Bramble Falls the hardest part

here we go...

Once she was off the mountain, she was determined to stay off of it. Despite living on it for a few weeks, the dainty-pawed girl was no where near a mountain goat when it came to navigating along the stones. That had been obvious enough when she'd almost taken another down with her when she began to slide down the side of the mountain. It was lovely to look at in the fading sunlight, but Aisling wanted nothing to do with it now. It was dangerous up there at night.

The evening was warm, and Aisling was enjoying the sunset as she sat by the pool. The sound of raging water filled her ears and made her feel safe. It helped her mind clear. It depended though. Sometimes, not being able to hear made her nervous. It blocked a sense, and a very important sense to boot. But despite being down on the ground for two or so days now, she hadn't actually run into many wolves. Two. And one of them wasn't even on the ground! So it was easier to feel safe when she knew that there weren't wolves lurking around every corner. Behind dark lips, her teeth clicked against each other, a movement hardly seen to the naked eye. She could hear it though, and kept going.

Her mind was full of thoughts, detached from the world she sat in. She thought about home. She was...Okay now. Maybe her mother and her father would speak to her and love her again. They could all be happy. It wasn't as if she had anyone left here. Her stomach turned at the thought of Jayse, who Aisling was sure had heard of her wrong doing by now, and after abandoning the Hollow again, would certainly not welcome Aisling with a smile. She thought of Kinis and Ruiko, wondering if they'd managed to create a new home for themselves. Perhaps she'd go there. They had no reason to hate her. And then...She thought of Kiche. How long had it been since she'd really seen him with her own eyes, not through the eyes of a muddle soul? Months. Their last meeting had been so short and she hadn't been in a good state...She could hardly count it as a real meeting.

Her teeth stopped clicking, and she looked at the water, frowning. She'd really ruined everything, hadn't she? All she'd wanted was to find a place where she could feel safe and loved, a place that her family had failed to provide for her. And she'd thought she'd found that place in Relic Lore. But she might as well have set fire to the whole place. She'd ruined everything, and she didn't even mean to. Her rump fell to the chilled grass, and her bony shoulders shuddered, her amber eyes closing. <b style="color:#388d10">"What have I done?"

<b style="color:#388d10">"speech."

(This post was last modified: Jan 27, 2012, 03:15 PM by Indru.)

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A skeleton stood in the shadows. His heart was in his throat, pounding and crying and aching. Out across the water that gathered at the foot of the tumultuous falls a lonely, ermine creature, painted gold and fire in the sunset. His eyes followed every movement fervently. Even if he couldn't smell her, even if he couldn't see so clearly from behind the curtain of dead leaves and shadow, he knew it was her. She was here. <i>Aisling</i>. His fur stood on end, screaming and anxious. The godless, forsaken creature could not find it in him to walk over to her, there was too much noise in his head. Weeping with happiness, his soul urged him to go to her, to press himself against her until he was part of her and she could never leave again. But his mind, oh his mind was cautious, shrewd, and above all: unforgiving. This was the girl that had disappeared on him, who seemed changed, almost unrecognizable in the dying light. And Pangur. Was he with her? What... what would Pangur say? More than anything, Kiche feared the God he had left behind... or tried to leave behind. But he missed Pangur, and missed the hole he filled inside of him. And <i>Aisling</i>... a gust of breathless longing burst from his lungs, a gentle sigh that floated on the wind. Was it possible that she was even more beautiful?

Hidden at the edge of the forest, he felt that he was caught between the two extremes of himself: who he had been, and who he was now. Was there still a place for her in his life? He hadn't seen her in so long. Would he still want to kiss her? Without hesitation his heart cried out that it did. It wanted so badly to kiss her.... But would she want to kiss <i>him?</i> He was frozen somewhere between the past and present in the fire-light of the coldest winter afternoon, and the breeze tugged at his fur with a mirrored indecision. Did he even deserve her? If he just ran away right now, she need never know he was here. He didn't have to look back. He could just run away and search for his second Angel, and love her and pretend that she was the real Aisling he was too scared to face.

Without thinking, the heart that pounded in his throat spoke for him in a language he didn't know he spoke: a low, keening howl of mourning. It was tuneless and desperate, ugly and beautiful all at once. His voice was broken and raspy, dried up and parched because he was too afraid to go near the waterside, lest she see him.
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Was there still hope for her? Aisling couldn't begin to imagine what was left for her here, what she had yet to destroy. Something that had mattered that was completely engulfed in flames. The brothers came to mind, but she hardly knew them really. They probably didn't even remember her. Her jaw was clenched as she looked into darkness, her eyes still pressed closed as hard as she could muster. So was that her answer then? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. She'd even managed to make Kiche disappear too. Pale brows were pressed together as she lifted her head to gaze at the sunset. A shrill, but quiet whine slid from slightly parted jaws, and finally she stood.

