[PRP] The Unpredictable Nature of War (Shaheen & Shik)[FIN~]

[medigel]

"Exactly so," he said with a cryptic smile at her confusion about her parents being brought in. As far as he knew, if Shaheen had a healthy relationship with her family she wouldn't have bothered bugging him so much. Maybe. Don't mind him, he was just being very satisfied with the small fluster the chieftain was enacting with that one laugh.

As for inviting in . . . Agh. He grumbled something under his breath and passed a glance over his shoulder at the door, rapping it with a foot backwards. "How much were you listening in, weasel?" he growled at the door. The only answer was the soft flurry of feathers and footsteps, and maybe a giggle. "Deities help me," Shik sighed as he turned to look back at Shaheen, "she's dead and gone for almost a year and then just a few days in -" But he had to pause as the chieftain had one last trick up her sleeve - or rather, in her paws.

The executioner gave a low whistle of approval at her new form, folding his wings back as he grinned. "Well some good did come out of it, I suppose. Now everyone will know what a big p***y you are~" he teased, squatting to look at her eye-level. What big teeth she had! Was he going to dare and pet her?

Oh yes, yes he did dare.

"My home is still the same boring nest it normally is," he went on casually as he reached out to see how she'd react. "Unless you feel like making a spectacle of yourself in front of my sister, whom I'm sure is enjoying the show nevertheless. We're about to have some lunch, however, if you care to join."

And by lunch, that probably meant either the results of a hunt, or the beginnings of one.  

[Seussi]

Maybe the fact that Shik's sister was listening in, perhaps for the entire time they'd been conversing, hadn't quite sunk in yet. Maybe that's why she chose not to react at first, though eventually her golden eyes looked away from Shik's face and towards the door, her ear's twitching as though at a sound, and a small growl eliciting from deep within her chest to trickle out of her throat. She'd been listening, as Shaheen had made a painful, albeit small, confession. It might not mean much to others, such a tiny little thing, to say that one missed another. But to her, it was huge. It was the biggest step towards trying to make something between her and Shik out of the remnants of their past nothings as she was willing to take. A step that he had, perhaps rather grudgingly and in his own rough and coarse way, accepted.

While it still seemed to melt away that dull, cold ache in her belly, it did nothing to soothe her rankled irritation towards being eavesdropped on, and her mood shifted easily, as it always seemed to do.

There was a hand reaching towards her, as if to stroke her. A hand that appeared in front of her face at what was likely meant to be an insult, though she had to struggle too much to concentrate on keeping this form to really pay it much mind.

Still, instinctively, her growl rose, the hair on the back of the lionesses neck standing on end and bristling.

And then he had to say it. A spectacle? A SPECTACLE? Just how was she going to make a spectacle......

Her jaws opened wide as she lunged forward, but in a swirl of the same colors as before she was no longer the wild beast, but the winged woman of war, letting go of what restraints she had so carefully set herself with. Back on two feet, reaching up with two hands to try and shove the man back against the door, eyes blazing.

"What do you mean, "a spectacle"?" Her voice was a snarl, her body as close to his as she could get, as either he would allow or she could force herself to be. Doubt had hooked it's claws into her. Doubt because it seemed like he'd rather she was gone. Doubt because the whispers implied that it was so. A spectacle because of her condition. She let her anger feed off of what should have had her hiding beneath her robe once more, to cover what others would likely stare at and mock her for, scorn her, and eventually use to drive her away.

Like he was doing now. Why was she so stupid? So stupid.......

........And so broken. This whispers continued to hiss at her, gaining strength from her confusion, her anger which was already, so quickly, beginning to wane. A cacophony once more. Her breathing was becoming more ragged. She attempted to think past it all but it was too hard, it was just so difficult.

"If you don't want me here, then I will leave. Just say so, and I'll do it." She had turned her face downwards, closed her eyes tight shortly after her erratic outburst as she tried to will the voices to cease, or at the very least, quiet.

She hadn't exactly backed away yet, though. Not unless he had managed to force her back.  

[medigel]

And this was why Shikoba was not an English major.

To outside eyes, the fact that he gave a low curse and summoned his dagger when she pounced on him might have been thought of as a sign that he didn't think her stable. In War, that was called "normal". "I see it's also done wonders for your humor," Shik muttered when Shaheen let up, desummoning his weapon once her face turned downcast. He wasn't very good at realizing the extent of Insanity in a person, bless his cold stone heart. But he could realize, albeit belatedly, that Shaheen's brand of erratic involved suspicion, and he cursed once more that Mai had decided to be capricious.

He paused, gazed at the chieftain and how broken she appeared, and breathed a sigh. Shik had to be careful with his words from now on - That was like playing the Conquest game. And Deities knew he was no wordsmith. "Woman, would you stop putting words in my mouth? I offered you lunch and expect you to come hunt with me, that's all," he told her, even going so far as to put a hand on her shoulder. No nails or anything! Shock and awe. "That new form of yours would come in handy."

Mai would have been invited, but that little eavesdropping stunt earned her the title of house sitter.  

[Seussi]

The dagger summoning was completely understandable. She would have done the same thing, and likely would have stabbed first and apologized later if it turned out she had acted too hastily. Well, maybe. Apologies weren't really her forte.

She didn't understand what humor had to do with it, unless he had been trying to tell a joke, in which case it had either been in bad taste, or his choice of words had just been awful. More then likely it was both. She kept her eyes closed for a moment longer, trying to focus on his own words, and on her own thoughts, sifting past the falsehoods that the voices would have her believe. It took time, but eventually, with a shudder, she was able to open her eyes and look back up at him, face tilting back upwards as golden orbs set in blackness blinked at him, confusion creasing her features as her breathing gradually began to slow.

