To Think I Hated You }{ [mahal]

[I L Y I C H]

Carska -->
Frozen. I felt cold. Yet the glaciers melted all around me. When I had told him to speak I expected ice, and here I found fire. Flames ravaging the coldness that I had become. Truly us two hadn't changed so greatly? Yet here we lay, where once he had seemed the iceberg lost to the sea Bidziil had become my dragon, even as I took on his persona of ice. The stiffness that came to my muscles was too obvious to hide, and I could not suppress it. He had been here for a week, if that and yet he had found the words. Found them and presented them in a tone that I could not deny or ignore. Teeth crushed together with the force of my hope and my horror. How weak was I, that a simple line of statements could appease my sad withered heart? had I not learned a thing? Yet there in my heart that damnable pulse sounded forgiveness, if only in small strides.

Golden eyes sharp with color and a certain kind of pain I looked everywhere but in those ruby eyes. Jems entrapped in a liar's face that could not help but deny his facade. No matter what that moron thought those crimson lamps had always been mine. He could not tell fallacies with them alight. With no small amount of grief I lurched my own tawny glare up suddenly to meet his own. There it was again, that blip in my chest. Begging. Needing. The very ragged edges of my invisible wounds tore wider, and that was in itself terrifying. Because fuck it all, I loved this man no matter what he had done or been forced to do. But what happens when man comes from his dens to fight us? What happens when my Bidziil becomes other once more? I could not let that happen. My children were broken thoroughly. They could not survive it. I could not survive it.

Ache or not I looked at the man with poorly hidden sympathy and a very brutish form of anger. Stubborn;I was always so very stubborn. It worried me deeply that I could accept these answers so openly, and yet deny him outwardly. Was it not cowardly of me? A small breath sucked through the silence as I watched, my expression swiftly falling into open empathy. Didn't this poor soulless man deserve a second chance? Ears flicked as I looked about me once, eyes focusing on my cubs one by one. Children who had been raised single pawed and hurting for most of their lives. Here before me sat the being responsible, stuck through with his wires and gears. Yet empathy tore at me. Sympathy demanded a spot. Man was our enemy, not this fellow Folami. Damaged. We were all damaged, and I'd given the rest of this damn group my heartstrings as duct tape so why did this ebony brute not deserve a set?

Just a small set.

It took me a moment to find my voice, and once it came out the words sounded weak and unhelpful even as I attempted to put emotion in them. "You had absolutely nothing to do with that, Bidziil." It felt odd to say his name again. It had been so long since I had even thought it. The vowels fell awkwardly off of my tongue, even as I drew the pink appendage across my lips. My frame shuffled forward after a moment, hesitant despite the determination it had felt not a moment before. One massive paw reached forward just enough to brush across the smokey claws before it, the white of my own foot shocking against Bidziil's own black. A heavy breath blew out of me as I stared down at the touch, feeling the warmth of life from him with an almost painful sensation in my chest. "I still don't forgive you." My tones held warning, though they melted into tired uncertainty towards the end. "But I've hurt you just as much as you've hurt me."

Admission was the first step to healing, wasn't it? I couldn't remember the phrase exactly, and my nervousness was starting to leak forward. Masks pulled down, a frown settling on ebony tinged lips. Mahal had gained that trick from both parents, it would seem. No wonder he was so good at it. Tawny eyes flicked up, sheepish in their haste. His eyes were so deep. Pools of knowledge. Skoll, did I look that old? Had it truly been so rough on us all? So much pain. So much fury. For this? For eyes that told stories no sane creature wished to hear? My paw curled inward, drawing against his own even as I lowered my skull. "But I can't stop caring for you. And I think we can try." Silence over took me, over took the camp as well. Noon was coming swift and many a Folami had found shade. Here we sat half in and half out settled beside a ragged bush. It was too akin to the start of our mateship for me to be able to remain totally sane. Rashness took over and I looked up sharply with harshness in my eyes. "But if you ever do something that stupid again I'll castrate you."

[Bhu ♥ Irwin]

Was it wrong of me to have half a mind to just get up and run away? Was my fear of committment rightly justified after all we had been through? Her words fell heavy on my stone-coated heart, the touch a searing agony of heat. Oh, how I wanted to meet her eyes with nothing more than longing, but hidden behind the push to try was the quiet little whisper saying that it wasn't worth it.

Part of me believed it.

I blinked, turning my eyes away from her as I battled back the demons that were planted into my scars. I could not let the humans have the hands fishhooked into my brain when their whips were nowhere to be seen. "I can't help--" My voice cracked, choked by the indiginity of admiting I cared. She had said it, so why couldn't I? Because I had the damn terror locking my jaws. "I thought about you every day I was in that wretched place. It was what made me survive every act of merciless cruelty the lords...humans bestowed upon me." I couldn't say I cared, I couldn't meet her eyes, and yet I could say that? What the hell was wrong with the wiring in my head?

I'm a mishap. A mistake.

"Aww, how terribly precious." And, just like that, all hope of sentiments were fleeing from my form. That queen of chemical mishaps plopped herself beside us. Had Bee joined this pride without me realizing? She seemed to own the place, fearless of of the consiquences of just laying with king and queen in camp. Or queen and prisoner, actually. Still, the woman knew no boundaries. I hated her for having the audacity to simply not care what the world thought of her. I met her golden gaze, eyes spiteful towards her sickly sweet smile. She looked to Carska, indifferent to what she had just walked in on. "How's the family, m'lady?"

OOC//: I love dragging Bee into awkward situations to make it a more controlable awkward...hope you don't mind

[Kunabee]

((wooc)) Ekshen's joining the party. Delete and ignore the post if this is not okay.

Ekshen

I had followed Denerbe to this spot. I didn't know if she knew I was - she probably did, clever b*** - but she didn't stop me. So I followed her. I followed her to Carska and Bidziil.
The last two people in the world I wanted to see... but here I was. I debated about eavesdropping, about leaving - but neither of that seemed okay. Mama was talking to him.
I had a sneaky suspicion Mahal had something to do with this.
I stepped closer, not saying a word. I had nothing to say. Well, I had a lot to say. But I couldn't. Not yet. I had no idea why I followed Bee; I had no idea why I was still half-starving myself, away from everyone I loved and knew.
All I knew is that I was. I was alive, and torn, and uncertain. Mom. Dad. Family. It was all there, and so was loyalty, the humans. What an odd creature I was. I imagined looking at myself outside of myself, and I thought I would be disjoined, unhappy, an ugly gray thing that was half-Falomi and half-everything-Falomi-are-not.
But I wasn't anything, not really. Just an outsider, an outcast.
Just someone wishing his mommy and daddy could give him guidance, and not anyone else.