ORIGIN

enna . roshan . rajani . ratchet . calypso . anan
sweet and soft . dark and deep . playful and sultry . bright and cheery . critical and melodic . childlike and loud
ooc ;; prepare for sads

In the ridges of Pisces, laid a small black and white bird that represented the leader of Maji Walezi. Moss lined the place of her nest, vines crawling over the entrance to block out light and keep her isolated from the world. Shattered pieces of a multicolored chrysalis laid around her, other small gems scattered among her talons. The avian shook, whispering to herself in the quiet of the den.

The voice in her head was getting more angry and violent by the day. The wedding was over, and Pisces was a mess, but the bird couldn't get the energy together to do anything about it. She thought about her daughter in Orion and shook with misery, knowing she couldn't even talk to the beautiful miracle without those hateful words pulling through her mind.

"It's alright, Enna," Calypso's voice was calm and tender, a motherly voice that was so unnatural. Forced. They were trying so hard to keep everything together, but it was impossible to shake the sensation that everything that was happening to Bevy was wrong. "Caly... It's not, it's not. Her beak spilled the truth, wetness flooding her eyes, clouding her vision.

"I'm a failure as a mother," she breathed, "How can I look my child in the eyes when I can only think of how I should kill her?" There was a soft, wordless chatter from Calypso, as the bird began to preen at her own feathers, trying to find comfort in the simplest thing. "Dark hasn't come back," she sobbed, exhaustion weighing down her body.

enna . roshan . rajani . ratchet . calypso . anan
sweet and soft . dark and deep . playful and sultry . bright and cheery . critical and melodic . childlike and loud
ooc ;; let the sads fill you

"Enna..."

"What am I supposed to do, Caly?"

"I don't know, Enna," she whispered, touching her black beak to the red of her breast. "Do you want to hear a song?" She offered, remembering how there had been a sense of calm through the bird when the wedding melodies had danced through the air. Enna didn't answer, but she didn't need to. Calypso knew she had come up with something that might work.

Softly, the melody reached her mind, and slowly, the bird began to sing.

"You are right,
I'll move on,
... but my lungs feel so small,
I couldn't breathe if I tried.

I lay my head on the floor,
my beating heart wanted more...
But I'll keep it in...
... and keep you out."

"I'm drowning, I'm drowning," Enna's voice picked up, whispering along to the silent melody, her eyes closing as she felt the world wash away. "I'm drowning, I'm drowning," they sang together, voice mixing into a single melody that echoed through the small chamber.

enna . roshan . rajani . ratchet . calypso . anan
sweet and soft . dark and deep . playful and sultry . bright and cheery . critical and melodic . childlike and loud
ooc ;; and the sads flow forth

Calypso wished that she could comfort Enna more, but she was never exactly the most personable of creatures. She just kept singing, her voice flooding forth as Enna faded back among the others in her mind and listened to her soft notes plucking through the air.

"For the longest time I knew there was nothing left for us to do," she breathed, images of Maji Walezi growing and shrinking, of banishing Cancer and out casting Fisher. Of Enna bringing life to Teyouma, trying to correct the wrongs that her family had made in the past. Destroy, kill, you mustn't let it devour you... The mistakes clung violently, shaking them to the core. She knew Enna's pain like her own, as much as she once tried to ignore the suffering of her headmates.

Calypso had given up a dream for Enna and Ratchet. She wanted to be a loner, exploring the caves, finding the mysteries of the eyes and the spire. She had turned from the life she wanted, and she did her best to make Maji Walezi a safe place for those she shared a body with. We were wrong and sick and we have spread out sickness, the voice whispered, a dark undertone beneath the melody. "But I tried... Oh I try," she sung, louder and louder, her voice swelling to take up the hollow space in the den. "And in this quiet company there is nothing staring back at me."

Kill it, before it overwhelms and destroys us, Enna... There is a violence in our bones, and it spreads.

"I'm in need of a sound," Enna whispered back to her, her voice shaking, trembling. The last thing she wanted was to ruin the song, but she felt like parts of it were her own. Calypso didn't protest. The voice tried to speak up once more, but she was determined to fight it back.

"Hungry for the kill, but this hunger it isn't you.
Voices disappear, when you are speaking in sombre tunes.
I will be the wolf, and when you're starving you'll need it too.
Hungry for the kill, but this hunger it isn't you.
It isn't you.

