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Laaaa, I am slow. D:
He supposed he would have found it eventually. It stood out somehow, amongst all the other jagged and dirty rocks on the unfriendly shore. Vaguely, he wondered if Hell's Coast had looked the way this place did and he'd just never noticed. Perhaps it had only been beautiful to him then because it had been all he had ever known, the only place he'd ever lived. His only home, and he'd felt like the only one of his litter to have ever really called Inferni his home. Eris had disappeared so long ago. Andre had always been restless and full of hate. Rachias had preferred their father's pack. He'd been the only one that'd stayed. But now even he couldn't seem to bring himself back to Inferni's borders. There were just so many reasons he couldn't belong there anymore. It shouldn't have hit him just now; it had been true for many months already, but Arkham felt lost all of a sudden. He was homeless.
The grey coyote sat down opposite his brother's grave and shed his hood, sure that there was no one around to see him. He supposed it didn't matter much anymore anyway. He would speak to Gabriel soon, and then... and then he didn't know. Maybe he really would just leave. Rachias had their father to take care of, and he didn't see the point in showing up on their doorstep if she'd mourned him already. Somehow, he was sure he'd only hurt her more if he were alive. If he somehow got himself killed for real, how would she cope then? Arkham shook his head and sighed. Andre's grave was beautiful. He was sure their sister had put it there. No one else would have. More than he deserved, undoubtedly.
It was still strange for him to think that Andre was dead, that they would never argue or fight again. It wasn't nostalgia, exactly, but there was still an emptiness there. He felt a lot of emptiness. The sky overhead was overcast and gloomy. It always looked like it was about to start raining again.
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There he was. Rachias watched quietly from beyond the line of trees that broke the shore away from the forest, the very same trees that she had hid behind the day that her brother had died, the day that they had killed them and the day that she had hesitated to save him. Guilt might have been the reason that she kept returning, knowing in her heart that she might have been able to save him, that she had hesitated to do so and he had died because of it. Of course, when Rachias was on her way there, she never expected anyone else to stop at the grave. Who else besides she and Corona, and perhaps those that had taken his life, knew that he was there? They would only ever wish to defile his grave, she was certain.
It was then that the thought hit her. The cloaked figured had been the one to save her from Samael that day, a gesture of bravery and the knowledge of right and wrong. Had he come across Andre doing something horrible? Did he somehow know that Andre was resting just beneath the ground? Hero or not, Rachias wouldn't allow him to touch her brother's grave. Rapist, murderer, the devil himself, Andre could have been, but he was gone now and Rachias would not let the punishment continue. Headstrong, the young woman removed herself from behind the shelter of trees, stepping out and down the beach quickly. She brought a hand up, rubbing carefully at her eyes, a sign of stress and aggravation, and she spoke to him.
"Please leave th-" And her words were gone suddenly, the very moment that she set her eyes back on the figure, who was suddenly unmasked. Her whole body stopped suddenly, frozen there in the sand, trembles creeping up her spine as if she had just seen a ghost. She tried to tell herself that, even. A ghost, that's all. A hallucination, she had been around the sick for so long that she could be starting to get it and not even know. They all talked to people who weren't really there, that meant that they had seen them, didn't it? That day in the house though, he had been far to real to be a ghost or a hallucination, just like he looked far to real sitting there. She'd told them all that he wasn't dead, that she would find him one day, and none of them had believed her.
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Arkham couldn't help but feel as if he'd done nothing right, even though he didn't feel as if he'd done anything wrong. It was some strange in-between place that shouldn't have existed at all, but that seemed to be everything he did. Irrelevant in the scheme of things. There was no reason for him to be at that grave, really. He had no respects to pay. He had never liked Andre. He had nothing to reminisce. There was nothing. This was nothing. The clan just a short distance away with the borders marked by skulls... they were nothing. And he was nothing. After all, wasn't he dead? Maybe he should have just stayed dead and left all of this behind. The only person that'd missed him had moved on, right?
But there was her voice again. He didn't turn around at first. The coyote considered just putting his hood back on and leaving, denying everything if she asked. It was better for her to think that he was already gone. Arkham had never wanted to hurt anyone, but he already had, so why make anything worse? Her footsteps stopped with her voice, caught in surprise, shock, disbelief, whatever else. Anger, perhaps. Grey head and giant ears turned slowly so that red eyes could meet blue. The ears flattened and he sighed. Hello, he said, quiet. He was sorry, but for some reason, he couldn't say that. He was sure she already knew, anyway.
