The Gypsy Bard [bhu]

[I L Y I C H]

Perhaps I had grown cold in the last few years. Allowed myself to fall into the all too mortal ploy of distraction. Time went by so much faster on the earth then I had any ability to keep up in the sky. Despite my efforts to follow the world as it flew along beneath I could not. Too much darkness resided in the sky now; hovering so thickly as to block my sight. Something was gathering that I had yet to see in the future. Something dark that entrapped the sky at the farthest edges. Waiting. The darkness was not on the level of what else was soon to occur however, and in fear I pressed aside the worry to watch man as he blunder in his blood filled halls. The danger was to my own people, and at first my own stubbornness had kept it hidden away. Now the harsh reality of war screamed across the reality of the situation. Humans were not just my problem, despite my making them so.

I simply didn't trust my old friend any longer. The baboon had not handled much stress well, and I loathed to think what this could do to him. Bitterness exuded the idea, as I stood poised just within his own lands. Waiting. Dio had left me alone for all that time. His stress merely added to my own, and I was not a forgiving soul on the basis of loyalty. It made my heart sit heavy as I settled down into the oddly child lands. I supposed I was just use to the constant heat. It felt as if my sun had no connection here, though I could still see it. My powers felt dampened and that discomfort merely added to my deepening distaste for what I had to do. Surely Dio had seen what was to come. He was after all more powerful then I myself was. But I felt it was my responsibility to speak with the monkey. Even if it set a bad taste on my tongue.

But I felt for his people, and even if I did not wish to speak to the old baboon myself I had to warn him just in case. The man had failed to see so much. Frankly I would not put it past him to have not noticed. Lip peeling back slightly I set across my face as bland a look of annoyance as I could. Restraining the expression entirely would be thoroughly impossible.. I was not the best with masks. It amazed me that even Logan had failed to see the truth in me all those months ago. Shades moved around me as I watched in my silence. Most quiet and away. Old souls that had existed here long before I myself had died. Yet some walked careful past with worry in their eyes. Knowing, young souls ,who still felt love for those on the mortal plane. I was not meant to be here. They knew that. I knew that. Dio had forbade the mixture of our species. Obviously us folami just weren't trust worthy, even when we were dead. Which was wrong, I knew that wasn't the reason ,but bitterness was heavy and I had been unhappy for sometime.

So I would wait and hold my tongue. His spirits did not need to meet my news. Or recommendations I supposed. A war was verging on the threshold of utter destruction for my children. It would expand with human greed to prides, and thus feline, lands. Which gave Dio some right to my careful attempts to help. Not that I thought he would actually want us to help them. Something about distancing or some shit. And exactly where had that got us? The destruction of his little pet project, the ruining of dear Bhuvana's life and the loss of so many of my own beloveds. Gritting my teeth I closed my eyes and blew smoke out of my lungs. It had been a long year after all, and Dio didn't deserve all of the anger bubbling in my gut. Most of it was directed at myself after all. But one can't help but fling their guilt at others, and Dio had given me a perfect target.

[Bhu ♥ Irwin]

I eyed my father critically. I knew he disliked the 'bad humans’ as much as any of us, but he so often reminded me of them. If something doesn’t go exactly as he planned, he either reacts aggressively or gives up all hope and calls it a dud. His peace leaders had failed, by no fault of their own. Anabi and Alia were in his ranks, and Bhuvana was destined never to be touched by his caring hands again. Taraji and I still walked together, but only rarely. The tiger had abandoned the mission, I do believe. I did not blame him, nor did my father. It was a plan destined to fail--but had it really failed? Konta had seen light before he died. Bhuvana had been given a mother. I had been allowed my friendships, admired by those when, in Africa, I would have been simply a bad omen. There is no fail when even a single joy is given--my father had become blind to this fact.

I placed my hand firmly on the brute’s shoulder, the wisp of his misty terrain hugging his form as I bent it with my own powers. Here in the dreams I could be the god he had made me as, no longer mortal walking with frail limbs. Some day I would only know this strength I held here, but it was a day I dreaded. So little can be done from the cloud home--I felt that, though my body was weaker as a mortal, there were more paths I could light. I met his eyes as he looked up to me, his slouched position making me the taller of the two for now. “Why do people die when they are lost?” I prompted gently. He smiled a small smirk, proud and a little bit of his hope sprouting back into those human orbs.

