Only love can build us a Bridge of Light
#1
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OOC here.




Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who loved her daddy very much and believed that he would never ever hurt her. But over time life destroyed her pretty views and her innocent dreams, twisted her soul and her mind. Her perfect charming daddy turned out to be the monster that he was supposed to protect her from. Still through it all she retained her fabled beauty, the face that men had fawned and fought over. Only now that beauty was gone, torn from her by the cruel dark being that had destroyed everything she had worked towards. Her bandages had come off now and for the first time she saw the true extend of the damage inflicted upon her by Liam.


Only an inch or so of her left ear remained, its edge jagged and the wound an angry red beneath white fur. The left side of her face was a horrific mass of scarred skin and tattered fur, only the slimmest of margins had saved her eye but there was no help for the contours of her face, the claw marks disfigured her beyond repair. Horror and disbelief shone in her sky beam gaze. Why. She was destroyed all over again. Her remaining ear was limp against the crown of her head and said head was lowered.


Her lids fluttered closed and the Sawtooth woman held back her choked sobs just barely but the heaving of her shoulders gave away what she wouldn't let break free. The only thing she had to be proud of... was gone. What use was she now? Who would love someone so marred. Matteo had left her for a reason, maybe now only her outside reflected her scarred inside finally. The world could see the damage. Anger welled up inside of her, what had she ever done to deserve this!? Who had she offended, what could she have possibly done to be given the life she had been. The Great fire burned not feet away from her but its warmth was shallow, its light muted. She stood up suddenly as though in strength but found she had none to keep herself up.


She crumpled to the floor and her sorrow burst free. The gasping breaths that shook her slight form were vicious to her, hurting her broken ribs even more. Her weight on the fractured wrist was painful. The suffocating cloud of her depression descended and smothered her. Who was she anymore? She was nobody.


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#2
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[/html]The sound of quiet sobbing reached Claudius’ ears as he emerged from the Town Hall. It immediately put him on edge because for all his life, he had always hated the sound of crying. Noir would cry when Attila played a prank on her and she would look up at Claudius, teary-eyed, when he was sad, too. She would always find the emotions that he couldn’t express and now, it just made him think of her: feeling for him when he couldn’t.

He crossed the small distance from the hall to the ceremonial fire in a few short strides. There, he saw Gemma sway as she stood up and then abruptly sit back down again. Claudius still wasn’t used to the thought of being a protector or being anyone that could help someone else, so he stood there awkwardly for a few seconds. His long arms felt gangly instead of comfortable like they normally did. He cleared his throat.

“Guh-Gemma,” he said. He carefully moved to sit down next to her, but not touching her: from his own phobias, he knew that if someone put their hand on his shoulder or touched his hand when he was in a state, it would only make it worse. “Guh-Gemma,” he said again, this time softer. He didn’t have any other words to say, so he lapsed into an uncomfortable silence. What did he do now?[html]
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#3
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I hope you don't mind, I'm playing it as though he sat on her right side and hasn't seen the other side of her face yet :3.




She was wrapped up within her own world of pain and suffering, this world was too cruel to her and she couldn't go on any further, it was impossible. Everything had been taken from her and when she managed to restore it, it was only taken again from her. In the distance away from her Tamai sent her an impression of his disapproval and disappointment but she couldn't haul herself out of this spiraling destruction. Her hands pulled at her hair, digging in deep and even drawing the faintest traces of blood from her scalp. Paws came into her vision and AniWaya's scent washed over her.


She shrunk away instinctively as he sat down next to her, on her good side. Her body knew and her body remembered the pain that men could cause with their own. She whimpered now under this new assault of her senses and disruption of her self pity. The sound sharp and tortured. She had been through too much, seen horrors that defied belief, and descended into a world made of her own blood. She wanted to stand up and move away but she didn't have the strength to do even that, nor to send him away. He spoke, and though the word was softly spoken, her own name, she still flinched and curled in on herself tighter as though he had struck or shouted at her.


But his voice, it was oh so soft as he spoke to her, different from the harsh tones of Liam. No anger or hidden desires peered through, only the hiccup of his stutter. She had never condemned him like others maybe had for the speech impediment. It wasn't so long ago she spoke the same out of pure fear of everything around her. Slowly the woman straightened herself up, tense and fragile, she turned to look at him and the firelight leapt upon the chance to illuminate the irreparable damage to the left side of her face and her missing ear.



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#4
That's fine! That's how I imagined it in my head.
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[/html]When he sat down next to her, the only sound she made was a whimper. Claudius immediately recoiled, wishing she would stop making those sounds. When he had spiraled into a self-loathing state of hermithood, he had been silent and invisible. He didn’t know how to deal with someone who was visibly distressed. He had hidden himself from the world for a month after Tayui left and he had only eaten when the tribe provided it for him. He couldn’t hunt because he was too sick, but he didn’t want anyone to know how truly pathetic he’d been. Even though he’d gone through two instances of solitude, he still couldn’t translate these experiences into anything useable. He had compassion and held pity for Gemma, but he didn’t know how to express it.