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There were a million things that filled her in those few moments that she continued to stare at the back of his head. The biggest was doubt. How many other coyotes in the world were there? How many others had such a finely shaped head and overly large ears? The same fur color? She couldn't use his scent to confirm it, the same sharp and sickly sweet scent of mint was there, masking what she hoped might find her nose and devour her. It was the eyes, the red pools that finally set themselves on her, that told mountains of truth. The eyes and nose and the overly large ears, they all belonged to the brother that she had lost so long ago. In those few moments that he turned and looked at her, she could have melted.
"I told them I'd find you." Her voice was firm though her eyes betrayed her, shimmering with a slight glaze of moisture, tears of happiness, she supposed. Certainly, she was starting to believe that he was dead, but she still knew that she would find him one day, she still spoke those words with confidence, even if it meant she would find him in places beyond life. Rachias couldn't let him go. Legs quaked beneath her, feet trembling in the sand, but she had been strong for so long that she forced herself to move toward him. Closing the space between them seemed like gliding on water, weightless and free, and she took each step forward gladly until she felt like she was only a heartbeat away from him.
"You've been gone so long." But he knew that, didn't he? Where had he gone? How had he gotten out? Better yet, was he still hurt? He had been when he had saved her from Samael. Rachias reached out a careful hand toward him, wanting to touch him and stoke his giant ears and assure herself that he was real, but she could only leave it suspended there in the air in front of him. It had been so long, were things still the same as they had always been? Was he still the same brother that she could cuddle up against? To poke and prod and nudge to her heart's content? Rachias wasn't sure, all she knew was that she could just grab him. Grab him and wrap them up in that silly cloak and hide them both from the world.
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Strangely, perhaps, he felt a little empty. Or at least, it was that strange numbing feeling that sort of felt like nothing at all. Or alternatively, everything at once. In some sense, it was just as big a shock for him to see his sister again, even though he had always believed or known that she was alive. Some days, it had felt like he would never go back. Some days, it felt like he could never go back. Some days, he forgot that he was alone at all. Some days, he didn't know anything. Today, he didn't know anything. Was he happy? Was he relieved? Was he upset? Was he angry? Was he guilty? I'm sorry you had to look, he said, just as quietly as before. She came to him, and he thought again that she was beautiful, and again about how much they've grown, and how much things have changed.
She reached out to him and he sighed, stretching his own arm out to pull her in and to embrace her. It was funny in a way, how he could have forgotten just how strong personal scents were. Spending so much time covered in mint, he'd kind of lost a bit of sensitivity, and it had been a long time since anyone had been so close. It was in that scent that the relief came, that the comfort came, that the nostalgia came, that the regret came. It had been a long time. Some days, he didn't realize. Today, he did. Today, he knew that it had been months, years, lifetimes since they'd seen each other. The days before the fire had been centuries ago. He held her, and he couldn't piece together anything else to say.
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In her mess of a mind, Rachias wasn't sure whether she should be happy or angry or any of the million other things that she was feeling. Of course she was happy to see him, to know that he was alive and breathing, but she still wondered why it took him so long to come back. Why hadn't he shown himself to her that day in the house? She was almost certain he had his reasons, however odd or off she might find them, and it was something that she might ask about at a later time. Arkham had always been the smart one, the logical one. At that very moment all she was worried about was knowing that he was alive and well, the alive part she had gotten, but she couldn't forget that he had seemed hurt when she had seen him last.
Rachias regarded her brother's words with a soft smile, waiting until the moment that he pulled her to him, which took her quite by surprise, before she spoke up. "It was worth it." She assured him quietly, snaking her arms around him, through whatever patches of fur that she could manage, to hold him in a tight hug. In those few moments she knew. No matter how heartbroken she had been, how long she had spent away searching for any sign of him, and how close to believing that he was dead and gone, it was all worth it to see him again. For a brief moment she curled her head up beneath his chin, only to rest there for a second before pulling away, lifting her eyes to his face and then to the patch of dirt that held their brother's body. "When did you find out?"
