Chapter 61: Asimov's Curse
@VoxxVoleur @Leopardmask @luckgandor @Ximena @Galaxy99 @tigressRising @Ezmara @Solaristigres @Violetah @Willowoak @CatsAndMaths @Silverhame @Netshy @magykalwagykal @Petall
((No mention has been made of the three new Tundras in the Lair, because there was no need, but Luckymint and Vatrel had a three egg nest, and a flipped to keep all three. The female's the nicest, which is a shame, because I have a serious hate for female Tundras. XD))
This is futile, Asimov thought, almost resigned to the scorched feeling of his throat and nose. It seemed like it never went away. No matter what he tried, no matter how solidly he knew what would happen, hunger eventually drove him back to this, to vomiting in a remote area of the Lair where no one would hear him.
What would they think? What would they do if they knew? They already treated him like they expected him to sprout a second head half the time, or to snarl and throw his sisters against a wall, or something. He wasn't always polite and perfect, he supposed, like Izanami. Sometimes, he supposed, the things he said could go from teasing to cruel. It was nerves, though, and hunger.
Always hunger.
He finally stopped heaving, and sat back, lifting a glass of water to drink. The water was inert, cool and soothing, and the cup was one of Pebble's stoneworks. He rubbed his talons over the subtle engravings. She had made this just for him, and the designs always calmed him. He had taken to wearing some bright orange gloves, but the glow of his claws, the tell-tale mark of his curse, shone through them. It had appeared long before the deleterious effect of his touch.
He had noticed, lately, too, that the more he hung out with someone, the less they seemed to feel well. It started with weariness, then nausea (he could relate to both), then pain. He'd driven Pebble away because of it. When she'd finally gone to the healers, Malari had told her that some of the muscles in her wing shoulder had necrotized. That was when he really knew. He always perched on her wing shoulder, the easier to see her face while she worked.
Now hardly anyone in the Clan could stand him, between the cruelty that the stress and hunger had driven him to and the amount of cruelty he had indulged in since his realization, to distance himself from his family and Clanmates.
He sighed and settled back, his wing joints supporting him as he cradled the cup with his claws. Water was about the only thing his claws didn't poison. And even then, he had to boil it first to get all the organisms out of it.
"Brother, you're an idiot."
Asimov jumped so high and jerked so hard that the stoneware cup, now mostly empty, clattered across the floor. His brother cawed a laugh as he settled from four feet to two. When Asimov had settled back and was staring, but before he started talking, Fangorn continued.
"You're sick, in a Clan full of healers," the Skydancer told him in the kind of voice usually reserved for hatchlings who are being too stubborn to learn the day's lesson. "In a gods-blest hospital, for the love of all things. And more even than that, you're convinced that no one would have noticed in all this. That we'd just take your cruelty and think that was the real you. In a Clan that's a sixth Skydancers? Do you think we're all stupid?"
Asimov stared at his brother, horror and relief warring with self-deprecating amusement.
"What's wrong with you, big brother?" Fangorn asked, a wealth of kindness in his voice.
Asimov stared at his brother a while longer, and the Skydancer watched him passively. Asimov wondered, as he did sometimes, whether the Skydancers saw or felt the emotions of others. The way they flinched and sometimes even scrambled away from violent emotions lent credence to the latter, but the way Fangorn's eyes flicked about while he was sitting almost perfectly still seemed to imply the former. Maybe it was a bit of both. The off-topic thought settled his mind, and he gestured weakly with his claws.
"It's this." He wiggled his glowing paws at Fangorn. "This bloody curse."
"Manifested after all, did it?" Fangorn inquired, unfazed. "Mom and I thought that might be it."
"And Absinthe?" Asimov's curiosity was up. If his Skydancer relatives had the theory, why not ask him.
"She's too busy with the Beastclans to notice much of anything, isn't she?" Fangorn snorted. His big brother wondered when the younger had gotten so blunt. He was always differential, always quiet. But then, he'd been out of it a while, hadn't he? "So what is it, then?"
