Look Ma New Scars

Viviane's reaction brought a gentle, humorless smile to Meriadoc's lips. He reached up to touch the paw she placed on his cheek. "It's okay." He didn't mean it was okay she hadn't been there; the blame for that rested solely on his shoulders. It meant it as more of a 'everything is okay' kind of way. His fight with the slavers had been little more than a blip in his journey. A life changing catalyst, sure, but it had been over in minutes and then the real adventure had begun. At the time it had been terrifying and he'd lived for weeks in shock as he tried to process what had happened - what was happening, in the case of his injuries - but in time he'd come to accept that it had been a necessary step to get him where he was.

To Artur, he said, "The short answer is that I didn't. I didn't stand a chance." Meriadoc wasn't saddened by this memory. He didn't look back on it with anxiety or embarrassment. It was just a story to tell and his acceptance of that showed on his face. "This big guy had me down on the ground, one paw on my face, rubbing this," he motioned to the scar on his face, "in the dirt. Just having a grand old time, right? I'm thinking this is it, I'm dead, and then there's this terrible hollering coming from all around us. Suddenly there's fighting everywhere. The guy on me is gone, his buddies are gone, it's just chaos and I didn't know what the hell was happening." Worrying about stressing Viviane further, Meriadoc carefully omitted the parts about thinking his eye was gone and not being able to get up and run.

"Turns out there's this band that likes to fuck with the Reavers just as a matter of principle I suppose. They heard the commotion and came running." He glanced around at his siblings, his expression earnest. Their faces were a mix of worry and anger, and if there was one thing he wanted to stress to them it was that he was okay. More than okay, actually, as he had come out the victor in the end. Meriadoc did grow serious as he said, "Not gonna lie, they messed me up really good. Took a long time for this to heal." He pointed to his face again and chose to leave out the part about the repeated infections and the weeks of fearing for his eye.

Cairo asked a question and earned the first warm smile from Meriadoc since he'd started speaking. "You're right I'm not which brings me to the much happier part of my story. The healer who took care of me? Her name was Delilah. And her and I..." Oh how to say this without knocking them over. He grinned and then said quietly, "Had a litter together."