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CYCLE 120Current time: Apr 04 2025, 02:49 PM


The Forgotten Cave IN Main Area
To all the walls that we are meant to break
We must be more than animals in chains
Online
Lone Gembound
799 POSTS ʡ 160
Feminine 76 Cycles
Black Cat Jaymie

#21
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 85%
RESTORED TO 100%


Wilder wasn't sure what she expected from Blackberry. She certainly expected no comfort, no love, but apparently the goose was ready to turn those expectations on their head. She flinched when the feathers touched her and was still as she was pulled close. The warmth of Blackberry was against her side and she glanced up at the bird. She had an expression of awkwardness and didn't look in her eyes. But Wilder could feel it in her body language and the way she pressed up against her.

She blinked. She'd never had a mother before. She knew very few that had even had parents. Black, she guessed, was the only thing close to a father figure, but she had not seen him in some time. She shifted and tried to think about what to say.

"What happened to your family," she suddenly blurted out but then immediately regretted what she had said. She'd done that a number of times in this conversation, asking questions that she knew had been risky and ended up failing to get any answers. She shyly looked up at the goose, hoping that this time it would be different.



 
Quote
 
someone tell me how I got here
from the city to this frontier
Offline
Inactive
610 POSTS ʡ 10
Female 88 Cycles
Albino Canada Goose Jaymie

#22
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 100%
RESTORED TO 100%


It was a question she had been avoiding for a long time. She didn't want to think about it, she didn't want to revisit everything she had done. She had loved her family, once. Truly, she did. And her own hatred, her anger, it had completely destroyed them. She shivered as she looked down at Wilder, her gaze more gentle then it had been in a long, long time.

Wilder was here now. Perhaps...perhaps this was the time for her to let go of her hatred and pride. She hadn't met someone like Wilder before and found herself ready to finally open up and talk. She hadn't ever...not since Blueberry. And it had taken a long time for her to even open up to him. But now she was a different creature, broken by her own choices.

"I don't know," she answered, truthfully. "But...but I can tell you about them, if you'd like. I had many children. We were a strong family. I can...tell you about that."

At Wilder's silent nod of her head, Blackberry took a deep breath and began. "Well, it started with Blueberry. When I was a mere 2 cycles old I met him. He helped me recover after a nasty fight, but I was a hyperactive child. I was always looking for new people to fight and bully and push around. I...I admit I was not the kindest companion. I hated his name. How he could dare steal the berry from my name. I called him Moose," she recalled with a small huff of laughter. She had been quite foolish back then.

"I didn't realize how much he meant to me until I was killed. A wolf, a white one, she tore me to pieces. It was revenge, perhaps, because we had once fought as children. But when I went into my crystal to recover, Blueberry waited for me. I didn't know why...I couldn't understand. But when I came out, he was there for me, tormented with worry. But the time after that, when I truly recognized how I felt for him, that was the greatest time of my life." She wanted to smile and remember the times with glory. But there were too many things interfering. She had been furious and vengeful for something that she doubted had even existed in the first place. There was so much blood and so much death...it made her sick, but there had also been Blueberry, fighting at her side, always at her side.

"We...we made children then. Three of them. Baneberry was the first, she had my gem. Then there was Huckleberry and...and Elderberry. Both had Blueberry's stone. There was Jayberry and Mulberry too, we had adopted them into the family when it first began. We called ourselves the Bloodberries, bound by our love for fighting and violence and for our namesakes. It is a strange name," she admitted a little guiltily. "We loved each other. Blueberry and I raised our children as fighters. We trained them to love the taste of blood. It was savage, I know, but it was a family. We adopted more children - Dewberry, Snowberry, Hellberry, Acaiberry...our own children had children of their own...Yewberry born of Jayberry and one of her kills, Cloudberry, born of Huckleberry and a magpie I had her murder, and Sylvanberry...my last child, born of the bird I told you about earlier."

She trembled, remembering the fight she had had with Huckleberry. That, perhaps, was the beginning of the end. She had abused him relentlessly. "I...I did not have a good relationship with some of my children. After a nasty fight, Baneberry disappeared. Huckleberry made friends and I became jealous of him, distrustful. I fought him...and I forced him to kill to appease my anger." Guilt was weighing in on her again and she shivered. "And when the bird was dead, he gave it life and I took her from him. I didn't let him see his own daughter. Why did I do that?"

Her emotions were building as she faced things she had never thought to face before. She thought about what she had done, she let herself question why, why had she done those terrible things? To be a good mother? No, no mother in her right mind would take away her son's own daughter and raise her as her own. To be a force of terror? That sounded more like it.



 
Quote
 
To all the walls that we are meant to break
We must be more than animals in chains
Online
Lone Gembound
799 POSTS ʡ 160
Feminine 76 Cycles
Black Cat Jaymie

#23
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 90%
RESTORED TO 100%


Wilder listened to Blackberry's tale, trying to put herself in the goose's place. She wouldn't have done the same, no, but Blackberry was not like her. At least, not when she was younger. She had been everything Wilder had been told - violent, abusive, insane, and a murderer. It scared her a bit, but Blackberry's grief at these thoughts, it made her think that, perhaps, that time was over. She was tormented by what she had done. She hated herself for everything that had happened.

