Foggy Bottom Way [m] el mar

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@Andromache & @Aquillius for now, will post w germ after <3

the golden world fell away behind her. she found his fetid step here; yes; the roman; she said nothing, only hunted. she did not recognize the younger wolf who had lived in riverclan for a time, she saw only germanicus. he filled all of her senses as if the misting skies belonged to him, and she shouted his name in a roar of fury and murderous intent, for she was belen no longer, and hardly silvertongue at all.

Aqui won’t be within fighting range for three rounds or so, and is easily subdued should Andromache want to come for him instead.

The roar of his father’s name hastened his step.

But this was unfamiliar ground, and he struggled to walk across it. Kicking his way out of the muck, only to find another puddle of it, he could only yelp a hasty Father! to try and warn his father before the madwoman found him.

Was this another witch? His heart began to pound. He didn’t recognize the voice, not yet at least, but his mind struggled to catch up to present anyway.

Might just post the once here & take this to another thread w Box so I don't hold anything up, I'm v sick today

Silvertongue led; Andromache followed. She was unwavering in her focus until she heard the faintest echoing of a yelp. Father. Sensing interference, the princess parted finally from Silvertongue's trail.

She searched for the source of the voice.

hearing valiria's answer in past nights had filled germanicus with a restored sense of life. he could live anew for his children; he could experience for the first time a life of subsistence that came from within himself.

but the voice that came stilled all the vague delight.

and germanicus found himself running in the last direction aquillius had gone. 

his son could not pay.

his son could not know.

"this is not your fight," silvertongue warned andromache while glassblue eyes stared in searching hatred. his silhouette bobbed against the stone arching, filtered between the trees, and she stepped into its shadow. into his path. the roman and the sharpfang gazed at one another. he had been kind to her, he and that crimson man. but he had left her there. and she had not known the price she was meant to pay until he was long gone from the palace. a breath; she shook, tears spilling madly down her face; "if the world was fair, you should have died long ago."

Skipping & PPing Aqui with permission! Andro is now skippable for at least three rounds

Andromache hardly heard the warning. She continued on the trail until her eyes focused upon the boy who had yelped. He was caught in the mud; struggling.

Some primal part of her brain urged her to kill him.

Yet the demigod in her turned a disgusted nose up to the notion; what honor was there in killing the weak, the hapless? And Silvertongue's words came to her then — that this was not her fight. It was true. Still, she would not see him interfere.

Andromache launched herself at the boy without intention of truly harming him. And so they would effectively wrestle in the mud for a time while the drama unfolded somewhere behind them.

@Valiria led, and Cornelius followed as they raced through the desert. Running through so much sand was a difficult feat, and there were several times when he wanted to stop and take a break, but he pushed past those thoughts, knowing it’d be worth it when they made it to Germanicus.

When Silvertongue’s scream rose from the direction they sought, he stole a quick and worried glance at his sister; what was going on? All he knew was that they had no time to waste.

They arrived after Andromache and Aquillis started wrestling—and he turned from them, trusting that his brother could handle himself. His focus instead landed on his father and the woman who had screamed with murderous intention. Not knowing the entire situation, he did not attack. He positioned himself between the two wolves, naively hoping they could solve this without bloodshed as his mind reeled.

Why did his dad have to die?

He struggled to find any words as he watched the woman cry.

Nobody has to die, was all that he managed. Can we talk this out? Violence was always Cornelius’s last option; there had to be a way to settle this peacefully.

Valiria was certain she’d never run so fast in her life. The sound of shouts and snarls fueled her steps and sent her heart racing. She and Cornelius had spent days tracking down their father, and Liri, months and months. She could not lose him now. She was so close. She was finally so close.

Cornelius perhaps made note of their brother’s battle with the blonde woman, but Liri had eyes only for Germanicus and the brown. While her brother stopped and made pleas, she darted behind her father and slowed, prowling round him like a mountain cat to face the angry female at his side, her teeth bared, hackles raised. Her expression and bearing like a dare that this bitch try it.

She was a lioness made of porcelain, and only one thing could break her.