“They die of shame.” He wrapped his arms around me warmly. I did love my father and I believed in his love for his people. I felt for him, a mere mortal who decided his enemies were worth the risk of his life, then thrust to the heaven’s upon death. I had grown up a god, Dio had had to learn what it meant. I watched him turned his head, smile fading slightly, though there was no anger in his eyes. The air around us shifted--Skoll had entered the feline lands. I watched my father cautiously, knowing that behind that calm expression there was both frustration and concern. He liked to keep the feline and folami worlds separate after death. I agreed to some extent. I wished the prejudice could die with the body, but it did not. Some folami still hated felines when they rose to the heavens, and some felines continued their loathing for folami. Tension would rise and there would be aggression even after death if the world’s collided. My father hoped to avoid as such, though I knew it would only last so long.

It is hard to keep separate those who have a paw in both worlds already.

The concern would be dominant in the buzz of his brain, though. He and his brother had spoken little since he woke from his slumber. Agitation on both sides--where my father had under reacted, Skoll had done the opposite. There was a distrust in judgment on both sides, and the two were justified in their emotions. I saw the ivory beast with the smoke pooling from his jaws and offered him a friendly smile. My father only dipped his head, though that in itself was an improvement. “Is everything okay, brother?” I knew he used the term for my benefit. My father liked to tell me that he and my uncle were still on good terms, but one doesn’t need to be a god full time to see through the careful mask. The tension in the air heated my blood and I couldn’t help but roll my eyes at both of their childish ways. At least they were willing to coexist during these darker times. A war was brewing and in the back of my head I knew that was why Skoll was here.

This war would not only destroy his people, but our’s as well. After all, aren’t we all the same person in the center of it all?

[I L Y I C H]

My eyes drifted to the sound of footsteps, so uncharacteristic in the lack of a muffled layer of fur. Recognizable. Blue orbs brushed across the two baboons, and I returned Ahlam's smile warmly. The warmth stuttered and went out however at the low nod from my old brother. I'd feared I would not be able to reach him at first, yet he had come quickly. My own inability to be formal recovered my own awkwardness as I stood to greet the pair. "It's freezing over here" It was all I could think to say, and in doing so grimaced at my own failings. One ear curving back I looked down to the two and offered a meek smile. What was I suppose to be doing here anyway? Surely he had seen what was to occur. Bitterness sprung back up under the awkwardness, cooling my smile. Sorrow was coming in greater amounts then either of us were willing to admit to one another. But I had come to do a service and I must warn the man.

"Humans will be coming soon, if you hadn't noticed." Casting a short look backwards towards my own lands I ached to return to my rift in the sky. To watch and worry on my own. The folami were my children and they needed me now, while I was standing on the wrong side of the sky. It had become slowly built fury in me that Dio cared so little for my people. So as to block their entrance from his own side of this heaven for what they were. Of course it went both ways so I could not expect it was just prejudice but my anger demanded me think as such and I was unwilling to see it in another way at this time. "And while my people will be at war so will your felines. I came to warn you Dio." I made a point to use the baboon's name. I was no liar and I found it horrendously difficult to hold up any sort of mask. An apology would be in order for the child at a later date but I refused to tarnish myself for the sake of a game of pretend. Dio could act as human as he wished, I was no such dog.

Bleak and desalinate in the back of my mind as the coming dead once again roamed through I frowned thickly and sat back down. He would loose very few to these people in comparison. His prides would rally and protect themselves. Ende would be an issue but I found it doubtful that they would use violence against something as pathetically held together as Esson. Peace was not prevalent on land. Not yet, and Dio's cats would suffer for it but I felt little sympathy for them alongside my folami. Which made me nothing but a hypocrite but I digressed. I would be forced to welcome too many good dogs into my lands these coming years. Too many brave loyal dogs. Because of man. Because they were built and disobeyed as living things would. Passion was beginning to press aside my distaste for standing where I was. Blue eyes lighting up.

I had come to warn this old friend of mine. To show him the darkness coming. It drew me aside and made me wonder if dear old Dio had seen the blackness at the edges too. If he knew what it meant as I knew it was not man made. But I did not feel comfortable enough to bring the question up, deciding to simply lean back on my haunches and watch the pair in silence. "I do not wish to see this hurt your people as well. But it will. Humans will not halt at the edges of our lands." I referred to my people carefully, sectioning myself off to them. A low sigh seeped out between my teeth, throwing smoke with it; warming the air around me thankfully. "Another civil war." I added shortly, mind falling into a darker vicious place. I was still folami. I was still nothing more then a force of war at the center of it all and I could feel my paws itching at the idea of sentience in the face of motion.

