Blackbeak Bluff didn't they tell you, you'd leave and never come back

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)

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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.

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.