyes narrowed.

she likely should have focused a portion of her time on finding the poppyseed plant, but it was only pain -- fleeting. more important was the marigold to ward against infection which could very well take her life. as urias splinters off in search, the girl creeps towards the waters edge.

placing the mangled bloody thing counteracted the heat rising from the wound almost immediately and she winces, swirling the paw around in the icy depths as much as she can. what remains is barely there -- mostly stump and bits of flesh. it was perhaps a clean break, one she likely could have set right if the beast had not smothered it into the ground. only half of it appears to be missing to which her balance could let out a sigh of relief. walking without it would be manageable.

luckily enough, the lake was home to spiders. nasty large ones that strung their webs between the cattail and fallen logs. it would serve as a wrap for the wound, for however long it would last. her eyes search for urias, wondering if he had found it or simply abandoned her. scylla could not exactly blame him if he did. she was not his responsibility -- and there was no telling if she would have done the same should the roles have been reversed.

it begs her to ponder his motives for aiding her in the first place.

the frilly yellow faces of marigolds open up to him in the grass. they are sallow and more jaundiced than gold, but he trots back to scylla with a handful, expectant and more than a little pleased with himself.
she's already started soaking her foot in the cold lakeshore. with the grime and blood off, the true extent of the damage is visible— half of the foot isn't even there. duly impressed, he sets down the marigolds within her reach and whistles out of whatever counterfeit empathy chugging along in his brain. scylla the two-toed. scylla the club-footed. 
truth be told, he isn't sure why he is helping her either. survivalists did not indulge in morals too often and neither did he, but he was a different case entirely. do you reckon, he starts, after a thoughtful pause, there are packs nearby? there was a clear difference between war medics and doctors. one studied for 6 months and the other studied for a decade. he briefly thinks back to the steel-toed elks, remembers the graze on his side— i could be dying. i could have had my ribs sticking through the skin— and shudders.

he returns, flowers in hand, a thankful glance is all she is able to offer before ingesting what she can from the loot. a bitter, unwelcoming taste unlike the savory meal that had caused her injury and the girl finds a certian irony in that. as she settles upon her haunches, urias inquires upon a subject she had considered herself.

not revealing the true extent of what she knew to answer his question in full, if it is still standing, there is only one i know of. the girl returns with slight apprehension.

but one not many would want to pledge their allegiance to. blackfeather woods had a long, long history of violence with a rap sheet of enemies longer than anyone could keep track of. trouble did not escape the dark woods; for as ominous as it was, cursed was a more suitable description. or so her father had said.

scylla herself had not been alive to witness the majority of its bloody chronicles but had been told enough to know that an easy life was not guarenteed under the shadowy canopy of the dark woods.

a pack... is that what you are looking for? her head tilts curiously in his direction. scylla could not say she was searching for the same. if such an opportunity presented itself perhaps, but she had not known a true pack dynamic beyond that of her family. the idea of being obligated to oblige others she did not know, or even risk her life for the hide of someone who was not her own kin did not sound desireable in the slightest.

at her mention of a pack, he leans forwards, intrigued. but one not many would want to pledge their allegiance to.
why? would be the obvious question, and he waits for elaboration— frustrated when he doesn't get one. he turns his head towards that moribund forest, but the shadows between the trees are stubborn and opaque, and he sees no sign of wolf.
that's the second thing i'm looking for, he sits, the tips of his fingers touching the water. the weak wind ruffles his hair. the first thing is my sister.
tzila. beloved tzila. the memory of hair nails raking through his cheek, the pressure on his eye, it's enough to make him sick. he slides into a certain intensity, a darkness that suggests he has harmed and will harm. made a real work of my face and abandoned the family right after. who knows what other bastard she's got in her goddamn spider web. someone oughta put her in her place. 

while under vastly different circumstances, it is interesting to learn that the man also intended to locate a missing sibling. daedric teachings would have told her that such a coincidence foretold more to come, but she was hesitant to believe such a sign. not just yet, at least.

i am also searching for a sister. but if she ever betrayed my love for her in such a way, scylla looks to the gash that tore across his face like a lightning bolt that severed the sky, i would slit her throat. she speaks plainly. scylla cared deeply for her sister. the twin had at one time been her ferocious partner in crime. but even hela would understand that blood was not safe from retribution and the wiry, dark girl was not a forgiving individual.

