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For @Roskuld ! Set a couple of days after the challenge, but before he goes to visit Earthy. Sorry for the size oops >.<
[ you can't stray from what you are, you're the closest thing to hell i've seen so far ]
[ use of force/magic on him is permitted aside from death/maiming ]
World's Edge General atk: 7.5 | def: 9.5 | dam: 6 |
Mare :: Tribrid :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 82 | Buff: ENDURE |
Zchiraxicon :: Royal Rougarou :: Electric Smithers |
Chico didn’t like this idea at all. I never really ever feel him get nervous about anything, but here he was, sweating bullets being so far away from me, and the only way this could process through his head was through anger. I could almost feel his mental growls shake me to my core, all the way from where he stayed by Kis’ side.
Dude, shut up, I told him for the thousandth time, exasperated, I’ll be right back, ‘aight? Just chill, dude. I knew how he felt, though. In the aftermath of whatever the hell that confrontation had been between Kis and Volterra, Kis had been a wreck and it would’ve been shitty of me ‘n Cheek if he had just left her like that, defenseless against the sheer trauma of being alive. Her reactions to it were explosive but I couldn’t fault her for any of it; I mean, I felt a lot of the same things she did, but I was stuck with wrestling with the idea of my own ignorance and stupidity—while she had just gone for fucking murdering the dude. And yeah, I have to admit she won the “hardcore” debate on that front.
But the cards didn’t stack up right no matter how hard I looked at it and I couldn’t stop thinking about Volterra and how his eyes had looked as he was getting the shit knocked out of him like that. And even though my time had been wrapped around Kis’ physical and wounds—well, I couldn’t let myself forget about the other side so easily, either. It just seemed like too much of an explosion to leave that kind of tinder loose and wandering around. I hated snooping but shit was becoming my business and I had to put the tea down.
Except neither me nor Cheek thought it’d be a good idea to look for the huge bastard while Kis knew about it. I didn’t want to remind her of it so soon after her outburst, rubbing it in her face like that when it was still so raw from the tears and the shouting and whatever. Besides, what she had said to him during the fight (She's a demigoddess too. Maybe you'd like to—complete the set. Collect all three.) Ugh just thinking about it gave me the fucking willies. Anyway, neither of us thought it’d be a good idea to let her know that I was thinking about him, and that I was thinking about visiting him.
It wasn’t hard for me to sneak away, though; I dunno, maybe her body isn’t built for emotions after all or maybe I’m downplaying her distress, or whatever, but Kis often fell into fitful naps, probably because it helped ease her injuries and dulled whatever was going on in her head at the same time. So when she laid down for her next sleep, I was free to break away from her and her bronze with Chico standing vigil, keeping an eye on her to let me know if she woke up. Chico didn’t like thinking about what might happen if she woke up before I returned—but he was being a bro and I owe him like, 3 pizzas, man.
I went back to the Fields because that was the last place we had left him—and I figured if he had been well enough to move then I didn’t need to worry. Which is why I bit my lip when I saw that he was still there, which meant that I was right to be anxious about it. Not like I knew what to do about it or who to go to without wandering too far from Kis. But I couldn’t just forget, I dunno. “Eesh,” I said under my breath, seeing the sheen of gold scales on his back, his dragon just as incapacitated as her master. Chico’s mind reeled at the shared sight of her, and he was pissed all over again because he wasn’t there to fight for me. Jeez dude, I can handle myself, don’t trip.
“’Ey, man,” I said, calling over to the black mass laying in the pale moon’s light, “You ‘aight?”
"talk"
Volterra do you like to be tagged?
Please tag ROSKULD in every reply!
