Audience in my Head

[Kunabee]

South

My name is South, and right now life is sh**. At least my life. When I was little - okay, I'm still little, so when I was younger - I was thrown out of my bogus pride and seperated from my siblings to try and find a mysterious person called the heart.
I think I found the heart, the one to complete my little f***ed-up family of body parts. Except she wants to die. She wants to die and I love her. She's a sister; a mother; a child. She's like my other half. The voice to my ears. The compassion to our cruelty.
She's trying to find me a home. A home with my siblings. A pride. Because I am never going back to my father. Alpha.
I found the heart and I lost it. I have no home except for one I make myself.
And I don't want to make a home. I need Yanamai. She's so selfish, right now... I need her. And she wants Bokor. I know I'm selfish. I understand selfishness. But it's not okay to be selfish when you take the thing that means the most to someone away.
So what then? Would I loose the last family I had in this world, too? I hate being silent. I can't do anything with silence. I wish I could talk, but I can't.
If I was more than the ears... But I'm the ears. The silent one. The one who observes, who listens, who feels all the pain so the rest can be okay. I hear the pain. The pain in my paws; the pain in my heart. The pain Yanamai feels. She cares for me.
But she's the heart. She's taken my only chance at happiness. Even if my siblings were gone, I'd be okay with Yanamai. I care not to return to Alpha-father; I just want to be here. With Yanamai.
So I hear myself speak. I turn to the voices in my head, line them up as an audience. They listen. For once I'm being heard.
"Yanamai is my best friend," I tell them, "And she wants to die." Nothing can make this world a better place. Nothing.
I will loose whatever love I have left. I'm the ears. I need my heart.

((wooc;; request for South to see her siblings die. because I am horrid xD))

[Bhu ♥ Irwin]

My mane was nothing to brag over, but it was growing. I ran a rough tongue over its fine hairs, grooming lovingly on the infant of what would one day be my image. My eyes were closed but beneath the lids, they were bright. I looked more and more like Alpha every day. The gods we followed spoke to me and informed me that I was very much like the mighty man in mind already--I just needed my bulk to catch up to my mental capacity.

Satisfied with my newly groomed hair, I climbed to my paws and stretched. There were feline scents in the air about a mile off, and one resembled my dear South. It had been many months since we had been set out by Alpha for the second time. I had learned much in my time alone, including how disgraceful I had presented myself as by daring to go home without the heart. Which reminded me, perhaps one of the felines accompanying South was the heart. I would not be jealous if my sister had been the one to find it--it was not a competition, after all. We needed the heart, my siblings and I, to survive. Without it, we were nothing more than a few scattered pieces of a whole being.

Setting out, I followed the tang of my sister’s scent for the mile I knew it would take. When my eyes feasted upon her, I realized I was not the only one growing. Of course I had already known this, but last my sister and I had seen each other, we were about house cat size. Now we were about the size of a Labrador dog, though both a little more filled out than that--I more than her.

“Oh sister, is that the heart I smell?” I asked it nonchalantly, as if this were not the first time in around a year we were seeing one another. My nose was in the air and I took a deep inhale, before sighing and plopping myself on the ground before the female. I very much enjoyed this little adventure of finding the heart, but it would be nice to go and find Alpha and sit by his side in my rightful throne once more.

[Kunabee]