She would not lose him again.

tactician. warrior. imperator.

father.

the girl plucked from death in the wintry countryside that ill-fated night now stood before him, trembling with the malaise of pure hatred. 

beyond them, he heard the scuffling of aquillius and another. germanicus took a step forward, as if to raise a hand of peace to silvertongue.

cornelius between them. valiria at his side. the caeso-redsands, united in force against the common enemy of a woman who stood no physical chance against them.

and it was beautiful and wretched within the man, to look at the honed ferocity of his children, to see both he and ruenna in their lines and their bearing.

to have them here at the culmination of his deepest sin.

germanicus sought the deep pain in the glassblown eyes and met it with his own. did she not think he had suffered all this while for his sin?

scarcely did silvertongue register the collision of bone to blood, teeth to skin. andromache put to earth another, a boy who the sharpfang did not see, and so she did not see how akin to her great enemy he was. she saw only him, how the years had been unkind to the man; how the crags of his face had not been so pronounced. how he lied in coldness and left her to a fate unimaginable. how he had known, and yes; she saw his guilt. his anguish. 

and it was not enough

a young man pushed between her righteous teeth and the roman's sallow face; her eyes snapped to his, and she saw, she saw; oh; "oh," and laughter bubbled over, spilling at the feet of the pale woman's growling. "are these your children?" silvertongue asked, lightly; coldly. she stepped back to regard them now as a trio. her eyes flickered over them with maddened amusement, and beneath that mantle, a hateful bitterness that he should have been father and husband, that he should have been able to build the pillars of a wanted life while her heart had starved all this time. gaze to the boy, to the girl, to germanicus himself. crowfeather, stricken, wren, shocked. again; crowfeather; devastated. akavir, reeling. and shadowpup had suffered the worst, though even in this second the woman who bore her did not know the agonies of her own daughter. but had that day not been her very own breaking? the first of the last? "they do not know, do they, germanicus?" or else they would not stand in her way. a small silver paw raised, to point at the man, and at last her visage cracked and out from its breaking did saltwater flow once more. "you will tell them now." if she could not possess what she wished, silvertongue would rake all things from his golden table; it was more than deserved. it was the fate to which he had bound them both when he had sold her to the palace.

Silvertongue had begun her descent into delirium; she spilled herself out into the open, exposing every emotion resulting from their father's decision. He didn't know what to make of this and needed to learn more.

Dad? Cornelius asked, looking over his shoulder to see Germanicus. He left it at that, the silent question hanging from the tip of his tongue—what is she talking about?

Unphased. Unmoved. Uncaring.

The woman bid her father to speak, but Valiria had no interest in whatever confession was forthcoming. She stood resolute, eyes narrowed into daggers, taking no notice of one brother’s uncertainty nor the other’s struggle.

Liri knew who her enemy was. She kept her attention fully upon the rattler, at the ready in case it decided to make a real strike against her family and not just piss and moan with wasted words.

the world grew cold; the world shrunk to germanicus and the children with him now. needful babes no longer, fierce in their own right.

so much of their lives he had missed, and silvertongue now maneuvered him into a place he had already been, twice. the retelling fetched a high price in listening.

so much of their lives he had lost that germanicus scarcely knew aquillius or cornelius, or valiria. and alivia would most assuredly not come home, so —

he remained damned by her demanding gesture, and stood in a growing silence even as his son softly questioned and his daughter prepared her attack, and in these aspects he saw himself!

for a swift and dizzying moment he considered a dour lie, one designed to grant him more time with the young wolves, more time to prove himself as their father before they came to know his greatest sin.

could he fathom that pain and shock in their eyes? he found its very concept sundered him to his core.

and yet when the silence at last ended, it was his voice which crept truthfully into the space between, for he could not lie. if he must lose his children to this pestilent memory, then germanicus would approach this in full truth.

"i once lived in the palace of akashingo," the eagle began and he did not think he had ever felt so subdued. "i hired a mercenary to spy. such men demand payment after their tour of work, and his was — his was a slave girl possessed by the queen, for he loved her and wished her contract to be broken with the palace."

a haggardness stood out now on countenance that could still be called handsome with the right assessment. he felt aged. his body aches, his limbs threatened to tremble, his gut roiled.

and still he went on evenly.

"the palace would not part with her unless i paid what she was worth. and so i found another girl outside in the country. i —" and now the tactician stumbled, voice hoarsening.

he did not dare look toward cornelius or valiria now. the roman and the riverwolf stared steadily at each other, silvertongue's breath coming in harsh intakes.

"i lied to her by omitting what she would endure, and i ensured she did not understand before i left her there in the place of the woman my mercenary loved."

and still, germanicus did not know what she had endured, only that the pain which lit every facet of her face was old and exquisite.

and the anguish which suffused his was genuine and expansive.

not enough.

he felt as though the sky were cracking above him.