What would dear Dio do if I became involved, I would wonder?

[Bhu ♥ Irwin]

OOC//: This post is gonna suck ass. Seriously. Because I was almost done and dad called me out to do the tree cutting shit and my computer shut off and it is all fucking gone. Stupid abiword doesn't autosave like Firefox and Microsoft Word does, apparently. So I just don't feel like doing it all again. So fuck it.

My gaze carried skeptically over to my father has he tensed with Skoll's complaint. He narrowed his eyes judgingly but said nothing, so I held my own tongue. He could have his agitations, long as he kept them silent. Skoll was his brother and all brother's war, I was just here to be sure nothing got said that anyone would regret. "I am well aware of the human war." I glared at my father critically as he snapped his insulted tone. His eyes avoided me but I could sense he knew I disapproved. He said nothing else, simply looking to his hands and fiddling with the mist by his feet. A nervous habit, similar to the way humans pick grass when they sit in a field on a date. My father did love Skoll and it did bother him that the dog was upset with him, but Dio was upset, too. Both were too much like man to just admit they were childish idiots, kiss and make-up. Dio had his man-genetics, and Skoll was raised by the beasts.

I didn't say anything. This was between the two elders, the ones who died for their brothers. Skoll died in his species honor, while Dio saw his enemy and made them his brothers against man. They were both noble beings worthy of praise, but still mortals with too much power to bare. And neither asked for this. Both of them had died doing what they believed was right, but death should be where one finds peace. Neither of them have been rewarded for such, only punished further with the eternal knowledge of their isn't a damn thing they can do, in all reality. They could sit back and watch or try and speak to animals that want nothing to do with them. Their hands were tied and my heart went out to them both.

"I didn't ask for any of this, Skoll, and neither did you. Why should we fight for animals that don't want our help?" I could hear my father's aggression die at the end, mind falling back to those that walked his home. There were some that wanted these gods and believed in their mercy and grace. I blinked in understanding as my father's scowl gave way to a frown as his gaze returned to the ground. This was where it all pointed to, his fury--he hated that he could not be what those who called him Father and God thought he was, believed he was. What I believed he was. Shame. Shame can kill a man or bring on the essence of death. It was shame that had forced Dio into his solitude. He could do nothing so he hid his hand. Too many had slapped it away and it had hurt him too deeply. He had broken under the knowledge of knowing how powerless he is, more powerless than when he was a mere mortal. I turn a careful look towards the ivory king.

"Twenty-Seven," no sentimental 'Uncle' or frustrating 'Skoll', in this war we were all brothers, and we would treat each other with the respect we deserved. "Forgive my father for his faults. He means nothing by his fury." I felt Dio's hand brush warningly over mine, but I pulled away from the contact, not allowing the stubborn fool to stop me. "He appreciates you coming to warn us, and I smile at you for it. It proves that, like him, there is true godliness in you. Mortals cannot beat past petty emotions, yet here you stand despite your own agitation. It gives me hope." I looked to my father, who now glared up at me, though the corners of his eyes curved in his pride. "It gives us hope. This is not your war, nor is it his," I looked back to the folami, "it is ours. And together we need to stand." I paused and took a careful step away from my father, blinking in my farewell as my image went to fade. I was waking, I could feel the tug from the heaven realms back to the forest where my body lay.

The final scene was of my father turning to Skoll with a true smile on his face, gentle and hinted with shame, apologizing sincerely.

[I L Y I C H]

One ear curved backwards, blue eyes narrowing into indecision. Oh had he? I'd been under the impression dear Dio had decided to ignore the living and the dead. He'd done such a swell job of it, best to stick with what a person could do after all. I held my tongue against the bitterness that wanted to bust out. I hadn't come here to argue with the man. It had not been my intention to stay much longer then was entirely necessary. Standing abruptly I ruffed up my fur despite myself. Couldn't quiet keep the agitation hidden behind the bite of my fangs against tongue and cheek. Not that any of it was hidden anyway. I felt nasty standing here so out of character. "Fine." It almost felt like a betrayal. To be so prepared to turn my back on this baboon, but I could not bring myself to do anything but. Dio had proven to me that he was not the man I had thought him to be. Had proven it to all of his people and they'd crumbled beneath it. This was the reason Bhuvana had been lost so thoroughly. Lost to us perhaps, and Dio would know that, but she'd found peace. Perhaps that was all that mattered now.