South

At first I thought I was imagining it; but there he was. A much bigger North. My eyes lit up, and I pounced him without thinking. It was a smile on my face, and I bopped his nose: my way of saying 'the heart'. I don't know why I chose noses, but I did. Nose-shapes in the dirt, noses to be bopped; it all meant 'the heart'. The final piece. I answered his question.
Yes, I did find the heart. But she will kill herself. I dared not ruin the happy reunion with the words I could only try and make decipherable. Instead, I gleefully hop off him and offer him help up. He is my brother; he is my brain.
I belong to him; him to me. We are family. Though I will try and plead with him to not return to Alpha-Father, despite my finding - and losing - the heart, I will follow him. Where he goes, so do I. That is family, and who am I to question my brain? My leader, my peacekeeper, my brother.
My adoration for him was the same as the adoration he held for my father. I loved him, I adored him. I also despised him. By now I'm sure he would have said something about the gods speaking to him, the voices in his head. He was crazy.
The gods did not care about us little people, if they existed at all. Religion was a falsity. Though I prayed to Yanamai's god. I prayed to Dio that he could save her.
I did not believe, but I think a god would not be so picky as to ignore a prayer just because I was not a believer. At least not the god Yanamai used to believe in.
It hurt my head, always thinking of Yanamai's god. How he'd feel. If he'd reach a damn hand out and help. But he wouldn't. He was a god who was compassionate and cruel in equal measure. Worse than Alpha, better than Father. I shook these thoughts from my head.
Here was North!

[Bhu ♥ Irwin]

Behind that smile of welcome, there was something. I understood her nose touch as being a confirmation that she had indeed found the heart. What could possibly be wrong. I narrowed my eyes, ignoring the girl's glee at having been reunited with her brother. She had found the heart, so we could stay together now. Still, if something was wrong, I would have to be the one to fix it. I only stared.

The heart! Demand to know what is wrong with the heart! The shrill voices of alarm rang through my head as the gods pushed me to question this mute woman. I sat in silence for a moment, the wheels turning in my head as I tried to decide how to make it so South and I could communicate. It was then I recalled our childhood--the girl was born to be the one with no voice, yet she had always managed to get her point across. It was my job to think through situations for my siblings and I, but in this area, South did not need my help. "Well then, what is wrong with it? The heart, I mean." My tongue was rough as the words escaped past my lip in frustration. Why couldn't the gods just bloody tell me what was wrong? Surely they knew. Though they had always persisted, just like father had, that I had to find out things for myself. They could help me think through things, but I had to discover on my own. If I wasn't so fond of my little voices I would accuse them of only telling me what I knew because they were me. Ah, but that was silly. That would mean both Alpha and I were crazy.

I pity the soul who dares claim such about my Alpha.

So I merely lay in front of this teenage and glared at her in deep thought. I was boring my gaze into her, waiting for some sort of sign. I would not be so foolish as to only give her half a mind--she had to communicate an answer to me in some nonverbal fashion, which means it would be physical, which meant I needed to be focused and alert for when she did so. Why did it have to be the fucking Ears that found the Heart? South was a wonderful young woman and I cared for her, but it would be so much easier if someone could just tell me what was wrong.

[I L Y I C H]

We moved together in unison. The tied symbols of the sun. The moon. East stalked along, lips pealed back slightly in annoyance. North had wandered off again. Always running off. Never listening to me. That fluffy shit might be the head but I even with my lack of mane was also male, and was very much my brother's second. If not his equal. A brain does not function without a spine. but, it would seem his breaking of my meticulously ordered schedule (again) had for once come to some good. East lifted her head alongside mine, ears flicking forward even as she kept herself paced with me. At least she knew not to break the regimentation. North was just too rash.

"Where the hell have you been South?" The lioness' tone was grating, but I knew her enough to hear the worry behind it. East might be a prick but she was well meaning. Most of the time. My own ears pricked as we drew even and East took her leave form our formation. The woman was larger then our silent sister, and as such peered down her nose at South. Intimidating perhaps, but mostly upset that something might have happened. I turned my eyes to North, whiskers twitching. Trust East to plod right on in the correct direction whilst North humbled about 'Gods' way.

What was this about the Heart?

I turned my focus to South as well, though not quiet as intently. Something was obviously bothering the girl. Had she found the heart and lost them? I twisted my normally blank expression to what I assumed was akin to sympathy. While I myself did not care for this Heart I knew South and North both fixated on it.

