Even if he did locate his family and friends, would they even want to see him? How would they react to his return? Would they greet him with open arms or chase him away? Would they welcome him back into their midst or exile him as a foreigner? More than anything he longed to be with his family again but his transgressions against them kept the fear of their rejection strong in his chest. After all he had done, how did he dare come crawling back? It seemed like his self-respect had been left behind with them. He had the pathetic hope that there would still be some lingering affection towards him, but with each step it was beginning to look more and more hopeless. He wanted to return to love but he was expecting hatred, loathing, disgust. If he was really being honest with himself, he wanted his family to hate him. He wanted them to reject him, to tell him that they never wanted anything to do with him anymore because he was no good to them. It would make it easier to justify his leaving, abate the pain just a little. It was what he deserved after all.
He paid little mind to his surroundings. He was beyond the point of caring about his own well-being now. It was his lack of concern towards his own self that brought about the way he looked now. Bones were just beginning to peek through his cobalt coat, the obvious sign of malnutrition. Though his stature and build was something that he was never going to loose, the physique that he'd kept for so long was beginning to waste away. If anything, he looked worse now than he did after his mauling. More scars, both old and new, marred his entire body, covering nearly every inch of visible flesh. His outer appearance reflected his inner turmoil and he didn't care to try and hide it. There wasn't much that mattered to him anymore, including his own life. A rogue could probably appear from the shadows and charge him, most likely succeeding at taking his life. What did he have left to fight for? The false hope that his family was still going to take him back? He was probably better off dead anyways.
There were times where he thought to hear the voices of his children, sometimes even his wife, but it was always just a figment of his desperate mind trying to convince him that there was still hope. Daddy! There was his mind again, trying to trick him with illusions. Taurig ignored the voice he knew so well to be Freya's, his youngest child, the only one of the litter that had come out to be nearly the exact replica of her mother. It wasn't until something large and warm came barreling into him that he realized it was a figment of his imagination. He hadn't been expecting the collision, his usually sturdy limbs collapsing beneath him as he tumbled to the ground with his daughter tangled up with him. He barely even felt the fall, his senses having snapped into focus. F-f-freya? His voice was hoarse, a harsh rumble as his barely used vocal chords hummed together to form the sound of his daughter's name? Was it really his daughter who was greeting him? Could it be that his hope hadn't been falsely held for so long?
"Speech"
|
