Drooping Willows This town ain't mine

opposite ends of the universe

I can see a storm and it's coming my way; I think I'm gonna drown if you say what you say.
Just tell me I'm the only one that you think about when I'm not around;
and I don't wanna know what I already know.
Just keep it to yourself. Leave me out in the cold. Never let the words come out.
Keep 'em locked inside and just let 'em die.
Say there's only me so it won't be over; I can make believe.
I want you to lie to me...

-- Cole Plante, "Lie To Me"

---

Her silence regarding the matter was unsettling; it sent chills up his spine and he stared at her now as if looking at her would give him all the answers and comfort he needed. What she said was far from what he had wanted to hear. If his heart had already begun to bleed out, she had plunged an arrow into his chest and he was starting to gasp for air. A single tear fell from the corner of one of his eyes and he whined. Each word of instruction twisting the arrowhead deeper into him.

"Do it fer her since yer wouldn't do it fer me," she scorned. "Or disappear."

His jaw hung in the air, all the words unsaid still caught at the back of his throat. He probably should have said what he had wanted to say - that he loved her, that he wanted to be the sort of man that she depended on (just as she had with Craw), that he truly would die without her - but the timing for goodbyes and last words had long since passed. Half of him wanted to believe that she was merely scaring him, getting back at him for all that he had failed to do and all that he had done. After all these years, at long last, karma had finally caught up to him. He deserved this... that much he was sure of by now.

"Or disappear." The words echoed again in his head.

On the verge of hyperventilating, being unable to catch his breath, he bowed his head. Then, in one fluid movement, he stood up and ran. He wanted to put as much distance as he could between him and his only remaining litter mate. Sniveling as he went, he picked up speed as soon as he passed a certain point - the old Willow that shared a space with a forgotten wolf-sized boulder served as a notable landmark, and taking a sharp left would eventually lead him to the foot of the Mountain of Dire. The willow branches whipped at his face but he was already too far gone. There was no more room to think, only to act, and all Skoll Archer desired more than anything else was to remember who he once was. For as long as he could recall, she had always been there and now she wanted nothing to do with him. She was going to leave him here and he was going to forget everything they once had - if he was not his sister's keeper then he was afraid that he was nothing and no one.

As she watched her brother flee she didn't bother trying to catch him (although surely with speed on her side maybe she should have chosen to run him down and put him on his ass to make sure he was listening. Really listening to the words she had spoken). Perhaps with time he would remember what she said with more clarity, stop looking for the little manipulations and take the words for what they were. A challenge. Grow up, take responsibility, the unspoken you should take your children too. He just had to swallow his pride, and admit he made a mistake. Piety, Hecate, what was the difference? The outcome was the same except that the first knew better than to try and take what was not hers to take. Craw would not allow Skoll's deeds to go unpunished but wasn't that something that had been lacking their whole lives?

Would it kill him to grow up a little and own his decisions? Sometimes you just had to throw the kid off the pier and hope the desire to survive was strong enough that they would learn to swim.

No maybe this was a scare he needed. To know he had to stand on his own four paws, but this was far from over. Yes she would make him choose. But she would give him the time to figure out just who he was without her first.