[Kunabee]

South

It was silly of me to think I could hide the situation with the heart from my brother. As I sat there, trying to think of how to explain myself, there was East and West. I brightened. At East's harsh words, I just nuzzled her, smiling. But then it was back sadness.
I paced for a moment, then came up with an idea. In the dirt I created a rough symbol, then smashed it out. How to display 'want' and 'death'... Well, I knew death. I lay out on my side, limp and still. I knew my siblings would understand death. I just hoped they would not yell at me.
Perhaps if we all tried to convince Yanamai, she would live.

They'd all listen if I could speak.

((wooc;; sorry for shortness/crappiness ;-; ))

[Bhu ♥ Irwin]

I flicked my ear towards my two siblings' entrance, doing no more than that to acknowledge them. They were the two I traveled most frequently with, after all. For a moment I envied South--while I had been with East and West, she could very well have been in the presence of our final piece. Then a flash of frustration swept by. South should have worked harder to find us three if she considered her traveling companion was the heart.

Why was she playing dead?

I eyed her angrily. "The heart better not be dead. Alpha would not be pleased, nor would the gods, Sister." I couldn't smell the scent of death on her, nor disease to say the poor sap was in the process of dying. I stared at her quizzically, my irrational burst of irritation vanished. Then a different scent hit me, one mixed with a tang of familiarity. An ocelot and a lioness, both unfamiliar. But that Ocelot's strand had something...

"Bokor." The name came out in a whispered hiss. Stupid voodoo liger thinks he can steal our Heart? I'd like to see him try. My ears sat back at the gruff voices of the gods. That could be it, but what if neither lioness or ocelot were what South thought was the heart? How many travelling companions did my mute sister have? You questioning, North? I grimaced at the hateful tone used. I apologized internally, only showing it through the softening of my gaze. I scented no other cats on South. It had to be one of those two.

"We need to be sure this is the heart before we do anything rash." I skimmed my eyes over each sibling thoughtfully. "Did Alpha ever tell any of you any specifications for the Heart? He told me the gods would tell me when the time was right. Well, they are silent now." I narrowed my eyes. Perhaps I was being over-ambitious with this. The gods could very well be silent because this isn't the heart. Or maybe it was a test to see how I could handle without their constant aid. Either way, it didn't hurt to ask.

[I L Y I C H]

"Aren't they always silent?" Ice hued eyes scraped vicious in their lack of emotion across the lion's backs. Skoll didn't whisper words of anything to me. Not for my entire life. One couldn't expect to be led everywhere; such a childish notion. Gods spoke only to the truly pure, and then only when they fought to do so. Daiade had heard Him. I saw that as proof. Only guardian angels placed in this world without knowledge of what they were understood the words of God. To give peace. Hope. A path away from pain. My own guardian angel was behind me now. Left at the cross roads where numbness cut a canyon miles deep into the earth of my being. She was safer there. Safe from the thing within me that coiled now. Enticed by mere words to pull forward and snarl it's blood lust.

What had Brother managed to do to me? I mused over the implications. Sanity lost so easily. Never had it been fully repaired. The paranoia ate at me like the wolves at my back. Jackals. Liars. My lip curled, the violence creeping forward. The only way to prevent the devils from creeping back towards the angel was to destroy them. Coldness sat like an oil slick under my gaze as I turned to stare through the larger male. "Why do you look for a heart in the typhoons, my children?" Turning my skull back to the side I eyed the slimmer male as he glared up at me, lip curled. Dangerous. Hopeless children in a hopeless world.

Prepared to destroy for what they wanted. What they thought was theres. Eyes crinkling at the edges I took a small step back from the patch of grass I had used to sneak up on the small pride of siblings. Four little beasts all too ready to use and abuse everyone around them. Everything would do it. Everything but those few spread out guardian angels. Paranoid eyes flickered cruelly amongst them, demanding. Vicious.

