ORIGIN - fix the broken me

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Bones had decided that although his gift for Booker wasn't quite ready yet, he still wanted to see his brother. He twisted the turn from tunnel I and limped into Eridanus. It had been a long time since he last visited; not just Booker, but this place.

It was where he saw the dragon who hurt his legs, after all - he had fuzzy memories of the numbat cradling his face, apologizing. It hit him like a kick to the gut and he had to force the memories away with a visible wince, ears flat against his skull as he padded forth among the trees.

"Booker?" he called out quietly, pressing his nose against the ground. It wasn't very hard for Bones to pick up familiar scents - particularly the scent of his brother, but today, he could smell nothing.

He winced. What if the numbat had left?

He lifted his head once more and hobbled stiffly towards the mushroom in the very centre of Eridanus. Often, Booker spent his time here - it was where his den was, after all. "Booker?" he called again. "Brother?"

Brother. The word felt strange leaving his throat. He knew he was close to Kerberos and Booker - they were his brothers. Bones didn't feel this way calling Kerberos, verbally, his brother, but now it felt... wrong. Had something changed? Perhaps Booker was not his brother after all?

The dog's weak legs shook as he sat back onto his haunches. What a strange feeling, deep in his gut. A mix of dread and excitement, but for now he could only hope the numbat was actually still around.

@Booker

Dirt slipped through his grasp, fell to the cold, packed earth below, roots serving as supports for the seemingly unending tunnel. His cane dragged a winding path behind, leading the way back to the sick ward, where the skunk lay, ragged, half of her face still twisted into a seemingly permanent snarl. She'd slept for days, at first from exhaustion. Now, it seemed, from lack of reason to wake up. She would eventually - he'd buried the dead before, and they were obvious, bloated and festering from the inside out. The self-proclaimed "cat," if that was what she really was, would need a home when she managed to stop feeling sorry for herself, and he had more than enough time to provide.

Something dug at him, needled into the corners of his brain, stroked the fire that absently burned there. What about your son, Booker? A paw withdrew from the soil, tugged at the crystalline spikes that spurred out from his eye socket. Smudges of damp mud clung to the glinting edges, but the momentary flash of pain quieted the whisper, half some softer, younger version of his own voice, half something else. Something deep and draconic, tinted by the fox's own burr, that ignited the ever-present, soothing hunger for control that flowed through his veins.

The caves would be beautiful, one day. Everything in its place - the Chosen protecting the forest, the Sinners marked, outcast and forever reminded of their deeds. He could just imagine how it would feel, to permanently burn away white scales, red fur. Remembered the almost drowning rush of power that followed whenever he held the picture of the jaguar's mark, stark and smoldering against black fur. So much perfection held in such a small reminder. A smile twitched at his lips, and Priest returned to the excavation, packing dirt down smooth into walls, a ceiling, a floor. Diot's beautiful gift had been even more helpful than he'd realised - it had held up the main den, along with unfurling almost halfway into every tunnel. Patting a downturned leaf gently, humming to himself.

And then something - something big - walked overhead.

Immediately he was moving, dragging his useless leg behind without a second thought, scurrying at a pace only rodents could match. Ducking out from the tunnel's entrance into the den's main room, filled halfway by the unconscious body of his patient, Priest glared warily at the entrance, slowly drawing out his cane and using it to slowly make his way up the earthen ramp to the world above, long ears pinned back to his skull. The hair on his back - what was left of it, anyway - lifted from the static fear clouding the air. A voice rang out through the air, soft and carrying, not at his door like his other... visitors.

Suspicion brightening his cloudy eye, Priest slowly stepped under the arch of his home, the roots of the tree that towered above keeping him in partial shadow. Gaze scanning the forest outside, the Mother towered in the distance - and the voice called out again, from Her shade, no doubt.

-ooker? Brother? The numbat grimaced, useless back leg trembling. That name... it had to mean something, with the rate it kept on following him, like a greedy tick on his conscience. An unsteady breath, and Priest moved forward, cane tamping down the grass in his path, long tail spread out like a fan behind him. Minutes of travel later, and his own version of the "treeline" broke - to reveal someone, indeed, sitting beneath the shadow of the Mother's silvery cap. A soft inhale, and that same pinching pain at the back of his brain.

