"Blueberry and I made three children, as you know. Huckleberry was always the problem..." Azure listened in silence, taking this all carefully in, word by word. The more Blackberry spoke of Huckleberry, the more she felt it rankle her patience. What does he have to do with this-? she thought--she knew there must be a reason, but she hated hearing about him. She preferred to pretend that he didn't even exist. At the mention of the wolf, she wondered if Blackberry meant Jayberry--but maybe it was another wolf, a better wolf. The fact she thought it was a "better mother" at least meant that Blackberry fucking knew she'd been awful, right? Hrmph.

Her explanation, though, of her own insane, childlike jealousy--her lashing out at her own child for... what, getting rescued?! baffled even Azure. ...What the hell? When Blackberry said "because he became so weak," Azure felt a sharp shock of anger. He was always weak. And if he wasn't--if he let himself become this way? Then he was weak enough. He's shit, she thought, rather venomously, but she didn't say it.

As Blackberry continued on, though, Azure suddenly felt a nightmarish sense of unreality settling over her like a snowstorm in the dark. She'd asked how she'd been made... and this sudden story of a crippled newborn, a crippled baby, had her blood running cold. How does this relate to me? she wanted to blurt--to demand--because she had a horrifying feeling about what Blackberry was about to say. She wanted it not to be true, but she found she couldn't speak--as if in a dream, she could only listen, her eyes slowly, slightly widening; cold creeping through her.

Blackberry fell silent at last.

Incredulous, Azure began to speak, slowly--as if she couldn't believe what she'd heard, as if even Blackberry couldn't be this evil. "You found a... newly-hatched kid, and... you fought Huckleberry in front of it, and made him--murder it? Her? You made him MURDER a KID? And that-..." her voice briefly broke, her eyes searching Blackberry, roaming frantically over her. Over her broken body, her scars, her mutated teeth. In a voice thin and quiet with both shock and brimming anger, she finished--"And that was-... That was me?"

@Blackberry

Blackberry didn't have to wait long for Azure to respond to what she had said and she realized she'd made a mistake in her story. Her eyes opened wide and she shook her head. "N-no! Sorry, no, that came out wrong. It wasn't a child. It had most likely been injured before and retreated to its chrysalis, but it was obvious that it'd never fully recovered. Or perhaps it'd always been like that. But..." she paused as a wave of sickening dread poured over her. She couldn't have known that when she'd found the chrysalis. Most hatched children, not adults. "It may as well have been a child. I doubt it would have made a difference to me." Perhaps it was selfish to say something like that, but she couldn't stop herself as another burst of self-hatred made her want to lift her stomach-claws and stab her beak right into her heart. She was a monster.

She couldn't look up again. She couldn't look at Azure, now that she knew. "I shouldn't have kept it from you," she rasped. "I should have told you a long time ago." She was starting to crack again. Her breathing was growing heavier, wheezing. She had to stop, now, before she lost control. Her beak clamped shut and she shook her head.

@Azure

Azure listened, that nightmarish sense of unreality falling all around her like some dark, unwanted curtain. The world wasn't the friendly, normal place she'd begun to imagine it to be. She felt dizzy, as if outside her own body, listening to her own breathing from afar.

She listened to Blackberry's words. Her apologies--not for murdering, or forcing Huckleberry to kill, but for keeping this from her. And for a long moment, incredulous, she had no idea what to say. She sputtered, and when at last she found her words, they were thick with shock, with disbelief--but her voice was soft. Now, for the first time, she was realizing just how ruined--how fucked up--Blackberry was. The goose wasn't thinking about expressing remorse for murder, no; or for forcing her own child to kill. She was expressing remorse for the minor "hiding" of this information, and it told Azure volumes about her twisted mind, about her values. She doesn't even realize which part of this is wrong.

"...That's what you're sorry for?" she started, quietly. "For not telling me about this shit? You're not saying sorry for killing a kid--or a not-kid, whatever--or for forcing your own kid to murder other Gembound--you're just sorry for--not telling me?" Her voice had risen, disbelief thick in it.

She left this hanging for a moment, not knowing what to say, and then abruptly went on--

"...Tell me you know what you did wrong. Tell me you feel sorry for killing others."

Huckleberry was a fucking wreck. There was no way he'd ever be even remotely close to normal; no one with any self-respect, Azure thought, would ever want to be anywhere near him. He was dangerous; he was a simpering wreck with nothing to offer anyone and no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And that was Blackberry's fault. And all those lives she'd snuffed out, vanished away?

