Felinis: and the clusterfuck of drama
"RITTTTTTAAAAAAAA!" Estelle banshee wailed into the sky in frustration and stopped on the ground in absolute frustration. Why that little- no calm down. She was better than this. Sure, Rita should have been taking a break after working nonstop but time is of the essence, so Estelle shouldn't complain. Besides, Rita will have no choice but to relax on the way over.
She hears Raven stifle a faint chuckle and whistle as he walks away from the scene. Leaving her alone in the Myorzo streets. It's no big deal… She notes the odd looks the people in the town give her as they walk from the other side of the street in what feels like avoidance. Is it because Estelle is human or do they know too? Don't focus on those opinions as they aren't important. What matters is that she focus on relaxing her body and mind long enough to let herself breath even if she secretly would rather not at all in the slightest.
Too much counts on Estelle being put together for her to fall apart because of something as unavoidable as overworking. She has to be responsible because otherwise who will be.
By coincidence, both Raven and her wind up at the front door to that empty house and Estelle wants to go in as quick as she can to escape the eerie silence of the city.
"It's like they're all dead," Estelle notes as she places her hand on the door staring out into the streets.
Raven nods his eyes looking out at the building with something that spoke of sorrow. "Funny, ya always heard about this place as a paradise. Feels to me more like a graveyard."
His feet clattered hollowly along the door as he pulled out a wine bottle that someone quickly handed right over to him upon asking. All the townsfolk seemed too quick to avoid him but there was also something that wasn't fear but it certainly wasn't respect in their posture.
"Want a glass?" He said pouring a cup all the way to the brim for himself.
Estelle blinked and shook her head. "Oh, I couldn't. I'm not even old enough!"
"Nonsense. Yer eighteen that's plenty old enough." Raven started making her a glass as well. "Anyone who says ya need to be twenty-one to drink has no idea what they're talkin about."
Estelle took it hesitantly and took a tentative sip before relaxing with him in a comfortable silence.
This place…
The closet towards any city or hiding place Myorzo will be in time for me to give birth is Zaphias. It's the last place they'll look, but it's also the most dangerous. We have no choice though. Damuron, I just know this child is going to be loved by the Krytians once we're there. Lowell says he'll practically be nobility.
Raven could always hear the pause in that sentence before the next line of Hanna struggling to right in the large period on the paper and the knowledge of how she talked.
I just want them to be happy. I don't want them to grow up worried that they have to hide who they are or that people will hurt them for just being alive. Please know I don't hate you or Casey. That if I could-
There had been an ink stain in the paper-
If I could I would stay but I can't. So when I leave try not to hate me if you can. I won't blame you either way. Just know I cherished our friendship.
-Hanna Quinn
She would have hated this town. Hanna would have thought it was stuffy and suffocating and wanted out in a few months. She was loved quiet towns but this wasn't quiet it was dead. Lowell would have stuck her in this cage and Hanna would have withered away from the silence and the industrial atmosphere. A son who was seen less as a person and more of a thing to revere or dote on like it was a form of respect and not an insult.
Raven looks at Estelle and wonders if should do it. It be so easy to just grab her right now and her over to Alexie. Tie her up and just not care about what comes of everyone else… He doesn't want to live much anyway.
But, his hand hesitates because there's still some final answers before he throws Estelle to the wolves. Can she be saved? And if she can't his act might end a kindness to spare her suffering.
The weight was odd on his head.
Every time Flynn so much as turned his neck he felt the horns drag in the air. They didn't hurt to touch but the skin around them has certainly swelled in a way that tickled his nerves unpleasantly. He wanted them gone. He wanted to stop feeling them brush against the sheets as he tried to curl himself into a ball and forget his state of being.
He takes in a deep breath gripping his own arm tightly for support. "I- I was betrayed by one of the men I trusted and admired most in life… I hurt my best friend- and now I'm either turn into a monster and die or just straight die any minute now… and it's all my own damn fault for being such a fool."
Flynn's knees shake and his teeth grind in frustration as angry tears blink in the corners of his eyes. "I've lost everything I worked towards in the knights to save Yuri because I trusted Alexei so blindly that I couldn't see an obvious trap!"
And he might have lost the complete trust of one his best friends for forever because of his arrogance. Flynn allowed himself to be consumed in wallowing and self-pity as he talked to himself in an empty room for what was probably a few hours. Even if he wanted to he didn't feel good enough to leave the room yet at anyway. He had a splitting headache that pounded in and out as his nose burned when he inhaled so he couldn't smell anything but what he thought might have been his own blood.