"Who... I know you," Priest accused, an ember of anger in his tone, swamped by confusion. The dog was in his dreams, more often than was strictly comfortable, attacked by white fangs and burning, a painting on a cave wall that smiled, sad, apologising without words. Leaving. Magdalena, her head next to her feet, had watched, but this one had left. Hot tears stung at his eye, clouded his swimming eyesight even further, and Priest frowned, wiping at the liquid with a perplexed huff. "What in the Mother's name... you," he murmured, turning his gaze to the canine, ears slowly but surely rising, tail moving to wrap around his bone-thin, destroyed leg. "You were... there. Before." A tilt of his head, and the tiny man's brow furrowed.

A blink, and his ramrod-straight back relaxed in increments, eye blinking rapidly, as if he were stumbling out of an interrupted sleep. Booker stared, incredulous, burned and webbed paw clenching on his cane hard enough to turn his scars white.

"...Bones?"

The dog tried hard to catch the scent of his brother, but there was nothing. His ears were still pinned against his head; he felt a heavy heart sink like a rock in water, past his ribcage and deep into his gut. Every aching second of no sight or reply of the numbat sent his heart plummetting deeper and deeper down his stomach.

Thorns began to prick at the back of his eyes. Stinging and threatening to pop them out. It took a moment for Bones to realise that it wasn't so much the barbed stalk of a rose, but rather salted water that stung his eyes and ran down his face. Booker was gone - he had left Eridanus without so much as a word to him. Was it on purpose?

Realisation began beating into the half-lame canine's body; or perhaps more accurately, assumption. Booker doesn't feel the same, it said as it sent burning fangs into his neck. He never liked you. A pair of bear-like claws raked his gut. He's probably dead and rotting. It picked him up by the scruff and tossed him against the wall. His spine broke all over again, like it had cycles ago when the dragon threw him off. It hurt - for a moment he swore he could feel the pain, and the searing fire burning into his open wounds as he tried to make it better.

His ears flickered. A voice brought him back to reality, away from tormenting assumptions of death and hatred. He almost didn't recgonize it at first, it had been so long after all since he had heard it. A twitch of his snout told him the smell of fungus was behind him - a smell Bones knew all too well, not only from his mother's garden.

I know you.

Slowly, the dog's over-sized, rounded ears lifted. He turned his head, and for a moment one might think he saw a ghost. The numbat looked far worse than he did when he last saw him; but it was the only creature in the entire caves who could possibly look like that - short legs, one of which seemed to be wholly destoryed and useless. Short, brown fur, which seemed to be long burnt away. The gem sticking out of his eye, which was smeared with dirt.

It wasn't a ghost and Bones was smart enough to realise this. The numbat's following words however, fell on deaf ears as the dog's tri-coloured tail began thumping hollowly off the ground, slowly at first - almost cautiously.

He lowered down onto his chest, eyes wide. Bones, yes-- that was his name. He approached, chin on the soil, nose close to touching Booker's gut. His tail was no longer against the ground but rather lifted and lashing back and forth, and for a moment the dog had to pretend his face wasn't somewhat damp.

"Hello," he said. His voice sounded odd in his own ears. "Hello, Booker."

@Booker

Wide eye staring vacantly at his brother, Booker shuddered, flinching back minutely as the dog approached, closer and closer, until hot breath warmed his fur and a wet nose centimeters from his concave stomach. His own inhales were short, panicked, but he couldn't quite break his gaze away from the vision. The dog was the only one that still moved, the others frozen - he would turn his head, stare straight at Booker, and smile. And then he would fade, for a whil- Everything's okay. You don't have to be nervous or ashamed about it. Do you believe it was your destiny? His paws clenched and unclenched, cane trembling in his grasp. His head felt fuzzy, weighted, almost drunken, stomach turning.

