Turtleback Lake Mad March Moon - Printable Version +- Ruins of Wildwood (https://relic-lore.net) +-- Forum: Library (https://relic-lore.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=23) +--- Forum: Game Archives (https://relic-lore.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=26) +---- Forum: Relic Lore VI (https://relic-lore.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=144) +---- Thread: Turtleback Lake Mad March Moon (/showthread.php?tid=14129) |
RE: Mad March Moon - Kisla - Mar 05, 2017 [dohtml] [/dohtml] RE: Mad March Moon - Ice - Mar 05, 2017 [dohtml] Whatever she would give him, he would take. Whatever she needed, he would do his best to give. He had never considered himself a martyr, and neither did he then. He didn't do it so he could use it against her, all the things I did for you—he did it for her, here and now, and he'd leave it at that. He did it, because at the time, it felt like his one ticket to potential forgiveness. Selfishness mixed with his care for her, until he could no longer tell them apart. Where one ended the other had already begun. The first touch of teeth against him was followed by another, and another, and another. Pale fangs flashed in the moonlight. They struck over and over, sometimes leaving no visible mark, sometimes leaving pale rents filling up with red blood, and sometimes pulling out white hairs. And though they would leave no lasting marks, barely even scars, he would remember them: each strike branded into his heart, each flare of pain emphasized by the way it cut him deep in his soul. No matter how logical, no matter how expected, each second blending into the next minute of the assault hammered something deeper and deeper without a care for bones and veins. It hurt because—because after all this time, he had still returned. After all these years he had missed her—them—without knowing why, and he had made it back. For the first time in his life, he took a beating without protest, without barely a flicker of anger. Always one for fairness, the most he had ever done had been to take some lashings in spring, before slipping off. Now, he let her do whatever she wished, her teeth striking in a parody of intimacy, force and anger bleeding into something more frenzied, more frayed, as if she, too, was coming apart at the seams—for he was. No matter how determined, no matter how stubborn, each blow she landed hurt, nerves screaming. He still did not whine. He still did not move. He still made no attempt to stop her, but within, he was shaking. She relented. Her snarls grew quieter and quieter, and one of Ice's ears hesitantly peeked forward—only to narrowly miss being bitten. Then those ceased, too, and his world shifted dramatically again, oceans rising and mountains punching through the earthen floor. His heart stopped in his chest for a moment. He didn't know what he had expected anymore. Past this point, he hadn't been able to gauge anything—the anger, the cold, unyielding mercilessness of a woman abandoned one too many times.. he had feared them, but he had known them to come. The violence, too. But.. but this... His mind had been whispering this is the end, after this, she'll simply turn around and leave, because it's all you deserve— but instead, she buried her head in his neck, and his heart broke again. His head pressed against her neck, his heart weeping in his chest, and he did his best to hold her against him. He—he wasn't very good at this. He didn't know.. if this was all his doing, or if there was something else, something more, another river to pull her from. His eyes pressed shut and he filled his memory up with her scent. He wanted to stay there forever, a snatched moment he wasn't sure he was supposed to have—a little ray of hope, a glint of something more, just the barest taste of forgiveness, that.. somewhere, in that wild heart of hers, there beat something that didn't think of him only as worthless and rotten. He did not think—hoped her not—capable of such cruelty that she would pull away and say it would all have been a lie, just a taste of his own medicine as she vanished into the snowy silver night. These moments, they could not last forever. His tongue formed her name, but it got stuck behind his teeth, a question he thought might be best unasked. He was afraid of losing her, too fast and too deep. He was afraid this brittle, fragile peace would come apart like hoarfrost. So he still said nothing, just stood there with his head and neck aching, and held her as tight and for as long as she would let him—whether it be seconds, minutes, hours, or years. RE: Mad March Moon - Kisla - Mar 05, 2017 [dohtml] [/dohtml] RE: Mad March Moon - Ice - Mar 05, 2017 [dohtml] He ached—where her teeth had struck him, blood vessels had crumbled beneath his skin, and each beat of his traitorous heart sent a throb through his face. It wore and grated on him, slowly cooling as the minutes passed, giving him space to breathe, to think again. The cloud of pain slowly pulled back, and somewhere in the middle of it—the chaos, the fear, the ..love, the pain—he found himself wondering: if things had played out differently back then, what would've happened? If Corinna had stepped down, and Kisla had stepped up? If Kisla had somehow managed to tell him how she felt, and something in him had clicked..? But no—never back then. She had been too young, and that memory of her had stayed with him for so long. Maybe now, things were different. He was tired and she smelled of spring, but the vastness of what he had done, and who they had become, laid between them, and in it, he saw only darkness. Things had changed, the memory of her was frayed, as they all were, and if.. if she had come to him now, and said that she loved him.. he chose not to think of it. She pulled back, just a little, not leaving, not