[private] pick your poison; live with remorse. || australis

[Offspring]

don't forget that this is a choice.
pick your poison; live with remorse.

   The gentle breeze presses against his marred flesh, soothing in the light caress that grazes over each individual puckered, pink scar that litters the length of his behemoth body. His breath is warm, unlike the frigid evening air that lingers in the still, quiet morning - but it does not even come close to what had once been. To what had once been his. Alas, the pale sunlight begins to infiltrate the dense foliage, bathing the darkness he had so easily blended into with its light, stirring his mind from the heavy brooding that had plagued him. His eyelids heavy with fatigue, his thick lashes shield his dark eyes of crimson from the intrusion, shying his broad cheek away as he delves deeper into the thicket.

   A low, long-held breath emerges from his tired lungs as he lumbers through the tightly knit pines, ignoring the way the drying, bare branches scratch at the surface of his hide. He is alone, festering in the acidity of old memories and wayward thoughts, longing for the touch of one (and her gentle touch and warm breath along the crest of his neck) but too troubled to seek her out. The nightmares had begun to return, no longer kept at bay by sleepless, weary nights, and each one left him unhinged. The scent of blood always lingered, heavy on his senses and metallic on his tongue, and his heart always threatened to detach and burst forth from his chest, pounding as he heaved, drenched in a sweat. 

   Her touch no longer soothed him, and it angered him deeply. Each and every night, he would drift again into a shallow slumber, lost in the memory of a pair of emerald eyes, drenched in the stench of waste and blood, embroiled in the blistering rage and the unbridled fury that had once engulfed him like the unforgiving flames he had been cursed with in the aftermath. The only salvation he could keep was when awake, when he was able to harness some semblance of control - but it left him exhausted, drained - and he knew how Isle ached at seeing him unravel. She knew of his anguish, and she had seen a part of his torment, but he could not let her see within. 

   He could not plague her with such suffering.
   A suffering he alone was meant to endure.

   Lost within his own thoughts once again, his breath hitches in his throat as he grows uneasy and still - his eyes linger along the delicate dappling of brown and white, which reminds him so suddenly of the lingering love that awaits him in the shadows of volcanic ash and steam. His heart clenches, knowing he is not where he belongs, and yet he cannot draw himself away. There is something too familiar about the rounded curve of the figure's neck, the delicate slope of her soft cheek and the way her chin and jaw seemed as if it has been painted in snow. 

   Though his heart still pounded, it warmed, drawing a tired smile to the corner of his whiskered mouth.

   "Australis," his voice echoes against the brittle bark and dried leaves that surround him. "my daughter. It has been a while." The ground rumbles slightly from the weight of his long, thick legs, which crush old, dried out leaves with each step. Though he reaches for her, he cannot say much more - a pang of guilt lingers, a reminder of the time wasted during her youth. She had grown from a stem to a beautiful blossom, hidden away from his eyes and he ached to know the time when she had been small, youthful and full of trembling enthrallment for the world around her.

   Again, he is reminded of time, of how it never ceases, never stops.

offspring

[australis]

show me, who I am and who I could be,

She drifts quietly through the forest, and the only sound that follows her is the gentle huff of her own breath and the brittle crunch of downed autumn foliage underfoot. Her eyes are as dark as they’ve always been, round and soft with the effort of wondering, of sorting through thoughts that pull her out into the deep. There is snow in the open places, in the meadow, a blanket of uninterrupted white and blue that makes the weight of her heart in her chest even heavier. It hasn’t crept into the forest yet, except for in irregular clumps, because the rust and brown leaves knit with the pine needles to push it back.

But it still smells like cold, like snow, like winter.
Still smells like home.

There is a sigh caught in her chest, a longing that buries its fingers in the pit of her belly, and she turns from the winter to disappear deeper into the forest. Eventually the scents shift, they change, and instead of the crisp freshness of cold, she can smell only the heavy cloy of damp soil and root and rotted leaves. In some ways, this is better. It loosens those shaking fingers in her chest so that she can remember how to breath evenly again. So that this time when she exhales, the sigh spills like water from her lips.

Australis.

She turns, startled, and those bright eyes take apart the dark until she can make out the edges of his body beneath the shadow of the trees. It is her father, and she had known his voice instantly, but some part of her heart refused to let her believe it until she could actually see those pink scars and gleaming red eyes. But it was, it was him. A wide, aching smile splits her lips as she moves to him, closing the distance between them just as he had begun to do. When he reaches for her, she melts willingly into his embrace, tucking herself beneath the curve of his thick neck as she had when she was just a baby. She fit better, then.

“Dad.” She breathes, and that single word holds every ounce of yearning and affection and need that she feels reflected within her heart. There is no guilt though, no blame for the great length of time that they have spent apart from one another. It is not a thing that feels important, not a thing that she even considers now, tucked as she is in the warmth of his embrace. She sighs again and rests her cheek against the dark of his shoulder, quiet for a moment to listen to the sound of their tangled breaths. And then, “It’s so good to see you.”

She shifts, only slightly, but does not pull away from him. It is so calming to be held close like a child again, to disappear back into a moment, into a time where their family was still together and the Tundra was not erased. When she speaks again her voice is soft, gentle, quiet like her mothers, “I heard you and mom live in Tephra now, do you like it there?” A pause and she disentangles herself from him enough to peer up at a face that holds details of her own, despite such a contrast in their eyes. “Everyone is well, yes?”

initiate the heart within me until it opens properly