"You..." The hello seemed to echo, repeat, like a record caught in a deep scratch. "You're..." Booker's breath caught in the back of his throat, and he reached out with his free paw, the webbed-together digits shaking as one, hovering just before making contact. You promised. Rot and a ribcage shining through fur dirtied from gore. "Dead. Clover showed me," he offered, frown lifting into a mockery of a smile, breath slowing. "I didn't believe 'er, at first." I would never hurt Bones. "Until she showed me Diot's... Diot," the words stumbling over themselves, stilted and unsure, fur bristling in strange, moving patterns.

Something nudged at his mind, flipped his stomach over in place, and panic laced through his spine, hand finally lowering to touch Bones' snout, petting short fur unsteadily. "I'm sorry for hurting you. I mus' be more like him than I thought," the scribe wondered, ears flickering, meaning clear, tears clouding his eye again. "I never even got to..." A blink, and his cane dropped to the ground, leaning fully on his closest friend's nose, ribs creaking at the soft impact. "I'm so sorry, Bones," he murmured. "I know why he chose me, now."

Do you believe it was your destiny?

"I..."

You've been happy before-- do you remember?

Something leaked into his posture - some stiffness, a wary suspicion that Booker had only ever possessed around the king of the Merrymen. The tension that kept Priest alive. He drew back with a creak of his spine, absentmindedly smoothing over the fur beneath his eye, watching Bones curiously. "Strange. I distinctly remember burying you in the front yard. What was left, anyway," he mused, voice distinct from the numbat Bones knew so well, deeper and softer, a vindictiveness envenomating every word. "But I suppose Booker did the deed. No wonder everyone seems so disgusted by him."

A sniff, and Priest straightened, the new awareness strange, so like the bond Booker remembered so well, but protective, not abusive. For all his many faults, Priest took his job - his real job - seriously. Lid lowering to half-mast, the leader met Bones' gaze, suspicion twitching the corners of his lips down. "Mother so help me, I have been tricked too many times for one life. What are you?"

Slowly, the dog's tail stopped swaying. It dropped, limp against the ground and he was quiet for a moment. Booker didn't move. He stood, and he stammered. He didn't say hello, he didn't touch him as he came close. It took Bones to realise after a good minute or so that it was what he wanted; he wanted Booker to come close and hug his snout. He wanted to touch Booker, rub his tiny chest with his face and lick his fur clean. His ears flickered.

It was a bad idea, anyway - a single lick would probably drown the poor numbat. He restrained himself from moving closer, Booker was moving back anyway. He had gotten too close, he had made him uncomfortable, he--

Dead. "Dead," Bones echoed quietly, in disbelief. Booker's hand lingered just in front of his snout. A whimper grew in his throat, but he didn't dare let it free. He listened quietly to Booker, eyes wide and glassy.

Clover. The name wasn't familiar to him. Diot. Booker's son. He hadn't met Diot, but he was sure that if Bones wasn't dead, Diot probably wasn't either. His ears rotated for a moment, thoughtfully. His muzzle opened slightly, to speak, but it was stopped by a tiny paw being placed aganst his snout. It was so much smaller than he remembered- so much colder.

What did they do to you, Booker?

"You didn't hurt me," he said quietly. He felt as though his voice was coming from another gembound, far away. His eyes half-closed. Him. Him. Surely, he meant the dragon. The horrible memories came flooding back, the pain aching through his bones and those hands - the same hands that were touching him now - cradling his face. He said he was sorry. He said it was his fault.

And now Booker's tiny, broken body was on his snout. He was cold, and Bones could only help the heat of his fur and skin would help him. The small wooden cane dropped, and he was apologising again. He. Him. The dragon.

Oh, Booker...

The whine that had been forming in the dog's throat was finally released. He nudged himself forward gently, nuzzling the gut of the scarred creature. "You're not like him," he said quietly. He moved one paw next to the numbat, as though intending to touch him, but he stopped halfway. He instead rested it next to the corner of his own lip. "You're smarter than this, aren't you? You're nothing like him and you never will be. You don't have to be sorry. You're not a murderer and you'd never hurt anybody, regardless if you liked them or not."

