ORIGIN

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m for a lot of f-bombs

Kera didn't know exactly what she was expecting when she padded into Eridanus.

Well, that was a lie-- she was expecting Rift, and some light conversation, but her mind was drifting some ways away. When she heard that Local Mortal Enemy Blackberry was going on trial for her many, many crimes, something dragged her here by the ear to see her.

She hated the goose. She really did. She dedicated most of her life to trying to (unsuccessfully) hunt her down, and almost lost a wrestling match against one of her-- as Pride put it --murder dumplings. Their history went as far back as the day when Kera first emerged and never, not once, did Kera's feelings ever turn for the better.

But a trial was an interesting concept. A trial meant that someone had Blackberry at their mercy and they decided not to kill her. A trial meant that someone saw something different in her. A trial meant that even the worst people could change.

But Blackberry had been evil, insane and monologuing since day one-- surely it was too late for her...?

Kera didn't know, and Kera was a little unsettled with the thought, even as she nudged her broad head affectionately against Rift's shoulder in brief farewell and turned for the grown-cage. Out of the corner of her eye she still saw the green-and-brown pelt of her old friend lingering close, but not close enough.

She wanted to be alone, decidedly. But she didn't know what she wanted out of this. Closure was definitely something neither of them were going to get-- or perhaps even deserved, at this point --but it was definitely too late to turn tail and run now.

The wolf was wary when she approached, but she at least remained neutral. Certainly not submissive, but not arrogant or demanding either. She stood with her ears flicking back and forth for a moment as she looked between the bars of the prison and took a breath.

"Blackberry."

@Blackberry

She had been quiet for a while now, ever since she'd been dragged here and thrown into a cage. Of course, it hadn't been so dramatic as that. She'd come quietly in the end but this environment had her on edge. So many people she'd once considered enemies were just a stone's throw away. Rift guarded her cage almost all of the time and there was an air of tense awkwardness between the two. She'd beaten him twice and her family had decimated most of his friends. Huckleberry, too, flitted around, never close enough to say anything, just in sight before darting away again.

It was infuriating.

But she didn't have any energy left to be angry. She was dead now, just a walking corpse, going through the motions of living. The necklace was gone now - she'd dropped it when Huckleberry had appeared and nobody had bothered to pick it up for her. Her chance was gone. She'd failed. She'd failed herself, she'd failed her children, and she'd failed every single person she'd ever hurt. Now that she was here, trapped, caged, like a pig waiting for slaughter, she'd lost any chance for redemption. Perhaps that was for the best.

And so she didn't expect that flash of white. In a hundred cycles she didn't expect to ever see Kera again. And if they were destined to meet, she would have thought it would be in their final fight to the death. Not while she was caged and broken.

She looked up, eyes widening with the first flicker of emotions since being brought here. A mixture of shock and anger and fear, dulling to what was almost apathy. "Kera," she rasped. She paused for a moment before resting her head back down on the ground. "So, what are you doing here? Come to gloat? Or kill me?"

@Kera

Kera lifted her head as she heard her own name. She expected the next words out of Blackberry's beak to be angry, loud honking-- which was about the only tone she'd ever heard from the goose. But there was nothing. No emotion.

The wolf's brow furrowed for a moment. It took her a moment for her to answer as she looked over the goose. If you could consider Blackberry a goose anymore-- she'd heard of how bad she looked, and she knew that coming out of your chrysalis after injury had a tendency to change your appearance, but she hadn't expected this.

It had been a very long time since Kera felt bad for Blackberry. And even then, it had only been brief. As soon as she heard that Blackberry was not only alive but murdering everything that came onto her path, Kera lost sympathy for her.

But fuck, death might be a mercy to her at this point, rather than a punishment.

"If I were here to gloat, I would have done it already," the wolf eventually answered. She cast a half-glance to Rift before she sat down in front of the cage, a frown tugging at the corners of her mouth. "I'm not here to kill you, either. You're supposed to go through a trial, first."

The emotion in her voice was masked with neutrality-- though Kera herself didn't quite know how to feel in this moment. Being neutral was easier, not hostile but not friendly either. She often talked this way when she had to scold either Mars or Halo, but that was usually because whatever they did was fucking funny.

This was the exact opposite of funny.

