ORIGIN - Of Fish and Fools

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He couldn't remember falling asleep, nor those final whispered words beforehand. He couldn't remember, at first, the crying, the pain, the stories, the tentative smiles. For long, stretching moments, all Carcino knew was warmth and comfort again. For that long moment, he curled tighter around Fisher and imagined, just for a second, that he'd never been hurt before.

And in his dreams, he was wild. The ceiling stretched so far above him, he could see only the sparkle and twinkle of lights and the shifting of mist against a blackish-blue background. Around him, the walls were so far away, he could see a horizon- it was surreal, but comfortably familiar. The leopard felt at home here, amongst the trees, with a brown prey-thing tucked between his paws, asleep.

Dead, actually. He glanced down and casually noticed the blood around the prey-things throat and shoulders. He licked his lips and examined the red spill closer. High in the branches of a tree, he felt safe enough to enjoy his catch in peace. When he bent to bite in, however, the prey-thing suddenly snapped its head around with a terrible crackling sound, like crunching bones and electricity. Cancer would've screamed if he'd been afraid- but stoic in his dream's hazey warmth, he looked upon the frightening sight with mild interest and faint disgust.

"EVERYTHING YOU ARE IS MISTAKEN."

That scared him, a shrieking voice. It didn't belong to the fisher thing in his paws, which returned to being dead and limp a second later. It belonged to a spotted brown thing down below, she stood at an awkward angle to the ground. The world flickered around him, and suddenly, she was standing right in front of him, the world itself inverted in color. He gasped and moved to stand, but found himself treading water- liquid- air? They were suddenly weightless above a swirling mass of black liquid. Giggle grinned, her uneven teeth stained red, and that shrieking voice returned again.

"ANEVILCONDITIONORTHINGTHATSPREADSDESTRUCTIVELY;BLIGHT.AMALIGNANTORINVASIVEGROWTHORTUMOR,ESPECIALLYONEORIGINATINGINEPITHELIUM,TENDINGTORECURAFTEREXCISIONANDTOMETASTASIZETOOTHERSITES."

Then, she just started screaming, the sound a constant agonizing wail that broke through his sleep-dead world and brought him back to the living state of mind. Awake, he flinched, claws digging into rock and head snapping up painfully fast. Tucked in his front paws, Fisher lay where he'd fallen asleep and Cancer froze as not to wake him. Panting, but carefully keeping his breathing shallow, his looked around with wide, panicked eyes.

What had that all been? Why was Giggle in his dreams, of all people? Why would she scream at him like that? Why would Fisher be there, dead? He'd never hurt Fisher, not now! Oh, what was going on with his stupid head!? The leopard gave a soft growl and lowered his head over Fisher again, sighing out his nose with quite the sense of distaste. Maybe I should visit again, get another reading... maybe something's changed.

"Speech"

Tagging; Fisher, Makyna, Leon
Lets do this big drama thing, yo.

Fisher dreamed of the mist. He always dreamed of the mist. Endless white. This time, however, he felt the slick, inky fur of a familiar body along his side. Without looking, he could tell Cancer was along side him, the large, powerful leopard stepping in time with him as he made his way through the thick white world of Cetus... Or was this Pisces? The clouds of white parted as the world roared around him, revealing the crystal blue waterfall crashing down, splashing up the shimmering white mist.

The fisher cat shook out his fur and leaned into the cat, copper orange eyes shining as he stared at the impossibly tall, endless supply of descending water. He shivered, the cold water seeping up to his paws. For a moment, he saw a flicker of red dancing around and through the water, and chuffed at the tiny bird. He flashed his eyes to his side, where the leopard was, and saw only an endless black, as if a hole had suddenly opened in the world beside him.

His claws sank into the slick slate under his paws, the water that had felt so calm and cool suddenly turning foamy and angry, waves crashing behind him, trying to pull him into the gaping vacuum beside him. He tried to scramble away, but the massive strength of the flooding water snatched up his paws and flipped him around, his head dunking under theicy, frothing liquid as he was tossed and tumbled into the blackness.