He tried to sound confident, despite the waver in his voice. He knew his words rang true, but tears still threatened to spill out his eyes. "I'm sure Diot's somewhere. I'm here, right?"

And then, he was gone. Somehow, the fur that had been touched by the numbat felt colder without his presence. Carefully, Bones nosed the cane towards the small creature encouragingly. It wasn't Booker; the dog wasn't too sure what was wrong with him, but he just knew. His ears twitched.

"I don't remember being buried," he said quietly. Booker did the deed. He wasn't sure what this meant. "I'm not disgusted by him, I love him." His head had lifted again, watching the numbat carefully.

What was he? "My name is Bones," he started. "I'm an artist, in Canis." His nose twitched quietly. He wasn't here for this person; who for all Bones knew, could have been Baratheon. He was here for Booker.

"May I talk to Booker?" he asked politely. "I think it's important."

He wasn't sure if he would be able to talk to Booker, but he was fairly certain by now that whatever had taken over the numbat's body was the same one that had given him all those new scars.

@Booker

The soft words would have soothed something in Booker, but Priest's frown only deepened, twisting into a snarl that was more surprised than offended. "Smarter than this. How quaint. You know, I've managed to survive a dragon. And the leader of the Merrymen. Multiple times. You'll excuse me if the backhanded compliments don't impress," the thin shepherd rasped, eye a bit too wide, pupil a touch too blown and silvery for comfort, ears pinned back to his skull until they, too, were turning white at the edges.

Nevertheless, the outburst slowly faded, and Priest huffed, rolling his good eye and reaching down to accept the cane that had rolled closer, leaning on it with all his weight, the sturdy wood digging into the ground from the strain. "I didn't expect your spirit to return," he murmured, Booker's familiar patience mixing with Barnett's constant disbelief. "Pillar. Your memorial is on the Mother's stalk," the numbat offered, looking every day his age. "Believe what you must. I have told our story to many travellers, and that of my son. He is... everywhere. The one and only Guardian of Eridanus, its Heart still embodied. Death has only increased his power." Pride - a wash of it - warmed his tone, where all his other words fell flat, like dusty tomes.

Priest, after all, only cared for what he could keep. The fox, although why Louie hadn't killed him like he obviously could have was a mystery, given the last time they'd spoken - especially if he was so uncaring towards his own little "family" that he'd left one of their own to die. The Mother, with her unwavering guidance in times of need, even when he was a Sinner, perhaps the worst of them all, to be so forgiving of the most disgusting parts of the caves. Diot, for forgiving him for... well. Letting Baratheon tear him in half, which Priest himself found rather hard to believe, but his son had always been far more forgiving than his father, even to foes who'd tried to eat them both.

(Which seemed to happen with an unnerving frequency.)

But the Pillar, the Seer... those who had not returned held a sort of untouchable reverence, a pedestal far too weak not to crumble under the weight of the Pillar being Bones, and Bones being his brother, although Priest hadn't ever felt for the Seer what "Booker" so obviously felt for the dog. The numbat quirked his intact eyebrow, reaching up with his free hand to scratch at his chin, brittle, charred fur knocked loose by the movement. "No, I suppose you wouldn't remember... the Guardian didn't believe either, not until he found the shell of his former self." Priest blinked, the familiar pull of faith in the Mother readying him for a half-comforting, half-trawling-for-information spiel, when Bones spoke again.

His distant gaze flickered to meet the dog's, and hardened into the sort of stare one would pin on a bug under a magnifying glass, waiting for the sun to burn a hole through its exoskeleton. The rest of the words flowed through his brain like silk, but the one thorn stayed prominent. "...love. Hm." Why did you do this to me? What have I done to deserve this? "You know, I'm not quite sure what you mean," Priest offered, tone positively frosty, face placid. He'd practiced the combination on Magdalena, after all.

Leave me to die, stranger. We'll make it work. I love you, Booker. I'm not going back on my word. There is no such thing as a second chance. I can't let you die because of me. I have to do this for myself. I'm proud of what I am. You act like you're better than me. Better than what you really are.