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: messed up retellings

for the duration of his long silence, silvertongue did suspect he was considering his betrayal. he had confessed to crowfeather, but these were his children of his body. surely a man who meant honesty at his own detriment would contemplate a misguided lie to protect these young wolves. but they were not puppies. in the end, germanicus gave his sorrowful account and her eyes snapped blue-hot beneath their glaze of tears, to hear it! to know it! "you knew ramesses was an evil man. you knew him to be cruel. the queen already hated her attendants for catching the eye of her husband, and that is where you left me, germanicus," silvertongue added, breath shuddering; she scarcely noticed the other two now, her stare transfixed in great agony and hatred upon the man. "i fed him. i fed his queen. indeed, i fed them together. i fed his priest. i fed his servants. i fed his guardians. and when he was done with me," tears flowing hotly, "he traded me elsewhere under the guise of emissary work. and when they left me to ford the sea and almost drown, i fed the appetites of men until their protection saw me to the mountains, and mereo."

not enough

she loathed him. she loathed these children, obelisks to his successful life. "all you have done is rob me. thieved from me. first a life, second," her voice breaking, "the only man in the entire complete world who i could have loved, even after all that, cannot love me. he loves your father," silvertongue explained in sarcastic bleeding tone to the others. "i will never --" and she touched a paw to the belly she knew now to be scarred beyond all hope of another future. shadowpup and stormpup stood as their own sentinels, but they belonged to crowfeather and to ash paw and to riverclan; they were not her own and never had been. her efforts to avoid motherhood had not been successful until after the fact, a truth she had carried in silence for many months. as she had carried everything.

not enough

"so you see," silvertongue murmured softly, almost a lover's tone for germanicus, "this is why you must die. this is why i will kill you, here. your death restores nothing to my life. it is only payment for what you have taken from me, over and over. and it will never be enough."

Germanicus spoke first, telling them what had happened, and Silvertongue went next, correcting the tone and providing some insightful details as her very foundation crumbled to the ground. Although Cornelius knew very little about Germancius's life, he didn't expect to be this out of the loop. He was shocked, but he knew this wasn't the time to try and work through his feelings, especially when his father's life was on the line.

You will not kill him , Cornelius interjected, looking the riverwoman dead in the eye, not as long as my siblings and I are here.

Very few will wait for you, Cornelius, it is a lesson early learned, Germanicus had once said. They would wait; there would be fallout after the fact, but he couldn't leave his father to die.

We will not hold back if you attack, he warned the woman one last time, feeling his hackles spike and anticipation overtake him.

As little as Valiria cared to hear the tale, she listened to her father's and then the woman's words silently. It was only then that she turned her attention away from the enemy to study her father's face as he spoke, and even when he had grown silent, she watched him still. For as stoic, often unfriendly and gruff as she was, she understood people. She saw them. And in her father, she saw grief and remorse that went bone deep. Had his actions been terrible? Yes. Had he a price to pay yet? Perhaps, but it was a debt that was clearly being paid, and likely would be for a long time to come.

And it would not be paid with his life.

Liri straightened and turned her attention back to the woman. There she saw bitterness and rage. Anguish and hurt as well. Did she deserve what had happened to her? No. But this pitiful, mad creature need not have existed. Everyone had a choice with what became of them after tragedy and misfortune. Liri had chosen to move on and rise above when she'd lost her family. Try to make a new life for herself. This woman had met demons and chosen to become a nasty old crone, sick with thoughts of vengeance and murder.

Valiria took a few steps forward towards her, head held high and muscles tense as she moved to meet Cornelius, standing protectively in front of their father. She listened as he spoke, agreeing fully with his words. "And call your dog off our brother before we have to put it down," she added with a low rumble.

PPing and knocking Andro out with permission from Suledin <3!

His heart was pounding.

witch witch witch witch

The woman and he wrestled, a catastrophic ball of fur and mud. A thrall to the witch currently shrieking at his father, at his siblings. He couldn’t see them, blinded on that side he was, but he could pick up their voices.

She’s a witch!

His voice rose into an apocalyptic scream, foot making contact with the woman’s head in such a way he felt the vibrations all the way up his leg. She dropped like a stone, and the mud covered boy rolled to his feet, lunging out of the puddle. He stood there, white teeth flashing, single eye with a barely visible pupil staring at the whole clustered group.

She’s a witch, believe nothing she says. She spits magic with every word. He recognized her now, her scent, her face. They’d never spoken, never even interacted he believed, but he knew her.