Dragon's Throat Sultan atk: 8.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 8.5 |
Stallion :: Equine :: 17'2hh :: 3 HP: 80 | Buff: SENSE |
Vérzés :: Common Red Dragon :: Frost Breath & Toxic Breath & Vadir :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Shock Breath Snow |
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Yes please if you don't mind <3 @Roskuld
[ you can't stray from what you are, you're the closest thing to hell i've seen so far ]
[ use of force/magic on him is permitted aside from death/maiming ]
World's Edge General atk: 7.5 | def: 9.5 | dam: 6 |
Mare :: Tribrid :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 82 | Buff: ENDURE |
Zchiraxicon :: Royal Rougarou :: Electric Smithers |
He was a very manly asshole, wasn’t he? Everything from his jerky, tender movements, to the hitch in his voice I could hear a mile off—all of it screamed ow ow ow this shit fucking hurts but I gotta admit he was playing it off impressively. And he wasn’t the tallest dude I ever met but he had a presence all the same, like his own shadow thrummed and vibrated forcefully around me, making him impossible to ignore. He smelled powerfully like a dude, complete with sweat and musk and a tinge of copper all hanging all around it, adding even more to the mystique of it. I realized that I was getting a lot of Grey-ish vibes off this bastard; that he was giving me a lot of childhood flashbacks of many people who stood like indomitable walls and that, if I hadn’t just watched him get his ass royally kicked, he’d seem just as indestructible.
Even through all that though—the bravado and the pulse of a heart that beat powerfully—his attention turned immediately to Kis and there was a desperation that slipped through the cracks of the mask he was fixing to his face. It confirmed what I had seen in his eyes before, but I wasn’t ready for the swell of something that moved inside me as he asked after the Earth demigod. It was impressed but pained to watch this guy shrug off his hurt to ask for the person he—
loved.
Who, coincidentally, hated his ass.
“Hey, man, take it easy,” I tried to coax with a low voice, knowing it might be useless but trying to calm him anyway, “She's the one who walked away from this mess. You ain’t so lucky.” I was starting to hurt for this guy and I realized that thing inside me was an enormous pity that I tried to swallow back. Motherfucker seemed proud and noble, even though love seemed like it was still whoopin’ his ass even as we spoke (I mean, love does that to all of us in some way, doesn’t it?). I didn’t know how to answer him; the devotion in his voice was too much to admit hatred to. I didn’t want to crush the poor bastard even further. That wasn’t my job.
(Jeez, how the hell did I get caught up in this?!)
But something in me told me he wasn’t gonna stand there and take silence as an answer. I had the impression that if I kept my mouth shut, he’d stumble off and find Kis’ ass himself. Which was a fucking awful idea for him, if he still liked life for some reason. “She’s…” I started—almost saying fine before I remembered I can’t lie that easily. “She’ll be…” Fine? But I wasn’t even sure of that, not really. I’d never seen an emotion affect her like this before; I wasn’t even sure if she knew how to handle them. And I know from experience that kind of thing could shred you alive if you didn’t have the strength to face it.
I sighed, rolling my shoulders. The only thing I knew how to do was spit truth. So I guess that was the only thing I could do in that moment. “She’s still messed up, man,” was all I could say. That’s all there was to say about it. How else could I describe it? “She’s got a lot of shit to figured out.” And that was true too, and all of it was none of my business so I couldn’t really elaborate on the issue.
“…Volterra,” I said, saying his name to him--meeting him I guess, even though I wasn’t really feelin’ like giving my own name back to him. “Did you…Do you know what happened to her baby?” I was gonna ask him if he had killed the child—but something like a conscience stopped the words in my throat before they could fly out and destroy him.
"talk"
@Volterra SORRY I GOT EXCITED
Please tag ROSKULD in every reply!