I'm so... glad to see you... I have a disease... I don't ever... ever want to hurt you. I didn't want to hurt you... I wanted to help... You were so small... so defenseless... How could I not? -ou are the wisdom to my brawn- I have chosen you to be my Rider. We are one... Whatever makes you happiest, I'm willing to do. Your blood is still in my mouth... It always will be.

Thank you, for bringing me to him. Is he still sick? Come on, Booker.

I'll carry you.

"No. You may not," he finally answered, back stiffening, a soft pop signalling the slow realignment of his spine after days of digging. "The last person who told him that tried to kill him and then had children with his sister, so you can imagine why I might be wary of the idea," Priest rumbled, voice stronger than it had been in weeks. "Booker will speak to you when the Mother deems it so. She has always guided me - him - us well. Until then, you will speak to me, Bones of Canis."

Priest's cane moved, almost serpentine, blooming to life with Diot's imbued light, settling in front of him, and for the first time in months, he felt the familiar feeling of complete placidity that came with his own unique brand of paranoia dulled by a dissociative scientific curiosity. "I am Priest, of Eridanus, artist." A flicker of memory - of painting with red blood, rat blood, his own body the same size as the flayed rodent - and the old pain of Clover's revelation hit him with a pang. It was torture, to be so consistently reminded of what he'd done - the Mother was nothing if not clever in her punishments.

The tiny creature seemed to assume at least part of where Bones' thoughts had turned, and a section of lip flickered upwards, revealing tiny, needlepoint teeth, yellowed and cracked. "Tell me - are you so sure that we're as harmless as you seem to think?"

Bones knew fine well what Booker had gone through: but this wasn't Booker. Perhaps he had the wrong numbat? The dog didn't understand, his heart sank. There were a variety of emotions pulling it down; confusion, sadness - perhaps anger. He just wanted to see Booker. He didn't want to deal with a new person right now, but even that he had to doubt. Priest said he knew him. Not just knew, but buried.

His ears flattened against his head. This Priest would get on well with his mother, babbling nonsense like that.

"I'm not dead," Bones said with only a faint tone of confidence. He knew he wasn't, he saw Kerberos, his mother, his grandfather all the time - they all acknowledged and stayed with him. His heart thumped against his chest as it always did. His lungs were in working order. Blood seared through his veins. His back legs ached. Dead people don't feel pain.

He had decided, for this second, to ignore anything else regarding him dead. Bones knew he wasn't dead and he was sure he could prove that later. "Love," he said quietly. "It means I care about him a whole awful lot, and I wouldn't want to see him hurt." He tilted his head. He was fairly sure dead people couldn't feel love, either. The old bones of Canis certainly didn't.

He watched, for a moment as Priest denied his request to see Booker. What one had done that? Louie or Baratheon? He wasn't so sure. "That's okay," he said quietly. Perhaps this Priest was something Booker asked to protect him from things like this - so that Baratheon never happened to him again. Poor numbats.

He supposed that he would have to put up with this new person until the 'Mother deemed it right.' He may as well humour him with the idea that he could be dead. Half-scrambling to his paws, Bones paused as Priest continued to speak. "I know Booker isn't," he replied. "But I think he thinks he is sometimes." He watched the numbat again as the lame dog stood, back legs quivering under his own weight. "I don't know about you, but you have a lot of scars."

"That doesn't mean to say you're harmful, though," he then mentioned. "Self-defense is a thing, and it's unfair to just let people attacking you continue to kill you." Only now did Bones properly turn away, sniffing at the ground before turning yellow-brown eyes to the stalk of the Monarch, eyeing the flesh of the fungus for a moment.

He turned away again, nose against the ground. After a moment or so of sniffing, never really leaving the numbat properly, he spoke once more. "I'm very big."

He looked back at Booker, or Priest, to gauge if he understood where this was going or not. Regardless, he continued. "So, you couldn't... move me, properly bury me," his ears flicked. "Where did you do it?"

Bones knew fine well some of the complete horseshit that other gembounds would try sometimes; the darkness in Canis, voices that littered his ears. People were cruel, and he was convinced somebody had played a joke on him. On them. He watched the numbat again, or rather, his scars.