A slight huff came out Kera's nostrils. For a moment she didn't know what to say-- every outcome that ran through her mind lead to nowhere. But, she couldn't just sit there, either.

"How did you get here?" She asked. "You're not struggling to get out and you're not screaming. Why are Rift's people, and Pride's people, letting you live long enough for someone else to judge if you should live or die?"

@Blackberry

To be honest, Blackberry really had expected Kera to gloat and make fun on her misery. It just seemed like something she'd do. Why she came to that conclusion, she really wasn't that sure. So she was mildly surprised when she spoke in a calming, neutral voice. What had happened to that ferocious wolf she'd fought cycles ago? The one that had torn her apart piece by piece, that'd turned her into a monster?

But...no, that wasn't right. She was the monster. She was the murderer. Kera defended herself, that's all. If she did gloat and make fun of her pain, she'd be completely justified. She'd done too many terrible things. She hissed out, almost an amused chuckle. "Yeah, Rift said something about that. Fuckin' ridiculous, as if anyone would want to defend me. You gonna speak?" That was a stupid question. Of course she would. She'd tell everyone every bad thing she'd done, recount the violence and ferocity she'd displayed for cycles upon cycles.

She regarded Kera with dead, watery eyes. "Huckleberry and some tiger dragged me back. Why should I struggle? It's what I deserve, isn't it? And how should I know what they're thinking. They don't tell me shit." She glanced at Rift, but it wasn't a particularly anger glare. Why should they tell her anything? She was a prisoner after all.

She paused for a moment, wondering if her next words would even be worth anything. If Kera even cared. But she had nothing else to lose at this point, right? She looked back up at the wolf, a shiver running down her back, her voice barely a whisper. "By the way...I'm sorry, Kera. I'm sorry for everything."

@Kera

Hearing a laugh come out of Blackberry that wasn't a frantic cackle before or after a monologue was half a surprise to Kera. She flicked her ears back and forth for a moment before she stuck her tongue out to swipe it along her jowls.

She listened, and she turned her head to follow Blackberry's gaze to Rift lingering near by. "There must be enough people willing to defend you if it calls for a trial," she reasoned, though her mind was consumed with thought. Whoever wanted to defend Blackberry, of all people, must have been young. Very young, and perhaps Blackberry's own spawn.

Speaking of-- her own son, the pathetic bastard at the wrestling, had dragged her back with a tiger. Kera couldn't help but let out a snort, though she shook her head. She couldn't imagine Huckleberry having the guts to do-- well, anything. Not without crying midway through it.

"Some would argue you deserve a lot worse than being tossed into a prison," she said a little passively, lifting a hind foot to itch at the shaggy fur around her neck. "But I also guess that Rift and his lot aren't the types to ominously ramble on about their dastardly plans in front of your face." This was a weak jab at humour-- half a test, in fact, to see how Blackberry might react to this.

Surely, she was aware of how ridiculous she sounded, at times? Surely she could pick apart when someone, even an old enemy, was joking. For a moment the wolf watched closely, her paw hanging in the air for a few ticks before it went back to itching the black frills embedded into her fur, and then settled back down.

For a moment she almost had no idea what Blackberry was talking about when it came to speaking at the trial. When it clicked, her tail lashed half-uncomfortably.

The memories still... hurt. All of them. What Blackberry had done to her and what she had done to Blackberry, hurt. Not the sort of physical pain Kera had grown used to, either-- this was something a lot deeper and a whole lot worse, in her opinion. Bringing it up to faces at a trial, even ones who wanted Blackberry punished, would be difficult.

"I don't know," she said. "I wouldn't get anything out of it." Her mouth opened to speak further, but she paused. The trial sure as hell wouldn't give her whatever closure she was scrambling for, but if Blackberry deserved a second chance then maybe, just maybe, the one gembound that had known her since day one could convince them of that.

Kera was unsure, however, if she did.

She shuffled, and repeated, "I don't know." A brief pause. "Maybe. It depends on a lot of things. I'll talk to Rift about it later."

What the goose-- or sort-of-goose --said next was definitely a surprise-- though Kera was unsure how to actually feel about it. She took a breath to let it digest, but it... changed nothing.

It should be noted that twenty-or-so cycles ago, Kera would have loved an apology. It might have offered some closure, just to hear her say sorry and move on to be a better person. But then came the murders, and the child army, and the brainwashing, and the wars and the tunnel full of blood and bones and--

Kera took a second, sharper breath.

