[PRP] Birds of a Feather (Kiwi & Senga)

[xoxomenai]

Kiwi stared up into the trees.

Curiosity had taken him on a walk around the Clan reserve. It wasn't often he visited the other Clan's homes. But something had him worried ever since he had battled Senga in the Haunted House. Mist had overtaken him, transformed him, into a colorless monster. And for a horseman, that was something to be feared. But worse than the sight of him caught in such agony, was the guilt in being forced to hold him back, and the tone of his voice. So willing to give in. Willing to allow it. That was nothing like the Senga he knew.

Nergui had warned him to keep his friends close. And surely if anyone understood this burden, he would.

Numbly, Kiwi took to the trees. He passed first one branch, and then the next. Higher he soared from limb to limb, darting upwards til he met the platform of one of the houses. Several War clansmen wandered about. A few ruffling feathers at his appearance, but he only nodded politely and glanced past them. The familiar sight of white wolf's fur, lounging by the far edge of the sky terrace caught his eye. Step. Step. Step. Each foot in front of the other other, he crossed slowly, til he stood just behind the War Executioner, unable to move a muscle, the fear, the guilt poised in his throat. He didn't know what to say, how to explain it. How sorry he was. How confused he was. Without a word, he sank down on the terrace beside Senga, and just stared out into the forest.

Keiifuu

Prepare for Kiwi feels and male bonding time ovo /bricked
And quote me in main thread/PM if you'd like anything changed??

 

[keiifuu]

Senga missed the sun.

The world here was a constant twilight, the purple-orange hues casting over rents in the trees and smoke that climbed heavy into the air above from the insides of tree-top huts. Clansmen milled about in loose groups, some dropping off of wooden balconies, the flutter of wings a slight noise in the background. Senga's own wings were stretched out over the makeshift lounge he rested against. Long tawny feathers brushed over the rough material that they'd made their homes out of. They were streaked with mute colors, and only when the wind came by did they rustle gently. His head was leaned against a sturdy part of the tree that their encampment wrapped around. However silent he usually was, however quiet and reserved his kin expected him to be, this was an entirely different altercation to his personality.

His kin gave him a wide berth, and when they looked, they looked with concern. He was breathing, certainly, but there was an undercurrent of exhaustion constantly in his heavy bones. All of the fighting spirit that the clan had proudly claimed to own had left him. The recent events had stirred into action an acid in his system, a poison of the mind. He'd been berated heavily by his father, and the grey seemed almost sickly against his skin. Even so, he was not unobservant. His eyes, a sharp golden hue, searched Kiwi once he settled next to him. He did not move, not an inch, and his feathers merely rustled quietly at the company.

Unlike the others, who seemed afraid of being infected by whatever spell Senga had come under, Kiwi approached him freely, even though it took no genius to know something was plaguing the Famine clansmen's own mind. Without precedence, one of his wings lifted, and slowly wrapped around Kiwi's shoulders, the gentle brush of feathers warm and slight. And his eyes, once wide and observational, half-lidded and turned back to the sight of the forest.

"What's wrong?"

It was a soft inquisition. The vague remembrance of their encounter in the Haunted House was not forgotten, but what was there to forgive?

What was there from that time that wasn't his own fault?

xoxomenai

SENGA UR SUCH A EMO BIRD :C dknfjms i am sorry intro posts are my kryptonite /head in hands

 

[xoxomenai]

Kiwi searched for the right words. Words that were hard to come by in a mind filled with fog. At times it was hard to hear his own thoughts over them, even as indistinguishable as they were. But through the voices, only one phrase kept repeating itself: "... I am sorry."

It was actually the barest bit comforting to admit. That comfort lingered as Senga's wing wrapped around him. But he knew how much more he still had to say. His head sank into his hands. "I am sorry ... I've failed you. I've failed the clan."

keiifuu

What kryptonite, that was beautiful *A* /sobbus with feels

 

[keiifuu]

Senga's eyes opened again, like a wolf out of a deep sleep. His wing rested against Kiwi gently, but with enough weight that the other could feel its certain presence. The apology was regarded with quiet consideration, a thoughtfulness flickering in the executioner's listless gaze before disappearing again. "In our clan," He started slowly, his voice just above a whisper, "words mean little. The thought of them to the overpowering sensation of actions and contact is laughable to us. Which is why, to other clans, we may seem more brutish." He looked out at the canopy. "We accept the power of physicality over the delicate predilection of spoken conversation." It was the most he'd probably said to Kiwi since they'd met. His eyes glazed, and for a moment seemed far away. "But sometimes I imagine, even words have a heaviness to them too."

His eyes closed again, this time it almost seemed out of a mental exhaustion. "I accept your apology, but there is nothing to accept it for. You were only doing what was right. Eradicating the threat."

His voice cracked into a laugh, smooth and low at Kiwi's next words. "You have not failed me." His voice was wrought with self-loathing. "I have failed myself, and no one can take the blame for that. You - " He shifted, rousing himself as though from a deep state of slumber, even though he was awake. "You are young. You make mistakes. But to say you've failed the clan - no. That is wrong." The whispers in his head turned angry and vile, crying out at his blatant disregard for misguided anger. "Tell me though, what your reasoning behind that statement is."