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o hi. kiri sucks.
sharksArkham had always been one to consider the world from a distance. On the beach, he would sit on his own rocky cliff and survey the world with an apathetic and impartial gaze. Most things only interested him in passing, and he was usually quick enough to move on to the next shiny thing. As a child, he had been content, perhaps too content. The lands beyond the skull-lined borders had not meant much to him, and he had enjoyed life within Inferni's walls. There, he had had family and books and a beautiful sunrise to look forward to at the beginning of every day -- why should he seek out anything else? Family had always been among the things he really did care about though, if partially because it was a core part of what had made up his very small world. There seemed to be so very little of it left now. He wanted to hold on tight, but part of him was too scared to. The more he tried to keep everything the same, the more things changed.
sharksIt seemed logical to just abandon everything before anything else changed and before anyone else was hurt. People were too fragile; he knew he was too.
sharksTalitha told me, he said quietly, relaxing his hold a little. She didn't tell me what he did though. I'm not sure I want to know. In was true though, that Arkham was very perceptive. Something had changed about his niece when he'd seen her that day amongst the sunflowers. If Samael was at least capable of the idea, then certainly Andrezej would not have shied from it. Arkham had always given his family, his brothers, the benefit of the doubt. Arkham was not sure whether it was possible to be more ashamed of his family -- everything anyone had ever said about them had been true, it seemed. Lykoi was not a pretty name.
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Rachias immediately frowned at the name of their niece, nodding her head in some sad, quiet knowledge of what had went on. "I knew they would kill him as soon as she told me what happened." She admitted it quietly, still quite unsure of what her head and her heart thought and felt of the matter. As soon as she found out what happened she could have found him. Found him and forced him in to hiding to save him, then again, it was likely he would have never listened to her. The foolish and stubborn brother that he was, he would have attacked her, he would've puffed out his chest and put on a brave face. Still, there was a chance that she could have saved him, she'd just been to angry with him at that time to try. "I was there when he died." It hurt to much to say that she watched it happen, she let it happen, that she might have been the last bit of warmth that he ever felt in his life.
"Have you checked on dad at all?" She asked suddenly, removing a hand from him to brush away the hair that threatened to fall in her eyes. Rachias knew he hadn't, it was unlikely, and Arkham probably knew that she was just trying to change the subject. "He's changed, you know. Not like he was before." And she smiled at that, despite the fear that lived in the pits of her stomach, the ones that told her that it might just have been the sickness talking. "I was taking care of him because he was very sick, I told him all about you." The one last thing that she could ever hope for in the whole world was for her brother and their father to meet, to have some sort of happy relationship, but she was content with what she suddenly had again.
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sharksHe deserved it, Arkham said coldly and perhaps more harshly than he would have wanted. But it was true; it had always been true. Even when he was young, he could see his brother's death sentence float over his head like a decrepit halo. One day, he would do something unforgivable and he would pay for it with his life. He would be torn apart by those he was supposed to love and those who were supposed to love him, but there would be nothing but disgust and hatred in their veins -- the same disgust and hatred that they all shared. The same vengeance, the same madness. The same goddamn madness. The coyote let his sister change the subject. He didn't want to think or talk about it either (he didn't want to tell her that he thought they would all end up the same one day, unwanted skeletons in the sand, left to erode alone).
sharksNo, he said of their father. I found the cottage he'd been staying at at one point, but I didn't see him. Changed? He didn't know what she meant by that. Good change? Bad change? Sideways change that wasn't really positive or negative? Their father had always been a sick man -- was whatever he had now of a more traditional disease? Of the body rather than the mind? Arkham had never really known his father but for that one chance meeting and all the conversations he'd had with his caretakers. Did that really count as knowing someone? He didn't think so. How is he? Pause. How are you? It was then he noticed that she didn't smell like Inferni.
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She knew that he had deserved it but that didn't make it any easier for her. Arkham knew that Rachias understood that he had deserved it, she was almost certain, and decided not to comment. She tried to deny that death had to be the answer for him despite knowing that nothing would ever change him. She had to wonder if it was because of their mother, the fact that she had just up and left. Had he been like that before she had gone? Rachias could barely remember, only the faint memories of curling up between Andre and Arkham to sleep were left. It would be like him to come back and haunt them all.