For some reason, his panic did not fade as the roar of the waterfalls faded and the emptiness grew warm. The blackness did not seem bad, or even evil, after he had been swallowed he seemed to only be presented with peace. Yet, the fisher cat was frightened. He struggled against the black, fighting for his life against nothing. The water faded away, the air dissipated, and eventually, even the darkness seemed to wash away.

Fisher woke up slowly. He was getting used to the horrible dreams of white. After having punched a friend in the face after an episode, he tried not to wake up too suddenly, too quickly, lest he accidentally hurt someone else. By now, he was used to the rather exhausting nightmares. His tiny heart was racing, for whatever reason, but he felt the softness of fur between his paws, and felt Cancer's head settle on to his body.

Eyes still closed, he let out a tiny groan and stretched, wriggling his way up against the cat's neck, nuzzling until his cheek met the feline's, then, absently began to lick at Cancer until he felt a bit more awake. He pulled his lips back into a grin and flashed a coy glance of copper at the leader of Maji Walezi. He began to speak but ended up yawning instead, flopping his head back down on the black paws of his new companion.

"You 'wake, Can? Sleep alright?"

It had been a long while since she'd even debated on returning to Pisces and now, here she was standing outside the entrance. The smell of Maji Walezi slammed into her nostrils and if she had any doubts about wanting to return they were washed away. Sure, Leon wasn't here but after getting her head together the lioness figured she could just find him later after a well earned rest in her den. The necklace she and Usui had crafted for him weighed heavily in her satchel and she was eager to gift it to him.

What had she gotten Cancer? Well, he was always wanting to write and draw maps so one of the glowing fish bones would do him well. They made great carving and writing utensils, after all.

So with a deep breath and the feel of nervous butterflies at her belly she continued forward. Her boyfriend... She'd missed him and she was certain he had missed her too! It had been a long while since she was home and surely the feline hadn't given up on her. Why would he? He loved her and those you loved you didn't give up on, not ever. No matter how drastic the circumstances seemed.

When did she sense something was off? Possibly when she neared Cancer's den and the scent of another creature came at her. At first she figured it meant nothing but then that sentence, "You 'wake, Can? Sleep alright?" A voice asking that question could only mean one thing... Cancer was sharing his den with someone else. Someone else besides his own girlfriend. A low almost inaudible growl formed in her throat. Had she been replaced?

Instinctively her claws unsheathed as she felt anger rising in her belly. How could she have been replaced? Didn't Cancer love her? If he did why would he give up on her without even trying to reach her first? That wasn't fair...

Perhaps she never should have left... Cancer probably felt betrayed because she had gone to search for Leon. For a moment her anger waned and she paused before entering his den. Was she in the wrong? Her tail flicked behind her as she pondered this. No... No, she needed to go after Leon and to get her head straight. Cancer should have waited on her.

The anger flared back up and she entered the den.

"What the HELL!?" Her magic flared up briefly but piddled away, leaving the last word spoken loud but not nearly as loud as what it could have been. Still, there was a distinct lion-ish roar to the tone as she glared at first Cancer and then... Fisher? She knew exactly who that was. She'd given a lucky rock to him when they were children. However, she felt no ill-will towards the little brown creature, Cancer probably didn't even tell him about her.

Her icy blue eyes turned to the black cat while her tail lashed furiously behind her. "I told you I would return and yet you couldn't even wait for me? EXPLAIN!" The last word again held that tone of a roar, a loud one but not magically amplified... not yet.

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words: 529
tagged: Cancer, Fisher, Leon
ooc: ---
muse: 6/10

"Talking looks like this!"
Thinking looks like this...

note: Leon isn't in Maji Walezi yet... this is just his Makyna senses going off, because I think it might be fitting to have one more round before he barges in.