'I'm sorry for everything' didn't change anything. It didn't bring back her friends, and it didn't make the scars disappear. It didn't erase all the bad memories from everybody's head. 'I'm sorry' just... couldn't fix any of it.

"It isn't me you should be apologizing to," the wolf said. Her voice was oddly soft-- particularly since Kera herself expected herself to sound angry, but there was very little emotion actually behind it. "There's a lot of gembound you've done worse to. People that you've attacked and pushed into a chrysalis, or people that you've just killed and took the stones off. I've heard stories about what you've done to your kids, and the last I heard about your wolf-daughter, she was still killing, too."

"Even then, I..." she hesitated, turning her head briefly to look at a patch of long grass, and then back. "I don't think words alone could forgive that. I think you'd have to try very hard at earning yourself a second chance, but no one will ever forget it. You'll always be defined for what you've done, because nearly everyone walking around has a personal story about what you did to them, or their family, or their friends. A lot of people won't believe you can change."

Hell, Kera wasn't sure if she could change. But if Blackberry was serious, and genuine, and was actually sorry?

She shifted. She was a guardian. She wanted to protect everyone in the caves-- but what she had wanted to protect everyone from were long gone. It seemed like the last one was sitting right in front of her, and she wanted to be a part of everyone else.

Kera's head was beginning to hurt a little. She drew out a third and final breath before lowering herself onto her gut, folding her forelimbs over themselves. "I know you've lost a lot, too," she murmured, but said no more for the time being.

@Blackberry

Blackberry shook her head. It was hard to believe if there was anyone at all that were willing to speak to her. Well, maybe there were a couple. "I'll bet that idiotic kitten had something to do with this. I told her not to get involved anymore." Of course it would have been Wilder to kick this off. Who else would care enough? Who else would speak for her besides her own daughter. And there was no way the truce would last more then a few minutes if she showed up.

She laid her head back on the ground, staring off into oblivion, shifting a little bit to get more comfortable, moving her talons so that her stomach claws were resting gently on top of them. Her wings still hurt from where the tiger had pressed down against them and she cringed a bit as she shifted. "I do," she rasped. "You're right. Maybe even death won't be a good enough punishment for everything I've done. Pride had the right idea...taking my wings." She shivered, trying to push back that rising memory of pure, raw agony that he'd inflicted on her. For all she knew...he'd meant it. All of it. Every second that she suffered was a purposeful attempt to punish her further.

Kera's attempt to joke only got the faintest of puffs out of her body. She turned her eyes up, a little perplexed that her oldest enemy would even crack a weak joke at a time like this. She looked away again, not really visibly responding to what Kera was saying but her words sent a stabbing pain into her heart. How many other people thought the same way as that, that they would get no kind of closure or anything at all from speaking about her, from forgiving her or facing what she'd done? Would her words and apologizes be worth anything at all? Did anything even matter anymore?

She should have known that a stupid apology would do nothing. Her eyes closed, listening closely to what Kera could say because she realized that this might be where to start. If she could creature closure with this...perhaps she could do it with everyone else. She just had to stay in control.

"I know. I've done horrible things. To people that didn't deserve it, to the people I loved. Whatever stories you've heard are right. I've killed and kicked others into their chrysalis and took trophies for myself. I created a family out of love and it grew into hatred and a tool for my selfish vengeance. I can barely remember...what I was trying to avenge. Why did I hurt all of those people?"

She could remember it like a nightmare from many days ago. The faces of people suddenly twisting before her eyes so that they were laughing at her, screaming and tearing her apart. But it hadn't been true, was it? She'd suffered a lot worse then that since then. Others had suffered more because of her. "No, I know. I can't change the past. I can't make everyone forgive me. To be honest, I don't really want to. I don't deserve to be truly forgiven. But if I could somehow...help...move the caves on from things I've done, at least leave the past in the past...then that'd be enough for me. I don't really want to be alive anymore, but I'll keep going if there's still something I can do."

The last thing Kera said...that was what broke her. Tears collected at her eyes and, within seconds, began to slowly fall down her cheeks. "Yeah," she choked out, "I have. But...don't pity me for it. I brought it on myself. I deserve it...just...they didn't."

