Blackfeather Woods shambles

He awoke with a start that morning, after many nightmares. Cicero had never felt so firmly rooted within himself but at the same time he was afraid that he would lose grip on reality once more. He did not remember all of the things he did but he remembered parts of them. The real question in his mind was which of the things he dreamt about were things that Sheogorath had done and which of the things he dreamt about were merely nightmares, figments of his imagination, his fear running wild.

But there was one thing he was fairly sure that he had... Well, maybe two. @Relmyna had found him and of course she had noticed that he was not Sheogorath, but she had showed no more than a few seconds of pause before she retained her subservient nature. He felt guilty even though he did not know what Sheogorath had done to her, but it must be a great pain because of how she looked and how she acted around him. Someone to be feared, someone to be respected.

And the second was the girl, the fiery-hued girl. He only knew she was there because Relmyna had asked him questions about her care. He made his way towards Wolfskull cave today. The look upon his face was not Sheogorath's madman's grin but rather Cicero's neutral disposition. He approached unsure what he would find (and not knowing the girl Relmyna described was @Wildfire, whom he'd met before), but it could not be much worse than the shambles he had returned to — Damien gone mad, likely due to Sheogorath, and Potema, well... He came round the corner, expecting to find her sober for after her leg had been hurt the drugs were not so necessary.

It was tempting to simply give up. Wildfire supposed she would, inevitably, especially now that she refused any food her captors provided. She would grow weak and unable to defend herself. But for now, despite her injured leg, she maintained a fighting spirit.

When a familiar face materialized at the entrance to the cave, Wildfire went stiff. "I" was bad enough, and so were the others, but this wolf was responsible for her captivity here. She feared him and what he might do the most, even more than "I," because he struck her as the biggest sociopath of them all.

But she refused to lower her gaze, despite the pounding in her chest, staring openly into his face when he stepped into full view.

His reaction was much like hers when he came around the corner. He remembered her, remembered their meeting at one of the mountains to the west of the Woods, when he had journeyed. He'd probably not gotten as wounded before as she had when she clicked, but he also remembered that he had given her permission to, in a way. Let off a little steam. Now she was here, not by his hand but at the same time in part by his hand. He wondered if Sheogorath had made her trust him because they had met before, but then, she'd never trusted him from what he remembered. Not even when he had risked his life to let her unwind on that mountain. It was questionable how this situation had come to be and a part of him regretted it, but he felt that there was little he could change about it right now.

"The girl with the issues is here," he said, a statement filled with some sort of sentiment — regret, perhaps — but he knew any of his emotions would be lost upon her. He examined her briefly, his face remaining neutral and void of emotion; a stark contrast to the wicked faces of Sheogorath. She looked in poor shape. "Cicero never knew your name," he said, one ragged ear perking forward briefly in question, although he doubted she would give it now. "What happened? How did I —" He halted abruptly, swallowing the word as soon as he had spat it out. "— How did Sheogorath bring you here?"

Nothing he said made any sense. Wildfire squinted, trying to parse his meaning. Although she was no longer dazed from being poisoned, she was hungry and that led to concentration issues of its own. She really didn't have the energy to spare for these mental gymnastics. Her ears fell back uncertainly.

She didn't want to invite abuse and deliberated between answering incorrectly or not answering at all. Eventually, Wildfire asked the obvious question: "Who are Cicero and Sheogorath?" And 'the girl with issues'? she added mentally but did not voice yet.

Of course none of it made sense to her. He grimaced at her question, for it was a difficult one to answer and one he did not fully know the answer to himself either. Cicero looked away briefly, a silence lapsing between them while he tried to put the puzzle pieces in order and considered how to explain; and if he'd explain. "I am..." He halted briefly, his lip quavering; "... Cicero."

He paused again, clicking his tongue against the back of his teeth thoughtfully. "Sheogorath is a beast. He..." But it was unfair to blame him for everything, especially when he was such a strong part of him. Once upon a time Cicero had thought himself and the beast to be two entirely different persons, but he could not deny that they shared a body and he remembered how much Sheogorath he had felt when he'd done what he had to Xan. Perhaps they were not so different after all. His face remained void of emotion as he said, "He brought you here. How has he treated you?"

