Wilder shied away from the sudden shouting that Blackberry rained upon her. She was stupid - she shouldn't have said that! She should have held her tongue. For a moment she was scared that Blackberry was going to lash out at her but a moment later she realized that the goose was going to do no such thing.

She was silent for a second, trying to register Blackberry's words. Every second she was growing more curious. What on earth had she done?!

She'd heard the stories, of course - that Blackberry was a maniac. That she killed and murdered and hunted the innocent. That she raised her family to be like her - killers. But Wilder always had a hard time believing it. Nobody could be that bad. And looking at the state of Blackberry now, she could hardly connect the broken thing to some kind of terrible figure of fear.

But if Blackberry was right, and she would be better of dead, then it was true. A murderer. A monster. And that meant that she deserved to die as well, for her crimes.

But no, that didn't sit right with Wilder. That wasn't fair. She could still change, right? She could still heal, rebuild, be better! She closed her eyes for a second and decided to make a brave leap. "I don't want you dead. I would be sad if you died. My world would not be better if you weren't in it."

Blackberry couldn't help it. She laughed. It was the first laugh she had ever released in a long time and her throat was hoarse and ill suited for the task so the sound was more like a very fractured honk. But what Wilder had said. It was ridiculous! Stupid! Arrogant and ignorant! She laughed and continued to laugh for a while, holding back the feeling that she didn't want to admit was there.

"If you think that then you're dumber then you look!" She snapped her beak a few times as her laughter died away. "You just met me. You don't know anything about me! What makes you think you're world would be any worse or better if I was gone?"

But she couldn't stop herself. She couldn't stop that feeling, something long slumbered, long forgotten and abandoned. It was warm and tingling over her feathers. She appreciated the thought, the notion that if she died, someone would care. Someone would not be happy that her life had ended.

She had never needed it before because she didn't give a shit about what people thought. Because her family was all she needed. But now that she was alone, that she stayed away from her family, that she felt surrounded by enemies, did it truly occur to her that she was unwanted and so, so hated. It was a humbling, horrible feeling for the goose and to have this stranger, this little cat, to say with all her heart, that she did not want her gone...well, it was quite something to feel.

The laughter made Wilder's heart sink. She'd done the wrong thing again. Perhaps this was a futile. Perhaps she should just leave the goose to die. Replace the rock exactly where it was, just like Blackberry asked, and leave and forget. Tell the Collector that the Bloodberries were gone, the mother was dead, and the rest scattered.

But she couldn't. No way. She couldn't just leave her.

There was one thing that she found she could hook onto. Blackberry insisted that Wilder knew nothing about her. In Wilder's experience, people liked to talk about themselves. Wilder was always perfectly happy to talk about herself as well, but even more happy to listen to what others had to say.

She sat up taller and inched her way a little closer to Blackberry again. Again, it was risky to ask now, but what else was she going to do? "Okay, then, tell me. If I'm so ignorant then tell me exactly why I shouldn't miss you!"

Blackberry couldn't stand ignorance. She couldn't stand idiots. And most of all she couldn't stand this cat because she was the embodiment of ignorance and idiots. If Wilder knew her name then she knew what she had done! Yet still, here she was, insisting that she didn't, telling her that her world would be worse without her.

She tried to force her dislike and revulsion for the kitten. She really did try but...somehow her words were getting through to Blackberry. She was listening to them. She was paying attention and the words were sparking something in her.

She pushed it down with revulsion, the old Blackberry refusing to give up her hole on hatred and anger. Instead she focused on fulfilling this one demand. Wilder's guess was spot on - Blackberry loved to talk about herself. She bared her teeth in a humorless grin. "Fine then. You want to know about me, I'll tell you."

Her head arched down and she leaned towards the cat. "My first kill happened when I was three cycles old. I'd just woken up after that wolf tore me to pieces. I saw him standing there, a lovely little blue bird. He was walking towards me and I just wanted...wanted to taste that blood of his! Was it blue like his feathers? Or red like everyone else? Well, when I drove my beak into his neck and ripped out his throat, I found out that it ran as red as my own. And oh, it was delicious!" She remembered it so vividly. She could taste the blood on her tongue, the sweet, tangy blood of that little blue bird and she almost retched with revulsion while the other half of her swooned with glee. "It puddled on the ground! He twitched and fell and the confusion in his eyes! Oh, that confusion was so glorious! He had no idea why I had killed him, why I'd thrown his body on the ground and let his blood splatter onto the rocks! I watched the last twitch of life leave his little body! I left his body there too, until it started to rot. Until the blue feathers turned gray and fell, until the skin began to grow loose and his entire body dissolved into black goop that stained the ground and evaporated into the air. The whole cave smelled of death and I showed him off like a trophy to the world! My finest kill! Oh, it was wonderful, delicious, his blood was delicious..."