His eyes opened, and he glanced at Kiwi with a soft sort of curiosity. "Tell me why you think you've failed us all."

xoxomenai

i am so sorry this is a bad post senga u so emo ugh /TAKES KIWI AWAY TO HUG AND COMFORT

 

[xoxomenai]

Try as he might not to, Kiwi couldn't help but smile gently as he listened to Senga relate War's ideology, staring out into the flickering emerald sea of leaves. Valuing actions above words. Hmm. He was a warrior himself, and to him it seemed sensible enough in its own way. A grin cracked briefly across his face.

"Then let me put it like this," he answered, tossing Senga a light punch. It wasn't a very powerful one, partially because he didn't wish to actually injure his friend, and partially because he didn't have enough heart to put much effort into it. Inwardly though, he could feel a little weight slide off his chest and flutter away. Senga was right. He had only been doing what he had thought was best at the time. But that didn't change the fact he had allowed his own self to be consumed ...

Why he felt this way ... His eyes darkened. Where to begin. He brought a hand to his temple, massaging it as though it might somehow still the voices inside. "I ..." He struggled to find words. "I couldn't save you ... no, we couldn't save you back there ... and then I let myself get caught up in the Insanity. I didn't realize at the time, but I did the worst thing I could do to our beloved people. I attacked them. I attacked our own kind ... But that isn't like me. I wouldn't have laid so much as a finger on any of you. I should have known better, should have been more alert. We are horsemen after all ..."

But he hadn't. He had allowed the Insanity to possess him, and that was the hardest thing to admit. He wanted to believe Senga's words, but it was so very hard when these emotions and voices wouldn't leave him be. He sank down a bit more, grateful for Senga's embrace, but he refused to look him in the eye. Not quite yet.

keiifuu

All the feels <333

 

[keiifuu]

Senga watched Kiwi from the corner of his eye as he spoke, a lazy intrigue flashing in his golden eyes. He was immobile as the famine boy spoke, his lips twitching every once in awhile, though he remained otherwise indifferent. "Perhaps - " He pondered over the words quietly, tilting himself away from the winding, thick tree branch he'd been leaning against to look at Kiwi fully. "You are over-thinking."

He hummed thoughtfully, tilting his head back towards the canopy, and beyond it, the dim embers of the twilight sky. "I am not saying that is unimportant. It is. Perhaps you did. Perhaps you committed a foul crime worthy of punishment." He glanced back down at Kiwi, wry, and sounding more mature than his appearance might have depicted him as. "But haven't we all? I attacked them too. I turned - I thought that I had it under control. That this - that I - that you were safe from me. I committed the highest treason against our clan, but you - " He gestured around them at the clansmen still milling about, still within plain sight. "You didn't execute me afterwards. You didn't chain me away and cut my throat. My point is that - " He paused, considering. "We have all made mistakes. But there is a point where you must move forward. If you still can't forgive yourself - fine, that is your own hill to climb. But do not think that you are beyond saving, or that you are a failure. You have committed a crime, but you can only punish yourself so much before learning and forcing yourself to continue to climb, to become better."

He tilted himself downwards to look at the long drop below, his unused wing unfurling and rustling gently. "The Insanity is an enemy that we're still learning about, still trying to fight. But if we begin to think we've failed simply because we've been victim to it, we'll never be able to force it away. Even the most powerful of our kin have been attacked by it." He said quietly, thinking of Shaheen, of Mengyao even. "And even horsemen make mistakes. Proud as we are, I think our age has turned us haughty." His lips turned into a pensive smile. "I understand what it is like to be afraid of your own body, trapped in the cacophony of your own mind. For you, the Insanity is gone now. I know it haunts your mind, but there are no grey cracks in your skin, no voices in your head." He glanced up at the famine boy again. "I've been fighting it since I've come here - the infection. That - back then - that was the first time I let it take me over completely." His tone hardened. "I failed you. I spilt the first blood. And I was right back then - had I stayed that way, you should have killed me."

He let a silence linger between them for awhile, having spoken more than he usually did to anyone. And when the silence had stayed long enough, he finally ended quietly with, "but, if you ever do that again, I will make sure to personally cuff you over the head when it is over with and properly punish you when it is all said and done." His tone was wry and joking in the way that one joked about throwing someone off a cliff, but when he smiled at Kiwi, it was a genuine look of amusement, tinged only by such a demure show of sentimentality that it made the executioner seem strangely more calm and relaxed than he'd ever been since being forced to this strange, new place.

xoxomenai

jesus senga u arent supposed to talk this much u dumb s**t

 

[xoxomenai]

Kiwi furrowed a brow as he took in what Senga had to say. It was true, at the time he had only thought what he was doing was best. He kneaded a hand along the back of his neck, working the tension out, as he stared down to the shifting emerald leaves all around them ... Maybe he really was being too hard on himself.

Senga's mention of his own transformation caused Kiwi to jump slightly, his breath becoming painfully shallow for a second. Not only did he know what the transformation was like, but he had been forced to battle a dear friend. Cautiously, he eased himself back into the crook of the other's wing. "I, ... had no choice," he admitted. " ... Even, in such a state, you were and are still a friend, and one of the clan."

Kiwi thought a moment. It was true. He had only echoes, remnants. Voices that shadowed his thoughts from time to time ... perhaps Senga was right. They had all done the best they could. He was jarred from his thoughts by the horseman's sudden joke. A smile cracked his face, and cuffing the horseman lightly with his own wing he added: " ... Thank you. I suppose I really have been too hard on myself. I just ... I don't understand ... I want to blame the hunters for this. It wasn't until the islands ..." He paused and swallowed. "It wasn't until then that things began to get so out of hand ... and I want to be able to do something. To help us through this ... I simply ... am not sure what."

keiifuu