This was it then, she supposed. She'd have to find somewhere new to go. Back home, maybe, where her parents still had to love her. They had to, because they were all that was left. She could hardly remember their faces, but they still had to care and remember the little girl that they had only tried to help. Her fur suddenl stood on end as a howl, incredibly close, rang out somewhere behind her. It was...so strange to hear it, as if there was a voice to it that she recognized. All the same, she panicked, turning around slowly, making surethat she wasn't too close to the waters edge, lest she fall in backwards. <b>"Who is it?"</b> She squeaked, ears back, amber eyes searching in the distant trees, trying to pick out a form in the growing darkness. <b>"Who's there?"</b>

<blockquote><ul>let the chase begin?</li></ul>Every movement she made caused him to cringe and wince. Regret was the sound of his broken, ruined voice that tapered off into a whisper. Even as it faded, some of the wretched bitterness lingered in the air, tingling in the atmosphere. Cursing himself, he wished that she had been startled by the noise and taken it as her cue to leave. Sorting out all this tangle of feelings that had grown up between them like weeds was the last things he wanted. He felt as if any attempt to fix things between him would end with him being strangled by all these complicated feelings he couldn't begin to name or explain. Frozen where he stood, the copper shadow watched Aisling as she turned about, but he couldn't hear what she said. He was too far away. Making no attempt to answer her, and suddenly feeling that he shouldn't be here, he took a tentative step backwards. A mercenary thorn thrust its way into his food, and he cried out in emotionally-exaggerated pain. "<b>Shit!</b>"

But she would have heard that. Too distracted by his warring thoughts, he had not thought to muffled his cries. Fear bubbled up inside of him. She would have <i>heard</i> him. And she would know he was here, she would find him. And that couldn't happen. He stumbled and flailed and crashed through the trees, stumbling through the undergrowth that reached out to ensnare him.
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Whoever had made that sound hadn't heard her, or perhaps had chosen to ignore her words. Her look of fright turned to one of a serious sadness. Maybe she'd been hearing things and no one had actually howled. It was her brain's last ditch effort to get her to stay. Some stupid unconscious foolishness. For a moment, she'd almost believed that had it not been for the sudden exclamation from the trees. Her ears retreated back again, and her eyes got two times bigger. That voice. Why would he be hiding from her? Not just hiding, she noted from the sounds following his yell, but running.

The sadness turned into fear again. What had she done? <b style="color:#388d10">"Kiche!" The girl cried, suddenly breaking into a run after him. In her state, and with his headstart, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to catch up to him. <b style="color:#388d10">"Please stop!" She cried again, the words choppy as her lungs fought for air. <b style="color:#388d10">"speech."

<blockquote><ul><span style='font-size:7pt;line-height:100%'>I'm assuming Aisling is much faster than <s>fatass</s> Fatman, here. LOL @ 70 speed vs. 130 speed. Part of him wanted to stop and turn around when he heard her crashing through the forest after him, and part of him just wanted to keep running. But it wasn't the brave romantic side of him that had control of his body. Instead, he was gripped by an overwhelming fear that preyed on his instincts. He was not in control of himself. The large, copper brute who had thought himself so intellectual, so pious, was reduced to a flight-response. He was a marionette tugged and contorted by instincts and drives that told his heart to beat explosively and his muscles to thrust him deeper and deeper into the forest with an explosive power. Aisling called out his name, and it was more painful than he could bear to hear her voice again. Painful because it made him afraid, and painful because the distance he was putting between them.

"<b>I can't stop,</b>" he cried, not casting a glance back over his shoulder to see if she was still dogging him. He didn't need to: he could hear her —her erratic, shallow breaths, her echoing pace. She was close. The thought sent an electric, icy thrill down his spine. "<b>I can't!</b>" If he stopped, it meant facing the past, every wrong thing he'd ever done, it meant being in love with a creature so completely beautiful that he didn't deserve. To stop was to let the very last barrier standing between him and the heathens crumble. This one last wall, this one last moral, was all that stood between him and the wilderness, and he firmly believed that.

And some how she never caught up to him. And he never looked back. A piece snapped off of his heart. But he was free. </blockquote>

(This post was last modified: Feb 04, 2012, 04:46 PM by Kiche.)

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