He wasn't safe. Maybe it wasn't Booker, but it was his body. People were putting his body into danger and somebody made him think he and his son were dead. Somebody was being a right asshole to Booker and it wasn't fair.

He stood waiting for an answer anyway, but eyeing the cane and the numbat, he mentioned, voice still soft, "I can help you walk."

@Booker

Priest hummed at the dog's words, ignoring his continued denial with a wave of a bony hand. "I can't pretend that he doesn't love you," he offered, bottlebrush tail twitching. "I won't. But affection opens the door to abuses far too quickly. You would know," he murmured, gaze roving to stare at the obvious burn scars that littered the painter's back. Seeming to listen with half a weary ear, the numbat's eye snapped back to focus on Bones' face at his agreeal, followed by even more words, always in that careful tone.

Khloros had spoken like that, soft, although the horse's tone had been rasping, always breathy, moist like mildew. Bones, on the other hand, seemed to be actively trying not to... what? Upset him? Confusion interlocked with the long, creeping hands of paranoia, and Priest snorted, Louie's words, bolstered by conviction, slinking through his mind. "I know what I am, Bones. And I know what I am not." The dog stood, trembling giving away the sheer depth of trauma the dragon's attack had caused, and it was Booker who flinched away from the sight, gaze and feet moving towards the Mother, his gait permanently awkward.

The comment on his scars brought Priest back to the forefront, and he huffed, stopping for a moment to peer down at his own deformed paws. "Ah, yes. The webbing is of my own design. Beautiful, no?" He smiled, raising his free hand to the false sunlight, spreading its fingers to watch the leaves overhead rustle from through the paper-thin skin that had melted every digit together. "Well, perhaps not of my own. It was another," he murmured, too soft to be intended for Bones, suddenly sure of the statement. He was many - the walls of the tunnels, their strange symbols, the fierce joy of burning his mark into bubbling flesh - Legion. Trinity. More Others than himself, now.

"We were... upset," he remembered, distantly, musing aloud. "I don't recall over what, but our anger turned into fire." Priest grinned, the gesture more akin to Barnett than anyone else, and spared a glance towards Bones, hand moving to rest at his side. "I don't expect you to understand, but... hm. An artist, you said. Think of it like painting," he suggested, looking away again, unthinkingly repositioning his useless back leg, tissue all but gone from the twin canine-tooth scars that pierced it. "Many have marked this vessel. We are taking it back."

He watched Bones turn to face the Monarch with a sparkle of intrigue in his eye. If there was one thing he knew he could do, it was spread Her word - but the dog didn't seem to be thinking of the Mother, more so the memorial inscribed on her stalk. "Believe me, my child, those who have attacked me have payed, or soon will. I have made my own marks," Priest added, thinking of the unique stench of burning cat fur. Lost in thought, it took him a pause to realise what, exactly, the Canis Gem had asked. When it sunk in, he frowned, looking away again, obviously uncomfortable but, apparently, used to going through the memories.

"I didn't move you. My magic did." Leg beginning to tremble once more, Priest let out an irritated snort, beginning to march towards the Mother's stalk, needing Her guidance. He didn't stop to ensure Bones would follow. "Blood magic. The first time it worked on anything larger than a rat was on Eve." One third of him shuddered, Barnett still too shattered to come to the fore. Eve had been his only friend, after all. "His voice was in our head - or maybe just the memory of it, mixed in with... other influences." The pain of just how utterly hopeless his bond with Louie was hadn't ceased to be too tender to plainly discuss, but mention of Baratheon was laden with disgust.

"I suppose I'd killed before, by proxy. Through his eyes," Priest explained. "He'd taught me how to use them as... portals, almost. See what he saw. Eve is buried by the Eyes," the numbat suddenly cut in, tone odd and cold. "Baratheon's corpse was probably eaten by scavengers. I didn't bother to bury it. Diot is in the garden. I buried you and Dove beneath the Mother. It seemed... peaceful." And then they'd started coming back, one by one, which dashed his initial beliefs on the afterlife to pieces. "The others... I don't know. Nurturing the plants of Eridanus, I suppose. The only one I buried by hand was Diot. The rest of you walked to your own graves." He'd slowed to a halt, eye sliding shut, back firmly to his returned friend.