Everything felt like it was slowly being chipped away with bleach creating a searing sensation in and out of his body. It was also hard for him to see when he stared beyond his ball of blankets and security.
His eyes wouldn't focus and it all was just too bright outside the sheets. God, isn't he supposed to feel better by now? Yuri always seems fine after something like this but Flynn feels like his body is still trying to pull itself out of its own skin.
There's a twinge of guilt of some of the times where Flynn yelled at Yuri to pull himself together seconds after snapping out of an episode when they were younger. Maybe the reason it always looked so easy was because Yuri had acclimated to the natural pain or maybe it was just that Flynn's circumstances are different.
He can't go back to the knights like this. His brigade will take one look at him and think he's some cursed and possessed demon. Hell, his men might not even be opposed to Alexei. Why'd it all end up getting so complicated?
A deep groan of frustration comes from the bottom of his throat as he lays on his back and stares up at the ceiling. His eyes sting enough that he sits up to rub them properly getting hit with a wave of vertigo in the process he feels like he's going to vomit again. He starts to stand-
A sudden and uncontrolled fear takes him as everything in his brain seems to dissolve and he falls to the floor vomit spilling from his lips but unsure how to deal with it or even how to clean himself up. Think F-
What was his name? What was he? A scream came from his mouth because his body- how did he move his body? Flynn writhed around desperate to figure out what was happening. What he was looking at? His breathing was heavy and his skin felt too hot and itchy.
He heard something come in and instinct told Flynn to kill it. Danger. Threat. He clumsily scrambled on all fours to move from the thing moving towards him. It was dark- and scary- and it new- and nothing looked or felt familiar!
It moved slowly towards him and Flynn pushed himself till he was up against a wall hissing.
Stay away. Stay away. Stay away!
"Flynn, it's me." This thing's voice sounded familiar but he's not sure. Everything in his brain is scattered right now and he's scared of this thing. Something touches his shoulder and he screams again, desperately trying to push himself even further than the wall he's up against. It grips on both sides and Flynn clumsily tries to flail with his entire body only to end up pinned against it until he eventually gives up struggling.
A hush from the thing and a grip of his hand. "Hey, it's okay. I know it's scary. Can you say your name? Do you know who I am?"
He hisses back at the noises and bites at the thing's flesh with no good results. He tries to escape when the thing starts moving him but instead he's just floundering on something soft with no traction to move. It keeps talking but he ignores it and chooses instead to hide under the softness for safety.
His skin itches
Yuri had run when he'd heard the scream to find Flynn squirming on the floor beside his own vomit. He's not lucid. Not even slightly. He hates to admit it but he knows this despite never having seen it from the outside. Rita had said what was going on was something similar and it should have been obvious there'd be something like his episodes but he'd figure it be closer to like when he'd collapsed earlier.
There's no recognition of who Yuri is or where he is. His eyes are beyond dilated and his skin feels hot and dry to the touch. Bright side is that the swelling is down enough that he someone can get to cutting those damn horns off Flynn's head. Not like he can do it.
"I really miss my hands." He feels like he says that a lot but it's true. Flynn looks absolutely miserable as he rolls under the covers crying out in agony. He's practically useless as far as helping Flynn and a part of Yuri wonders if it's the same the other way around.
He knows that Flynn wouldn't stop hugging him and sobbing for weeks after his first episode. He kept yelling about how he was scared Yuri wouldn't wake up again and he'd be like before. It had been terrifying for Yuri to hear that because he couldn't fathom losing that much of his time and autonomy to some version of his mind that didn't even know how to walk or recognize his family. He knew it had been disturbing to watch for everyone else but now that he could see it…
Well, he wanted to add to the vomit on the floor even though that was technically impossible since he had nothing in his stomach. Nothing but bile. Was anything happening to Flynn? He couldn't see but he dared to lift up the sheets a grimace the only expression he can make. His skin is peeling apart the way an old sunburn does and leaving large flakes of dead flesh. It's not everywhere but a large chunk appears to be on his upper right cheek and his chin. Some is on the left side of his nose and a bit at his hairline around the horns. The rest is scattered around his body but Yuri can also see a lot of peeling at his feet.
The skin isn't peeling just as one layer no it keeps peeling as Flynn's skin gets more and more feverish a distortion of color popping up in the patches. Yuri looks at the rough patches of reddish-skin on his arms understanding.
"I'm sorry," Yuri says and poorly attempts stroke Flynn's head only to get his hand bitten. "Mother-fucki- you should be so glad that I am understanding otherwise I would punch you in your fucking nose!"