Leon feared he had lost track of Zetos. He hadn't been able to find the little leopard cub in a long time, and it pierced him, digging in deep. He had promised the little feline that he would be there to protect him, to keep him safe against all those who sought to harm him, and yet... he couldn't even keep track of where the cub went. It seemed he had a habit of losing those he had vowed to protect. Was he cursed to lose the ones he loved the most? Rohan's presence was fleeting, like a flickering fire; one day he was there, and another he was gone, appearing every so often and vanishing again. Zetos disappeared too, and he didn't know if the cub would ever turn back up again. Makyna... Makyna he had left behind, but it was for their own good. She would be happier without him interfering. Despite the varying surges of emotion he received, he pledged ignorance. Through the waves of loneliness, hopelessness, wistfulness, he pushed it aside if only to tell himself that it was better this way. Even Giggle's words resounded in his mind, but the bear was stubborn.

Or maybe he was just too afraid to face what waited for him if he really was wrong.

Each Gembound that fell away from him took a piece of him with them. He felt broken and incomplete. He felt like he had been shattered and now struggled to put himself back together, but he had to, because his desire to persist and live was unconquerable. It may take damage, be beaten and torn, but he knew he would pull through. It left him with inner turmoil so powerful the bear couldn't decide if he wanted to get up and make the best of what he had, or if he simply lacked the energy to do so. He was sad, and each memory of each Gembound that left him kept coming back to him, but did he really want to lay in the dirt and mope about it all day?

No. He couldn't.

Eventually, Leon had gotten up and left the worn down, stone foundation that had become his new home. The deep glittering blue of the room was beginning to make him angry. In his persistence, he became irritable; he needed to resolve this, but he couldn't go back. The only direction Leon felt he could move was forward. So he did. He walked, and he left Orion behind and traveled through the tunnels, looking at the carvings on the walls, taking in the scents, listening to voices in the distance. He traveled, and his anger only grew and distracted him, until his paws had somehow taken him to the very familiar entrance of a very familiar cave. Leon had stopped himself before setting foot inside, suddenly frozen.

How had he gotten here? How could he be so foolish as to take this path? But, most importantly, how could he move on? He couldn't go back. He could only go forward. Did that mean he had to face what demons lived here, in this cave, in Pisces?

It was comforting. Fisher's attention was met with a steady, soft purr- a sound he'd only ever let Makyna, and occasionally Bevy or Quix, hear him make. It was a soothing noise, but as he aged, it became less like a purr, and more like a rumble. A very content, happy, rumble. He'd close his eyes when he felt the grooming, then open again to glanced down as he was addressed. A tired, but comfortable smile. He opened his mouth to answer, but then a new voice roared over the falls. Cancer snapped his gaze over and when he saw Makyna, his heart stopped. She looks so angry! Had he done something wrong!?

Without thinking, the cat stood in a flash, careful enough not to toss poor Fisher over the edge, but sliding his legs out from under the overgrown ferret rather unceremoniously. He immidiately stood on the defensive, fur on end, ears pinned back. Wait for her? So what, she could profess herself to Leon but string him along despite it? The leopard felt a new kind of rage bubble up in his chest. He snarled back from his place on high.

"How dare you!" He snapped, teeth bared, voice a mix between a roar and a sob. "Leaving to find that precious bear of yours and expecting me to just, what, sit around on pause!?" He stepped forward, over Fisher, and as he did, his claws unsheathed, front-most paw gripping the edge of his den's floor. "I waited! I waited, and worried, and swore to myself it'd be okay! I've had to wait here, while you went flouncing about with your better boy toy! Do you know how much that hurts!? To watch the love of your life run off to find some smelly, greedy, selfish jerk? The kind of guy who never even gave me a chance! The same guy who put me down at every turn, just because he was jealous over you."

He glanced down at Fisher, then with a look of total rebellion, back to Makyna. Temper flaring, he probably wouldn't of said what came next under any other mindset... but right now, he was hurt, and angry, and accused- and barely awake.

"At least Fisher bothered to fucking listen to me! You only ever cared about Leon! I was just a passing fling, wasn't I!? WASN'T I!?" Tears welled up in his eyes now. He'd been looking forward to Makyna's return, had been so hopeful that Leon would mess up with her. He didn't understand the bond they had, and likely never would. "Explain that to me, then! Why is he so damn important!? WHY CAN'T I BE THAT IMPORTANT!?"