Dragon's Throat Sultan atk: 8.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 8.5 |
Stallion :: Equine :: 17'2hh :: 3 HP: 80 | Buff: SENSE |
Vérzés :: Common Red Dragon :: Frost Breath & Toxic Breath & Vadir :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Shock Breath Snow |
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-marries this thread- @Roskuld
[ you can't stray from what you are, you're the closest thing to hell i've seen so far ]
[ use of force/magic on him is permitted aside from death/maiming ]
World's Edge General atk: 7.5 | def: 9.5 | dam: 6 |
Mare :: Tribrid :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 82 | Buff: ENDURE |
Zchiraxicon :: Royal Rougarou :: Electric Smithers |
In a deep corner of my mind I could actually see Kis sleeping, tossing and turning and fitful but at least dead to the world and my treachery of speaking with the enemy. Chico was doing a good job of being quiet and stealthy for once, watching from the bough of a nearby tree with powerful, silent owl’s eyes. Except I wasn’t sure how the hell his heart wasn’t pounding a damn war-drum capable of snatching her from sleep, cuz I could feel that thing rattling my entire body from miles away. It made paying attention to Volterra’s plight that much more difficult.
*I'd hoped it would help...her attacking me. I know it won't remove the grief, nothing will, but I thought it might...disguise it. For a while, at least.*
I bit my lip hard at that statement. She wants you dead, bro. It was clear to me that he cared for her and her well being, but this dude...I dunno. It didn’t seem like he understood like I thought he would. Like...as if breaking his fucking body wasn’t enough to clue him in on the kind of pain he was causing her.
So then then I started trying to give him benefit of the doubt. Maybe he didn’t know her like I thought he did, or I guess there were sides to her that I didn’t know that she showed him. Maybe he didn’t know just how cold she was, how much of an analytical asshole machine she was, and that this hot messiness was out of character for her from my perspective. I mean...I dunno what this relationship was supposed to be. All I knew was that it had been physical; except there had been a child. There was an investment in this, at the very least. I was trying to see how much of a stake he had in it.
Except that thing was happening-- y’know, the thing where you meet someone new and their slate is completely neutral in your head but then they keep talking and they keep talking and you start to lose what ever ambivalence you had with that person, and most of the time you find out they suck like everyone else. I wasn’t at the Jeez Volterra Sucks part of it process yet but the sympathetic light in my eye certainly dimmed a bit the more with every word he said. It was, like, a three-part process:
I didn't even know there was a baby…
I think she discovered that I already had children…
I'd proven myself a useless father to them…
With all of those points my brow cocked a bit higher, my head tilting a little bit more, my face gradually shifting from “Wow dude you’re fucked right now” to “What even the fuck are you talking about?”. But what really got me was how he...just...sorta glossed over all those points, as though they were factors but they weren’t the Big Deal of the conflict. Like they were details that could be glossed over. And instead of chewing on those things, he dove straight into theorization, just wondering to himself Augh jeez bro what if I had been there, would she still have lost the baby?
Like.
Dude it’s a little too late to be worrying about that now, you dun’ already--
Oh shit, I was saying this out loud.
“Dude, it’s a little too late be worrying about that now, you dun’ already knocked her up and left the bitch,” I blurted, the words flying from me before I could stop them. I was almost breathless when they left, too, like…Holy shit there was so much wrong with this picture, I didn’t even know how to start. His concern seemed so real, his...his love for her seemed so pure, so complete, so out of place with the searing hatred Kis had spew at him.
Was it out of place because he just didn’t know?
Was it because he just didn’t listen?
“Like…okay,” I took a deep breath to steady myself, because this was a thing he needed to learn and I had to do my best to teach him. “Here’s the thing. I’ve known her since she was a child and in all that time, she never wanted to give me her name.” I looked him dead in the eye, trying to impress the enormity of my point. “Her name, dude, I don’t even get that from her, I first learned her name from you.” Someday soon I was gonna get the joke of my last statement.
“But with you?....She gave you her body.” My voice dropped, choked a little bit at the thought, at the idea of how much of her that really was to give. “She gave you her child. She gave you...dude. She gave you something that’s hard to give another person. It’s fragile, man. It’s everything you can give.” I saw her sleeping in my mind’s eye, fretful, still healing. “That’s a hard thing to do.”