I can help you walk.

Booker turned to glance over his shoulder, ears flicking.

"We've gotten this far, haven't we?"

"I understand," the dog said quietly. Priest was right - he knew fine well what Baratheon had done to him. He didn't want to argue against it despite his gut telling him to; ordering and demanding that he turn and insist for however long it took that he'd be the knight in shining armour to stop things from hurting them, the one to protect them from danger and give them things to eat that wasn't going to fuck him up even more.

It was stupid. An argument like that would give Booker something to worry about: he would show traits of possibly being a danger in the near future for him, or being overly-possessive and going against things he had said before; that Booker didn't have to listen to him or acknowledge him if he didn't want to.

Also, there was nothing a dog with legs that no longer worked anymore could even do to protect anyone.

He watched, not quite hearing what Priest was saying at first - but he heard words of anger turning to fire. His ears flickered - he understood. Bones did not often feel the sensation of anger, but he remembers the last time he did. A bold-white dragon, attacking a newborn. He watched Priest with a hardened gaze; the tense muscles around his eyes transforming his face then and there. He looked so much older than he actually was, but he did not actually answer.

He understood, in a way, marking theirselves. It was the same reason he began painting frequently: to gain control of himself, to be able to create and contribute instead of rotting away with useless legs. Booker and Priest set themselves aflame to give them a sense of knowing, in a way.

He licked his nose uncomfortably. "Revenge," he murmured in a voice too soft to pick up; ears flat against the skull as he continued to stare at the stalk of the Monarch. He knew that feeling as well - for cycles he wanted to rip Baratheon apart and finally end the terror to the caves, but again - there was nothing a dog would legs that no longer worked could do.

Magic. It made sense, but the thought of animated corpses lumbering around disturbed him, the remains of the fur on his back stood upright for a few moments. He caught the sight of Booker, or rather his body, looking down at the numbat once more. "Eve," he said quietly. The name was familiar, but he couldn't quite remember.

There were inky black wings and grey talons; a raucous voice and bones illuminated by magic. Was that her, or was it Krakarak? Bones hadn't ever seen two of the same species before - not completely. He, Giggle and Kerberos were all the same species, but there were differences. He had mottled fur. Giggle had a hunch. Kerberos had three heads.

He couldn't remember. It mattered, to something deep down in the numbat's body, however. "You shouldn't blame yourself for what other people do," he said, turning his eyes briefly back to the Mother. The bird was by the Eyes. Baratheon, who Bones only truly hoped was actually dead, was completely gone, as he deserved. He and Dove were... here.

"Here," he echoed his own thoughts, rising up once more. He turned and pressed his nose against the ground. He didn't smell anything, not the scent of rot, but he supposed that if there were the bodies of he and Dovefeather here, they would have emerged with the ground, leaving nothing more than mere bones.

He limped to where he thought the ground looked the most disturbed, pressing black-toed paws against the ground before he paused and looked over his shoulder. "I... hope you don't mind," he said. "Which is a silly thing to say, of course you'll mind. But if I'm dead I want to see it for myself." As his claws began to rake up rich, brown dirt he paused once more.

"You don't have to watch."

The dog began to dig properly now - making sure the dirt was left near by so that he could cover the hole once more regardless of what he found, but it felt like he was digging there for hours. His legs ached by the time he actually found something, cramping near his shoulders. It was white despite the dirt it was surrounded by and for a moment, his heart sunk.

No, no, no, no. That couldn't be-- he couldn't be dead. That couldn't be his, or Dove's bones. His paw moved so much more delicately over the ivory object, and to his relief, it did not feel like a bone under his scarred paw pads. It didn't take him long to realise what it was, either.

He grumbled a quick apology, not to himself, the thing or Priest, but upwards to the Monarch. It was her root. He clambered out of the hole he had created, which by now lead to his shoulders, and began scooping the dirt back into it. "There's no bones," he said. "We're not dead."