Asimov sighed and wing-walked over to a cabinet, where he kept food for those times when his hunger drove him to eat despite what he knew the consequences that would come. He pulled down a plate of fruit without touching them, set them on a side-table and stripped off his gloves. With a gesture to his brother to make sure Fangorn was paying attention, he picked up one of the wisp fruits, and held it. Within moments--in less time than it would have taken him to chew it and swallow it--it was a puddle of stinking ooze in his hand.
When Fangorn would have spoken, Asimov shook his head, and the Skydancer waited. Asimov rinsed his hand in a nearby sink, then returned and picked up another. He quickly set it down again, and, in slightly longer time, it, too, was a pile of glop. He pulled his gloves back on, and picked up a third fruit. It took longer yet, but still was reduced to liquefaction in moments.
Fangorn waited a moment to make sure Asimov was done. The Nocturne shifted the whole fruits off the plate with his tail, then washed it and his gloves in the sink.
"They fixed the necrotized tissue in Pebble's shoulder, you know."
Asimov swung around and stared at him again. How...?
"Oh, come on, big brother." Fangorn rolled his eyes, his foreclaws starting to tap on the stone floor sharply. "You really think we didn't realize you love her? That--though why, we didn't know--the damage to her wing was what really drove away from the Clan. Yet you didn't try and find out if they could fix it. Which they did, by the way. Good as new."
"Just shows I left in time." Asimov mumbled, and Fangorn's claws started going faster on the floor. Asimov glanced down at them, then back up at his brother's face.
"Am I really to believe that such an idiot came from the same clutch as me and Absinthe?" His voice was sharp but clean, not vicious the way Asimov himself got when stressed and hungry. "Is it just because you're not connected the way we Skydancers are? That you just don't get it?"
"What are you on about?" Asimov demanded, anger starting to rise in his chest. He had the sudden urge to smack his brother across the beak, but he knew the impulse was beneath him.
"You honestly think that your leaving was what was best for the Clan." It wasn't a question, but a statement. "And yet you didn't really leave. Couldn't bring yourself to it. Why not? Because you love us. You love us all, even the annoying ones, like Absinthe. Even the absent ones, like Dad. So you stayed. You idiot. If you're gonna do a thing, do it all the way. Otherwise you just make a mess."
"You want me to leave the Lair?" Asimov shouted, furious, but still. If he moved, he might really hit Fangorn, and then his poison would get into his brother's veins.
"You're not listening!" Fangorn yelled back, snapping his tail in his annoyance. "This isn't about you leaving. It's about the mess you made by only doing it part way! Of course I don't want you to leave! None of us do! But, by the gods, big brother, you've made a mess!" He dropped his voice back to normal speaking volume. "I'm asking if you'll let me help you clean it up."
It seemed to Asimov that he'd been staring at his younger brother a lot today. Here he was, doing it again, completely poleaxed. The anger that had been building in him fluttered and died, replaced by weariness and a bit of curiosity.
"What do you mean that I made a mess?" He hadn't meant it to come out a whisper, but it did.
"You're hurting everyone, acting like this," Fangorn replied, and his voice wasn't much louder. "Especially, curse it, especially Pebble." He knew the shock that caused Asimov, but he pressed on, desperate to make his point. "She grieves like you're dead, brother, and she thinks your leaving was her own fault. She doesn't know what she did, only that you're gone. It's all we can do to get her to get up and work lately. But you haven't noticed, because you're too busy wallowing in self-pity to ask for help."
When had he started shaking? His hands, free because he was leaning on his wings, shook like leaves in the wind.
"But it's not just Pebble, she's just the worst. We all miss you. I'm just the first one to decide to do something about it."
"H-how can I fix it? What can I do?" Asimov asked. If he'd screwed up so badly, maybe he couldn't fix it.
"Let me help, big brother. Let me help."