She rested her head against Blackberry's side, not minding the slightly prickly texture of the feathers on her wings. "I don't know...but you loved you family, didn't you? Even if you sometimes didn't seem like you did?"

The one thing she took away from the story, though, was that Blueberry was truly the one and only she loved with all of her heart. She had heard of Blueberry too, but his own murderous tendencies were not as well-known as his mate's. "What happened to him? Blueberry...and the other children? Why aren't you with them anymore?"



 
Quote
 
someone tell me how I got here
from the city to this frontier
Offline
Inactive
610 POSTS ʡ 10
Female 88 Cycles
Albino Canada Goose Jaymie

#24
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 100%
RESTORED TO 100%


Why was Wilder still here? Why did she still persist after everything Blackberry was saying? How could she still have any scrap of pity or hope for her? She didn't understand. Nobody else showed any such sympathy. Anybody that knew her, outside of her family at least, wanted her dead.

She didn't blame them.

She swallowed, trying to force down the lump that was forming in her throat. "Yes," she croaked. "I loved them. I loved them all my heart. I still do and it hurts more then you could know to stay away from them. But I hit them and hurt them because they were not strong enough. I wanted them to be strong but all I did was make them hurt. I can't be with them now. Not ever again. They are safer without me around." If she wasn't around, Elderberry would still be alive. If she hadn't ordered the attack, Yewberry, Huckleberry, and Cloudberry would be free.

She pushed further past the welling despair. Keep talking. If she kept talking then she could not bottle it up anymore. "Many of them disappeared. Some gembounds find they like the sleep of the chrysalis better then life. Many of them stayed and trained. Baneberry never returned. Huckleberry became distant. I wanted the family to be together again. I wanted us to fight as one. So I gathered them and we launched an assault on Eridanus. I thought...I thought I needed to kill someone that lived there but he had friends, more friends then I was ready for. For as many as we defeated, we lost as well. To the shell of the chrysalis I lost Yewberry, Cloudberry, and Huckleberry. And...and..." her entire body was shaking now and her voice shivered with her emotions. "a creature came. A small, green thing. It opened a hole in the air and ripped Elderberry away from me. There's nothing left of him now. No bones, no feathers, no gem. My son...my own flesh and blood...he was killed because of me!"

She could no longer continued, lifting the wing that Wilder wasn't pressing against and shoved her head beneath it, the tears now freely falling from her eyes as her body was wracked with sobs. It was all her fault. If she hadn't...if she had been reasonable, if she was any kind of mother, she wouldn't have gone! None of them would have! But now the family was destroyed because of her.



 
Quote
 
To all the walls that we are meant to break
We must be more than animals in chains
Online
Lone Gembound
799 POSTS ʡ 160
Feminine 76 Cycles
Black Cat Jaymie

#25
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 86%
RESTORED TO 100%


Wilder pressed closer to the goose as she began to cry. She'd heard of the Eridanus fight. The story was all over the caves now - the Bloodberries had attacked and one of them had been killed. Before she had brushed it off as something that happened but now, seeing how devastated Blackberry was because of it, she understood the true horror of the fight. For the first time, she felt her emotions conflict.

Perhaps before this conversation, Wilder would have seen the Bloodberries as evil. She had met Rift before and she knew Pride. They had both fought against the berries and had lost many friends to the chrysalis. She would have been on their side 100%.

But now, with Blackberry testimony, her opinion was split. Yes, the Bloodberries had done a terrible, horrible thing, but they were a family and Wilder thought that, no matter what a person did, they did not deserve to die. Death was permanent. No option for change, no option for recovery. For a mother to watch her own son to die...

It wasn't the same, but she tried to imagine how she would feel if she watched Aure die. Just the thought of him being sucked into a black hole of nothing, his body torn apart, it brought tears to her eyes. No, nobody deserved that.

She pressed herself harder against Blackberry, hating that she had to ask but she was too curious to let the question go. "...what happened to Blueberry? Was he in the fight too?"

ROLL
4
Wilder attempts to Cast Spell — Mind Reader
Failure!




 
Quote
 
someone tell me how I got here
from the city to this frontier
Offline
Inactive
610 POSTS ʡ 10
Female 88 Cycles
Albino Canada Goose Jaymie

#26
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 100%
RESTORED TO 100%


Blackberry didn't answer Wilder right away, finally letting herself go and crying into her feathers as she mourned her son. She mourned her family, wherever they were, and the life they used to have, however terrible it was. She could still remember the times when they rested together, talked together, hunted together as a family. She missed that with all her heart. Not the fighting or killing, just the enjoyment of each others' company.