baring her fangs to start the process anew, but just so they weren't merging into one another anymore. He felt colder, as the wind once more blew through his scruff, touching his burning skin with soothing hands. Part of him wanted to step forward, follow her, embrace her again, lest she drift away on the night breeze, never to be seen again—a memory, a dream, a thought. His respect of her was too great, though, and he stayed put, ears flicking forward when she spoke again. This Kisla was more like the Kisla he had known.. her eyes not as feral, not as hard, but not even Ice was dumb enough to not notice that this Kisla wasn't a healthy one. He couldn't put his paw on it, but it was something in her eyes, her stance, the way her attacks had relented and she had leaned on him... “You owe the world to Serach,” she said, and, "I know," he said, softly, his voice barely more than a white-smoke sigh rising towards the sky. His silver eyes were sad, and tired, worn by long years of life, long days and long nights. No matter how much his heart longed for Kisla, for Fenru, for Triell and the Wildwood, he could not leave Serach. Not this soon, not this year, while he still had so much to prove, and so much to love. He swallowed, and his gaze threatened to fall from her face to the snow, but when she spoke again it snapped back. The words sent a chill through him, even though he wasn't sure there was any despair at all in her voice. He took a small step forward, and his throbbing head tilted a little to the side. "Kisla..." he breathed, that question dancing upon his tongue again, though he still wasn't sure if he had a right to know the answer. He paused, just for a moment, regarding her in the sharp, pallid light. Maybe he didn't deserve to know what was going on in her life anymore, but he still cared, and for one, brief moment he wondered if he had misunderstood her—maybe she meant, that the rest of them had all they could ever ask for? But why then the past tense, before she had lashed out at him? Why then that look in her eyes..? Why wasn't Serach, who did have it all, encompassed in that statement? A low whine preceded his words, and he finally said, "What's wrong?" oh so gently. RE: Mad March Moon - Kisla - Mar 05, 2017 [dohtml] [/dohtml] RE: Mad March Moon - Ice - Mar 06, 2017 [dohtml] He wondered, if he wouldn't rather have had the anger she had shown him, rather than this.. this distance between them, as once again her eyes grew hard as they met his. It made him feel like he insulted her with his concern—as if she wanted to mock him for still giving a damn after all these years. The thing was—he had never stopped caring. Lost and confused, cold and in pain, wandering a world that was unfamiliar for more reasons than one, what he had later realized was Oak Tree Bend had burned hot and furious in his chest. It had driven him onward, through blizzards and spring floods, through hostile terrain and narrow mountain passes. It had always urged him on, and he had always looked for it, for them, the place and the faces that would put the fire to rest. His memory had returned before he had happened on Relic Lore by chance. Her eyes felt like a challenge. Even as she shook her head, leaving him breathless for a moment as he bit down, hard, on all the things threatening to spill from his heart, he couldn't help but feel that if he tried harder.. if he found the patience and the courage and the thrice-damned time to show her that he had always cared, maybe—just maybe she would let him back in. It was his only hope. It was his only bulwark against despair. She was family. She had always been, would always be, and even though they drifted apart like tumbleweed, that would not change it. Not for him. He smothered the low whine in his throat, stood still as her side brushed lightly against his. It hurt to be so near, yet so far away, on the other side of a frozen ocean in her heart. “I’m no longer afraid of the shadows of the world, Ice.” You don't have to need me. “There’s nothing for you here anymore.” "There's always something for me here," he said, still gentle, still soft, turning so he could see her, and taking a few steps after her. Not close enough to touch, just close enough that she wouldn't just disappear. "Maybe you don't need my protection anymore, maybe you don't even need me in any way at all—but that does not mean.." His breath faltered in the cold air, and he took another step forward. It seemed fitting they meet in a cold, frozen world. "That does not mean I will stop caring. That does not mean I ever stopped caring. I'm.. I'm not asking you to forgive me. I'm not asking you to forgive me tonight, or.. or even ever, because.. I feel like I have no right to ask that of you." He hung his head a little. He had drifted as he spoke, so he stood more next to her, and less behind her, but half a yard of cold air still separated them. His ears flicked back. He didn't know what else to say. RE: Mad March Moon - Kisla - Mar 06, 2017 [dohtml] [/dohtml] RE: Mad March Moon - Ice - Mar 06, 2017 [dohtml] She stepped into the cold water, the one place he would not follow in a hurry—but if he had to, he would follow her anyway, no matter how cold and how deep he had to go. Memories of the ground giving way beneath him, and catapulting him headfirst into an underground stream of water moving so fast it refused to freeze, shivered down his spine. Why she had stepped into the lake he could not fathom. Did he drive her to it? Did she want to get away from him? She had the shore on the other side, she could run wild into the moonlight, away from the ghost haunting her. An old, decrepit thing that should've been left in the past, where he belonged. Gray hairs, silver sprinkled as if with pepper, warred with pure white hairs on his muzzle. Eyes took longer to focus, and