@VoxxVoleur @Leopardmask @luckgandor @Ximena @Galaxy99 @tigressRising @Ezmara @Solaristigres @Violetah @Willowoak @CatsAndMaths @Silverhame @Netshy @magykalwagykal @Petall
((No mention has been made of the three new Tundras in the Lair, because there was no need, but Luckymint and Vatrel had a three egg nest, and a flipped to keep all three. The female's the nicest, which is a shame, because I have a serious hate for female Tundras. XD))
This is futile, Asimov thought, almost resigned to the scorched feeling of his throat and nose. It seemed like it never went away. No matter what he tried, no matter how solidly he knew what would happen, hunger eventually drove him back to this, to vomiting in a remote area of the Lair where no one would hear him.
What would they think? What would they do if they knew? They already treated him like they expected him to sprout a second head half the time, or to snarl and throw his sisters against a wall, or something. He wasn't always polite and perfect, he supposed, like Izanami. Sometimes, he supposed, the things he said could go from teasing to cruel. It was nerves, though, and hunger.
Always hunger.
He finally stopped heaving, and sat back, lifting a glass of water to drink. The water was inert, cool and soothing, and the cup was one of Pebble's stoneworks. He rubbed his talons over the subtle engravings. She had made this just for him, and the designs always calmed him. He had taken to wearing some bright orange gloves, but the glow of his claws, the tell-tale mark of his curse, shone through them. It had appeared long before the deleterious effect of his touch.
He had noticed, lately, too, that the more he hung out with someone, the less they seemed to feel well. It started with weariness, then nausea (he could relate to both), then pain. He'd driven Pebble away because of it. When she'd finally gone to the healers, Malari had told her that some of the muscles in her wing shoulder had necrotized. That was when he really knew. He always perched on her wing shoulder, the easier to see her face while she worked.
Now hardly anyone in the Clan could stand him, between the cruelty that the stress and hunger had driven him to and the amount of cruelty he had indulged in since his realization, to distance himself from his family and Clanmates.
He sighed and settled back, his wing joints supporting him as he cradled the cup with his claws. Water was about the only thing his claws didn't poison. And even then, he had to boil it first to get all the organisms out of it.
"Brother, you're an idiot."
Asimov jumped so high and jerked so hard that the stoneware cup, now mostly empty, clattered across the floor. His brother cawed a laugh as he settled from four feet to two. When Asimov had settled back and was staring, but before he started talking, Fangorn continued.
"You're sick, in a Clan full of healers," the Skydancer told him in the kind of voice usually reserved for hatchlings who are being too stubborn to learn the day's lesson. "In a gods-blest hospital, for the love of all things. And more even than that, you're convinced that no one would have noticed in all this. That we'd just take your cruelty and think that was the real you. In a Clan that's a sixth Skydancers? Do you think we're all stupid?"
Asimov stared at his brother, horror and relief warring with self-deprecating amusement.
"What's wrong with you, big brother?" Fangorn asked, a wealth of kindness in his voice.
Asimov stared at his brother a while longer, and the Skydancer watched him passively. Asimov wondered, as he did sometimes, whether the Skydancers saw or felt the emotions of others. The way they flinched and sometimes even scrambled away from violent emotions lent credence to the latter, but the way Fangorn's eyes flicked about while he was sitting almost perfectly still seemed to imply the former. Maybe it was a bit of both. The off-topic thought settled his mind, and he gestured weakly with his claws.
"It's this." He wiggled his glowing paws at Fangorn. "This bloody curse."
"Manifested after all, did it?" Fangorn inquired, unfazed. "Mom and I thought that might be it."
"And Absinthe?" Asimov's curiosity was up. If his Skydancer relatives had the theory, why not ask him.
"She's too busy with the Beastclans to notice much of anything, isn't she?" Fangorn snorted. His big brother wondered when the younger had gotten so blunt. He was always differential, always quiet. But then, he'd been out of it a while, hadn't he? "So what is it, then?"