"Speech"

Tagging; Fisher, Makyna, Leon
well hopefully this is a good set up then bear boy :P

Cancer didn't get the chance to reply, because instead of a nice cuddly morning to get over his nightmares, he was greeted by a lioness' roar at the entrance of the den. His ears flicked up and he twisted around, staring upside-down at the familiar sandy fur of a cat he was all too familiar with.

Was that... Makyna? When had she gotten so big? And why was she shouting? His fur puffed up and his fur sparked, just lightly, a flicker of magic running through his fur harmlessly. He bared his teeth, just for a moment at Ky, because he hadn't seen her in so long and now she was being so hostile-- it took him a moment to realize she was talking to Cancer.

As the leopard pulled away from him and rose to his feet, the mustelid huffed and tried to settle down. He wasn't in the mood for a fight. He wasn't in the mood for any of this. Cancer started going off on something, talking about... Wait. Wait. Woah-- hey. "Hold up-- Leon-- what?" His tiny, whisper of a voice came up between the two, his copper eyes flashing between bright, sand and granite fur. He wriggled to his paws and stood up slowly, his height not even high enough to reach Cancer's chin on all fours. They could easily glare at each other over him-- and they probably would.

Makyna had been hiding around with Leon? Fisher hadn't seen Leon in cycles either! He had been all alone, struggling to survive, and they had lived here in Pisces this entire time? With Bevy and Cancer and a whole family and no one had thought, Oh hey, where's Fisher, I bet he'd love to be here! He had been forgotten, ignored, replaced.

He thought... Well, he supposed he had thought something stupid and childish. That Makyna cared about him. But apparently, she didn't, just like she didn't care for Cancer. The fisher cat could hear the pain in Cancer's tone and he turned to look at the black feline, concern in his eyes. He wiggled his way between the leopard's paws, nuzzling at his legs and belly, hoping to reassure Cancer that at least if all hell broke loose, they had each other. To him, Cancer was important. Fisher wouldn't forget him, replace him. He didn't look back at Makyna-- he couldn't believe what he was hearing. He didn't want to.

How dare she? But he was the one who'd told her to go in the first place! How dare he get so upset! "But I thought you understood! You told me to go after him!" Why was he spring this on her now? Back at the tunnel he'd told her to find him. Told her that Leon had no one else but her which was true! She was angry, she was also sad because even though she didn't want to she could see his point. Her voice was no longer roaring, gone down in tone to an almost normal tone. "I didn't want to hurt you! I didn't want to hurt anyone! But it seems that I can't be with you without hurting Leon and I can't be friends with Leon without you running off and sleeping around behind my back!" She snorted and lowered her head so it was even with her spine, a reflexive thing because she was angry. Even now with her head slightly lowered she was still taller than Cancer... A thing that she noted because... well, she didn't know why. Perhaps because she was angry and her body wanted a fight to show him how silly he was being but she wouldn't cave into that desire. Fighting would solve nothing. They just needed to talk this out. "I don't know if you've forgotten but you were no ray of sunshine to him either!"

Then, the black cat had her on the ropes. Questioning if she ever really cared about him. Right then, her anger dropped and was replaced by guilt. Horrible guilt. "No... No, Cancer, I... I loved you..." "Loved". Past tense. She wasn't sure after walking in on this if she could feel the same way about him ever again. "I just needed some time on my own. I never even found Leon-- I-- I--" Really, her time alone had been spent just like that. Alone with interaction with the occasional gembound and the cubs she had adopted. Her ears pinned against her head but not out of anger, it was sadness.

Her gaze dropped then as her eyes closed, since she was unable to hold it with the darker cat any longer. How could she compete with what he'd said? She shouldn't have left him... Should she have just toughed it out? Or made return trips to see him? Shoulda, coulda, woulda... It was over now, in the past.