It didn't take long until Bones was sitting again, licking dirt from his paws. He wondered why they had such memories of this- had someone given it to them? He shook his head slightly, watching the numbat for a moment before he leaned down, nose on the ground so that the creature could scramble onto his head. It wasn't aid with walking as much as it was just carrying him.

"We can check other places," he said. "But I'm fairly sure that Dove and I aren't dead. Dove might be around here somewhere, in fact."

@Booker

Booker watched, wondering, head heavy with sleep, and Priest blinked, hiding a smile. "Revenge is an ugly word, used by weak men," he droned, voice paper-dry. "I seek justice. Those that prey on the weak, the young. Worse, those that speak of love when they do so. I mark them. I give the innocent a warning, and the sinful a permanent reminder of the ruin they have caused." The scribe fell silent, slowly turning, neck aching from the uncomfortable craned stare. "I take responsibility for my actions. Even if no one else will do the same," he added, gaze turning back towards the forest with a frown, I'm sick whispering its way through his consciousness.

"I had a choice. I chose Baratheon. Forgave him for what he had done, and believed in his promises. Watched him slaughter innocents, and felt pity... for him." Priest's fingers clenched unsteadily, skin rippling. "I wasn't a victim, Bones of Canis. I was just weak." Bile had seeped into his tone, self-directed, deflecting off of the scarred dog like smoke off of water. "I searched for purpose, and he provided. It would have been the same, had I gone with Magdalena, because I was not made for anyone."

Embers dropped from the cracks in his paw pads, scorching the crest of his cane, but Priest-Booker-Barnett didn't seem to care. Their voice had turned exhausted, the words whispered as Bones limped to his presumed gravesite.

"I was just... made."

He said nothing as the dog began to scrape away at the earth, confident in the Mother's ability to defend herself, simply limping over to peer into the growing hole. "I understand. I often wonder if I'll come back when I die," Priest mused, smoothing a smoldering paw over his chin. "If I do, I imagine it would be quite fun. Much easier to insult predators, when they can't eat you," he snorted, the barest excuse for a laugh. Still, the hole grew deeper, until the Pillar was buried up to his shoulders, and the white roots of the Mother, so like bone, reached up for breath. A real smile, small though it was, twitched at his lips at the apology. Only one other had ever really respected the Mother openly, and Todd had given him his third - fourth? - name, after all.

The numbat blinked at Bones' words, unconcerned, dubiously peering out at the enormity of Eridanus - they could be buried anywhere, for all he knew. Half of his memories were interspliced with visions from drug overdoses. "I find it amusing that you're named Bones, from a cave full of skeletons, and you're now, apparently, looking for bones. Have you ever considered the irony of that kind of cycle?" The musing was dreamy, tone light and off-kilter, as Priest generally got when he had decided not to care about the current topic of conversation any longer. He blinked a pitch-black, pupil-blown eye at the dog, whose face was suddenly much closer to his own, and tilted his head to one side, opal spikes glancing off of a thin shoulder.

He remembered Baratheon doing the same, and Khloros. The latter hadn't ended in a murderous rampage, so Priest took a chance and set his jaw, scurrying up onto the dog's head before the predator could change his mind. The mention of Dove, at least, had him settling in more comfortably, relaxed enough to look more like a burnt loaf of bread than a living creature. "I'd like to speak to the Seer again. She is a good sister." Granted, his only comparison was Magdalena, but it was the thought that counted. "I've yet to see her spirit return, but given how suddenly your own did, I suppose what I've seen doesn't matter much." He scooted forward, a hint of youthful curiosity entering his frame, and ducked his head over Bones' own crown, peering into one of the dog's eyes upside-down, a thought having struck him. "But we've been quite rude - or, well, I have. Booker would have asked by now," he admitted. "How is your family? Your mother? You mentioned her, but I never..." The got to meet her before I either a) actually killed everyone in my own family, including you, or b) was brainwashed really, really thoroughly went unsaid.

Pages: 1 2 3 4