Then I snorted and pulled myself back from the soft stuff, my voice coming out harder, sarcastic, “But you didn’t even know she had a baby? You ain’t even stick around, at the very least? Oh, and you been with other women, too, and you had other kids by themoh shit you’ve been with the Sun bitch,” I realized, really realized, in mid sentence, that he might’ve had a child with her as well. Which was fucking me up harder than I thought it would, because this was another person I’d seen as a baby--but now they were grown enough to have babies of their own. Something was shifting and I wasn’t prepared for it but I shoved that bit of trauma to the back of my head to deal with it later.
I’d been getting tense this entire time, speaking to Volterra like that. I’d been swelling with a thing that’d been growing with my speech, a righteous…feeling, I dunno what it was, but it was on Kis’ behalf. I couldn’t imagine being alone with the loss of a child like that. Having to deal with two heartbreaks in one.
I sighed, though, and the tension melted and I deflated somewhat, my shoulders drooping. I paused. “...See,” I said in a low voice, “When you give something so personal like that, something that took a lot out of you to share….when you give it up, and you see that it’s only one of many...one in a horde...” I bit my lip again. For the briefest second I was back in the Edge, and I could see Tembovu looking down on me with kind eyes, giving me a gentle guidance with a bewildered heartbreak of my own.
If that’s the case, then I know many friends who I care deeply for, and wouldn’t begrudge them ’dozens’ of others who, also, care about them; especially in an hour of need. Would you?
“...it makes you feel cheap,” I was telling Tembovu Volterra, “knowing you’re just lost in a group of them, and the one you gave it to was the only one in your eyes. They were special.” Was that selfish? I guess that was a thing me ‘n Kis had in common after all. I cocked my head at him suddenly, shooting him with a question. “You love her?” I’d been assuming that this entire time--but now it was time to hear it from him.
"talk"
@Volterra Sorta abrupt ending cuz it went on for so long cuz ROS HAS FEEEELINGS
Please tag ROSKULD in every reply!
Dragon's Throat Sultan atk: 8.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 8.5 |
Stallion :: Equine :: 17'2hh :: 3 HP: 80 | Buff: SENSE |
Vérzés :: Common Red Dragon :: Frost Breath & Toxic Breath & Vadir :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Shock Breath Snow |
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@Roskuld
[ you can't stray from what you are, you're the closest thing to hell i've seen so far ]
[ use of force/magic on him is permitted aside from death/maiming ]
World's Edge General atk: 7.5 | def: 9.5 | dam: 6 |
Mare :: Tribrid :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 82 | Buff: ENDURE |
Zchiraxicon :: Royal Rougarou :: Electric Smithers |
Something I said bit at him harder than I thought it would--a stab somewhere tender that hurt more than his sides did apparently, cuz he snapped back with the bared fangs of an animal cornered. I didn't leave her, he said to me, and I deflated a little bit cuz we were on semantics now and that wasn’t the fucking point.
“But you weren’t there, though,” I said, and it came out as a sigh, a whuff, cuz it doesn’t matter what you meant to do, or how you thought about it at the time. It was the result that ended up fucking her over. A baby was born and it died and you weren’t there for it, and it was your blood.
*Kis hollo? That's not her actual name. It's just what I call her, and always have since we first met as children.*
There was a heartbeat where I could’ve exploded at that--I mean, that’s my point though, isn’t it, I don’t even know the bitch’ name, that’s not a thing she won’t give up easily-- but the rest of his words caught me up quick.
...and always have since we first met as children.
Childhood friends.
I turned away from him, then. I looked out over the field where it dropped off into the sky, where you’d tumble down from the mountain into nothingness if you weren’t looking where you were running. I stared there cuz I was running at that moment and I had to be brought up short; I had to stamp out that righteous fire in my breast and bring be back down to earth. There was a moment where I was thrown into complete doubt--like, who the fuck am I to tell him he did someone wrong? Who am I to lay that kind of judgement down on him like that? Who was I to get angry that this guy left his childhood friend, the mother of his child in the blackness of the unknown and look down on him for it when--
(Jiji was out there somewhere--)
(Jiji was a mom, too--)
(She was my childhood friend--)
But I hadn’t seen her in years, hadn’t it?