@Kera

Kera let out another faint chuff, though this time out of amusement. She liked children. "You know how kids are," the wolf said quietly. "They can't help but get their noses stuck into everyone's business and try to make it better. Try to make them happy." She had been the same. And so had her own children, she realised with a sigh.

Her eyes drifted away, and then back to Blackberry at the mention of Pride-- but she didn't say anything on it. She knew Pride a little, and knew he could be particularly brutal and cold, but a part of her hadn't quite expected that. Not that it wasn't anything Kera had already done to the goose herself.

She glanced over the spines along the bird's back and frowned. She remembered the incident too well-- she saw it in nightmares, even. If she thought hard enough about it she could still taste the blood as she ripped feathers out with her teeth, and the cracking of bones in her ears when she slammed Blackberry into the wall.

Before she could get too lost in the memories, however, Blackberry... laughed. Sort of. It was good to see, at least, that even Blackberry had some sort of sense of humour, even behind a cage when she'd been beaten and broken and didn't want to live anymore. The Blackberry she knew would have spat in her face at it, surely.

Maybe she could change, but a nagging feeling in the back of her mind told her to remain at least a little wary. Blackberry was, no matter how sorry and pitiful she looked, extremely dangerous. She'd killed, and hurt others, including her own children.

This could be an act, Kera wondered, her snout crinkling lightly.

But in the event that it wasn't, Kera didn't want to push anyone away. Even Blackberry. She'd just... have to keep an eye on her, depending on what happened at the trial.

"I don't know," she replied. She didn't want to think about how, when she herself attacked Blackberry, she was unsure why it got so out of hand, too. Why she had to slam her into that wall, and yank out all her feathers and rip up her gut. It went well past self-defense, but of all things she... didn't want to relate to Blackberry. "I think you were just angry. At everything. And everything had to pay."

The wolf paused, and then lifted her shoulders in a slight shrug. "You could help them in small ways," she said. "You could be like me, and try to protect them from bad things--" like your daughter "--or you could build them nests, or get them food. It'll take a lot of work, and it'll take a long time, but if you really wanna change then it'll be worth it."

Kera didn't fully trust the self-pitying. The longer it went on, the more she wondered if Blackberry was trying to rile her into getting free, so that she could continue murdering. But if she were keeping an eye on Blackberry, then maybe...

... oh, she's crying.

She blinked very slowly. She turned her head to look briefly towards Rift, and then shuffled closer to the cage until her fur was against the bars, looking in. "Have you ever talked about it?" She asked. She knew some, but not all of the details. Rumours she'd heard from other gembound over the cycles, but nothing she'd really paid attention to. "It might help to get it off your chest."

It might help if Kera knew where she was coming from, at least. Blackberry had always been like that but maybe something had graduated her from angry goose to murdering lunatic. Maybe it could be helped.

It'd be nice if no one had to die, Kera decided.

@Blackberry

She didn't try to conceal the tears. What was her pride worth at a time like this? A few cycles ago, she would have been completely disgusted at herself for breaking down in front of an enemy. And not just any enemy; this was Kera, after all. But she didn't care. There was nothing else to lose. Only out of instinct did she try to raise a wing to wipe them away but the simple action of trying to do so was too difficult, too much of a stretch and she gave up after a second, instead arching her neck back and rubbing her eyes against the soft feathers.

"Yeah," she whispered, her voice a note lighter then before as she remembered what it was like in the beginning. What it was like seeing Wilder, although not a child, still young and innocent, appearing in her cave at the lowest of her lows. "They can be a handful." She choked back anything else she could say in response. What kind of mother took children, innocent, good children and twisted them so much, hurt them so horribly?

She pushed it back, as she did most of the time lately, before she broke again. "Yeah...maybe. Or I thought it was fun. Or maybe both. I can't think about it though. Not since the war." Even now, a shudder passed through her and she shoved away at the memories threatening to choke her throat. This time she did look away, knowing how fucking stupid this must look. The most monstrous creature in the whole caves was sitting here trembling and crying over the memories of her own atrocities.

To think that she could become like Kera, though, who, at least what she'd heard of, was almost a champion-like figure. She'd brought light back to the caves. She helped where she could. Would anybody ever see her as anything more then a monster? Did she even want that?