Half turned about I paused when the man spoke once more, his frustration ringing in my ears. My own frustration raised it's flag and I turned back to tower over the smaller beast, my lips drawn back in disbelief and anger. "Because we can." Perhaps we had been born and raised differently but I should think that Dio understood that fundamental truth at the very least. No I had not wanted this. Had not asked for it, but I was here now. I could help and I didn't care if they all denounced me and tossed my name to the ground to be trampled. I could help them and I would. It was my responsibility no matter how I had come about it. My pack mates. My brothers and sisters. How I hated seeing them all in such pain. Trapped by strings wrapped around their throats; and oh they could all but despise me if they wanted to. I would still give myself to them, if only for the hope that they might save themselves some day.

And maybe it was the way my mind simply couldn't wrap itself around Dio not understand this that I allowed the coldness to infuse my tone. "But then I'm just an instinct driven dog." It wasn't right. I knew that Dio respected and loved my people despite himself but in all those little ways that I watched him degrade them. I couldn't stop my bitterness. The grudging thoughts that had built up over the years. Kept to myself mostly but with the stress and the silence they had built thick and fast. Damn him, the monkey who only saw what was right in front of his nose and missed that half the time. "What could a folami know of duty or sacrifice." Spitting the words I turned about face, trying to act as if the rampaging track my mind had driven down wasn't forcing heat into my eyes. A part of me was well aware that I was being childish and leaping to conclusions for the simple reason of bitterness but I wouldn't stop it.

"Try not to mistake what you have with what you hate." Turned away, I allowed in one swift movement my wings to spread out and show themselves. The folami specialty I supposed. Heaven gave us freedom in it's most prominent form. Perhaps Dio's felines could simply float but in my opinion our wings were by far more interesting. Six brilliantly colored limbs stretching high above me before wrapping back within themselves to settle at my sides. Emerald and gold mixing into the over laying scarlet with ease. I was a man of many hats but I'd not mastered many things, and anger was not an emotion I had much control over. Ahlam's voice stopped me easily, one of the smaller wings farthest back on my spine shifted slightly, feathers flicking at the tip.

"Yes, child?" My voice was low and quiet. Withdrawn of emotion. Despite my normal exuberance I was still folami and I still held that tiny grain of instinct that demanded my coldness. Ears back at an angle I tuned to peer over a heavy shoulder at the small girl. "Mortals beat past their petty emotions on a daily basis my dear." I smiled sadly back at her, wondering what evil had been bestowed on Dio's daughter to allow her these thoughts. I had watched so much good be done by mortals willing to overcome themselves. It was difficult to believe that this was what she thought made me a god. My ability to do good. If this was the path to the pedestal I sat on then there would be too many gods for this world. "You live in a world rife with such potential, Ahlam." Now if only it would. But then optimism always got the best of me. "Such beautiful potential and Gods if we could just touch it, but there will always be evil and arrogance."

Turning back around, chin high and eyes back to their normal passion I stared down at the two. Yes I had been rash and our wounds were not healed but this was indeed our war. It always had been. "Humans come to us with their hatred but they are still good are they not? To their families. I watch them sometimes. When it's quiet." Blue eyes slid away to look towards Dio. "Aren't all mortals that way though?" A smile bit onto my face as Ahlam left us. Quiet that fuzzed as my building emotion lit the air about me into a frenzy of heat. "Us too." I added after a moment, letting the fuzzing about me die back down to Dio's oddly cold textured air. "Why are your lands so cold?"

[Bhu ♥ Irwin]

I watched my daughter's departure hesitantly, not at all pleased with the terms Skoll was leaving on but not having the strength to stop him. As the youngest turned to face me in her final moments of waking, however, and her gaze met mine with pride and confidence, I knew only I could fix what I had become. I offered an apology, tone soft but sincere. Skoll was the only friend I had ever had--I had welcomed him eagerly when I learned that someone new would be joining me on my throne. Where I had hardened, grown bitter in my time as a mortal, and continued the downward spiral as a god, Skoll was fresh and still very much a child in his ways. I had believed he would help bring me from the darkness I had allowed to swallow me, and now I would allow it once more. With my daughter's push, I would let myself believe there still is hope, even in the slightest form, and it would be only when Skoll and I reached our balance together that it could be dreamed.