things up close hurt to look at, or was just plain blurry. His joints creaked when he had been dormant for too long. His heart beat faster for a longer time after he had run. His concentration slipped faster. He slept more. His back and hips had begun to lose some of their fullness, but it was a barely visible change yet. A ghost, indeed, tired before they had even begun, and even more so now. His emotions had taken their toll, and the pain, too. Some of the deeper rents still ached and burned and itched, but the rest had fallen into silence. Had he been given a second chance, he would not have done anything differently. “Why?” she asked, and the inky waters sloshed around her legs as she turned to face him. He remained on the bank, a moonlit specter, regarding her in confused, heavy silence. Why what? Why did he still care? Why did he refuse to give up? Why did he not think he had a right to ask her to forgive him? Why anything—why was he still alive? But she told him what it was, and his sighed seemed to say, 'ah, that...' and he looked away for a moment. Why, indeed? He could just as well have loped south to get away from Aponi and Serach and the tensions running high—but he hadn't. He had gone north, and he realized there had been a reason for that. A plan half-formed, a hope half-voiced, a journey not ended by the time she had found him. She flinched, and he turned to look at he again. “I’m sorry,” but he, gingerly, shook his head. He wasn't sure what she apologized for, but whatever it was—she had done nothing wrong tonight. "It's quite alright." What had transpired here... It had hurt, yes. It still hurt. And it had hurt, within, had nearly crumbled his resolve when it had seemed to never end.. he blinked, and one of his paws touched the little lining of ice clinging to the shore. It broke beneath his touch, and he raised his paw again, putting it back on solid, snowy land. "I wanted to escape the tensions in the pack, so.. I figured I'd come up here... I didn't want to leave earlier in winter—Triell and Spieden left, not together, and half the pack left with them. It was just me, Serach, his mate Aponi, and a handful of yearlings left. That's still all it is, but right now, I just don't care. And..." He drew in a deep breath. "I realized I was hoping to run into you. I know you don't live at the lake, but I'm old, Kisla. I needed to rest, and then I started thinking about Marsh..." His voice drifted off into silence, and his sad silver eyes looked at her. RE: Mad March Moon - Kisla - Mar 07, 2017 [dohtml] [/dohtml] RE: Mad March Moon - Ice - Mar 07, 2017 [dohtml] She had not known—but then again, how could she? Her visit had been before the challenge, and as far as Ice knew, no one had left to purposefully tell her, and Ember's diplomatic trip hadn't been to Hearthwood River. Where the girl had gone after her return, Ice didn't know. She had just disappeared sometime after the hunt, as wolves were wont to do. He felt guilty for bringing the news to her, as if he was responsible for yet another crack in her image of the world. “Triell is gone?” almost, as if she couldn't believe it. Serach hadn't been able to, at least. "Mmh," he responded softly. At first, he had been angry, when Naira had told him. Why now? Why, when it was winter, and Ice had barely returned? Why leave because Naira wanted to—but the dark Tainn had also wanted, needed it. Ice couldn't fault him for it. "Aponi challenged Spieden for leadership, and won. Aponi is Naira's daughter. Naira's afraid of Aponi, and didn't want to stay. Triell, well.. he missed the Wildwood, and after all these years he has spent picking up the pieces when me and Indru—" It burned on his tongue, to liken himself to Indru, but over the years they had become one and the same; the only difference was that Ice had returned. "—wrecked things, he wanted his own thing. And because I had returned, he felt that he could leave, because I would be there to help Serach." Not that I have an excellent track record with him. It hung unspoken in front of him, his chance to prove that he was more than just a stray bank of snow blown in by the wind, ready to melt away again once the sun came out. "He left without even saying goodbye to Serach," he admitted, bitterly, after a moment. That part hurt. That part left him so confused, and had hurt Serach so bad. Fine that he had left—maybe even Serach would've understood the reasons and the hows. But without even saying goodbye..? It was a bitterness born of love. Ice loved Triell—always had—and to witness him acting like this.. his sigh was heavy. She had come closer again. Ice watched her, as gently as he could. “Is Serach okay?” At that, his ears folded themselves back, and he studied the horizon for a moment. She was a green-eyed, blurred-out thing in the corner of his eye. Why don't you come see for yourself? he wanted to say, anything to keep her with him longer, but now wasn't the best time. Family or not, he was sure she'd be met with Aponi's teeth before she came within a mile of Serach. "He is now, I think," he said instead, shifting a little on the snowy bank. Part of him wanted to go down into the water with her. "He didn't take it well at first, and I'm never going to blame him for that. First Spieden bolted, taking her children, Sahalie, and one of the males with her.. and then, in the dead of night, Triell, Naira and Leotie, left, with their kids. All in two days, or less, and Triell without a word. Both he and Naira spoke to me. He went to Leotie, asked her to come away with them. But nothing, no warning, no bloody farewell to Serach." Again, his voice lapsed into that place. "I.. I genuinely don't know how he could do that to Serach... It was hard on him at first, but some wounds, time manages to heal. He's doing better now. I think having Aponi helps." |