But she couldn't continue. She couldn't help it. It was disgusting, horrible, revolting. She turned away from the cat and her beak opened wide, bile and vomit spilling from her throat.

She continued to retch once every last bit of food was out of her stomach before settling again, shivering. All the rage and anger and bravado she had been displaying moments before was gone. Her eyes were wide as the same scene replayed again but it was worse. It was terrible. Why had she done that? Why had she torn out that poor bird's throat? What had he ever done to her? What had he done to deserve a fate like that?!

At first, Wilder leaned in eagerly to listen to Blackberry's story but as she began, she felt her body go numb with horror. The way she described the murder, the way she reveled in the pain that she had caused...it was horrifying and disgusting and it made her skin crawl. And it made her head feel funny.

Death...blood...torment....all stuck, all stuck in that cycle of pain. Blackberry was the centerpiece, the primary gear, the source of all the misery and hatred and anger. She told Wilder about her kill and she told her how she loved it.

The light died from Wilder's eyes to be replaced with a mistiness as she curled up inside of herself. The strangeness took over and her claws slid in and out of their sockets as she regarded Blackberry, her stance now hunched but terrifying, her gaze cold and sightless. "D̶͖̆ë̶̹́a̸̮̿ṭ̵͊h̷͙̆ ̷̱̇i̶̲͒s̸̥̓ ̶̢͑ä̵̻́ ̵̧̛l̴̹̈i̴̯͛e̵͚̿" she croaked as she began to advance on the bird. "M̶̢̾ú̸̯r̸͖̃d̸̪͝e̷͔͗r̶̼̓e̶̺͌ř̴͙,̶͍̈́ ̵̝̋y̸̜͛ŏ̷̫u̵̧̐ ̸͇͝a̵̗̅r̵̞̒e̴͙̐ ̵͇̍a̸͎͑ ̶͉́m̷̞̿ȕ̷̹r̴̪̽d̴̤͗e̸͖͝r̸͝ͅė̶͎r̵̛͔,̸̞̄ ̸̖͛y̶̨͂ô̴̹u̴̩̔ ̶̗͛ȁ̵̝r̴̺̀ẽ̶̝ ̸͚̈́ṕ̶̖á̸͚ĭ̷͎n̶̟̆,̷̮̍ ̴͍̀d̶͍̾e̷͕̔a̷͔̕ṯ̸͛h̵̢̒,̶̻͋ ̸̊ͅp̶̩̿à̸̢ỉ̵ͅň̴̹,̵̹͒ ̷̦̿h̷̫͐a̷̲͐t̷̬̔r̴̘̄ē̶̩d̵̩͊ ̷͚͠Ȃ̴̻N̸̤̽G̴̳͒E̴͉͠Ȑ̸̪" She began to spit and hiss, her entire body trembling as magic rolled through her body, causing her fur to twitch and bristle. She couldn't control the magic, it sputtered out before any spell could be cast but the force of emotion that she felt as Blackberry recounted her story, as the images of the bird, of the blood, of all the broken feathers rolled through her head, she lost control.

But as the retching sound reached her ears, the real Wilder seemed to wake up, seizing back control with a moment of struggling and hesitating. At first she didn't know what had happened. But Blackberry was no longer screeching, she was throwing up all over the wall.

Wilder wanted to rush forward and comfort her...but what if she had just threatened her? What if she tried to lash back if she got too close? She stood there, trembling, waiting for Blackberry's fit to be over before she whispered, barely audible into the silence of the cave. "...I'm sorry..."

Few things scared Blackberry. The death of her family members scared her, but that was the be expected. Her own death scared her, although that had become significantly less true in nearing days. Violence scared her now, but it was nothing compared to the primal terror when the voice touched her ears. At first she wasn't even sure if Wilder was speaking or if it was some entity in the room. The voice was just so different. She could barely hear what the voice was saying above the spitting and hissing, but she seemed to understand. At least, as well as she could.

