Blackfeather Woods Claustrophobia.

Located at Wolfskull Cave; tagging for reference, open to anyone. Maybe @Maegi ?

He tread across paths that had become so familiar that he could follow them in the pitch-black of night, or should his other eye be plucked from his pale face, he could do it sightless. The creaking of branches did not strike a bone-deep anxiety within him. The scent of the leaves, mostly fallen and collecting as they did beneath the trees, brought warmth to his heart. Titmouse was experiencing a crises of consciousness; he had too many lives compiled inside of him, and they were at odds.

These familiar things — they had once scared him so deeply, scarred him, changed him. But now he experienced these little things as ghostly monuments to a life he'd left behind. It was like treading through a lucid dream. He knew who he was; he knew this could not possibly be real, yet logic had been tossed aside.

His head swam from the recent concussion bestowed by Tegan Blackthorn, distracted him from where he ought to be (Maegi, Maegi, Maegi—) until a black pit opened like a muzzle before him, exposing stalactite teeth. When he drifted through the dark and sulked his way to the heart of Wolfskull Cave, he felt the chill in the air. It smelled strongly like @Fire here, like the Redhawks — and he found himself bowing his head, closing his one eye, as the weight of his experiences began to press in on all sides.

She had not found Mou within the tunnel. Her greatest fear--that he had returned to the forest to take on the Redhawks--grew and grew until she reached Blackfeather again, and then it was a foregone conclusion. Heart hammering in her chest, Maegi followed his scent like a crazed foxhound, bristling, nose to the ground.

Only to be led underground again, heading toward Wolfskull Cave. Oh, gods. . . What horrors would she find here? Had the Redhawks won? Were they keeping their prisoners here? Or was she about to find corpses, instead? The smell of flesh close by sent her imagination whirling, a terrifying spin.

Mou was hunched over, looking tormented. Freshly wounded. With a yelp, Maegi rushed to him, stopping herself from careening into his side just in time (she would have bowled him over if she had). Her face patently alarmed, she shoved her muzzle gently into his neck instead, breathing hard from the rigorous travel she had pushed herself through.

Mou, she breathed, taking in his scent. And then she began to cry, hot, angry tears cascading down her cheeks. What the fuck, Mou? she whispered. Why did you leave? Why did you leave me?

There was no way for him to tell how long he was in the cave. How long before Maegi came slinking back through the forest, through the danger that could still be present, as if her own home had become a minefield. All he could register beyond the throb of pain in his head and the blurring sweep of the shadows, for a long while anyhow, was the familiarity of this space. It was both familiar and homely to him and terrifying, mixing memories from different lives together. Titmouse sagged against the dirt. He breathed, he sat. The scent of Fire was there and he knew that smell — he recognized her, remembered their conversation and the ruined voice that he used, but he also remembered the sweet smell of apple skins and the sour flavor of the spoiled fruit. There was a haze between those moments. No matter how hard he tried to drum up the memories between those points, he was met with more pounding in his head,

like a drum beat

like a flashback to war and

to the taste of his own blood on his tongue;

of salt and crashing waves and
— Mou, a voice.

What the fuck, a voice filled with fire, then dulled to cinders with a whisper.

Why did you leave me?

And he couldn't look at her — wouldn't. She is crying and he can hear her heart breaking in her voice, feel her muzzle jamming in to the fur of his neck and the hot breath of her fright — and he pulls away without thinking. Feeling that breath, those teeth, the danger of those teeth near his throat again, and again he's on the cliff. Titmouse lurches away from her and almost hits the jagged wall as he turns to sweep his one good eye across her. He expects to see his sister for a moment — remembers Towhee's teeth latching across his throat, his mind playing tricks as the trigger is pulled.

He sees Maegi, and he gasps, Screeh, and there it is, that ruined voice again. That voice that he cannot fathom as his own but, he remembers. Oh, he remembers so many things — M-my name, is Screeh. She was righ.

Maegi shook her head, emphatically. "No," she whispered. Her voice was hollow, though not cold. "I don't care what they said. You're Mou. Mou. That's all that matters to me." She gritted her teeth, the fur along her spine lifting. What had they done to him? What had they made him believe? Fucking wretches.

She was going to hunt the red girl down and rip her from limb to limb. No--force-feed her the bad plant, the one Astara had consumed. Watch her twitch and die in minutes.

He was cowering away from her, and she wanted to join him on the other side of the cavern--but something within her bade her stay put. Instead, she sat back on her haunches, swallowing thickly, unable quite to meet his gaze. She was still angry, but not at him, no. Angry at everything the world had thrown at him. . .continued to throw at him.

He didn't deserve it.

"We'll kill them all," Maegi whispered, as if it was supposed to be some sort of comfort to him. "All of them. You'll be safe here."

They're my family Maegi, he slurred almost immediately, as if her hostility towards them was unfounded, coming out of the blue, as if they hadn't hurt both of them in so many different ways. If anyone would want them dead it would've been Titmouse — not Mou, that passive little boy, that creature he had become after all of his suffering. The victim. No, he didn't want to be that anymore. He didn't want to hurt anyone either — but it had to stop somewhere. They... They dih this to me, they took his voice in their attempt to take his life. They took his memories, and he'd done nothing to them. Nothing. Evidently, whatever happened after his coma had been washed from his memory — perhaps it never took root in the first place.

The boy was shaking. He was crying and didn't realize it, as that pressure around him became too much. He wept, openly, freely, pathetically, and crumbled like sand until he was just a mess on the ground. His sobs were quiet at first but soon they took him over, and he yowled and stormed and cried until he couldn't anymore, and sat there gasping in the dirt.

Wait, was he serious? Maegi's face grew suddenly angry. We're your family, Mou she snapped. I-- Her voice broke, and she looked away. Fuck. I'm your family, she continued, in a much smaller voice. Anybody who would do things like this to you doesn't deserve to be called 'family.' Like Potema--how could she call the woman 'family'? She would always be Mother, but she would never be Mom.

Then Mou was crying, and Maegi was hobbling over to him, the tears coming once more. I'm sorry, Mou, she choked out, attempting to get as close as possible without startling him again. I'm sorry for what they did to you. I'm sorry I can't fix it.

The two of them--so young, so flawed--cried, their sobs echoing off the walls. Wailing for the peaceful lives they'd never have, the familial love that had slipped away.