[Kunabee]

South

I could hear, moreso than anything else, his anger and paranoia. He was Falomi; he was insane. It was the tone of his voice, the way his body shifted, oh-so-slightly. There was sanity behind the crazy, however. But that sanity was only focussed on plotting how best to destroy us.
I pressed my ears back, standing and making an angry position. I swiped out the ground, releasing a silent snarl. I was no coward, and I would protect my siblings with everything I had. I was the ears; North was the head; East was the legs; West was the spine. It was us, all together, equal within our plight to save the heart. Yanamai, my sister, mother, daughter, heart. I did not know what to call her; she was everything, and more.
My siblings. I had forgotten how beautiful they were. How wonderful they were. We were a unit, a brave and powerful unit. I had been so drawn in by Yanamai - oh, she was the heart, my brother's silly voices had to have told him that! - that I forgot our power.
Legs beneath, to move; head above, to think; spine between, to support. And me, the ears, to know. We would join together, and we would succeed.
I turned to North, facing him eagerly. I would fight for my true Alpha - my brother.
May Alpha-Father burn in hell, even though North was crazy we loved each other.

((wooc;; South will not abandon her siblings UNLESS she's told/ordered to. Perhaps North could know that she'd be able to survive the best on her own, so the 'gods' tell him to protect her?))

[Bhu ♥ Irwin]

I was all too eager to shred this beast that dared to speak of the gods silence. If they were silent, it was for a reason. I was not worthy of them, and still they humbled themselves to speak with me. I could not expect an outsider to understand--only my Alpha and I truly understood, while my siblings understood through me. This monster would never know what it was like to have power--he was lower than the peasant that called hopelessly lost cats to him as sacrificial lambs to false gods. My lip curled up, claws digging into the soil, rooting me to my spot as I stood in my fury.

I flicked a tail towards the three cats the relied on my to be the brain for them. None of us were the muscle, so overwhelming this dog designed to kill our kind with strength would be hopeless. We had to outthink him, which would be my job. Predict his every move, which would be South’s role. Outrace him, which would lie on East. And out-will him, which we would all lean on West for. For a moment, as I sized up this beast, a small flicker of constrained doubt crossed across my vision. Silence, my head was filled to the brim with the absence of Their voices. Surely, as we stared death in the face, the gods would care to guide my inexperienced paws? I had never had to fight before, choosing rather to avoid others until the heart could be found. How could I outthink someone in their field of expertise, when the gods would not tell me how.

This is it, North, your role has come to its end. It is South, East, and West’s mission now. Then the silence was back, different now. I could no longer feel the presence of silence in my head, it was just there. There was no presence. There was no weight of knowing. I felt light. It was freeing. The gods were gone, though I was not abandoned. This was exactly where I had needed to be, what I had been born to do. Surely Alpha had known I would not be returning with the heart--the gods had to have forewarned him. I was grateful he had not warned me. Having the power of the Brain did not mean I had the power of Courage. Sometimes the Brain counteracts Courage. Smart people hide from danger. Maybe that is why the gods took it now--they knew I would not do as I was about to if I still carried the wealth I had been born with. I was a mortal man now, and mortal men are lead by the heart.

“South, East, West” I flicked my tail, dismissing them to the treeline. I could not beat this monster alone, but once they got into the thicker growth, his size would hold him back so they could outrun him. They only needed a few moments of head start. “I love you all.” And then my eyes were snapped to the opponent, and in one swift movement, I went straight for his face. I would not get out of this battle, so I mine as well go straight for the most dangerous part of the body, and hope I can blind this sick son of a bitch before I fall.

[I L Y I C H]

And they didn't even answer. How rude. The women closest the larger male facing me braced herself and I ignored her fully. Not a coward that one, but not the front runner either. The man attacked after a call, and I in my suddenly, hesitated. What was I doing. The attack was abrupt, as I had expected only the alpha male of the small group. The darker female with her vicious orange eyes lashed upward. Biting for purchase against the thickness of fur against my throat. Whatever inkling of guilt that had bubbled for died instantly as I wrenched upward to slam the silly thing to the ground. If the sound was anything to judge by her neck snapped instantly. Fast then. The hesitation combined with that distraction, however, would be the end of me.