She was frozen against the wall as the kitten's strange fit ended and her voice, her normal voice, whispered through the darkness. Blackberry had no idea how to react to any of what the fuck had just happened. She'd never had any kind of contact with the strange and mysterious things in the caves. She knew many that wanted to delve into the secret depths but she was absolutely not one of them. But now here she was faced with something new and she couldn't help but be intrigued.

"What was that," she honked hoarsely. "And what do you think you're apologizing for?"

To be honest, Wilder didn't want to talk about herself to Blackberry. She didn't want to tell her about what had just happened and why it was happening, but it was only fair, since Blackberry had just let her know her story. At least a part of it. The only problem was that Wilder wasn't sure how much she could even say or think about without getting pulled away.

Well, no risk no reward!

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply to steady herself before she started speaking. "I hatched next to the Sp-...the blue glowing thing in Polaris. It zapped me and sometimes I go funny. I don't know sometimes I just forget and when I wake up people look at me strange or I've hurt myself. I don't know what sets it off, sometimes magic does, too much of it makes it hard to resist, and sometimes its random. I can't help it."

She held out one of her paws and turned it over. From her body a soft pink glow began to fill the space, enough for Blackberry to see the scars that crossed over her leg. "I did this to myself, apparently. My friend told me that I went all funny. There was a voice in our ears and the earth cracked. I don't know why but it happens." She pulled her leg back to tuck under her body, her eyes little slits on her face. "I'll figure it out someday. I don't want to hurt anyone."

Blackberry had never heard of such a thing and, if she was being honest, she pitied the little cat. She would not like her memory tampered with, even if it was her own head messing with it. Although she wasn't sure if she believed that Wilder's plight was supernatural, there was still something different about her.

She hesitated for a moment, but she couldn't help responding. "I have, or, had a son that couldn't control himself. He had trouble keeping his emotions and actions in check. It wasn't memory loss but it was hard to raise a kid like that." It was probably not helpful, in fact it might actually make Wilder feel worse but it was all she had. She was new, after all, to this "being nice" stuff.

When Wilder held out her paw, Blackberry leaned forward to look and almost chocked at the sighed of the ugly scars. She had never known anyone that willingly hurt themselves. Or, well, Wilder said she didn't even remember doing it. That was a little confusing to Blackberry and she looked at the kitten quizzically. "I don't get it. You hurt yourself but you didn't know you were doing it? The earth cracked? What is this nonsense?" She sniffed and tried to regain her bitter, classic Blackberry demeanor, but it was probably ruined by now.

Wilder fidgeted impatiently. Blackberry was a skeptic apparently and even though she had literally just gone through a trance, she wasn't believing that stranger things could happen. She tried to reach out towards Blackberry with her magic, to show her what had happened that day, but the magic seemed to escape her grasp.

She frowned. "It's true! I want to tell you but...I can't remember! One moment I was freaking out the next my friend was yelling at me and there was blood on my arm. It was scary!" She looked away, a shiver passing down her spine. She didn't want to talk about this anymore. It was starting to creep up on her again, remembering the voice and the cracking earth.

Tear the flesh from the bone. Tear the bone from the gem. It haunted her dreams every now and then and to speak of it in waking hours...no, it was coming again. She couldn't keep thinking about it. She shook her head as her vision began to blur and began pawing at her face, a strange mewling coming from her throat as she did everything in her power to resist.

Blackberry watched Wilder with confusion and growing agitation. She was starting to freak her out, pawing at herself like that. She hadn't asked for Wilder to come into her home and act like this. But Blackberry still struggled to stare at this tiny cat and not care. She was a mom, after all, a mom that had liked to adopt any child that needed her help. Maybe others saw it as kidnapping and brainwashing, but to her it was simply growing her family, raising strong children. And now, even though Wilder was beyond her child cycles, she wanted to take this one in too, however much she annoyed her.

She she did was any mother goose would do at the sight of a child in distress. She shuffled forward a bit awkwardly, reached forward with her wings, and pulled the cat in closer. To her side, that was, nobody found her stomach claws very comfortable.

She didn't really realize she was doing it until she'd done it and Wilder was pressed up against her fur but seeing this, feeling this, it tossed her back into the past again. She had once pulled close a black-furred daughter and she had calmed at her side. The little pup snuggling close against her feathers.

She thought she'd never feel that again. She had sworn it away. She had no right to call herself a mother anymore. But...she couldn't help but feel it again, that protectiveness, that caring. It disgusted her that, after everything that she had done, she was here now, again, wanting to care for another child but she also felt so relieved that she could be here again.