do you intend to do the same? scylla's eyes twinge with a devilish intriuge, breaking the intensely vacant stare that regularily occupied her optics. on urias' features rests a look she was all too familiar with; a vengeful intensity boiling beneath the skin of a man prepared to abandon god and submit to sin. 

both sibling-searchers. scylla had her sister, he had his own. he lets out a rueful sigh.
i never loved her. she never loved me. but a betrayal is a betrayal, i guess. he'd never understood the resentment that poisoned the family tree like lead, only that it was there and had always been there, only that he had got all the praise and she hadn't. what a sullen little thing. he'd always explain to her, survival of the fittest, and look at where he'd ended up now.
he curls a fist and presses to the ground, firmly but gently, though the fist itself shakes with the effort of clenching it. how is your sister like?
at her question, he pauses before flashing a bitter smile. the paleness of his teeth on his dark face is disconcerting. charming, if you looked hard enough. she left me to bleed out... he offers in lieu of a proper explanation. the implication flows heavy and black into his mouth like tar. so i will too.

it is interesting to learn that these siblings held no love for each other. she wonders why but bites her tongue for the time being -- overstepping is not an interest of hers. but a question is asked to her and moments pass before she is able to formulate an answer.

i don't know. i haven't spoken to her since i was very young. but she liked to bite. i don't think it is something she would have grown out of. a slight frown develops on her lips, entertaining the question if her littermate was even alive. why? the girl looks intently to the other. surely such a thing could not have been unprompted. nobody just attacked another (much less a sibling) without reason -- no matter how irrational that reason was. there must have been a reason for her actions. insanity? anger? rage? jealousy... she thinks. a disease that made even sane individuals mad.

scylla's sister did not much remind him of his own. in his memory, tzila was petulant and prone to brooding, sensitive like a bruised peach. she had never literally bit back until the day that she'd left— he couldn't begin to fathom why that was so. what pushed her past that tipping point? so immature. so vulnerable to emotion, that poor thing.
that was why she could never be his equal.
squinting thoughtfully, he says what she is thinking: jealousy, i'm sure. she was always weak in that way.
that was why he'd transformed into diamond while she'd crumbled under the pressure.
a childhood of tough love like me, he exclaims, throwing his hands up, look at me. i turned out fine. what the hell happened in her head. the fact of the matter was that urias had not turned out fine, but that was a different story altogether. what mattered was that she had let her emotions control her. he would never allow that to happen to him.

scylla listens, ears pinned forward with true intrique. perhaps if it had been any other soapy tale, she would not have been as interested. but this was a true dramatic tragedy riddled with love (or a lack of it) and murderous deceit -- but it was subject matter of the latter that kept her attention. jealousy is a beast in slumber. maybe what you percieved as jealousy was her version of restraint. she can somewhat empathize with the unnamed sister, if not, understand how being cast as the underdog could easily clash with the instinct to survive. to many, a recipe for rash actions. 

anyways, i would call someone with the gall to maim their own brother weak. violence can be cowardly... illogical... but not weak. many might disagree but it was a belief she formulated based upon the observations of her own father. he had been violent, often stupid and brash, but never weak. however scylla did not want to assume she knew what intent ran through his sister's mind. it was not her place. just a theory. the girl concludes with a light shrugging motion. perhaps you can ask her why before serving your revenge.

clinical, uncaring, intense. to me, being cowardly and illogical are close enough to being weak. he pauses. but i understand where you are coming from.
he prided himself on acting logically. on examining any situation and bleaching the untruths out of it. it was easy to mock people who acted with passion and unasked for emotion because there were so goddamn many of them. since when had the world been so full of bleeding hearts?
perhaps i will, he says, although the vision that has been replaying in his head over and over again is not of him asking her anything. it is of him muscling her face into water until she stops struggling. it will be a quiet fight. if he were human and had a gun he would use it. urias did not mince anything. what do you think you will say to her, when you find your sister? he watches his scarred reflection in the water, wavering.

hmm. but that weak girl had brought you to your knees.

but she does not say it, it is merely a thought as if she was in the place of the sister. scylla reminds herself that indulging the mind of some woman who harmed a man who was perhaps the only thing she had close to a friend was not productive. it was simply that to her -- logic and weakness existed on two different spectrums. men could be strong in spirit and muscle but still be foolish. so many were, but to deprive them from the distinction of strong was only unfair. alas, it did not matter so much and she moves on from the thought. 

