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+---- Thread: [private] too much pressure just to make it (/showthread.php?tid=30415)
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Malik - 11-05-2021
Having been raised by the fire-eyed woman, Sickle’s disbelieving snort at his mention of positive change in their mother elicits a chuckle of his own. It’s accompanied by a grin, because he knows that if he’d been told the same thing six months ago he would have thought it impossible as well.
But it had not been impossible after all, and their mother is better.
His mother, Sickle emphasizes. Her mother is Wishbone, and Malik remembers the story of their father’s bloodless victory in Tephra. Where had the purple once-queen gone? Had it truly been a bloodless takeover, or had Gale simply hidden the bodies? Malik is curious, but something in the way Sickle’s voice has gone soft tells him that he shouldn’t prod.
He’s attempting to smile reassuringly, the way he would for Myrna, when she speaks again, asking if they’d hurt him.
The way he stills is born out of long habit, of knowing that he can avoid detection if he is still. If he is not seen, he cannot be a target, and he had mastered the shift into a jumping spider at a remarkably young age.
“I’m fine,” he repeats, because he believes it to be true. Had his parents hurt him?
Only when he deserved it.
He had gotten better at not deserving it, as he had once been certain all children do. The way his mother treats Myrna has made him doubtful, that and the way Mazikeen’s orange eyes went sad whenever he would flinch away without conscious thought. Sickle’s concerned gaze casts further doubt, and the tight sort of sharpness in his belly grows more intense.
(Bits of memory begin to trickle back, so slowly that he does not even recognize them as what they are.)
His mother is better now, he reminds himself. “She’s never mean to Myrna. She’s better now.” That is true, a bright and certain beacon that he can cling too even as Sickle’s presence begins to brush away the darkness that has lain so thick upon his mind.
He recalls, with blinding clarity, the sensation of his heart exploding, and his father’s satisfied nod.
Malik flinches and pulls back, away from Sickle. “Did you do that?!” He accuses, unaware that she plays no role in the return of his memory, save her presence as the impetus.
@Sickle
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Sickle - 11-05-2021
@
Malik
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Malik - 11-06-2021
Malik had liked to watch rain falling on the lava flows, to see the way the water would hiss and boil, returning to the sky as steam, only to eventually fall again. He’d disliked the sounds of the jungle’s howler monkeys, and had usually slept as a leopard for the sole purpose of keeping them quiet and wary of his scent. He had visited Loess as a young mamoose, and met a kraken at the edge of the ocean.
The memories return piecemeal, little flashes here and there, falling like individual raindrops and eventually coalescing into a flood of understanding. He chokes, because the memories of his second - more recent - childhood are far harsher than those of his first.
He remembers Sickle now. Remembers her, and Wishbone, and all the parts of his time in Hyaline that his father had made him forget. Malik shivers, the ache of long-healed wounds almost tangible along his skin. His mother loves him, says a voice in the back of his mind. His father had said it too, though far less often than his modified memories had led him to believe.
He takes a long breath, and breathes it out slowly. Sweat beads along his dark skin, glittering in the light emanating from his black hide.
Reeling still, the answer he gives to her first question is nonsensical, mumbling and half-words as he deals with the reorganization of his history. He remembers now, is the gist of it, and their father’s magic had made him forget. The second question seems to shake him from his babbling, and his mismatched eyes move up to meet hers, blue to blue and orange to orange.
He takes another deep breath, feeling somehow much calmer than a moment before.
“My little sister. ” He answers, and then amends: “Our little sister.” She’s probably back with their mother by this time of night, though he’d left her chasing after Bolder earlier in the afternoon. Malik glances up at the sky, where the streaks of light grow ever dimmer through the bare branches overhead.
He's glad his father had made him forget. Malik doesn't understand why he'd suffered so, but it must have been for his own good. It had been to make him stronger, deadlier, more powerful. His mother has been teaching him restraint of late, and he has done his best to listen, but the two ideologies have not yet come to odds.
“He’s gone now.” Malik finally says when he looks back down at his sister. “Maybe that’s why Mo - Mazikeen is better too.” He’d thought it was because Myrna was a better shifter than he’d been, but perhaps that is not so. “You could come see her,” he suggests. “Decide for yourself if she’s changed.”
Shifters get a choice, his mother had said.
@Sickle
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Sickle - 11-08-2021
@
Malik
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Malik - 11-09-2021
Sickle seems shocked by Myrna’s existence, and though the circumstances had been different, Malik had once been equally startled by her sudden existence (and his responsibility for her). Perhaps that is why, as her eyes well with tears, that he takes a step closer. He’s supposed to take care of his sister. This is a different sister, but different enough for it not to matter?