Pulling her attention from her own thoughts, she focused on her brother once more, giving a faint nod of her head at his words. "He's been with me for a long while now." She told him, an explanation as to why he hadn't seen their father. "I came back from looking for y-..." She paused a moment, only offering him a faint smile. "I came back from being gone and when I searched for him I found someone who knew him, said he was sick and staying in their pack lands. They let me stay there to help him get better." Whatever way she might have been helping, she wasn't sure. "I just watched over him really, but he's been getting better now. He isn't like he was when we were little." She stared at his face as she spoke, catching his gaze and hoping that the seriousness of her words might mean something. "He doesn't..change..anymore. He's never the same as he was when he would come in to the den." He wasn't the dangerous beast that everyone thought him to be. Not anymore.
"I'm better now." She said quietly, but she supposed he probably knew what she meant. She'd almost lost all of them, but now she had two of them to hang on to, however much they would let her. "How have you been though?" It hit her suddenly, the very thing she didn't want to let slip her mind. She wiggled one hand down between them to press very gently on his stomach, as if she might magically be able to tell what had been wrong with him. "You were hurt that day." Not that she particularly wanted to remember much of it.
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sharksThat he would never understand his brother (or perhaps that should be plural) frustrated him more than anything else, but he occasionally accepted that not understanding was preferable to understanding. If he could see whatever twisted logic that had led to Andre doing what he had done, then what did that make of him? Who could understand a monster better than another monster? Suddenly, Arkham felt all too detached from the grave he was sitting in front of. It didn't feel like the condemned and deceased had ever been his brother, and it didn't feel as if they had grown up, for the most part, side-by-side. The day Andre had been banished had felt faraway already, but now it felt even more distant. It was a thousand years ago, or perhaps it had never happened at all. They weren't brothers. How could they be?
sharksHe tried to understand what Rachias was telling him about their father, but he found that difficult to grasp as well. He didn't change anymore, she was telling him, and he was in the personality that was perpetually depressed rather than perpetually dangerous. The more preferable of the two, though Arkham had always been bothered by how helpless and weak the man had seemed that day. Is he any happier? Now that he doesn't change anymore? He had wanted to help him but had neither been able to conquer his fear nor figure out how. Perhaps he could overcome the fear now, but the perceived inadequacy remained. Besides, it had never seemed as if the man wanted help or company or anything at all.
sharksI'm fine, he said, perhaps a little too automatically. It wasn't that serious of an injury. The coyote pulled his cloak back slightly to reveal his stomach, which had long since scabbed over. There was a reddish pink line where the gash had been, but he had a feeling that it wouldn't even scar in the end. You aren't with Inferni anymore, he noted finally, Is it just because you're taking care of dad?
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"No." The girl shook her head slowly, frowning very lightly. She had come to accept the fact that he might never be happy, or so it seemed, no matter how hard she felt like she was trying to make him happy. "He always sounds so sad, sometimes I think he just wants to be left alone." But it had been a long time since she had spoken to him while he was well, his sickness had left her unsure as to the things he said and the way that he was acting. "You should go see him sometime." She said quietly, turning her eyes out toward the beach to avoid her brother's. "He's proud of us." He said he loved her, after all. "He said he thinks you were scared of him, I think maybe it makes him sad." She wasn't entirely sure, of course, only that it seemed that way.
"I'm gonna leave him alone as best I can as soon as he gets better, but I'd still like to try and see him now and then." She didn't think it was so much to ask to just be able to visit him. She had been a burden on him when she was younger, insisting that she live with him even though she wasn't wanted. He was the father who would have walked out on them but Rachias was the child that refused to let that happen. He didn't need to take care of her anymore though and, every now and then, she wondered if that might have been the only reason that he let her stay at all. Either way, it would be hard for her to be a burden if all she was asking for was some company now and then.
When Arkham brought up Inferni the girl wasn't sure how to answer. She was still and silent for a while, considering her answer, and finally shook her head in response. "Not because of dad, no." There were a million and three reasons why she didn't want to go back there. "When the fire started I went back to find you but Gabriel drug me away. He wouldn't even let me try." He would've let his own brother burn to death. "Then when we got here he instructed us to treat all wolves as enemies. I can't do that Arkham. I know they aren't horrible, they don't want to kill me just because I'm not like them. So I left." She wasn't sure if he would understand, he had been raised there longer than she. "Then Gabriel tried to hurt dad when he was sick, I came in and found him and then Andre. I can't go back." They weren't innocent, she knew it. If Sam had gotten her that day, would Gabriel have killed him? She doubted it and she could only image the horrible things that the rest of them had probably done. "Are you going back?"