So who was I to be so wise? Who was I to explain to this hurting dudebro what he did wrong?
…
...but I guess he asked me, didn’t he?
I guess I ain’t too arrogant for offering an answer, if I have one.
*That's what this is about? The others? Shit, shit, shit....There was never the right time for me to tell her...I didn't understand that she'd think that. How could she think that? She's more special than she realises, she's....she's always been....I....*
The confusion in his voice, the panic, was so tangible I could taste that shit; I could even hear the clickof him finally understanding what he had done, what had caused Kis so much pain (still using that name cuz fuck it it’s easy). And it confused me cuz...I dunno, how could someone miss something like that? His mind was structured with a set of rules completely different from my own and it was like speaking two different tongues with this guy. I turned back toward him with tensed shoulders. “It ain’t like she don’t exist when you’re not with her, y’know,” I said with breathless incredulity, “It ain’t like those other ones don’t exist when you’re with her either! The shit you do, the choices you make...they do work even if you forgot about them. They affect people whether you’re there or not to see it. The world is just...it’s more than what you see in front of you, right now, in this moment. It’s...it’s more...” I was losing words, the big Idea in my head slipping through my grasp of communication, “It’s…always.”
He said he loved her. He said he’d always love her. I looked over off the side of the mountain again, measuring my steps, keeping myself in check as I asked my last question. “Would you...would you give them all up for her?” I asked, raspy with emotions I hadn’t planned on feeling that day, “Would you take care of them babies you made, but make her your one and only? Would you stop straying from her side? Would you be…her’s?”
I didn’t want the words to come out like a judgement; I was curious. Besides, it ain’t like I had any room to talk about straying. I was the King of that shit.
"talk"
@Volterra Sorta abrupt ending cuz it went on for so long cuz ROS HAS FEEEELINGS
Please tag ROSKULD in every reply!
Dragon's Throat Sultan atk: 8.5 | def: 11.5 | dam: 8.5 |
Stallion :: Equine :: 17'2hh :: 3 HP: 80 | Buff: SENSE |
Vérzés :: Common Red Dragon :: Frost Breath & Toxic Breath & Vadir :: Royal Gold Dragon :: Fire Breath & Shock Breath Snow |
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@Roskuld sorry for the wait!
[ you can't stray from what you are, you're the closest thing to hell i've seen so far ]
[ use of force/magic on him is permitted aside from death/maiming ]
World's Edge General atk: 7.5 | def: 9.5 | dam: 6 |
Mare :: Tribrid :: 15.3 :: 6 HP: 82 | Buff: ENDURE |
Zchiraxicon :: Royal Rougarou :: Electric Smithers |
I can't, he answered me.
Well, shit.
I shrugged my shoulders like that too, just a slow rise and helpless fall of them as he gave me his pained response. Well, shit in physical manifestation. What more was there to say? If he couldn’t do it then he couldn’t do it--I mean, at least he was being honest with the both of us.
But it turns out there was more to say and he was finding it and spewing it all at me:
*That's not how I work. I'm not a swan - our species isn't built to be monogamous, kék-szikra.*
I was thrown by two things--the thing he called me (which was a hell of a lot more awesome than whatever the hell kis hollo was) and some knowledge he was apparently dropping about our species. About how a dude’s mind is wired, about the hot blood that drives him. And I don’t think Volterra knew what his words were doing to me; how the breath in my chest went stale and I had trouble pulling in something fresher, how my eyes dimmed and a faint ringdingding was sounding in my ears.
If that’s the case, then I know many friends who I care deeply for, and wouldn’t begrudge them ’dozens’ of others who, also, care about them; especially in an hour of need.
Huh. Okay, then.