I’ll bet that’s why you put Father on trial, isn’t it? Because you didn’t want your associate to talk! Now he was walking, laughter coming in great shakes to his ribs, his words barely containing the frantic giggles that wanted to leap from his chest. Yes, yes she was a witch, she was a witch who had charmed the whole of the valley they had come from. Black magic curled off her words, her face disappearing with it into a black miasma.

She wasn’t a wolf. She was a demon with glowing blue eyes, spitting lies and charms to make them believe their father would do that. The black blood shadow wasn’t a woman to him, not anymore, a staticky tangle of black scribbles had taken her place. Up went his tail, down went his head.

Aquillius would no longer take the words of witches.

You. Must. Die. They would take her head, and he would mount it on a pike, and he would finally, finally be free of her magic. The spider danced in the corner of his vision, the non-wolf laughed in the back of his head.

They would leave him soon.

to describe his shock would be underwhelming, for there were no words which could lie down in sentences worthy of depicting the surge of emotion he felt in that moment.

stunned, first. the eagle played cornelius' words over in his mind, scarcely recognizing them. his son promised, and in his voice was the bearing of those who had come before he and germanicus both.

valiria, second. he had felt her eyes upon his face and now she moved to flank her brother. death to those who had come for him was reinforced. breath caught in his throat, he turned now yellowpaint eyes on the third son.

aquillius, shouter of witches. he who had aided his father in separating the wicked woman from her life. witch-killer. blood-eater. the only one who had fought in some semblance of war beside the one they called father.

"no," he heard himself speak, an order, a thousand miles beneath water that filled nostrils and mouth with greyed memory. "do not harm her. i have done enough."

there could be no more suffering on his account? germanicus was shocked to see them rally for a man they scarcely knew, and disgusted to find within his surprise a kernel of — hope.

he could not make himself move. centurion, imperator, bloodied in a dozen battles, he could not command himself now, for he knew what would come. 

"no," he ordered again, though he could not look into the mad light pouring from silvertongue's eyes, nor could he quiet the word witch now clawing upon the fabric of his very mind.

silver is now fully PP-able, including injury/maiming within 1% life HP. expect all ur hits to land <3

there was no condemnation. as each child flashed posture before their wretched father, silvertongue had eyes only for him studying the eagle as each moment passed. she had thought him and the other her savior, of sorts, and softly it replayed before her mind. the frosty lap of winterbound air. a soft voice, soothing. belen once more, feeling the touch of cold slowly slough itself from her skin as she entered the palace for that first time. she had forgotten it was arsenio who had found her, who had brought her. she saw only germanicus as she had witnessed him within the throne room. cold. implacable. belen's wondering, frightened gaze saw the rueful smile of a striking red-gold woman, who had walked quietly to join germanicus then. talk of debts. she had fought him, yes, a scared girl in a place of more wealth than she had ever dreamed, defying the once the order of pharaoh. he had threatened to cast her into the snow and she had been silent after, and silent forevermore.

not enough

she only stared at him, until the slash of mad voice cut at her ears, and she, as if in a trance, glanced toward the mud-smeared boy who wore germanicus' face and spoke in a tone that whirled with motes of images that were not visible. she was no witch, and silvertongue laughed, a brazen sound that mocked. she was no witch, for had she been, germanicus would have suffered a thousand times over by this moment. witches touched the vein of power; her own had only been fed by a single source. her prince of shadows, her prince of nighttime worlds and starclan looming above velvet trees while he loved her, once, loved her entire. once.

not enough

and now the ravening children fell away to cultists, hungry mouths which could not touch her own eternal emptiness. silvertongue saw him clearly as at last the man lifted careworn stare to her own, and she glutted herself with shaking intake of a pleased breath; torment constricted all of him, and silvertongue saw how he lived inside a skin too, made of spearpoint and bleeding wire. shadowpup and stormpup would not have taken such a stand for her, she understood, for they had never known her as madre. why had he been given all that he had taken from her?

once more, belen shivered in the dark air of a december night; once more she heard the trudge of paws beside her and remembered the soothing sound of that voice, the first. the one she did not remember. only him, only the roman. belen, experiencing again the sensation of long cold slowly sliding from her skin as the warmth of the palace filled her for the first time. the memory replayed upon a broken loop; she saw only him! she saw only germanicus, and when at long last their eyes met, her smile was beatified, ophelia gazing upon her own reflection.

and yet, it was
"not enough!"

she saw only him, and it was for him she lunged now, no longer seeing nor hearing the three who bore his blood and now his sin; germanicus loomed larger and larger and larger before her, unmoving as she soared to ease them both.