Pain was abrupt and immediate. Confusion lashed into fury into terror as it was want to do and I focused in on the larger lion clutched to my face. Focused as well as I could with his teeth in my flesh and his claws pressed violently into the tender muscle within my eye. I heard through the roaring of blood in my veins and past my own snarl of fury the other male call out to the sibling. "South come!" I felt more then saw him rush away, the power in his paws kicking mud into the air. Red hot fire clutched at my face and with a fever I had not known for a long time I slashed at the cause of it. The hero to my good old fashioned villain. Everything that had led up to this attack. premeditated. It burned in me. The truth. Children didn't deserve this, even as they went about corrupting those around them like this one slashing my very being apart had done.

Perhaps I was wrong in this way. But rather, I would prefer to destroy this thing before it did more damage. A small hint of respect had managed to bubble up scarlet and hidden under the layers of blood sheeting through ebony fur. It was rare that they hurt me in return. Rare that the monster got caught in the vice. My head lashed upwards aiming to fling the smaller creature just enough to allow my jaws to enclose on his chest. My fangs were large enough and the power behind them great enough to crush him between them. Destroy him just as quickly as his follower had been destroyed.

[Kunabee]

South

It happened so fast. North told us to run: then we were attacking. I nipped at the Falomi's tail, but then there was West, telling me to run.
I was scared and frightened and confused. I was told to run, told to run by North and West - both my superiors.
East was dead, almost in the same moment, almost instantly, as she defended North, and I cried.
"Nooo-ohhhh-ohhhh!" I wailed. It was loud and echoing, but crackling and dry. It took me a moment to realize I was the one who screamed - the one who cried. Yes, audible sobs as I turned tail and ran after West.
No, for it was my siblings. And here I was, leaving them. It tore me in two. It ripped me in pieces. Brave, brave East. Smart, smart North. Strong, strong West. I howled.
Howled like a Falomi; wailed like a banshee; it was an unearthly cry of pure pain, misery, and lost. I was to lose everything, wasn't I? My virtue - no longer was I silence. My family - my beloveds - my siblings. I would lose the heart.
I was to lose everything, every last thing. And so I wailed as I ran, not caring if the world heard.
It was noise after forever of silence. My vocal chords scratched and screamed, the pain of being moved after so long adding to the screeching quality in the noise.
And still I kept running, feeling my breath coming. If I keeled over and died I would not mind. I was to lose everything, wasn't I?
But finally, my vocal chords scratched to a stop - the only noise was a quiet whimper.
I kept running. I didn't look behind me.
Yet I was crying still, mourning as I ran. I just ran. My legs burned, and I didn't know where West was... I was just going forward.
"No," I whispered, one last word before I fell back to my silence. I would lose everything.
I would not lose myself. Though everything was gone - though it was all useless - I would not lose myself.

[Bhu ♥ Irwin]

All I could feel was disappointment and doubt as I watched in slow motion as East was thrown down and the sound of a breaking neck echoed through the trees. She had disobeyed not only me, but the gods. What would happen now that she was dead? I was destined to die, but her fate had been to live. Oh, but that was not the focus of my emotions. Perhaps when I was the Brain I would have been angry at East for being so stupid--but I was just a mortal man now, and all I could feel was the pain of losing a sister. I didn’t even care that my claws had dug the man’s eyes and snout. The other two had run. South had spoken and I should have been angry about this, too. But, no, I will leave the anger to the gods. Their mission had been failed because East had denied her fate, had changed it. It wasn’t my concern.

Ah, there he was.

I hadn’t even felt the brute thrown me down and dig his fangs into my chest. With East’s life, my own had fled. I knew I was to die, but that didn’t mean it shouldn’t have hurt--the only explanation could be shock. East was dead, and with her she destined South and West to a fruitless life. The gods would not be pleased. I just hoped they would not punish South and West eternally because of East’s disobedience. She should have known I instructed her to run only at the gods commands. Ah, but none of this mattered anymore. She was dead, South and West were safely in the trees, this brute’s eye was damaged so he would not catch them. I could go home now.

I realized then that it was dark and I was alone. There were no gods to greet me or scold me. South and West would live. Now I could finally sleep in silence.