This time I met his gentler complaint with a smirk, rubbing my own hands on my arms in agreement. "I must admit it gets a bit cold here. After the endless days of sun, cats just found more joy in the crisp chill of the night, so I obliged." I almost pouted with the words. I did miss letting Skoll's sun heat this realm, but this was a place of comfort for the felines, not the thin furs of my own species. It was things like these that almost made me want to be a cat. That, and so I could really understand the workings of my people. I was silent for a moment, the chill much deeper than that the physical world could result. I knew there was more than just the threat of humans breathing down our backs, and the guilt that would come as parents were stolen from children on all sides, spouses from their partners. Folami and felines would not be the only ones crying for losses, there would be death on every side of the battle, every team. It would not be a war if there wasn't--it would be a massacre.

"There are bigger dangers than greed on the horizon. I know you feel it, too." The shadow in the distance, inching closer with every night the sun goes down and the moon rises up. "Bokor and Bhuvana" I paused, pain etched into the twitch of my maw as I choked out the name, "have their gathering. But will the blood be enough?" The gods of death will never be satisfied, and it some morbid sense I could relate. Where the blood of their people could only carry them so far, the works of my own only meant so much. There will never be an end to the wants on either side, and so greed would, once again, draw its lines in the sand and demand sides to be taken.

More blood. Why is there never enough blood?

[I L Y I C H]

I let out a low huff, pressing heat into the air in front of me unhappily. "I guess that makes sense." Cats were nocturnal predators. They had an amazing sense of night vision, which wolves and in turn folami lacked in it's competence. Sure we'd been bred to be able to see better in the dark but our diurnal nature remained. Maybe it was just my own arrogance speaking but I couldn't imagine a place with so little sunlight. So little warmth. Cats might take advantage of their thick fur but I preferred heat. But then I was also on the constant verge of over heating. Poor Dio, stuck in a land of his people. People who were nothing akin to him. Ears flicking backwards and wing tips shuffling I looked down at the baboon with a larger wealth of sympathy then I'd accorded him in some time. Being chilly was a thing I could have honest empathy for.

Wings inching up slightly off my frame I gave a small whine of agreement. "It's like shadows are huggin' the sky, and the moon is watching us." Before I had stepped into these lands I had taken my time to push the sun into the sky. The push was taking more and more effort as time went on for some reason. Something pushing back? But that was impossible wasn't it? I'd believed it was lack of belief that was thinning my powers so greatly, but the sun was my soul and I'd never had trouble with it's rising before. "Bokor and Bhuvana." I mumbled the names back, face far more serious then I had any like or right to be. On any precedence. Seriousness was Dio's shtick. Yet it worried me greatly. These things hovering just out of my point of control. Dio and I held so little of the sky after all, our powers did not stretch outside of these lands.

"When is anything ever enough?" I offered the words coldly, their tones flowing into the chilled air as steam turned fog. Other gods in other skies with their powers and controls. The sun was me, but what of the moon that pushed back and fluctuated in the starlit sky? What of death and those that Bokor spoke of so fondly. As if to be known as siblings...? Scarlet wings snapped into a position of flight, their ends reaching violently for space before lashing down. Sending fog away from me I stamped in a circle, massive paws gripping the stone and dirt and sending it away. "Immortals have no idea of an end to anything." No. These coming deaths would not be enough. It would never be enough, not until they too were known. After all did we two not know the pain of not being believed in?

That aside I would worry for that sake later. Time on earth traveled so slowly here and so very rapidly on the land. Soon the child I had been waiting for would be born and the cycle set in motion. Blood would mark his story but peace would come. Peace would always come. Eventually. The reasoning behind my general attitude. I was despite it all an optimist and I found it difficult to look at the future and see only the dark splotches. Stains across other wise white fabric. They gave it character, after all. "Man will come soon. My three alphas will meet him and there will be blood. Cat blood included. Ende is on the march for it." A large compilation of families trying to protect themselves. So many wrong turns to take and they would take them all, but there would be calm at the end. One could only hope and look forward.

"But I guess they have it right too." I had no idea what gods toyed with Bokor and his gathering. No idea what they spoke of or whispered about. Yet I knew what they preached. And I knew it to be a section of truth, just as our own words were. "Sometimes someone's gotta die to find their own peace." I for one should know that. I knew nothing but agony from the day I had been born, and in death I found solace. Warmth. Yet I'd longed for peace in the waking world and my mind could not turn in these circles for much longer. "I hate thinkin' this much. Why can't it all just be right on straight forward instead 'o this nonsense?"