He formally introduced himself as Cicero, his mannerisms much milder than usual. Wildfire didn't know what to make of this. Before she could formulate a response, he went on to describe Sheogorath as the beast who had brought her here. She blinked in confusion for a few beats, then everything clicked in her head.

She sat up abruptly, ignoring the swimming in her head. "There's two of you? Like twins?" Before Cicero could answer, she blurted, "He—how do you think?" Wildfire's lips pressed together. "I'm starving. My leg is broken," she said quietly, peering down at the floor before dragging her chestnut eyes upward to peer into his face, ignoring the thumping in her chest. "How do you think?" she repeated.

Cicero nodded when she asked if there were two, wanting to say 'in a way', but she continued on to ask if they were twins. "No," he answered without emotion to his voice or face. Cicero felt sorry for her, in a way, but he had noted that his empathic abilities were swallowed up the longer he lived his life, and now all he felt was numb, except when he was in pain. Especially without Damien there to ground him and what had happened with Potema and Sheogorath, he felt he had nothing left to live for and his already reckless urges were stronger now.

"You should eat," said Cicero. "I will ask Relmyna to bring you something later." He doubted that she really cared for his food. "Do you want Cicero to look at the leg?" Cicero remained still, not taking steps towards her yet in case she would be against it. He was not sure yet what he would do now, but for now, he thought it best to fix her leg and then guide her away once she was better. She did not deserve this and although he had little compassion or feelings at all left in his battered and numb mind, there was something tugging beneath the surface that compelled him to change the situation. For now she was in no position to run though.

But he said no, that wasn't the explanation. Wildfire's lips parted and she gave him a silent look that said, Then what? If there wasn't two of them, what was the real explanation? Idly, she wondered if there was a plausible one. Sometimes she thought she was caught in a madhouse here.

She stiffened when he mentioned food. "No," she said quietly but firmly, "I'm not eating any more of your tainted meat. I know that's how you were keeping me disoriented." Wildfire's ear twitched as she considered his next statement. "Cicero? Aren't you Cicero?" she asked, confused by his phrasing.

She refused the food, and Cicero looked at her damaged leg. "There's no reason to poison you now." She was stubborn and perhaps it would kill her in the end, he thought. Cicero was not sure who else knew about her and who had done this; and if they would be unhappy if he set her free. But at this rate she would die before she could even try to escape if she kept not eating. "If you want to get away, you must eat." This must seem like a sick game to her, Cicero reckoned, though perhaps it was, even if it had not been necessarily his game. He had liked her when they met first.

When she seemed confused about whether or not he was Cicero, he nodded. "Yes. This is Cicero." There was a brief pause before he asked, "Who has seen you here?" Cicero was not sure he should meddle in these affairs and he likely wouldn't have had they not been Sheogorath's; but he had began this and so he felt compelled to end it, too.

She took what he said with a grain of salt, of course. What did he care about her ability to get away? That said, he had a point, though Wildfire thought she would rather hold out than risk it. Of course, she knew that was her pride speaking. When it came right down to it—and she was facing a painful death by starvation—Wildfire couldn't actually say what she'd do.

"How about you bring me something live so I can kill it myself?" she suggested. Whatever was going on with his identity, he seemed much more reasonable right now than previously and Wildfire wondered if he might actually humor her. But she wouldn't hold her breath.

Her eyes narrowed at his question. "I don't know. I've been out of it a lot, due to the poisoning—your poisoning," she boldly reminded him.

At her question about the prey, Cicero seemed to think a moment. His face remained void of emotion, hard to tell what was going on in that mind of his, before he eventually decided: "Yes. Cicero will see to it." Not right now, made clear by the fact that he stayed right now, but he would ask Relmyna to hunt with him and they would find something and try to capture it alive. A task Cicero had not often done, at least not without poisoning the critter, but it should be doable.

To his next question she unfortunately had little useful answer for him. "You have seen no others here?" he asked for confirmation, just to be sure. It would make things easier to get her out again if he knew that there were no others who cared whether she was here or not. Though, he supposed, he could always just tell them that it was his decision for she had been his prisoner.

He surprised her by agreeing to her request. Wildfire said nothing, lips pursing as he then questioned her about whether she'd seen anyone else. Several wolves had stopped by, mostly to taunt, tease and torture her. Surely he must know that. But he hadn't acknowledged her comment about the poisoning and there was something very, very off about this entire encounter, so Wildfire didn't know what to think.

