Mortis had to limp to get around now, he was lucky he still had three other good paws to help him move, and his wings still ached too much to spread out, so they lay tucked against his body. He wished he could forget about them, that they had never been there. Maybe he wouldn’t be in so much pain now, physically and emotionally.

The moment he was free, he went searching for Azure. Him and his brother very much needed to talk. The blind devotion he had felt to the strong wolf had vanished, and there was distrust in the winged-pups heart. Azure was capable of terrible things, Mortis understood that now, and he feared it. Despite his fear, he needed to understand it.

He found the other boy by the firepit, figuring out the best way to strip and split the wood in half before tumbling it into the pile of completed, smaller bits of wood. Halving the wood wasn’t necessary, but neither of the boys needed to know that.

Azure had taken Sirius' punishments easily, and happily hummed to himself as he cut and stacked the wood. He was still so young that 'undesirable' tasks were new and fun, and he was excited for the possibility of strengthening himself while he worked. As far as he knew, he was the only pup of the litter who had been made to work for their father and that in itself pleased him. While it might have been simply because none of his siblings had attempted murder and earned the punishment, Azure liked to think it was because he was special. The bark was hard to strip, and it made his teeth ache more than they did on an average day. After a few attempts and much trial and error, Azure decided upon utilizing his paws instead of his fangs. His front claws were extremely sharp and strong, and were spread wider than the average wolf's were. It allowed him to rake them down the logs to split the bark and then curl their points underneath to peel the remnants of the tree-skin off. Even though each stripped log was marked with long deep gouges, Az thought he was doing perfectly fine in his task. It wasn't until Mortis appeared did his smile vanish and his pleased humming stop. The boy thought to get the first word in, but then decided Mort didn't deserve his attention. He'd wait until his cowardly brother spoke, and continue his task until then.   "Speech" "Thinking" "You."

Mortis stood behind his brother, watching him work with a naked curiosity and desire to join in, an expression that luckily his bear pawed brother could not see with his back to him. The winged wolf waited a moment as his brother worked, waiting for him to notice his presence. The humming had stooped, and Az had begun to work in silence. It took Mort longer then he cared to admit to realised Az wasnt oblivious, he had chosen to ignore him.

Anger burned in his stomach. Az had tried to KILL him, and what, now he was too cowardly to look Mort in the face? The anger steamed in him, and forced him to keep his calm for a little longer, before he stepped forward, grabbed a piece of wood, and began to strip it with quick, erratic movements of his saber teeth. "I want to make a deal with you." He said, not knowing that this very task was punishment for what Azure had done. "I wont ever tell nobody what you did, and Resin already promised to keep quiet, and in return, you tell me why."

His idea to ignore his brother had definitely worked to enrage the pup, and he heard the sharp scraping of Mort's teeth as he worked to help Azure in his task. Azure turned to him then, fixing him with a cool stare. "Dad is making me do this for pushing you." He told him, lips forming a hard line. Why was Mort helping him with his punishment? With Az's luck he'd have even more work to do because someone would accuse him of forcing the winged boy to help or something. He turned back to his work, grumbling softly under his breath until Mort spoke again. Azure's head flopped backwards towards the sky and his eyes shut, frustrating flooding through him. "I. Was. Trying. To. Help. You. FLY." He insisted, punctuating each word. Why did nobody understand this? It wasn't murder, it was encouragement! "I didn't mean to hurt you, stupid! But nobody believes me!" "Speech" "Thinking" "You."

The boy frowned as his brother told him this was dad's punishment. Resin has promised not to tell, and Mortis believed her sincere. How had their father found out? Marshal? Dammit. That ruined Mortis's attempt to work this out between them. He knew Azure would resent him if adults got involved.

He fell silent for a moment, staring at the wood without stripping it, as though it held all the answers in its rough bark. Azure was speaking, his words angry and punctuated, and Mortis flinched. He felt it run through his body, and it was not subtle nor slight. He realised, at that moment, that he feared Azure now. He would never get that look out of his head, of his brother looking down at him, unflinching, uncaring, for the pain he had caused.

Mortis looked at the stick in front of him again, frowning heavily. “I want to believe you. Do you care, that you almost broke my leg?” he started to strip the bark again, even more aggressively then before.

Azure's lips tightened into an even harder line as his brother's response took it's time. Of course he didn't believe him, nobody did. It was so convenient to be able to forget that he'd previously given him the option of flying off a boulder instead. It's not like he went right to cliff-diving, and he gave Mortis the option to jump instead of being pushed too! If the coward had just leaped, Az wouldn't be in trouble. He barely noticed his brother's flinch, though his body recognized it as power. It fueled him, and he harumphed softly before turning away from the boy again to work on the wood. When he asked his question, Azure's small shoulders shrugged with his back still turned. "Shoulda flew." He muttered in response, glaring down at the wood he worked to peel. Did he feel bad? Well, no, not really. He felt like he should feel bad, but he wasn't about to apologize for how he felt. His father didn't apologize for how he felt, so why should Az? "Speech" "Thinking" "You."

Mortis ripped an entire length of bark free instead of just stripping it. It came free so hard one end ended up thwacking him in the face before it fell to the earth, and he could taste a little bit of blood in his gums. He growled angrily, not accustomed to bouts of rage. Perhaps there was some of his father in him after all. The thought chilled him, if anyone scared him the most, it was Sirius.

“Mumma said I can never fly, that birds have hollow bones and I don’t. She said I'll never ever be able to fly. I have these stupid wings but they an’t done nothing but make you hate me and now I done hurt my foot.” he scowled heavily at the dropped wood before him, and promptly sat on his ass, too frustrated to walk away, too angry to pick up the wood again.

Azure heard the rip, his head spinning to see what it was Mortis screwed up. His paw stamped upon the ground angrily, and he screwed his face up in a glare as he looked over at his brother. "You're gonna get me in trouble again!" He groaned loudly. "It's not my fault you can't fly but I'm the one who gets hit, and it's not my fault you broke the stupid stick but I'm the one who's gonna get the blame!" It wasn't fair, why did everyone get mad at him for everyone elses problems? He did not want to upset his dad again, and he'd been so careful to do his task properly. He threw his piece of wood down, glaring at it. What was the point of continuing now when one piece was already wrecked? Dad wouldn't care if he did every other piece perfect when it looked like he wrecked that one. "Speech" "Thinking" "You."

“Don't be a baby, everyone loves you, because you're perfect. Dad said i’m a disappointment and a coward!” he yelled, forgetting for a moment that he was injured, and kicking the stick, hard. He yelped at the pain, seeing red. He pounced on the stick, trying to rip it apart, only to fail miserably.

He growled angrily, wings hunched defensively over his back as he kicked the stick again - not with his injured paw this time - and turned and marched away. He was too angry and upset to keep talking to Azure, and he didn’t understand how he kept getting so angry. He didn’t think he had ever been so mad in his life. Why was it always Azure that got under his skin so bad? He wanted Azure to like him, to be his friend, but he also hated him so much that he wished he could just… just bite him!

-exit?-