Look Ma New Scars
Sibling reunion!
Meriadoc saw the Valhallan landscape with new eyes. The thick grasses subdued by winter. The silly wall marring the land’s wild visage like an ugly scar. Like a memory plucked straight from his mind the wind still whistled relentless across the plains. To stand there and look in like a stranger was humbling.
Were any of his siblings still here? Artur in particular he wondered about. His brother’s anger and his dreams had seemed certain to take him elsewhere. Cairo certainly would have stayed, he was just like that, but Meri wasn’t sure about their sisters. There was only one way to find out.
In a voice he wouldn’t have faulted them for not recognizing, Meriadoc howled for his siblings.
He came up from behind Geoffrey - because he hadn't been in Valhalla's territory - just in time to see Viviane careen off the wall. She was lucky she hadn't broken her silly neck. He gave a disapproving shake of his head and another sigh, and came up to where he could see them as she tackled Geoffrey.
He was startled by how different his baby brother looked.
It wasn't just the voice, or the scent of his maturity, or the way he held himself differently in the seconds before Viviane's assault. Scars creased the fur in his legs, and mangled his ear and face, clearly the work of fangs, and not from the volcano. Fury roared to life in him instantly at the unsubtle signs that someone had tried to take Geoffrey's life, his brother's life. Rather than speak through a throat clutched with rage, he stood back to watch his siblings silently from a distance.
She was slower to respond to his call than both Viviane and Artur, apparently. As she drew closer she saw the form of Vivian barrelling off the wall, as well as Artur watching on, not looking terribly happy at her dive. Slowly she drew closer to the three of them, not moving half as quickly as Viviane was, seeming to match Artur's slower stride. He looked different, not in just that he was older, but that he was fairly heavily scarred. Caelia didn't react much at first, approaching slowly and watching between slightly narrowed eyes. "Brother," she greeted him simply. Caelia had never been quick to show emotion anyway, and she was even more cautious in putting them on display when she herself didn't know exactly what she was feeling yet. Though confused, she was grateful he had returned. Part of her hurt that he had left without telling her way - had any of the others known of his leaving? - but at the same time she felt protective over him, feeling angry that someone had mauled him badly enough to leave scars. But mostly she just plain didn't know how to feel, or whether she should be mirroring Viviane's excitement.
Cairo II
Master Fighter (250)
Master Hunter (295)
Weaponsmaster
9 Years
Male
50
BrienaSkysong
His brother’s voice had almost faded in his memory. But a brother’s heart always knew. He was swift in arriving, but his littermates had beaten him by a hair. He did arrive in time to catch Viviane’s words… which stopped him short for half a stride before he shrugged it off for now and barreled the last few strides and aimed to rear and hug his younger brother – and consequentially Viviane – in his forelegs.
His head tucked with an involuntary wince as his whole body protested, but he’d gotten good at pushing through the aches and pains. Or, maybe they were finally beginning to improve.
He stepped back after several moments of just breathing his brother’s scent in… and noting that his little brother didn’t smell like he’d been alone. A lopsided, misty-eyed grin parted his jaws before he coughed and cleared his throat. “You have no idea how worried we’ve been. Or maybe you do but... It's so good to see you alive.”
His eyes flicked to Viviane questioningly, though he wasn’t about to push on anything. Not right now when they hadn’t seen their brother in so long. His eyes fell on the scars. Those weren’t a spar that got a little too rough. Not even a ‘I’ll fucking show you!’ kind of scars. Those were ‘You got lucky, because I was trying to kill you’ scars.
His hackles bristled slightly as he studied them, frowning. “Who’d you tangle with, and can I help tear them to shreds?”
There were still so many questions that needed answered. But he settled for addressing the possibly threats first. What if the bastards came after Geo?
|
Wordlessly he sought out first Artur's gaze, then Caelia's. His expression was distressed and pleading. He felt awful for being gone so long. The distance between them had made home feel like a distant dream. At the time his circumstances had demanded his full attention and it had been easy to shelve his thoughts of Valhalla and all who resided there. But now he was being presented with the fallout from his absence and he realized there was no way to make up for what he had done. At the time it hadn't felt like he had much of a choice but he supposed that wasn't quite true.
