09-27-2020, 11:27 AM
It's strange how easy the words jump to her lips, now that she has them, it's strange how easily she smiles - and it is her mother's grin that she greets Avocet with when he finally emerges from where-ever he has been searching for their lost dam. Mom is gone? She had never gone to great lengths to stop Manikin from her hunts, but it is better that she is not here now.
"Come here, Brother." She feels his gaze like a burning touch on her velvet lips and the hard hooves that scrape at the dark, fertile soil of the Pampas, but Manikin doesn't waver or wait for him to come to her, rather she goes to him, a purr in her throat and her yellow eyes poison bright. He might flinch when she draws close enough to curl against his side, her movement feline though her body no longer reveals any touch of cat in its shape, but she presses her muzzle to the soft place beneath his jaw as if to show that she cannot hurt him, that she, now the smaller, lighter, and more defenseless of the pair, needs his protection instead. What can she do, after-all, stripped of her protections? What can she do with these pockmarked bones?
"I need help, I'm hurt. Don't you remember all the times I helped you? When Mama was angry?" The lies drip from her lips, honeyed words that remind him of Popinjay's foul temper, her constant anger, and how frequently the twins hid in the grass, pressing tight together to stop the shivering fear that threatened to give them away in the tall grass. Doesn't Avocet remember how she, small but fierce, would defend him with beak and claw when they were found?
"I died, Avo. I was so scared, I died and, and when I came back, I... something came back with me."
She does not actually know if he can feel the way the bodies of those awful gremlins tunnel beneath her skin, filling her belly and lungs, gripping at her throat and tongue with their fingers until the flesh turns bloodless and white. She does not know if she carries them here, or if some part of her is still in that other realm, like a door that, when they finally tear her asunder, will vomit them forth into this world and birth destruction on it. Manny feels them all the time, as if she could look at her sides and see the firm imprints of their hands pressing out against her taut skin, yet when she does, there is nothing.
Madness, some might say, but she knows better. Not madness, Chaos.
"Help me, Avo?"
@[Avocet]