set immediately after this thread

--

It was as though the chill of the Crown had seeped into his every pore, as he stumbled over the threshold of Tunnel P. Why am I here? he thought distantly, looking around blankly. Why is it so empty? He frowned. The tunnel felt as though someone had scraped out its insides with a spoon.

Oil moths clung to the shadows, carrion feeders, but he wasn't exactly sure why. It didn't look like there was anything left here. (Had someone died? Were they here for him?) The questions of the hour. His breath came out in a shudder. Then again, now sharper, and suddenly he was sobbing. Why was he here? Where were his--

Friends.

His sobs turned half-hysteric, edging into laugher and then blurring into something totally in between. Unrecognizable. Horrific. He gasped for air, but he felt distinctly like he was choking -- as though the air was too heavy, or maybe too thin, but either way it stung, it stung like Mother, like the cold and bitter air of the Tunnel, like-- like losing, like murder, like bad things wrapping around his organs and squeezing his life out of him and then he collapsed into the sandy, rocky ground. It was so hot here.

He couldn't go to his friends. What would they think of him?

Madhukar... was a wildcard. What would she say to him? How would she feel? She served a pacifist, a cult leader (he had strong opinions about the Voidmother, but she didn't seem harmful so he didn't share them). Madhukar had her own trauma -- how would she feel if she heard that he'd gotten the idea for his weapon of choice from her? That he'd thought using fungal magic would be a betrayal, but not using electricity? His stomach rolled. He couldn't do that to her. It just... was not an option.

But she'd notice his crown. She'd ask questions. Surely, there was some other nasty consequence to it he'd be unable to hide. He couldn't handle it, couldn't handle her questions -- couldn't even venture to consider what she'd think of him. Hating him would be awful; he'd lose his rock, his best friend, his magic partner. But forgiveness would be so, so much worse. He couldn't ask her to sacrifice her morals on his behalf -- he wouldn't dare it. He hadn't killed Elias in self-defense; he'd killed Elias in defense of others.

That was only barely good enough.

James was almost worse. He was a member of the Seven--! He was, for all intents and purposes, Pride's heir apparent. He had a family, children -- and maybe Pride would understand (Tahi-shei was sure he would), but that just made it worse. He couldn't drag James down. He refused to, to pull him under and drown him in this mess. Tahi wasn't willing to address his feelings for James, or how the other clearly reciprocated them -- he didn't know if he'd ever be -- but he wouldn't be able to hide this, not from him.

There was no way he could see James, even if James was-- no, Tahi-shei wasn't allowed to think like that. Not with blood on his stone. Not after all this. (A buzzing insect landed on his stones for a moment, investigating the Oil on the edge of Elias's-- and then left, either disgusted or to alert more of its friends.) His heart beat harder and he felt like screaming (maybe he was? he couldn't be sure at this point).

It was avoidance all over again. A slow detachment from the Seven and from a place he'd called his home, becoming semi-nomadic, hiding from anything that might venture to harm him. He hated it. Every second of it was torture.

And then there was Giggle. She was a paragon of the things he needed -- knowledge, safety, warmth. Her den was one of the only places he could relax, even if it felt awkward to do so. She had brushed off his admission that the Collector wanted him to do something awful as if he hadn't even really said it, but what would she feel about actual murder? Real blood on his stone? And not just killing him, but-- watching it happen. (Tahi-shei hadn't realized that a Gembound could survive for any length of time without their stone.)

Nausea tore through him at the thought, but he didn't really have the anatomy to do anything about it. His ears twitched feebly. He couldn't go to Giggle -- she'd see through him. She'd know his sins, know what he'd done. He didn't know how. Maybe it was Seeing, maybe she was just good at seeing through guilty children. That's what he felt like right about now.

He couldn't hide from his problems with Giggle, because he didn't know how she'd react. He didn't really know how any of them would react, but the possibility of rejection was a strong motivator towards hiding from one's problems.

That only really left one person, and it suddenly dawned on Tahi-shei why he was here.

He'd been looking for the Overseer.

They weren't friends, no matter what he insisted to strangers. Alpha had tried to kill him twice, had been absolutely beastly both times, and was generally not someone worth talking to. But the clipped answers were not waxing poetic about morality or greed. They were to the point, and honest, because the Overseer didn't really care about his feelings.

He'd come here because he didn't know of anywhere else to go, because he knew that the Overseer would give him a straight answer and then tell him to leave. If they spoke to him at all. But the Overseer wasn't here -- nobody was. It was a ghost town, and the howling winds of -- Hydra, was it? Wasn't that what he'd been told? -- caught his attention from across the tunnel.

He toyed with the idea of seeing if the Overseer was inside... but decided against it. It wasn't worth the risk, certainly, and especially not when he was so exhausted (his breakdown had stopped several minutes ago by this point, and he was sort of just lying there on the ground staring at a spot on the wall).

He needed to go home, but home... was a tumultuous concept. And he didn't want to see any of the little beacons of it he'd found across these caves. He mostly just wanted to hide, but how long could he hide from them? He'd promised Giggle that he'd keep seeing her. Keep returning. He didn't know how to avoid her. Madhukar's sense of smell and knowledge of his mannerisms was good enough to track him down, mostly. The caves weren't very big, after all, and he was usually in the same places.

James had the advantage of flight, too, and had magic Tahi-shei didn't quite understand. It wouldn't have been a leap to guess that he'd be able to find him somehow, too. That, or James could just ask his canine daughter to track him down. There was no real way to hide from them, not really.

They'd find him eventually, and he'd have to... to face this.

For now though... he sighed, his whole body numb and heavy. Still staring at the spot on the wall and now rather suspiciously at the oil moths who seemed to be wondering if he was carrion, he sighed and fell asleep.


/exit tahi-shei :(