When he saw her draw her hands away from her head, now covered in blood, Claudius whimpered quietly.

“Puh-please juh-Gemma, puh-please, do-on’t duh-do th-th… th… p… please,” he whined. He couldn’t reach out to make her stop; he just wanted her to do it.

When she turned to look at him, he gasped loudly.

“Juh-Gemma,” he said again, this time his eyes filling up with tears. She was so hurt and he couldn’t do anything about it.[html]
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#5
:O How would Claudius react if she threw herself at him? x3

The soft tremor of his voice made her want to cry, or to run away. If eyes truly were the window to the soul then surely hers must have turned black from the evil and darkness that layered throughout it, the damage caused by other's actions, the sheer amount terror that she existed in. Nobody was exempt from it and everybody was a threat, another jailer to bind her with chains of fear and pain, a reason to hide. Her own tears continued to fall unbidden and unchecked, she didn't care, couldn't care, she had nothing to care about herself anymore, no shred of dignity or pride left. She wished it were raining then the world around her would reflect her inside.

He was concerned about the blood staining her paws, come from her head and found no strength of passion to not hurt herself. If she had a sharp object at that moment she would have easily fallen back to her old coping mechanism, her thick white fur hid so much from the world. He gasped and she flinched again away from him. Shame and self revulsion colored her expression, she lowered her head knowing that she was ugly now, ugly and horrible to look at.
#6
He would go, "WHARBARGL."
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[/html]He tried to reach out for her, but he hesitated every time. How could he know what to do? When he'd been hurting, he couldn't remember if he wanted to see a friendly face or be left alone. Most days, it had been a bit of a mix of both, but he had always been too afraid to leave his cave. He had feared so much, from social ostracism to just being outside of somewhere familiar. He wished he could help, but he was no medic and Gemma clearly needed some sort of healing. He doubted that even the most skilled medic could not provide such a thing.

"Guh-Gemma, wuh-we nuh-need to guh-get yuh-you to... a muh-medic... o-o-or... at luh-least... let me... clean thuh-this u-u-u-u-up... a bit," he said. "Yuh-you'll feel..." he started, but then stopped. He slowly raised his eyes from her shoulder, where he'd been gazing, to search for her eyes. If he said it would make her feel better, would that be lying? He tried to reach out again, but left his hand hovering in the air. He shifted to move it so that he could place it on her shoulder, if she would allow him.

"Luh-let me... help you, puh-please," he said. He wanted to do anything if it meant she could stop crying just for a little while.[html]
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#7
A new desperation filled her now, he was wishing to help her but she didn't think she could take that help, it was too scary, too unknown, too everything. It didn't even make sense to her. Fear continued to pour from her so much she was sure she should reek of it. It filled her own nose and made her feel sick. She became agitated and her destroyed ear twitched sporadically in an uncontrollable tic, the muscles damaged irreparably. Something was stretching tight inside of her, ready to break, pulled taut. Haunted eyes dashed about the darkened village, where was her Light. He was missing, on another trip of his. She was alone.

The thing that was close to snapping inside of her did snap and her irrational fear of being touched morphed into something different, waves of it flowing like an out of control flood. Now instead she feared being alone in this world and she threw herself towards the only source of light that she could find in her blackness. Claudius' pale pelt was a beacon. She was shaking badly, her teeth chattering together with the tremors. His fur was soft and he smelt like AniWaya, like her home. She clung onto him as a person danging over a cliff would hang onto a rock, shivering fiercely with tears streaming down her face. He was a male but he wasn't that kind of male, he wouldn't hurt her like that, he was too nice, too good.
#8
Sorry for the wait!
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[/html]For a few seconds, Claudius thought he'd lost her. She looked so terribly sad, alone, and afraid that he thought she might take off or do something completely drastic. Her ear was twitching something terrible, and Claudius knew that he didn't have the know-how to help with that. He could only hope that it was a tic similar to the tics he had as a child and not indicative of some greater medical malady.

There was a sudden jerk of movement and before Claudius knew it, Gemma had flung herself (quite literally) at him. At first, he froze--his customary response--but then pushed himself to relax and let her sink into his arms. If she was willing to touch someone after what had happened to her, that was a huge step forward and he couldn't let his own anxieties get in the way of that. Gemma was more important than his own petty concerns.

In an odd way, her shaking hid his own, so he didn't notice for a few seconds that his hand was shaking when he reached around to put a comforting arm over her shoulder.

"Shh, i-i-it... I-I'm huh-here," he said, realizing halfway through that he couldn't say, it's okay, because it wasn't.

"Ju--" he began, and realized that he shouldn't be shushing her. "Just... cuh-come... here," he said. "Yuh-you're suh-safe with muh-me." [html]
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