Totoka River so many names i devour

someday i will spell totoka correctly without needing to look it up. xD

Witchdoctor does not stray too far from Undersea and finds this development to be quite fascinating if not terribly annoying. Hemlock is den-ridden as she nurses his spawn — the last remaining fragments of Arturo Fearghal — but it does not fall out of the Witchdoctor’s notice that he has a unique opportunity because they are his children ( it is his body now, after all ) and they are blank slates. Easily, easily he could have just …left. It probably would have been a lot less messier for him and he’d not exactly signed on to be a father. Witchdoctor’s never particularly wanted children and rather views them as pests of sorts. He’s become invested — ugh — in what is left of Arturo’s little ragtag family. Hemlock is a fierce and bright burning sun that he is intensely interested in, wondering if he got too close if she would burn him or if, by some impossible chance, she might grow to …care for him; but regardless he sticks around mostly because she mutes the voices. Oh, those voices. Beneath the radius of Hemlock’s spell upon them they are loud and demanding. If he focuses enough on something else they become white noise, static of buzzing in his head but even that can be horribly distracting on the best of days.

He roots through the tall grasses along the bank of the Totoka looking for anything of worth. Winter is approaching them at full speed. Herds are lingering, still, but soon they would be migrating and plants would be dying. He collects what he can and preserves it the best way he knows when he isn’t being a greedy magpie adding to his bauble collection. And when he’s not doing those things he does put a surprisingly honest effort into providing for Hemlock. Surprising to even him! Witchdoctor likes her. The doctor likes her! “Shut up!” Witchdoctor snarls at the voices in his head as they slip past the suppressive wall he’s tried to put up and sing-song in a eerie chorus in his head. They do not listen. They giggle out of time, like a dozen echoes and taunt him.

Jykell or Hyde? They repeat the question over and over like a mantra and it is so loud, deafening. “Shut up. I’m trying to work.” Witchdoctor snaps and huffs glad when the voices quiet down to whispers, no longer caring if he looks sane anymore. It’s so very hard to not speak aloud to the voices that no longer appear to answer to his thoughts. He uproots a ragweed plant carefully despite his irritation, placing it delicately upon the ground wondering if it would survive the partial swim back to the Isle.