She'd have to think about that, if that's even the kind of course she wanted to take. Or if she just wanted to die.

Her head jerked up, shocked at the suggestion. "T-talk about it? Why? Even if I wanted to, who in the hell would listen to me?"

@Kera

Kera didn't watch Blackberry cry. She could imagine some people getting enjoyment out of it-- but the sight was just a bit too pitiful for her liking. Instead, the wolf laid her head on her forelimbs and stared out towards the vague outline of Rift not so far away.

Some privacy was better than none, at least. Kera knew she didn't like being around other people when she was upset and on the verge of tears, though she'd always been in the assumption that crying would make her less of a hero, somehow.

She shut out the sounds of Blackberry crying until the goose spoke again, but she didn't immediately turn her head to look back at her. She lifted her ears and angled them backwards, then snorted quietly. "A bit more than that, I would say," she replied. "Halo used to try to eat the lights I'd make. Even the rocks."

There was a long pause, before Kera finally turned back towards Blackberry, half-thoughtfully. Fun made it sound like it was a hobby-- maybe she just needed something new to focus on, rather than causing grief and murder to others.

... would a hobby work, though?

"Why was the war different for you?" She asked gently, the scars on her face crinkling as her brow furrowed. "Or was it just when it became too overwhelming?"

This didn't seem likely to her, however. The -berries had been living in a tunnel full of the dead and blood and gore. A little fighting wouldn't have turned her off if that hadn't. Quietly, Kera licked her muzzle, thinking.

She knew Blueberry was dead, but she didn't know the circumstances behind that, nor when it happened. There certainly hadn't been a mention of him at the war in Eridanus, so that couldn't have been it. Huckleberry didn't like her, Kera thought, but she didn't recall anyone turning against her.

Maybe Jayberry had done something.

She licked her muzzle again, angling her head back down to look at Blackberry when she spoke again. "I'm listening," she said a little dryly. "I assume the kitten would listen to you, if she's going through the effort to get you into a trial to spare your life. Your wolf-daughter would probably listen to you."

Assuming she hadn't fucked up her relationship with those two yet, however.

@Blackberry

Blackberry didn't respond, more out of an inability to form any sort of coherent words with her throat so choked up. Her children had been her everything. She loved them with all of her heart, but she'd hurt them. She'd trained them to kill, sent them off to become murderers and beat them when they failed or refused. Absolutely disgusting. Even the memories of the good times - Huckleberry's beautiful laugh, Jayberry proudly presenting her impressive prey, the talk she had with Elderberry - it couldn't at all sweeten the sour, bitter taste in her beak.

She shouldn't have mentioned it. The war. She shouldn't have brought it up. Because remembering it meant facing those atrocities, facing the pain and taking it all over again because no amount of trying to hold herself together could stop the memories from breaking her all over again. Because they were still fresh. Perhaps some of her worst moments had happened far before, but she hadn't done anything terrible for cycles upon cycles, not until the war.

And the war was, by far, the worst of her atrocities.

"What do you know about it?" she whispered. "I assume somebody told you about it. Pride, maybe? Rift?" She shook her head. "We'd never done an assault of that scale before. I thought my children were strong, that the cycles of training and abuse had made them vicious enough to kill everyone without much trouble. But I was so wrong...about all of it. We hurt so many innocent people. Created scars that will probably never fade. And my children...I put them in harms way. Everyone fell, one by one. The garden was littered with chrysalis by the time it was over. Cloudberry, Huckleberry, Yewberry...they all fell to their crystals. And Elderberry...my son...Blueberry's son..." she choked on the last words and turned away again, shoving her head under a wing to stop the sudden onslaught of sobs from taking over. She focused on the brown, tracing lines through each feather so that she didn't see it again. She didn't want to see it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Because then she'd go away again.

When she pulled her head back again, the same dead, emotionless expression had painted her face yet again. Her head rested on the ground where it had been before, but turned enough that she could gaze up at the wolf. "I talked to her, but her meddling got her into trouble. It caused her pain. I didn't want to get her involved anymore. She's a good kid. As for Jayberry, however," her voice suddenly grew cold and her expression hardened, "don't even mention that piece of shit. As far as I'm concerned, she is not my daughter anymore. But I gotta say, I'm surprised you're willing to listen at all. Why? I thought you hated me."

@Kera

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