ORIGIN - me, i'm not

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Kera's ears flicked back, her snout crunching. For a moment, it might have seemed like she changed her mind-- like she might turn and snap and kill the goose anyway. But she didn't.

"You've earned it?" The wolf frowned. "But it's nothing. It's--"

She shifted on her paws, looking away. She wasn't going to stand and demand that she change it. It seemed like a punishment, and maybe Blackberry deserved that. Maybe if another gembound had come out saying their name was Nameless, she'd have shrugged it off. But something about it really, really bothered her. Why? Her eyes flicked back.

She didn't look like Blackberry anymore. She didn't even look like how Blackberry was before she'd been killed the first time. She said she hadn't remembered anything, either. Why make her like this? Why erase everything like it hadn't mattered?

It was difficult to voice what she was thinking. At least, it was difficult to do so without seeming like an asshole.

So, fuck it. Kera had her reasons to be angry. "You're still Blackberry," the wolf said. "It's not right to deny it, or to forget it all happened. It still did. People are still dead. What good is it in just being someone new, who doesn't even have a name?"

She licked her jowls, fur a little bristled. "Why didn't you just... admit to it all? Take responsibility? What's the point in forgetting like it didn't fucking matter?"

@Nameless

It's nothing, huh? True. Nameless as a name was redundant, and titled her as, ironically, untitled. Nobody. Nothing. But that was what she liked about it. "Yes. It is nothing." It was personal, too. She had simply gone by it for so long that it had ended up sticking, and no other name anybody else had suggested that she'd tried had felt like they'd stick.

She was quiet as Kera thought, giving her the time to respond, preparing for a lashing. And indeed, a lashing came. Deserved, what she deserved. Perhaps in a time before, she would have taken this new identity and ran with it. Never told anyone. But she was a changed goose.

She still flinched back as the wolf got angry, but took her anger in stride. She did not get angry in return - she had no right too, and merely cowered a bit under her glare.

"I know. I was a coward." And she had been such a coward to accept that deal. "I don't...I'm not her anymore. It doesn't feel real at all, when I woke up I was new. I couldn't remember anything. Blackberry to me is a bad dream. I can only remember her through magic and through what other people say. But I want to take accountability anyways. I just don't know how."

Her head twisted to the side, long neck sinking into the sleek, plush feathers of her body uncomfortably. "Blackberry....wanted fame. She wanted the caves to know her name and be afraid. So...is it not right to take that from her? Everything that made her dangerous is gone. The talons, the teeth, the name, even the capacity for violence has been removed from me." She shook her head. "What else can I do?"

@Kera

"You're still a coward!" Kera growled, her teeth clicking on the words. It'd been odd to think that earlier, she'd been happy to see the goose. Now, Kera was very close to just ending it all. "Fuck me, this isn't accountability, you're just running more!"

She turned, lifting a massive paw out of the shallow water to rub it into her snout, like she were trying to physically smooth out the anger. Kera had a feeling that if she did lash out and attack, Blackberry-Nameless would just lie there and take it until she were dead.

The paw sunk back onto the ground with an inward splash. "But you are her," Kera said. "Don't talk about yourself like you died. You're standing right there. I--" her snout crinkled, brow furrowing. "I told you while you were imprisoned that you'd always be defined by the things you've done. Did you forget everything we talked about, too?"

That stung, somehow. She'd almost liked Blackberry, the last time they'd spoken. She'd offered to help her make amends, and... this, whatever had happened to her, wasn't amends at all. Not to Kera, at least.

"You killed my friends," the wolf said quietly. "It's not a dream. It... happened. You left one of their bodies near my den so that I'd find it. You can't just... live like none of it didn't fucking happen. They're gone. Forever. You're not."

@Nameless

Kera's rage was familiar. Well...in a way. Oliver hadn't reacted well either, but his anger had been a terrifying shutdown. This was more what she expected. She shrunk back, guilt washing through her system. The cowardly part of her wished that she had left this all behind. That she'd just taken the gift of a second chance and ran with it, but no...she had to drag it all back. She had to own up to it.

It felt like the right thing to do. Then why did it hurt so much to do it?

"Am I, though?" she whispered. "When I can barely remember? When everything that made her was removed from me? I think about the things she did and I'm revolted. I can't even think about it. How can we be the same?"

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember what it was that Kera had told her, but the words rushed past like a stream. All she could remember was a wavering image of a wolf's face looking at her through bars of wood. She shook her head, a hollow pit in her stomach. "I...I can't remember. I'm sorry. Will you...tell me what you said? What I said? Please?" It was weird...she rejected so much about Blackberry, she so desperately wanted to separate herself from her, but there was also a strange longing to remember. She couldn't identify where that feeling came from. Was it curiosity? A desperate need to make up for everything? Or something more grim, like a reclamation of her identity? She didn't even notice that she kept switching tenses in regards to her former self.

Anger pulsed through her and for a moment, the spirit that had once been a fire under Blackberry's wings lit in her and she raised her head, a hoarse honk escaping her throat. "What?" she hissed. "You think I'm living like nothing happened? You think I'm not kept awake at night by the memory of all of that? If I truly wanted to run, I would never have hunted down my memories. I would have taken the life I was given and walked on, like I was nobody else but this. But I didn't. I'm trying. I just...I just don't know what to do."

@Kera

The anger was almost... satisfying. Familiar. Kera's tongue rasped along her snout as she watched the goose unblinkingly. A part of her was waiting for an attack. An excuse to just end it all. But nothing happened.