Cornelius had been naive enough to believe that his threat would deter Silvertongue—who was clearly too far gone to act rationally—and would come to regret his words for the rest of his life.

When the woman lunged, and his siblings lurched forward, he retreated towards his father, hoping to shield and shove him away. You've done enough, he snapped. Go. He would've never treated him like this before, but things had changed. He'd learned who Germanicus really was; he'd inherited blood on his hands and a skeleton in his closet in the blink of an eye.

Disciplined as Liri liked to believe she was, Aquillius's outburst threw her. His cries of witch! were frankly alarming and she turned her head to see if he was by chance foaming at the mouth (it would not have surprised her, but it would provide the explanation she was looking for). Germanicus took her attention then, giving a command that they stand down from the woman who threatened his life. Her lip curled at this, but she stepped aside for him, so ingrained in her was it to obey her imperator. Her father.

Cornelius, it seemed, did not have the same inclination. He drove towards their father, causing another distraction, and so she nearly missed it when the bitch broke free of her restraint and barreled forward to make good on her intentions. Valiria moved quickly enough still, lunging to meet her with a roar. She snapped her teeth hard into the thick fur just behind the woman's jaw, intent on driving the rattlesnake away from her father and put her down like Aquillius had the other wolf.

The command was still in her head. No harm. Fine, then. But that didn't mean Valiria was just going to sit back and let her father be murdered. After hearing about the decisions Germanicus had made in the past, perhaps Cornelius was right—he didn't get to make this one. His children would make it for him.

The witch laughed a high cackle, and Aquillius shifted his stance. Witches were dangerous, he knew, as they could cut without even putting teeth upon you. And this witch was all the more dangerous because of her position.

She was charming most of the valley. She lived with their father’s paramour and was angry she could not charm him too. Their father told them to stand down, and though Aquillius shot him a look that said he thought he was crazed for that, he did take a small step back.

Only for Cornelius to say something to Father as the woman drove towards him. His eyes went wide, staring at his brother for mere seconds before following in Valiria’s footsteps. Aquillius would remember those words, connecting them in his mind to the overheard plea to just talk instead of fight. Betrayal from every source. Et tu, Brute?.

Oblivious to the increasingly spiraling mental conversation he was having with himself, he went to ram the woman from the other side, reaching to grip just behind her ears. He was content on yanking her back from their father, for now. But, he knew. Witches could not suffer being alive. He was going to have to kill this one too.

the situation devolved.

as imperator, this was his matter to control. and yet he remained sickened, stunned, unmoving as silvertongue's white teeth flashed for him.

a goodly part of germanicus, greater than the sum of himself, knew it was deserved.

flesh moved rote, automatically. the collision of his body with that of cornelius moved the eagle to foist his son out of his way with a reflexive twitch of his shoulder.

valiria had descended on the riverwoman, and aquillius set his teeth as well. 

silvertongue began to twist, lashing for pale daughter or dark son, and wounds were soon rent in her own skin.

"stop!" he thundered. "enough. to me, now." his words belonged upon a churned and bloodstained field.

no more for this. no more for her. 

and yet in her gasping mouth there was a laugh, a promise. the woman fixed her eyes upon him from where she was pinned against the earth and germanicus knew she would follow him to the ends of the world.

pain erupted along her jawline as the fierce teeth of the young woman caught her a slicing blow. blood welled quickly, and the sting of it was propulsion for her fury. and as the second set of jaws met to set her low, silvertongue drew up the sparring she had undergone with arric and twisted against the give in her own nape, cutting out with teeth, with claws. and as her wounds deepened, she stared back at germanicus, hardly hearing his thunderous voice as she tried to surge upright, hauling impossibly against them with an eldritch and cool-eyed strength that knew continuation was her end. to be murdered at his feet by his children was the substance of a thousand haunting stories, and if a witch and a ghost must in the end be how the memories of her resided, then so be it; she accepted; and kept her eyes upon germanicus even as she slavered and fought and slashed in her attempts to be free of the others, free to let his blood now whet a mouth that had waited a lifetime for its taste.

Germanicus tossed Cornelius aside like a crumpled-up piece of paper. He landed with an oof and immediately picked himself up and dusted himself off with urgency.

When he whipped around to gauge what was happening, he felt immediately overwhelmed by all the commotion. From the wrestling, withering bodies to his father’s booming voice, there was too much going on. Cornelius knew they had to break up the fight before things escalated too far; his siblings could not succeed. He crouched and watched, hoping to find a place to open up so he could fight his way in, and work on breaking up the fight.