Experience tells him this is a poor choice, but his father is not here to punish him, and his mother is soft enough now that he thinks she will forgive him for this potential transgression. So instead of experience he trusts his heart, and hopes she does not flinch when he places a reassuring touch against her shoulder.
He knows what it is like to strive for one thing, because Malik has been driven in pursuit as well. He chases power, and Sickle has been chasing him. Will he be as surprised by what he finds at the end of his search as she has been? He hopes not.
Wishbone is missing, she says, but Malik knows that drawing attention to the fact that at least she is not dead is unlikely to bring Sickle much cheer. He is sure she’s looked for the purple mare, and while many of his memories are still foggy and unsure, Malik knows that he would have looked for her too. His memories are still murky, having not yet entirely shroud of darkness under which they’d been kept so long. It is easier to focus on what he has not forgotten, Malik finds.
“You wanna meet Myrna?” He suggests, thinking that his cheerful sister might lend some of her happiness to his sad sister. It is difficult to remain in a bad mood with Myrna - except when she shifts into something that he cannot manage, and especially when it’s on accident and she hadn’t even meant it. But Sickle can shift too, and perhaps that will not grate on her as it does on their less-skilled brother.
“I could bring her here, I bet.” He’s nodding as he says it, the plan falling into place. He’ll have to wait until his mother is distracted, Malik knows, because he’s not really old enough to be bringing his baby sister out to the Common Lands. But surely she’ll forgive him for it, when he returns with not one but TWO sisters, because he is sure that seeing Myrna will convince Sickle to come to Hyaline.
@Sickle
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Sickle - 11-11-2021
@
Malik
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Malik - 11-11-2021
The sob that follows his touch against her shoulder is unexpected, and Malik’s eyes widen. He doesn’t pull away though, not while her eyes remain closed. Malik convinces himself he’s being helpful, providing comfortat least until her eyes snap open again.
Then, he does pull away, the pair of them expanding the distance that separates them until it is wider than before. He had still been thinking of how to sneak Myrna from Hyaline under their mother’s watchful gaze, and she snaps back that she doesn’t want to see Myrna at all.
Then she’s yelling and crying, the combination a rather alarming one. Malik’s bicolored eyes grow wider still, his uncertain ears flicking. She asks rapid questions, and while the first one has several potential answers, Malik feels uncomfortably sure that the answer to the last one might be a simple: Yes.
Though the memories that have returned paint their father in a different light, Mazikeen is still the same. Well, the same as she’s been since Myrna, which is to say: less violent and occasionally more sad, but still his mother. Could she have forgotten Sickle? Malik thinks of the way she cares for his sister, the way he has caught her looking at him (worried), and how the smell of blood is far less dense in the mountain air than it had been during his childhood.
“Maybe he made us all forget,” Malik says softly. But why? Why keep him, and not his more talented sister? Shouldn’t he have been the one left in Tephra, the one who had searched for his missing twin? He frowns, imagining how that must feel, and decides he does not envy Sickle in the slightest. Not even for her shifting.
“I didn’t mean to,” he continues, his voice quiet even as her eyes grow hard. “To forget you, I mean.”
@Sickle
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Sickle - 11-11-2021
@
Malik
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Malik - 11-13-2021
Her words hurt, and the blame settles uncomfortably on Malik's dark shoulders. It doesn’t matter, she says, he still forgot her, even if he wished he hadn’t. Even if the memories had been taken away rather than willingly given, even though Gale had shrouded Malik’s first year of life behind a veil of shadows that have only just begun to clear away.
Malik shakes his head, huffing out a hard breath as he starts to look away.
But then she changes, becoming a small leopard cub. That is a shape he remembers, one he often wore himself. One that he’d worn when his memories had been taken from him, Malik remembers. A foul taste rises at the back of his throat at the image, and he thinks that perhaps he will not wear the shape of a leopard again for a very long time. He is thinking of Gale, of the experiences he now remembers, and a shiver runs down his black marked spine.
Sickle’s voice, small and sad, breaks him from the grim memories.
Is she worth remembering? Yes, some part of him knows, but he is still flinching internally at the fresh memories of long-healed wounds. “He is wrong,” is all he manages, trying to convince himself of the same.
@Sickle
RE: too much pressure just to make it - Sickle - 11-14-2021