Finally she sniffled and raised her head, her eyes staring blankly away from the cat, once again not meeting her gaze as a hollow pit formed at the thought of Blueberry. "I don't know. I...I haven't seen Blueberry in many cycles. He always left to explore parts of the caves or find more children to care for, but his absences grew longer and longer until...he just didn't return." She shook her head, refusing to think about the possibility that he had abandoned the family. Abandoned her. But she didn't want to accept that he was dead either. Perhaps he had gotten lost. Perhaps he needed time away. Or maybe he was waiting for Blackberry somewhere. Or maybe the Sinful Seven had him too. The thought made her blood boil.

"I'll bet Pride knows," she spat, bitterly. "He took my daughter. He told me in the fight that they had Baneberry. I shouldn't have let it go. I shouldn't have kicked her out. I should have killed him right then and there." And this time, she felt no remorse for the thought. She felt no disgust for her desire. Pride was her exception (and Kera as well). She hated him. She hated him with all of her being. And the creature that he called friend, the weasel that had killed her son.



 
Quote
 
To all the walls that we are meant to break
We must be more than animals in chains
Online
Lone Gembound
799 POSTS ʡ 160
Feminine 76 Cycles
Black Cat Jaymie

#27
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 91%
RESTORED TO 100%


The sudden ferocity in Blackberry's voice, the hatred and anger that filled her entire form frightened Wilder. Was this what she was like before the fight? When she was younger and vengeful? Was this the true Blackberry underneath it all? Without really thinking, she gave Blackberry a reassuring lick. "I'm sure Blueberry is out there somewhere. And I'm sure that he doesn't want to make you worry." Of course, she didn't know the moose. But she didn't want Blackberry to grow violent or anything.

And that was when she reached her decision. Her ears perked up and she nudged Blackberry with her nose to get her attention again. "Well, if he does, then I can ask him! He knows me and he trusts me, I think. If he doesn't know, then I'll go and find Blueberry myself! I know a lot of people so someone should know where he is!" She smiled up at Blackberry, her tailed flicking happily. Finally, she knew what she could do to help!



 
Quote
 
someone tell me how I got here
from the city to this frontier
Offline
Inactive
610 POSTS ʡ 10
Female 88 Cycles
Albino Canada Goose Jaymie

#28
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 100%
RESTORED TO 100%


Blackberry turned as Wilder nudged the side of her and her sobbing was cut off, replaced by shock and disbelief at the kitten's announcement. "W-what? You know Pride and he hasn't told you to kill me yet?" She shook her head, unable to accept that. Pride wanted her dead and she knew he had spread the word across the caves to kill her on sight. It didn't even cross her mind that the kitten knew him.

But...if she was being honest, if she was going to go and find Blueberry, Blackberry, well, she was at a loss for words. She would have gone to find him herself if her very presence would have brought down the wrath of the caves upon her. Also, she hadn't had the drive. But now, as Wilder gave her that tiny spark of hope, just a glimmer of possibility that she would see her beloved again, she felt herself come back to life. "You would truly do that for me?"



 
Quote
 
To all the walls that we are meant to break
We must be more than animals in chains
Online
Lone Gembound
799 POSTS ʡ 160
Feminine 76 Cycles
Black Cat Jaymie

#29
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 72%
RESTORED TO 100%


Wilder stood up and hopped in front of Blackberry. "Yes, of course! You're my friend now and I like to help my friends, no matter what they've done before!" She nodded her head fervently as she bounced on the spot, all of her excitement returning to her quite suddenly. "I'll find him and I'll bring him here! And if I can't then I'll find out what happened to him. I promise!"

She reached forward and tapped her foot on the ground. In front of Blackberry, a large banana popped into existence, sparkling happily. "In the meantime, eat this, okay? Do you know how to make your own or can you hunt? If not I can gather some food for you before I go."

ROLL
19
Wilder attempts to Cast Spell — Fabulous Banana ( feed the goose )
Successful!




 
Quote
 
someone tell me how I got here
from the city to this frontier
Offline
Inactive
610 POSTS ʡ 10
Female 88 Cycles
Albino Canada Goose Jaymie

#30
 
MAGICKA LEVEL 91%
RESTORED TO 100%


Blackberry couldn't help but let out a small laugh when the banana appeared in front of her. How long had it been since she had seen that spell in action? She didn't hesitate now, pulling it towards her, realizing how hungry she was. She hadn't eaten, after all, in a while and even then it was barely enough to keep herself alive.

As an answer to Wilder's question, another banana suddenly appeared, although it was considerably smaller then Wilder's. "I can make them, but I will hunt too. I promise I will." As if to prove to Wilder that she was being honest, she punctured the banana's skin with her beak and tore a chunk of the skin off, tossing it aside, and beginning to nip at the sweet fruit within. "You've given me the strength I needed to keep myself going." And there was no hesitation as she added on her thanks. "Thank you, Wilder. Truly."

ROLL
9
Nameless attempts to Cast Spell — Fabulous Banana
Barely Successful!




 
Quote
 



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