It was like some great family secret was spilled on accident in my lap, in my hearing, some poisonous stuff I wasn’t supposed to learn even if it affected how I played the game. Some worries and confusions clicked into place with Volterra’s explanation--puzzle pieces locking together tightly, and it all felt so right, like...of course he had to be speaking the truth. Duh! The bastard didn’t know a damn thing about a heart and how to hold it, but blood ran through more organs than that one, and I guess there were pieces of being alive that he knew better than others (and that I hadn’t even tried to explore). Get this: it didn’t even cross my mind that Volterra was bullshitting me at that moment, that whatever he was saying was a crock and that he could’ve been wrong about all of that. It made too much sense to me.
But oh god it made me sad.
My whole...everything just dropped. Like, if you could see my spirit then you know that bitch had sunk all the way to the bottom of the tank. My shoulders slumped with the weight of my heart dropping, and the fight I had had buzzing in my bones just stopped with the shock of the heaviness. Was this disillusionment? Was this disappointment? I mean, I dunno, I’d felt all of those things at some point in my life, but this one drained me in a way that anything else in life hadn’t before. I’d been broken, shattered, left bleeding in more ways than one--but I dunno, I’d never suffered this...this future disappointment before.
Because what Volterra was saying was that, no matter what was gonna happen, Kis was gonna be someone’s cheap. I was gonna be someone’s cheap--and it ain’t like I was trying to search for my sugar daddy or anything but the idea of it now just seemed sour in my mouth.
Would it be so bad? a faint voice in my mind tried asking me, reasoning, wondering if it was really the end of the world if I wasn’t someone’s only lover.
The twist in my gut was answer enough.
"That's why she deserves better. She deserves someone who can be hers and hers alone, because I know there are some men out there who can stifle their instincts."
Even Volterra himself was offering a light at the end of the tunnel, but my guts refused to unfurl and my heart stayed stony. This was more, much more, than I bargained for and even more than I ever felt like thinking about, a realm I’d just...I dunno, left alone until I had to face it, until I was thrown into it by force. I kinda wish I had let it sneak up on me instead of this preemptive sense of let-down.
"You think I'm scum, don't you?"
His question brought be back to the Earth; I blinked and looked at him, and I remembered how frustrated with him I’d been just minutes ago and how it had morphed into something so much more general and bleak. “I think…” I’m sad. That I understand why she wanted to kill you. That this whole thing is so fucking pointless, like, what is even the point? That we’re fucked even when it comes to something that supposed to be small, and pure, and good for a change. “What I think…” I started again, chewing on my response, “...is that, if you love her like you say you do, you need to leave her the fuck alone.” I paused, debating on whether I should add more to it--then let it slide softly on my tongue. “She wanted you dead.”
I could see through Chico’s eyes that Kis was still sleeping--so I didn’t really have much of an excuse to leave other than the fact that I was tired of all this. Of him, of her, of these ideas in my head at a future where I was bound to cry over a dude. I sighed and the fight really went out of me then, like it was blowing out of my chest. “My name’s Ros,” I said gently, turning away from him and starting back down the mountain. It seemed wrong for me to know his name when he didn’t know mine. I could give that to him at the very least.
I came here to...well. The excuse was that I was gonna help him even though I knew jack-shit about healing someone, but that didn’t happen. So. I dunno really. I guess there was a piece of me that was curious about who could pull a heart out of Kis like that, much less find one in the first place. He intrigued me in that way, I guess--and as frustrated as I’d been with him, he definitely wasn’t the villain Kis had made him out to be with a mouthful of fire and salt. Or maybe he was a villain but doomed to it through his penis, in the way he had explained it to me.
Shit, I dunno. I just know I came here with two broken hearts on my conscience and now I was leaving with three.
"talk"
@Volterra SORRY I HAD TO RESPOND but maybe we can wrap this up here unless Vol has something else to say?
Please tag ROSKULD in every reply!