I'm half murder victim, Azure realized suddenly, slowly, and the realization filled her with rising rage: an anger for one of the fallen she'd never known existed. "You killed-.... ME. You killed the Gembound who made ME. You killed my parent," she said, and it was in a tone of accusation, of realization, of anger and of horror.

She'd kept herself so carefully-controlled, all this time, afraid of what might spill out--but now, for the very first time, she felt a strange sort of relief. There was nothing wrong with her. There was nothing wrong with her. There was something wrong with Blackberry; and that was where all the fault lay. Azure had been wronged. She'd never done anything wrong. All the fears that plagued her, her insecurities, her ignorance--... She'd never known why she was like that.

And looking at Blackberry now? Suddenly it made sense.

Suddenly, it wasn't her own fault anymore.

@Blackberry

She could feel the anger stirring in her, water trying to free itself from a container far too small. The accusations that she wasn't sorry for what'd she'd done, both to the bird and to her own child, however, it was poking holes in the container. Water was seeping out and it was like storm clouds, rolling in over her head, making her vision hazy as she tried to stay in control. But anger was too easy to give into. It was too familiar and too easy and nothing about this was easy.

So after the moment of silence, Azure glaring down at her with disbelief before demanding she admit, the container exploded. Her head snapped up, eyes blazing. "What kind of fucking question is that?! What the fuck do you think I'm doing here?! If I wasn't sorry I would never have left my own family behind! I would never have let myself be dragged here! I would rather have died then let my own fucking disaster of a son drag me here like some worthless rag! I would have broken out of here and murdered all of these idiots or died trying to do it but I haven't because I CAN'T. I don't understand why...why the hell did I do those things?! Hurt people and kill them...for no reason! Who the fuck does that?! And Huckleberry! HOW COULD I DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT TO MY OWN SON?!"

Furiously, she leaned over a ripped one of her feathers out of her useless wings and began tearing it up. "How could you even ask me if I'm sorry at all?! How many people would still be alive if I hadn't decided to be a homicidal maniac? How many young lives that I cut short would still be thriving and doing great things if I'd never hatched at all?! How many of my children would be alive or living free and happy if I hadn't done any of those things?!" She wasn't crying anymore, too caught up in her ranting and raving that she barely noticed that the feather had been reduced to tiny scraps. "Yes. I killed you! I killed you and I'm sorry! Does that make you feel any better?"

@Azure

There it is. There she is.

With dismay, Azure watched as her mother--No, not my mother. She was never my mother, she realized, for the first time--and this was an additional spike of relief, and of justification for her growing anger--basically lost her shit. Screeching. Flailing. Tearing a feather to pieces, her rage once again taking hold.

Azure felt fear--who wouldn't? This was the towering figure of her nightmares, though now reduced to so much torn-up lunacy. The fear drove her back a step, but there she held her ground. And this courage, at least, was perhaps born only of the bars between them; was that cowardice? She didn't know. All she knew was that Blackberry was screaming, shouting, and none of it made sense. She claimed remorse, yet... How could she not know?

Realization slowly hit.

None of it makes sense. Not even she knows. She's just-... nuts.

When the goose stopped, she didn't answer straightaway. That primal fear still threatened her, inexplicable and near-crippling, and she had to take a moment--a breath--to steel herself to even think, let alone speak.

Her voice--finally--came very soft, and very cold, like snow falling. There was no warmth, no shelter in her tone. "Why would that make me feel any better?" she asked Blackberry quietly, and her bitter blue eyes stared at the goose's. "Why would you feeling sorry make anyone feel better about what you've done?"

She paused, and then retook her step, peering closely at Blackberry. Something struck her, about all of this; something wrong. "I don't believe you," she said, abruptly, and her still-soft voice held a tone of wonder, of realization. "I don't believe you. No one does all those things and doesn't know why. No one does those things for no reason. Just because you think it's bad now doesn't mean you don't know why you did it. You're lying," she hissed, and it was, for the first time, the low raging hiss of another goose.

Again, Azure paused, though this time only briefly. She came suddenly to a new conclusion. "I came here to speak with my mother. Thanks for telling me the truth--that you aren't my mother at all. My mother's dead. You killed her. Now I know." Her voice grew louder, at this. There wasn't any need to make up with Blackberry. Bitter betrayal roiled in her. She's not my mother, the thought repeated, horror and relief twinning in the still-dawning realization. She killed my mother. Or had it been a father? -Did it matter? No.