Asimov sighed and wing-walked over to a cabinet, where he kept food for those times when his hunger drove him to eat despite what he knew the consequences that would come. He pulled down a plate of fruit without touching them, set them on a side-table and stripped off his gloves. With a gesture to his brother to make sure Fangorn was paying attention, he picked up one of the wisp fruits, and held it. Within moments--in less time than it would have taken him to chew it and swallow it--it was a puddle of stinking ooze in his hand.
When Fangorn would have spoken, Asimov shook his head, and the Skydancer waited. Asimov rinsed his hand in a nearby sink, then returned and picked up another. He quickly set it down again, and, in slightly longer time, it, too, was a pile of glop. He pulled his gloves back on, and picked up a third fruit. It took longer yet, but still was reduced to liquefaction in moments.
Fangorn waited a moment to make sure Asimov was done. The Nocturne shifted the whole fruits off the plate with his tail, then washed it and his gloves in the sink.
"They fixed the necrotized tissue in Pebble's shoulder, you know."
Asimov swung around and stared at him again. How...?
"Oh, come on, big brother." Fangorn rolled his eyes, his foreclaws starting to tap on the stone floor sharply. "You really think we didn't realize you love her? That--though why, we didn't know--the damage to her wing was what really drove away from the Clan. Yet you didn't try and find out if they could fix it. Which they did, by the way. Good as new."
"Just shows I left in time." Asimov mumbled, and Fangorn's claws started going faster on the floor. Asimov glanced down at them, then back up at his brother's face.
"Am I really to believe that such an idiot came from the same clutch as me and Absinthe?" His voice was sharp but clean, not vicious the way Asimov himself got when stressed and hungry. "Is it just because you're not connected the way we Skydancers are? That you just don't get it?"
"What are you on about?" Asimov demanded, anger starting to rise in his chest. He had the sudden urge to smack his brother across the beak, but he knew the impulse was beneath him.
"You honestly think that your leaving was what was best for the Clan." It wasn't a question, but a statement. "And yet you didn't really leave. Couldn't bring yourself to it. Why not? Because you love us. You love us all, even the annoying ones, like Absinthe. Even the absent ones, like Dad. So you stayed. You idiot. If you're gonna do a thing, do it all the way. Otherwise you just make a mess."
"You want me to leave the Lair?" Asimov shouted, furious, but still. If he moved, he might really hit Fangorn, and then his poison would get into his brother's veins.
"You're not listening!" Fangorn yelled back, snapping his tail in his annoyance. "This isn't about you leaving. It's about the mess you made by only doing it part way! Of course I don't want you to leave! None of us do! But, by the gods, big brother, you've made a mess!" He dropped his voice back to normal speaking volume. "I'm asking if you'll let me help you clean it up."
It seemed to Asimov that he'd been staring at his younger brother a lot today. Here he was, doing it again, completely poleaxed. The anger that had been building in him fluttered and died, replaced by weariness and a bit of curiosity.
"What do you mean that I made a mess?" He hadn't meant it to come out a whisper, but it did.
"You're hurting everyone, acting like this," Fangorn replied, and his voice wasn't much louder. "Especially, curse it, especially Pebble." He knew the shock that caused Asimov, but he pressed on, desperate to make his point. "She grieves like you're dead, brother, and she thinks your leaving was her own fault. She doesn't know what she did, only that you're gone. It's all we can do to get her to get up and work lately. But you haven't noticed, because you're too busy wallowing in self-pity to ask for help."
When had he started shaking? His hands, free because he was leaning on his wings, shook like leaves in the wind.
"But it's not just Pebble, she's just the worst. We all miss you. I'm just the first one to decide to do something about it."
"H-how can I fix it? What can I do?" Asimov asked. If he'd screwed up so badly, maybe he couldn't fix it.
"Let me help, big brother. Let me help."
ENTP- True Neutral- she/her- +3 FR time