After a beat, she said, "Several of your pack mates have come here to leer and jeer." There was a little bit of heat in her voice, though she did her best to control it. She knew she was engaging in risky behavior here, although what did she have to lose at this point? "How do you think I broke my leg? I didn't. Someone broke it for me."

It didn't surprise Cicero that his pack mates had come to throw the proverbial dirt at his prisoner. The Blackfeather wolves were volatile and needed to reconcile with their own fucked up shit in some way. This was a way, even though the long term would only make it worse. He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth as she spat the words about her leg.

"Hm," he assessed. "Do you want to be set free, or a swift relief?" The question, he assessed, might make her explode again into indignancy, but he hoped the reality of his question. The truth of the situation she was in. It might be easier to die. But if she so wished it, he would help. Cicero approached and inspected the leg while he wondered out loud, "Do you belong to a pack?"

She didn't think she'd heard him right and even when Wildfire reprocessed his words again, she didn't trust them one bit. "What kind of question is that?" she asked slowly. Given a choice between freedom or death, of course she would take the former. Yet she could scarcely believe that offer was truly on the table. He had brought her here, kept her here, and now he was going to set her free, just like that? Wildfire didn't believe that for a second.

It was probably all a horrible trick, the she-wolf realized even as Cicero asked her about her pack. Previously, she would have quickly claimed Drageda and let her captors know that the commander would eventually figure out what had happened and come here to deliver justice. But Wildfire didn't want that anymore. She didn't want her family near these violent psychopaths, lest they get hurt too. She wasn't worth the risk, not with their young family at stake.

"'Belong,'" Wildfire echoed dully after a lengthy beat of silence. "I guess you could say I belong to this pack, seeing as I'm being held prisoner here."

"Hm. A pity." He would help her, but what could he do if she did not wish to be helped? Perhaps he would help her anyway, make the decision himself what he would do. Time would tell what would be the best option.

It was a shame she didn't want to answer his questions. She said she belonged to this pack now,
which in a way was true. If not for his unquenched thirst for information he might've appreciated her wits. "Were you always terrible at answering questions, or is it a thing you have learned here?" he asked, his face void of emotion despite the sort-of-joke.

"Do you always ask stupid questions?" she replied without thinking, then felt her heart constrict in her chest at her own unthinking daring. When she looked up at Cicero, however, he appeared mostly bored by their conversation. Still, she swallowed thickly, expecting some sort of punishment for speaking out of turn.

Whether or not a penalty came, Wildfire decided to keep her mouth shut. She was tired anyway. And if she refused to engage any further, he would eventually get bored and leave her alone, even if he kicked her around a bit first.

In response to her words, Cicero laughed — a hollow sort of laughter that carried no malice, only genuine amusement. Ah, she forgot that she was the prisoner here and even now, she had a big mouth. Though the predicament she was in was no better than the one he had last found her in. She looked startled by her own words for a moment, and Cicero clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth.

"Did you ever work out those issues you were dealing with when Cicero met you before?" he asked, merely curious. She may not respond or give him another haughty answer, and it was her right to do so, but it was worth the risk to ask it, in case he would get an answer.

His next question immediately tempted Wildfire to break her silence. She even opened her mouth, only to remember herself and clap it shut. She turned away from him and curled into a ball, closing her eyes. The memories from that day surfaced, playing like a movie on the back of her eyelids. Was this all really overdue retribution for the way she'd beaten him back then? But hadn't he commanded her to do it?

She was always trying to make sense out of nonsense here. Wildfire consciously told herself to stop it, curling more tightly into a ball and veritably squeezing her eyes shut, doing her damnedest to close herself off to the outside world.

Cicero watched her as many thoughts were dancing in her head, but he did not know what any of them were. He tilted his head as she clamped her mouth shut and turned away from him. Was she embarrassed for what she had done, perhaps? He did not feel she needed to be. He was merely curious. Wanted the information. Wanted to know if it had worked at all.

"It wasn't critique," he shared and he shook his head, though she could not see. "But Cicero is not blind. He can see it is hard to claw out of a dark pit once one has fallen in." And her pit was particularly dark and deep right now. He turned away from her and halted once more in the entrance to Wolfskull, waiting if she would come out of her trance. If not, he would turn away and depart, for now.