Still, she hesitated, lingering for a moment, trying desperately to push down the revulsion, the hatred and the fear, that the sight of the twisted goose was bringing her. "Is there anything else you want to say, before I leave?" she asked--and she was proud, if only briefly, of how calm she managed to keep her tone. One thing she would never do... she would never become like Blackberry. She would never be ruled by rage, or hate.

She could see--looking at the worn mess in the cage before her--where that would bring her.

@Blackberry

Blackberry wasn't really seeing Azure anymore. It was all of them, all the family standing there. Not that she actually saw them, but they might as well have been physically there for all she could understand. Azure's assessment was probably correct - she was nuts.

"Of COURSE it doesn't then why should I say it if it doesn't matter? I'm sorry but you shouldn't forgive me because I was terrible to you. All of you! I'm sorry I'm sorry I should have loved you more I should have been a better mother I shouldn't have hurt you I can't...I can't remember! I can't remember why I did it! Why was I like that? Why? WHY?!" Nobody understood. Nobody realized that she couldn't! Why couldn't she remember? Did she want to remember? If she did, would she be like that again? Terrible, violent, psychotic...no, she couldn't be like that! Not again, not again!

The memories were tormenting her. She could see them, she could see what had happened, but it was like experiencing it from the eyes of another person. She couldn't hear her thoughts, she couldn't feel her pain, all she could do was be horrified by what she'd done. The longer Azure was here, the more it pressed down at her head. She'd been holding it off, trying to stop herself from being crushed, but she was tired. She gave up. It all came down at once.

She suddenly jerked forward, her body pressing against the thick vines and branches, her neck poking through and reached out towards Azure, wild desperation in her eyes. "Don't leave me here please don't I don't remember I can't remember! I don't want to don't leave me here just kill me. Kill me, please, I don't want to live like this anymore! I can't do this I can't take this!!"

She babbled on like this for a while, tears streaming down her face. Behind Azure, Rift turned his head, narrowing his eyes. He let out a soft warning growl - for Blackberry or Azure, it wasn't clear.

@Azure

Azure recoiled at Blackberry's sheer madness. Her vacant stare--it was clear she wasn't even seeing Azure, anymore. What she was seeing, the hybrid could not tell.

Still, the first flood of half-nonsensical words stung her, shards of glass in her heart. Blackberry was sorry; she regretted. But if she couldn't remember, then she truly must be mad--completely mad, and deadly. Her sudden frantic, horrible begging left the hybrid backing quickly away.

"What-?" Her utter shock was quickly eclipsed by both horror and anger. Her brow drew down as she stared, her gut wrenching. She didn't hear Rift, or if she did, she made no sign. Azure's response came, again, quiet--but intense, a shocked half-whisper. "That's your solution, again-? Your solution to every problem; to kill?" She hesitated, for a long moment, scowling. She had no intention of killing Blackberry. The very idea was anathema to everything she'd become; she recoiled in horror at the very idea of violence, and that was Blackberry's fault, herself.

"You can't be my good mother because I don't have a mother because she's dead," Azure began again, her voice stronger now. "I'm not gonna kill you because you aren't worth ruining my fucking life over. You're already in my nightmares. I don't want to have nightmares about your blood and your dying and--feathers and screaming and whatever the hell else," she went on. Some small voice in her head whispered, murmuring to her, reminding her: The same way she probably had Huckleberry kill my real mother, and the realization made her tremble with horror, again, and now with black rage. The knowledge that this, at least, would haunt her nightmares--imagined memories of a dying mother she'd never known--filled her with fury.

"You're not worth me killing," she decided, after a long moment of trembling anger. The words slipped out of their own accord, past a haze of blind hatred, and she took a shaking breath. "I'm glad you're sorry, though."

She wasn't sure why she'd said that--she was; it was somehow at least some thin sliver of relief to know that the goose held remorse, let alone remorse enough to torment her this badly. At least she wasn't gloating about it--that Azure couldn't have borne.

Another Gembound might have sneered at Blackberry's (undoubtedly hundredth or so) descent into babbling madness; they might have said that Blackberry deserved this punishment, to be locked up and forced to remember. But Azure had had enough; her own thoughts and emotions were roiling, so much so that she couldn't make sense of them. She had a thousand things to say, but she couldn't untangle them and put them into words and so she turned, tucking her head and making as if to leave.