i don't even know if she is alive, not much point in determining what i'll say to her just yet. the girl speaks plainly. it is unfortunate, but she is not one to ignore the very real possibility that hela is dead. i might never find her even if she is. the teekon is vast; could she even travel the whole thing to begin with? scylla raises her paw, and this, she shakes it lightly, isn't exactly helping. 

that's true, he says, impressed yet again by the girl's bluntness. he wonders what had made her that way— a wasteland upbringing, unfortunate circumstance, a beheaded childhood.
scarcely the age for heading out alone without your family, and even scarcer to be so militant and focused. when he was young, he hadn't been so razor sharp. so laser minded. his parents had struggled with teaching him to nuture some sort of empathy for others (an endeavour they had quickly given up on) before they'd realised it was better off this way for him. maybe not so much for others.
the grey man hums, contemplative. about the pack you mentioned earlier, he circles back, if they're still standing. were they that bad? in his mind he envisions a sort of dictatorship, a slave farm, a bottom-heavy society swarming with threadbare labourers. high above them, corporate gods. his mind flashes back to scylla's lonesomeness too, briefly lingering on what could've happen to her family for them to be so split apart.

scylla contemplated his question for a moment with a hmm, letting a comfortable silence hang in the balance before answering. it was not a simple question for in truth, she lacked the credibility to assign any labels. however, the young melonii knew enough. some would call them bad. most, actually.

i suppose very later in their history they were quite neutral, but i think that was probably a consquence of how cruelly and immorally they lived all those generations before. how different she would have been if she existed in the times of blackfeather woods' more sinister days. who would she have been? my father once said either our bloodline or the land itself was cursed. she thought that maybe it had been hypocritical of him to say. from what she had gathered from his stories, many of their downfalls had come at his own hands. but cursed? it wasn't something she could believe. scylla had not seen that theory in motion. perhaps if she had... she would have absolutely believed it.

we can fade after next round?

it's easy to listen— he had mastered the art of it, of appearing interested. he didn't think it would work so well on scylla, as bulletproof and unpickable as she was, but it was a good habit: leaning your head forwards just so, maybe tilting it too, so that the light catches on the inner corners of your eyes, a wry smile or a thoughtful purse of the lips... a lot of the times, facial expressions were something to pick out and wear. yes, i'd like a size seven. yes, i'd like it bagged.
he shifts his weight, loosens his posture. what dystopia had this dark girl come up out of? in all honesty, that sounds like an excuse from him. he says noncomittally while steepling his fingers, saying i don't believe in curses. i barely believe in ghosts. i'll avoid those woods then.
scylla didn't seem like the child of some madman or a product of cursed depravity. she just seemed like a girl who'd grown up too fast. a part of him almost, almost pities her. but reality was he wasn't good at pity and he doubted that she'd take anything of the sort.

sure! thanks for tha threadss

if there was something off about urias -- scylla did not take it into account. the girl had lived with off all her life. as soon as the idea would have slithered into that calculating mind of hers, immediately would it have been cast aside. ignoring aspects of another she could not control was second nature. in any case, he had done nothing to hurt her. therefore nothing of his character caused her to become apprehensive or alarmed.

his retort about her father causes a brief, airy laugh to escape her throat. and he would have killed you for saying so. perhaps you're right. well, he was more than perhaps right, but that wasn't something either of them would know. at urias' decision to avoid the dark woods, scylla shrugs, do what you wish even she had no desire to immerse herself among their ranks again, but that was more on account of her belief that they lied in her past. if vacant, however, the territory was prime real estate. it served as very advantageous if one was looking for somewhere to escape to, for navigating it blindly was near deadly. 

but scylla had a feeling their encounter was coming to an end soon enough, and she wonders aloud, where will you go now? and what will you do if you don't find what you're looking for? but she does not add that on, not wanting to sound doubtful. perhaps they would cross paths again. perhaps not.

a pleased smile floods his face, but like with all expressions on him, it is magnified and pushed in all the wrong places. he's careful not to bare his teeth.
sounds like a pleasant man. not that he was much of a saint either. a real bully in a china shop, he was. or so others said. he runs a hand through his hair, pensive, before another question cuts the thought train short. not very far, he allows. maybe i'll see you again. urias isn't sure if he means that. she wasn't bad company at all, and he'd learned a few things: cursed bloodlines, cursed forests, what it meant to be weak in scylla's world.
well, then. good luck with your sister. and with your foot. he stands up and dusts off his hands, strolling towards the creek that trickled into the lake, to those distance tooth-like mountains. it crosses his mind that this might be the last time he saw this girl again, ever. how thought-provoking.