"You...you can't just...Shikoba, you have to think before you say things!" She finally managed to blurt out. "You don't know what this is like. The voices, they twist everything around..they make me feel...." She began shaking her head, tawny curls bouncing around her shoulders.

"I can't control how they make me feel most of the time. I try, but it is a battle I am gradually losing." As if the increasing advances of grey across her features wasn't sign enough of that.

"It's a battle that I'm not sure can be won, though I will try." No, she wasn't ready to give up just yet, though finding the will to continue was becoming harder and harder.

A small smile began to lift the corners of her lips. That hand on her shoulder felt so inviting, and warm, she felt an impulse to sag into it, into him. She was just so tired, which did nothing to improve her severe mood swings, she knew, but the alternative and the nightmares that came with sleep was so much worse, for her at least. She managed to refrain from the sagging, though in a grande gesture meant to show that she was at least trying to not revert to her natural state of kill-Shik-always, she very suddenly reached up with her untainted hand to rest against he side of his face.

It was the most tender moment he was ever likely to get from her anytime soon, or vice-versa, she was sure.

"You know I won't give up, I will keep fighting. I just...it just makes it difficult for me to remember that my life is worth fighting for. Do you understand?" Smiling though she might have been, there was a haunting pain in her eyes that could not be ignored.

Lunch could come in a moment. She needed to make him understand first. Because this was why she was here, she was sure of it now. She needed him to remind her to keep fighting. He was the only one she could trust with that.

Ol-j-man

that is the most she's ever spoken at once everrrrrr!!!

 

[medigel]

Shik, thinking before speaking? Miracles.

Shaheen laying a non-violent hand on him? Miracles.

In a rare moment of hesitation, Shik let her hand stay where it was as he pondered her words. In the accursed Haunted House she and several others had turned into a fog-beast, and even before that he had once said (truthfully, if callously) that if he had known the decision had been between life with Insanity and death, he would have wished her death instead. The disease had warped her in ways he couldn't always adapt to, but it had always been something distant to him - obvious, yes, but slow in progress, something that could be drawn out until someone smarter than he had a cure. He had treated it more like a constant cough than a truly terrifying condition, and thus couldn't fathom what real madness meant. Well, beyond what Shaheen doled at him anyway.

After those few moments of thought, Shik made a musing noise to show he understood and pressed his lips together (see, he could think before speaking after all!) before speaking. "You are a horseman, and more than that a horseman of War, Shaheen. I wouldn't let you give up on that principle alone," he said simply, a fond threat behind his small smile. "It would make us look bad. I'll drag you if I must - and you know how happy I am to do that - but as the person who's known you since childhood, I'd much rather walk beside you down this path than force you. Besides, you -" He paused, then shook his head a bit. She received a light slap to the shoulder he had been grasping.

Too many words and Shik would start to confuse himself with what he was trying to say. He was always more of an action man.

"Right now, I hope you find the hunt worth it. I tracked a boar not far from here; the house needs some new ivory anyway," he said with a grin, and then offered his hand. "Shall we?"  

[Seussi]

It was a moment that if anybody had been watching, they might not have believed their eyes. Not only were Shaheen and Shik not at each others throats, but they were actually speaking to each other on some kind of mature, adult level without insults, banter, or voices raised in anger.

Hearing it from his own mouth, a confirmation that he did not intend on letting her give up, was just what she had been seeking. It loosened up yet another of those knots of worry that lay deep inside of her, though there were still many left to take it's place. Though he tried to cover it up with jokes, or by cutting himself of mid-sentence, she knew now one other small thing that she had wanted to confirm.

"I'll hold you to that." She murmured, though her mind swam with a new realization, one that almost drowned out everything else.

He cared. He cared about whether or not she made in through this. The realization was actually more startling then she thought it would be, and her hand slid off of his face, lips pursing into an unimpressed line at the shoulder slap, and she flicked at the hand that he had once rested on her shoulder with an index finger.

Shikoba Len had been the first to break and ruin what had been a serious moment, though if it had lasted five seconds longer she might have been the one to do so.

No more words were really needed on the subject. She felt like she had said enough already. The whispers clambered away in her mind like they always did now, and them combined with her fatigue drew heavily on her emotions. But she tried not to let her exhaustion, both mental and physical, show. Not even when she allowed herself a moment to relax, to step back away from him, head turning to take in a view that didn't consist of tall, dark, and overly muscled, or brown eyes that made her feel faintly dizzy if she looked into them for too long. When she glanced back at his words, it was to an outstretched hand held out towards her, and she stared at it for a time, brows creasing in confusion.

And then, after a pause that had probably gone much longer then necessary, as though having come to some kind of life altering decision, she lifted her own hand and placed it in his, trailing fingers against the darker brown of his palm before settling it in place. Oddly enough, it didn't feel awkward or uncomfortable, as she thought it would be. It just felt...right. But she refused to dwell on that, for the moment.

And as they moved away from the house, her lips quirked up into a smirk. "You tracked it? You? Didn't you fail that part of our instruction the first time around..." Never mind that that had been countless years ago, when they had been nothing more then children by horsemen standards.

"The only way this will not end in catastrophe, is if you follow my lead, and stay out of my way." She was practically grinning now, and she slid her hand out of his to shove at his shoulder, before loping off, knowing that he would likely follow.