To all of them, he said, "I wanted to come home sooner, I just...couldn't. It was one thing after another. There was always something that made staying..." He trailed off, unable to fully articulate his thoughts on the matter. After the attack he'd spent countless weeks healing. Infection after infection had made his progress slow and painful. He'd passed most of that time sleeping. The band was in perpetual motion so he'd fall asleep in one place and then wake in another with only vague memories of the sled moving to mark the passage of time. After that it had been about first Delilah and then the pups. Life had been busy causing time to slip by unnoticed.
A faint humorless smile touched his lips as he addressed Cairo's question. "Slavers. I didn't know it at the time but soft momma's boys are easy pickings." The smile faded. "But don't worry about them too much. They are far from here and much too busy fighting at home to venture abroad. At least for awhile."
Unlike Viviane, Caelia didn't feel the need to apologize. He had left, he hadn't been stolen away. Though it was hard to feel angry with him for it, and while she didn't exactly blame him for it, she wasn't going to apologize either for not protecting him. He should've been here, safe, with his family. She felt her fur bristle at the thought. "I'm glad you're home," she said simply, though quickly fell silent again and let the rest of them do the talking - they were far more suited for it than she was, anyway.
Cairo II
Master Fighter (250)
Master Hunter (295)
Weaponsmaster
9 Years
Male
50
BrienaSkysong
Cairo listened as Geo spoke, glint in his eye as he described what had happened. It wasn’t seriously detailed, and there were definitely things left out. He leaned to push his nose into his brother’s shoulder breathing in again. Geo had been the one he was closest to growing up when it came to brothers.
His head tilted as he breathed in again. “You’re not alone, I take it?”
He had no idea exactly who those extra scents were. They were all two years old, so children were way off the radar of possibilities, especially for his brother. The scents were similar, but maybe Geo had found more family, like he had with Ulric.
His eyes were all for Geo at the moment, not really registering Caelia's reserved nature. Besides, Cae was always reserved until you got her loosened up enough.
|
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."
He explained a little more about what he'd been through, but what really took the wind out of her sails was his admission that he'd had kids. And he just thought now to come home? Apparently that was what he'd meant when he said things had kept coming up. But kids didn't just appear out of the blue. Surely he'd known the this Delilah had been pregnant? And he'd thought it wise to stay with a band who liked to 'fuck' with slavers? If her expression had been hard to read before, it was much less so now as a disapproving scowl touched her lips. Had he not tried to convince Delilah to come here with him, long before his children had been born? Surely that would've been safer, and no doubt wiser, than living with a band of daredevils.
Interesting. Deciding she didn't have much more to say, or ask, regrading his arrival - and not bothering to stay and see what her siblings thought of this whole thing - Caelia made to leave. She'd said what she had to say, and though she was happy to see him here, she wasn't about to stick around and celebrate what she felt what his idiocy.
-exit Caelia-
All that train of thought came to a halt and his head shot up, blue eyes latching onto Geoffrey with intense incredulity. He had pups? They had to be pretty young, yet, so he must have brought the mother to nurse them. Yet he didn't, at cursory examination, smell at all like the milk-smell of someone who spent a great deal of time around pups so... surely he hadn't left them with the mother. They were Adravendi pups, true-blooded Adravendi, and his nieces or nephews, and frankly it didn't seem like Geoffrey to have left behind his own children even aside from all of that.
The news rocked him back onto his hindquarters as though at a blow, but his expression faded to nothing as he sifted through the possibilities. Movement at his peripherals showed Caelia leaving, her own face set in clearly disapproving lines, and he watched her for a moment, making no effort to go after her. He couldn't say what thoughts were going through her mind, but he'd not have thought that the idea of their family growing in strength would have been so displeasing to her. Whatever it was, she would need to work through it on her own. "Will you bring them here to raise them?" was all he said to his brother, though.