An ear flicked. "I told you I'd help you help others," Kera said slowly. "Have you helped anyone?" She was curious to know. If she couldn't remember anything, did she still, at least, have the instinct to try to be good?

"I told you that I hated you," she continued. "You told me you hated me, too. I said... that you weren't a nameless, faceless monster. You're not a story. The things that you've done aren't a story. It doesn't matter if you don't remember, or the ability to hurt people has been taken away from you. They still happened to people. There are people who are still worse-off out there, because of you."

Slowly, the wolf shrugged. "I think you're still running. I do. It doesn't matter if you're sorry or haunted or regretful if all you're doing is denying that you and her are the same. You're not new, you're just... fleeing."

A part of her hoped that Nameless would just attack her. At least then, she'd prove her point.

@Nameless

She tried to follow along with Kera's words, trying to guide it through her memory. It was so hazy and she couldn't remember the words, but it rang familiarity in her. She knew it was right. It wasn't that she didn't trust Kera to speak the truth, but it felt more personal knowing that it had been words she'd heard before.

She knew it all to be true, everything Kera said was like she was ripping things straight our of her own heart and laying them bare on the stone and she could not help but look and be horrified. She swallowed heavily and her head hung as she let the words sink into her.

There's no running or escaping. There's no second chance for me. No fresh beginning, no new life. I dug her up so I should face the consequences. She had done this, right? She had to go and try and remember who she'd been, because living a new life hadn't been enough. And this was what she deserved, what some fate had led her to be.

But she at least seemed to relax at Kera's first question, a light and a smile appearing in her eyes. "Help? Yes. My pride and joy, a young hatchling named Mai. She was a scared thing, and she had been left a long time ago. I gave her the chance to be a child again, and I raised her the best I could. She still suffers from her fear but..." She imagined the child - not a child any longer - in her mind and felt joy. "She has grown into a fine gembound."

It had been her wish to raise one, and she had, the best she could. Was that...something? Was that a start?

"I'm..I'm sorry. You're right." And she knew she was right, because it was something just beneath the surface of her own skin that she constantly fought back. She could not be Blackberry, but she was, right? Her eyes closed again. "Do you think I should take that name again, then? Stop being Nameless? I have searched for the ones I've hurt, but the few that I've found could not forgive me. What do I do? What can I do, when I barely remember?"

She felt almost hysterical as the contradiction burned in her breast and tears threatened to spring into her eyes as she tried to mediate between them. To have a second chance was impossible, she had to accept who she was. But to accept would be to go against the nature that had been instilled within her. To help would be to dig up old hurts. If those she'd hurt didn't want to listen to her anymore, if they would rather she remained a memory, would the right thing to do simply be to bear the burden of being who she was, and allow herself to drown in grief and regret and self-hatred until her life came to an end?

@Kera

"I don't know," Kera said.

And she really didn't.

The wolf was silent as she started to wade out of the water. Briefly did she pause to make sure Nameless was following before she continued, stepping out onto the shore and shaking her pelt dry. There wasn't much to say for a while, at least not on Kera's part. She thought about it as she found somewhere to sit, slumping down heavily onto her side.

Her foreleg ached. That wasn't a coincidence. It'd been aching ever since she fought with Blackberry. Nameless. Whatever she was going to name herself now. Hell, now that she thought about it-- "you can't be nameless," she said. "It's just not right. You're not a story."

It didn't surprise her that no one else could forgive her. Kera wasn't sure if she could, either. But it went deeper than that-- Kera felt partially responsible for it. For everything. Would fixing Blackberry absolve Kera of all that, too?

A part of her told her that was fucking absurd.

"How did it happen?" Kera asked after a time. "The person you made a deal with. Where are they?"

@Nameless

Content Warning
This post contains potentially sensitive material:

Suicidal Ideation

She almost didn't follow Kera out of the water, still standing in the cool crystal water, her head looking down at her own reflection, trying to find Blackberry in it. She'd seen the visage of the old goose - spikes and teeth and brown and black. But it was all gone now. She was simply clean white, like unbroken snow. All of Blackberry had been removed from her.

But she hadn't. Maybe physically, but the memories still drifted like bad dreams. There were bloodstains on her heart. They could never be washed out.

She finally turned and stepped out of the water, looking almost blankly ahead. She didn't settle down next to Kera, standing by her as she struggled to figure out what to do. Struggled against tears that continued to fight against her eyes to spill down her cheeks.

A sudden burst of rage seared through her again and her gaze suddenly snapped to Kera, piercing red. "You keep telling me I can't be this but then you can't tell me what I can. What am I supposed to do with that?!" What did Kera expect from her? She didn't have answers, none at all! She'd tried to do something, she'd tried to make things right and it always failed. It always led to dead ends! And here was someone that told her she needed to do more, that she needed to stop running, but then when she asked how...nothing! Nothing!!

"What do you want, Kera? Do you want me to attack you? Is that what I should do? Would that make it better? Am I running by just living? Perhaps I should do it myself, be the one to finally end the life of the terrible Blackberry! Maybe that would make up for everything I've done!" It was a tantalizing thought. It would be so easy too. Perhaps that was where this road led, where it ended, by just throwing herself from a cliff or diving into the river and not coming back up.

Maybe she shouldn't have come back from Hydra at all.

She looked away from Kera, deflating again. Her hollow voice answered her query - "I don't know. He wasn't there when I woke up. I remember a black figure - horns, red eyes. I don't remember his name." What did it even matter?

@Kera

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