"I'm--" Her eyes opened and she would have met his gaze to say "sorry" but something else caught her attention. Something brown and furry cuddling into the fur of Cancer's leg. As far as she was concerned until everything was said and done that was her leg to cuddle. A new surge of anger fueled by jealousy rippled through her body and made her hackles rise. Her blue eyes blazed with a new anger even greater than the one she had when walking in on the pair. Her mouth opened and a full-throated angry lion's roar ripped from her open maw. "GET OFF OF HIM, YOU UNDERSIZED HOMEWRECKER!" Then a bubble of magic pooled from her and the gem on her forehead pulsed with a tiny bit of light. What she'd done was cast a spell at him to forcefully move him away Cancer but if she had been in full control of herself she wouldn't have done it. In fact, after this was all said and done she would probably feel like a piece of crap for attacking him verbally and now magically. That would be later though and as soon as that fisher was away from Cancer. He didn't know what was going on, he had no right to interfere.
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words: 618
tagged: Cancer, Fisher, Leon
ooc: ---
muse: 8/10

"Talking looks like this!"
Thinking looks like this...

Leon hesitated, leaning away from the entrance as though the opening of the cave physically repelled him. He hadn't wanted to go this way, and yet his paws took him there regardless. What was it that drew him here? Could he hope to make his way without seeing anybody from Maji Walezi? Bevy would understand, surely she would... and maybe even Amaria, but... the bear huffed. His shoulders dropped and, tormented by his indecision, he slumped down onto his rump.

But he couldn't dispel the anger that had already brewed inside of him. Like a storm of dark clouds it lingered in his chest, unable to dissipate. He frowned, furrowing his brow, rubbing his face with his paw. He would sigh and hum and haw until he clenched his teeth together, aggravated at his own inability to move forward. Finally, the bear decided he'd had enough of this. There was no rule that said he couldn't simply retrace his steps. That was going forward too, wasn't it? Eager to get away from Pisces, the bear clambered back onto his paws and whirled around - but as his body spun away from the entrance, he heard something. Shouting. A feminine voice - he'd recognize it anywhere, echoing through the cave, distraught and angry and most of all hurt. Makyna.

Leon froze. The blood in his veins ran cold as soon as he heard her voice, and his own anger was soon washed over with the familiar feelings of his best friend. He couldn't stop the deluge of emotion that suddenly burst in through his barricade, washing over all the walls he had put up between them. It was so powerful, so unexpected, so deep - the bear slowly turned to face the cave again, and there he listened to the words, the voice of Cancer now in his rebuttal. The way the leopard spoke of him made him flinch - like he was just... a thing, an obstacle - his confidence chipped away with each vile thing the leopard said, especially about his jealousy. It was true. Everything about that was true, and Leon was so, awfully jealous. But he had left so that Makyna could be happy with Cancer. He made her happy. Didn't he?

You only ever cared about Leon.

That wasn't true. He knew it wasn't true - he could feel it just as she did, everything she felt about Cancer the bear had come to know. Yet Cancer screamed about her not listening, and not caring, and suddenly he yelled - and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Nobody was going to yell at Makyna. Especially not Cancer.

Leon's lips curled back as anger of his own flared in his chest. The bear didn't spare a second longer to eavesdrop on the argument in the cave. He was beaten, his confidence broken, but he would survive - with the part of him that was not him suddenly wounded, Leon could withstand it no longer. Everything inside of him screamed to run and defend and protect her as he'd always promised, to destroy the things that hurt her, to destroy Cancer. Tear him apart. How could he! Leon had left the cave, he had conceded defeat. He'd given up and let Cancer have the only creature that ever made him feel whole. And this was how he treated her? He'd lived and suffered in silence for too long. Everything else slipped away, about moving forward, about feeling sorry for himself; none of that was important now. He had to protect her, and he had to crush the thing that hurt her.

The bear stormed into the cave, a low rumble mounting in his chest. His paws skidded against the ground as he ran and tried to figure out where they were - up by Cancer's den. There, he caught sight of Makyna, nearly defeated until she roared at somebody else, and her anger only fed him more, burning, setting everything in him alight. He bolted forward, climbing the rocks and coming upon Cancer's den, and then he lunged - straight over Makyna towards the black leopard, the offender, the one that hurt her.

Post-Roll Edit:
As passionate and furied as his aim was true, the bear cleared the lioness, paws with their vicious nails extended in preparation to take down the feline. A wicked roar erupted from his throat as he lunged over top of Makyna, intending to barrel straight into Cancer and take him down right then and there, thrashing fangs hoping to catch everything he could.