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sharksArkham had grown up far removed from his father, and if it hadn't been for Rachias, he would have likely never bothered to seek him out at all. The distance had stemmed from his prevailing childhood apathy more than anything else though; it hadn't really been because of all the stories he'd heard, though they certainly didn't help the cause. But the fact of the time was that Laruku had lived far away and it would have taken more effort than the child ever felt like expending to get to him. There had been family enough on the beach -- no need to go out of his way to find someone so specific when there was a possibility the man might turn on him, right?
sharksNow, of course, the grey coyote had no such excuse. He had no home, so no distance was really "too far," and he no longer really felt like he had a family, so maybe the scarred up man really would count for something now. Arkham shrugged a little, but not really like he was blowing off his sister's suggestion. I suppose I will if you think that would help him.
sharksAt her explanation as to why she was no longer with Inferni, Arkham couldn't help but narrow his eyes. He was glad Gabriel had not allowed Rachias to run back into the fire to find him when he had already fled in the opposite direction, and his orders to the clan upon arriving in their new home did not particularly surprise him, but he didn't understand why his half-brother would go out of his way to torment a sick man that probably hadn't personally bothered him in many long months. Arkham understood Gabriel's prejudice, but at the same time, he felt like Gabriel also knew that blind persecution wasn't helping or protecting anyone. Still, he didn't distrust the dog-like man for his racist laws or the death of his blood brother; it was just those slips of mindless violence that came now and again that he did not trust. He couldn't trust someone who'd drove an entire valley of people out of their homes.
sharksThat Gabriel had been the one to start the fire sat on the tip of his tongue, but he decided there was no reason for Rachias to know, not if she already had so many other reasons she didn't like or trust him. Besides, Arkham still intended to speak to him about it -- he wanted to know what reason he had had, if any, for his actions, and that would be when he could finally decide whether or not he would leave Inferni for good.
sharksYou've never really felt at home there anyway, have you? he asked with a wry grin, though it soon faded. I don't know yet if I'll go back. I need to talk to Gabriel about some things first.
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Rachias had never questioned the fire before, never consider why or where exactly it had started. It was likely, if Arkham had let slip that their very own brother has started it, she might have tried to kill him. To know that it had been his fault that she had lost her home, his fault that she had lost her brother for so long and spent so much of her time looking for him, she would have never forgiven him. Blissfully unaware though, Rachias could only blame her hybrid brother for the things that she already laid blame on him for, the death of one brother and the almost-death of the other. Now that Arkham was back though, little of that even mattered anymore.
"Not really, no." She managed to answer him, frowning very slightly. Since the moment their mother and sister disappeared, the place had never seemed like home. There seemed to be a bit of hope in the situation, at least. He might not go back, he was still undecided, and that left Rachias enough time to show her brother that neither of them needed any part of Inferni to live or be happy. "Maybe we can stay together? Until you decide what to do?" In her mind, they only needed each other to live and be happy, she just wanted the chance to show him that.
"There are some houses in a small city near here, not many people go and stay there for very long, so it's quiet." Just like it used to be, in that little house that they had made their own when they were younger. She'd been through some of the houses in the city in her spare time, rummaging and cleaning, but a house without Arkham could have never been a home.
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sharksIt was funny in a way, that he and his family should have grown so far apart in such a little time. Maybe they had never felt particularly tight-knit or close, but they had always been his family, and he had always loved them. It seemed like his coming-of-age challenge was drifting away. Was this what growing up was? Severing all the ties that had once made him who he was? Rachias was the only relative he had left that he could say he, without a doubt, loved. If Gabriel could not give him a satisfactory answer (and Arkham had severe doubts that he could), then he would have no qualms with leaving this place forever, taking his sister with him, and trying to find some kind of happiness elsewhere. It was already so hard to think of this place as home. Maybe that wasn't what he should be trying for at all.
sharksOkay, he answered with a small smile.
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