[/html]He had arrived first, but stood among them with a stony presence; not once had he made a noise nor uttered a single word, the infamous green eye overcast on them all, patient, silent, waiting. Geneva spoke, shrouded in a mist of charisma and leadership he rarely saw in her outside the borderlines. Usually he was the one to speak, but today, the brute chose to take the back seat. Geneva did not assure herself as a capable leader often, and especially not since her more recent promotion back to her former rank of Savant. She had served in the role far better than DaVinci ever had, and for that he did not hesitate when allowing her to take charge.
She spoke of her fear of her own shortcomings, that she was unfit for the role she had once again deserved. Jefferson remained silent still, his eye distant and unfeeling; his underlings followed suit of the grey-furred femme, sharing stories unique in every way. He felt their gazes on him from time to time, often when their tales involved the brute somehow, but still he said nothing. Pripyat expected a gaze of disappointment, surely, but did not receive one. Addison expected pride, but did not find it.
The day of the dead. All he had known as Maluki was dead, including Maluki himself; all those who had made input in that former identity were dead: Iskata, Laruku, Haku... He had attended Skoll's funeral, alongside Jantus and his crew that idolized the dead man as a warrior and hero, and yet his pearly bones were buried beneath the earth. There was no immortality. Jefferson was getting older. He himself would know death soon enough, and with this in mind, not a hint of pleasure lighted his grim, stony scars and features.
When it came to be silence, the gimp raised his eye to meet them, finding the sound to speak with. "My birth name is Maluki Soul," he said openly, though his tone grumbled like gravel. "I went insane, whatever fight that took my eye also took my memory. The name 'Jefferson' was on a sign on a fence where I woke up." A pause. "Maluki is dead. Everything from his life is dead. My father is gone, my siblings are gone, my mother is gone, my grandmother is dead. My adopted brother Laruku is dead. My half-brother Haku Soul is dead. Iskata Sadira is dead." Those words, those terrible words, shook him just briefly. He paused, remembering them as if they were yesterday; he had been the one to deliver them, so many months past, to the mourning pack who had yet to accept him as their new leader. A deep breath in his chest. "The bones of a hero named Skoll rests in our pack, just outside this graveyard. Aurélie Vie d'Esprit is dead. Pripyat's siblings are dead."
He paused, then raised his single green eye to the sky. Still, his voice remained still, monotone, emotionless. "Death is the inevitable end to life, and life is the beginning of the road to death. They are a cycle; they work hand-in-hand. We were raised from the dust on this earth, and back into that dust we will eventually return at death. My body, even with all these scars, will be purified. It'll sustain life, sprouts in the ground, bugs in the soil. What is dead is dead. That is the cycle."
Silence.
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