@Blackberry

Blackberry stared at Azure, eyes wide and horrified. She was rejecting her. Rejecting her hard. She had nightmares about her? About her own mother? No. She was rejecting Blackberry as her mother completely. It had taken a little while to sink in but now that it was, she realized just how hopeless it all was. Her family was rejecting her, throwing her behind. They were stuck to the Blackberry she couldn't for the life of her remember. Jayberry was trying to bring back her age of terror while Huckleberry and Azure saw her as nothing more then a bloodthirsty, abusive monster. Which, perhaps, was all she really was, in the end.

She wasn't going to kill her. She was going to leave her here. She threw herself against the cage bars again, tears streaming down her face. "No, please! I can't live with it, I can't live with this guilt, this pain! I want to die please I don't want to fight anymore. It'd be a mercy! It wouldn't be a murder! It wouldn't, please PLEASE. I just want to see him again!" She continued babbling aimlessly as Azure turned away. She didn't even seem to notice, reaching through the bars with her beak. She needed someone. She needed the touch of someone. It'd been so long, far too long, since she felt a loving touch.

Not since she'd been back with Jayberry. And before that, not since Wilder. And before that...not since before Blueberry had disappeared.

"PLEASE AZURE," she screamed. "DON'T LEAVE ME BEHIND."

@Azure

The voice tore at her, all anguish and panic, ripping at her emotions and threatening to split her two ways. She wanted to leave, more than anything--to be rid, at last, of this nightmare haunting her past. This nightmare that had forced her brother--no, her father?--to murder her mother. Yet now Blackberry's voice, begging, tugged powerfully at her, crying for her to come back, and the far more empathetic hybrid felt her own anguish rise up to twin with it.

She paused, hesitating, the trauma of this moment roiling through her and ripping at her.

That would scar.

Still facing away, she spoke, quietly.

"So ask them to kill you. Ask Rift to kill you. I don't have a way to kill you painlessly-... RIFT," she called out, turning, eyes narrowing. She almost sounded like she had her shit together, and she was somehow proud of that, but it was barely a whisper of a thought beneath the nightmarish confusion that whorled around her. She felt as though she might drown in it.

"And it would be wrong," she added quietly, and felt a spike of hatred at her own words. She fired a brief sidelong glare toward Blackberry as she thought, Not that you'd understand how murder is wrong.

She knew Rift could hear; she'd heard the growl of warning not long ago, though she'd showed no signs of hearing it. She'd had no intention of killing Blackberry--she still didn't--but he was her captor, and if Blackberry wanted to die, that was his problem. She sure as hell wasn't about to do it and then have half the fucking caves after her.

She tried to keep swearing, in her mind, to hold onto that last thread of tough-bitch persona she'd clung to since all of this. To keep her new self strong in her mind. But beneath it lay a frightened child, and the moment that Blackberry's screeching broke through, that child would be all that was left.

Distantly, far in the back of her mind and perhaps in defense of this, a part of her welled up sour and hateful. She's as fucking pathetic as Huckleberry.

She set her jaw and closed her eyes, trying to push this--trying to push all her thoughts--away. She turned to face Rift's direction, opening her eyes and standing silent, waiting to see if he would respond.

@Rift ?

Blackberry's screeching voice broke off into frantic sobs and her neck retracted back into the cage, curling down into her scarred chest. Her entire body trembled as she tried to think, she tried to think of something to say. She was halfway gone at this point, however, half of her mind frantic to get her daughter back, to get back the love she desired to desperately because despite all of the hatred and anger and madness, she loved all of her children. Azure included. And this rejection of even the mercy of giving her death hurt deeply.

Anymore hurts like this...and she wouldn't last.

Rift was standing now, keeping a watchful eye on Azure and Blackberry. Distantly, she heard him mumble "No, I'm sorry but she can't die. Not yet. I think you should probably leave, Azure." but Blackberry didn't care. She wasn't listening. She hated him. He'd dragged her back here and trapped her here with nothing but her thoughts. He'd taken her son and twisted him against her! No, she'd done that herself, hadn't she? She'd been the one to push him away. She'd hurt him too much; Rift had only provided the method of escape.

It was hopeless. It was all gone. She'd lost everything. No, she'd destroyed everything herself. She didn't care anymore. Her sobbings faded away. She didn't look at Azure anymore. It was obvious she was done and anything else that the hybrid said...she wasn't going to listen.

What was the point?

*exit

@Azure