It isn't..."

enna . roshan . rajani . ratchet . calypso . anan
sweet and soft . dark and deep . playful and sultry . bright and cheery . critical and melodic . childlike and loud
ooc ;; and the sads flow forth

Music wrapped around them, a melody that seemed foreign and familiar all at the same time. Perhaps they had finally lost it, singing softly to themselves in the empty chamber. Calypso lowered her beak to the stones scattered among the earth, the shattered piece of ruby, her crystal quartz... The beautiful blue gem that they had snatched from Teyouma-- what Calypso had stolen, she set straight in her mind. Her first breath of life, her first instant of being alive, she had taken that stone. Enna had suffered for entire cycles because of her.

The voice hissed in the melody that she wove in their mind. Because of you, there is a monster let loose in the cave. When they find out, they will cast us out. You will no know shame, the world will be nothing but pain for you. Calypso clenched her beak, pressing the tip to the cold, shimmering blue stone. And you deserve it. We deserve it.

Roshan would be their poisoner, more so than they had ever been for their family. Calypso fought back the urge to be angry, letting the song return to her heart. She still had more to sing, more to give out with Enna.

enna . roshan . rajani . ratchet . calypso . anan
sweet and soft . dark and deep . playful and sultry . bright and cheery . critical and melodic . childlike and loud
ooc ;; and the sads flow forth

A deep, resounding ache filled the bird's chest. Even as Calypso's song grew stronger, she could not shake Enyo from the sensation of loss. The gembounds that died, that disappeared, those who she loved and lossed, and the children she could never love... Calypso began to sing once more, her eyes catching on the sliver of light that filtered through the vines, the thin slice view of the waterfall from her home.

"I grew tall to fill the void.." She could see the place where she held meetings. The darker thoughts reminded her violently of how she had cast out Cancer, banishing him though Enna's entire self screamed for forgiveness. "Let me go, cause you are just a shade--" she breathed, "-- of what I am, not what I'll be."

She could feel Enna pressing up against her, worries that they had made so many mistakes. "But in this quiet company... I forget sometimes just how to breathe... Fill my lungs with the sound," Enna's voice took up the end of the refrain, shaking as tears fell on to her representative gemstone, her feathers trembling. she truly did feel as though she was suffocating, the weight of her failures so great upon her back.

enna . roshan . rajani . ratchet . calypso . anan
sweet and soft . dark and deep . playful and sultry . bright and cheery . critical and melodic . childlike and loud
ooc ;; and the sads flow forth

There's only one way to make it end. You must kill, stop the spread of the disease before it consumes the cave. The violence in your bones cannot be denied. Calypso shuttered, taking control once more as the dark voice hissed through their mind. Enna's tears burned her eyes, stinging and biting at her vision. She took a quiet breath and sang in her soft, singsong tune to Enna, reassuring her.

"Hungry for the kill, but this hunger, it isn't you
Voices disappear when you are speaking, in somber tunes
I will be the wolf and when you're starving, you'll need it too
Hungry for the kill, but this hunger, it isn't you,"

Her body grew tired, sobs breaking up her voice even as she held control over their body, over Bevy. "It isn't you," she promised Enna, gentle as she could. The voice continued, snapping at them. "It isn't..."

You're killing them all.

enna . roshan . rajani . ratchet . calypso . anan
sweet and soft . dark and deep . playful and sultry . bright and cheery . critical and melodic . childlike and loud
ooc ;; and the sads flow forth

Calypso couldn't stop the tears anymore. She huddled down, stones of blue, white, crimson, scattered just before her blurry vision. Enna was sobbing, her voice shaky and broken. "I'm drowning, I'm drowning," she cried, her heart aching. The fears she held in her heart, the one that spoke echoes of Roshan's dark voice, swearing that she would hurt her own children, that she would cause a destruction of the entire cave.

There was little Calypso could do, but she simply sung along, her voice weak under the crackling, choked sobs of Enna.

"I'm drowning-- I'm drowning,"
"I'm drowning-- I-I'm drowning,"
"I'm drowning!! I'm dr-drowning..."

... But this hunger, it isn't us, Calypso thought quietly as the bird dissolved into uncontrollable weeping, the darkness of their nest surrounding them in a quiet, dreaded silence.

enna . roshan . rajani . ratchet . calypso . anan
sweet and soft . dark and deep . playful and sultry . bright and cheery . critical and melodic . childlike and loud
ooc ;; and the sads flow forth

Silence drew around the bevy of birds, not a single quiet autopsy prodding under her feathers for a solution. There was a loneliness to the way she sat, hunched over the broken pieces of gems, as what little of light that crept in from outside dimmed to signal a time of sleep.

How long had it been? She didn't know, not really.

But, to her relief, sleep came quick enough to take her and swallow her whole, the quietness of the nest enough to lull her into its deathly grip. No one came to disturb her, and so the leader simply let the moment soak in as dreams swept up under her wings and took her far, far away.