Dear, god, Flynn put up with this from him for ten years. How the hell did he not end up strangled years ago? Also, how the hell is he gonna calm Flynn down after he sees that large portion of his face appears to be covering itself in pale teal scales?
"This is supposed to be your job." Yuri sighs and ignores Flynn's total disdain for his presence to clean his paws and do something along the lines of grooming himself after spending a fair chunk of time training with Repede. He'd looked like a fucking joke but it was easier than trying to grip a sword with both his hands.
He could, but by no means should he because that is hazardous for everyone. A little rational end of his brain says to drop this habit because it's just going make it easier for him to slip away but the other part that already knows it inevitable doesn't care. Just indulges licking of the dirt and rubbing his fur down in the best directions. He starts and stops the process several times but ends up looking back Flynn and hating there's nothing he can do.
They make it to Aspio in about two hours. It's a travel speed that seemed almost impossible but at this point, Rita knew better than to even try to think of impossibilities. The only problem they had was getting in and yelling at the guard that Judith was her guest as they made their way towards her lab where she could grab the necessary equipment.
She didn't bother noting how dusty it was inside and she didn't stop to think about how her tiny pantry was all rotten or stale creating an awful smell. She moved gathering tomes and equipment into various boxes and containers they could load onto the ship. The only time she stopped moving was when she noted a book Judith had pulled on her own from the shelf.
She recognized that one. It was a gibberish cipher that she'd thought to work out but decided not bother with ages ago.
"What has you interested in that junk?"
Judith leafed the pages with loud melancholy that crunched the air around her. "I was just surprised to see you had a copy. It's different than mine."
"Why do you own a copy?" Rita asked as she threw in some more beakers into a box just to make sure she had enough.
"Because my father wrote it." She shut the book. "He said it was a gift for me but it's ultimately useless since I have no idea how to decode it."
"Would you say it's important?" Rita was now intrigued what a book by the inventor of the Hermes blastia could be. Maybe there was an answer.
Judith shrugged and set it back on the shelf. "It's probably his research, but I have no use for it."
Rita took it and placed in the box all the same. "I can use… besides, don't you want to know what he wrote for you?"
Judith stiffened and started picking up boxes. "Come on, let's get this loaded."
At some point, another creature entered the room and Flynn decided the first one was safer to be near then this small thing. He knew this threat while the other was unknown.
"I don't think he cares much for me," The thing said as it leaned in with its big blue eyes.
"Ah, he's well… if it's anything like how I experience everyone looks like a monster and you have almost no recollection of anyone or anything. Not to mention the shit load of pain he's in." The first thing touches him again this time Flynn chooses to let it happen.
His body is too hot to much anyway.
"Will he remember anything?" small thing asks her eyes not yet leaving his.
"Probably not." It was still touching him and Flynn wanted to claw and break that hand but his body was too exhausted to care. But, the thing hasn't hurt him and it seems to be nice…
Patty looks carefully at the two so that she doesn't have to stare face front at them. There's nothing pleasant about seeing them in this state. She needed to see it though so she could understand her memories more. She spent a good chunk of time thinking on it, but she remembered people becoming monsters and looking at Flynn-
It seemed silly she ever forgot such an obvious fact but she was remembering now and she had to stop her eyes from watering. This wasn't a time for crying. Her tears wear being saved for more important matters. She held Yuri's hand and did her best to give a comforting squeeze.
"I really did ruin his life…"
She scoffed, "And who says that?"
"I ruined our dream of changing the knights from within, I made people run away just from being a halfer, his Mom turned down medical care because their condition was getting rid of me, and I forced my problems onto him all the time."
She rolled her eyes and took his lap as her seat. "You know that friendship, family, all the bonds you live in life mean ruining someone else's by forcing yourself onto them. It's up to them to decide whether you are worth sacrificing anything for. You guys let me travel with you even though my reputation makes me a pariah because you think I'm worth it."
What a silly boy. Patty is no expert, but no man foolishly kills and betrays one friend for another they don't think is worth it. She knows she's had people do that for her in the past and she knows that it's something try their hardest in life to avoid.
Herself included.
"People betray another when they no longer want to pay the price of caring. So it's a part of life to expect people to hurt themselves for them because I'm certain if you care enough you'll ruin your life back for a friend like him."
Yuri snorted mournfully. "You are way wiser than you should be Patty. What's your secret?"
"Just age and experience."
There are still holes in her memories but she remembers most of it and she'll use that to help. Besides, her answers are so close she can practically taste them on her tongue she just needs a few more pushes. As the Captain of Aifreed's crew, it's her job to learn why they met such a fate.