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 Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 4:51 pm
Too foolish.
Dad, could you just try to live for once? She's not coming back just because you make yourself miserable.
Ladon's words rang in his head as he stared at himself in the still surface of the watering hole, examining the crescent printed squarely between his pale eyes in the morning light. No, she wouldn't come back just because he was miserable. He knew that.
But the moon didn't shine without the sun, either.
Having satisfied his thirst, the aging dragon turned away from the watering hole and settled his bones beneath the shade of a patchy old tree. Ladon had wanted to do some scouting ahead and he couldn't have blamed them - they were both more careful now, more wary. Fafnir was content to rest while he waited.
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Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 7:38 pm
Dionysis felt so very alone and hopeless these days. It had been months since her sisters left her. She felt lost without the other three to guide. She was so used to leading, to looking out for them, and now she felt lost and useless without them. She couldn't blame them for leaving, not after what she had done. Her very first decision for their group had been wrong, and to find that out all these years later had shaken her. The lioness could have kept it from her sisters, but that was not her way. She told them, they left her, and all of them headed to see their brother, her twin. Even Dionysis had gone to see her twin and was surprised to find forgiveness from the male whom she had convinced their litter mates to leave. After all this time, he could so easily forgive her and call her sister, and yet she could not forgive herself for the mistake. She knew she had hurt him in ways he would never say. She had convinced the rest of his family to abandon him and SHE, his twin, had abandoned him. The lioness just could not understand his willingness to put it behind them. Dionysis padded toward the watering hole with her head down and her shoulders drooping. Her tail dragged behind her, and she just let it there in the dirt. She had thought about just giving up, but she was too stubborn to do that, and none of her family would want her gone. Heck, Athena had offered for her to travel with him after all that she had done! She couldn't accept with how guilty she felt, but he had done it. The lioness almost ran into the blue lion coming away from the watering hole, and stopped in her tracks. She had not run into him, but she did step on his paw. She looked up at him from under her white fluff of head fur and then looked back down. "My apologies, I should watch where I step." She removed her paw quickly and half retreated back into the tall grass that she had just stepped out of. She should wait for this male to pass before she continued her line of travel.
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Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 3:36 pm
Startled from his silent doze, Fafnir's pale, eerie eyes flashed open and settled on the intruder. Aging though he was, his reactions were at least quicker than his awareness suggested. In a split second he was up on his haunches, ready to dart back from whoever it was that had stepped on him -
Only, she didn't look threatening at all.
Her apology unwound the tension from his shoulders and he settled back into a relieved sitting position beneath the old, gnarled tree Ladon had left him under and the one he would come back to collect him from. For a moment, he only stared at her, shrunk as she was in the tall grass.
"Uh," he began, unsure, "no, it's okay. It didn't hurt or anything." His waved his paw to and fro, suggesting no harm done. "You just startled me out of a nap."
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Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 5:32 pm
Dionysus stepped back out of the grass, careful not to place her paws on the male again. She lifted her head and shook her head fluff back away from her eyes. Her purple eyes did not shine very brightly this day. The lioness' inner turmoil showed in them and dimmed their light. "A nap is a sad thing to lose." She meant every word, as she was quite fond of sleeping on warm rocks and under shade trees herself. She could not bring herself to look away from the male as she spoke to him. "I am sure it hurt some even if you are not injured. I am not a light creature." Dionysus ate well for her status as a rogue. Perhaps not as well as she had with her three sisters to help her hunt, but she still did not do bad for a single lioness. "I did not expect to find another out this way." She had been trying to pick what she thought would be the least traveled areas to roam so she could sort her thoughts. She seemed to have failed at the moment.
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Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2017 5:43 pm
Whatever dimmed the female's demeanor had not gone entirely missed but, given his own predisposition toward moping and misery, he was hard pressed to judge or push the matter. He did, however, feel a familiar cord of empathy - his own terrible memories seemed only ever dimmed next to someone else's misfortune. Whenever Ladon had cause to complain was always when he felt his most helpful, too.
"Ahh, maybe a bruise," he offered a weak smile, superficial and fleeting in the moment, but a smile none-the-less. Truth be told, his paw did ache slightly and he suspected it would not be pleasant to walk on come the morning but it wouldn't kill him.
"I haven't seen any others since my son and I came out this way - he went to scout just to make sure we haven't wandered too close to pride lands but I would wager that we're in unclaimed territory given the lack of markings."
He spoke it all with an old male's wise gut instincts, rolling his shoulders as he did. "You're welcome to sit here and think on whatever you'd like, I won't bother you a bit."
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Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2017 4:42 pm
Dionysus felt warm at the gaze of the male. He was not flirting by any means, but he WAS handsome. It was hard not to feel a bit flustered and warm at that gaze, but she was old enough to know how to control herself regardless of the feelings she had inside, at least when it came to momentary crushes. "This is unclaimed territory, territory that not many herds come through, so not many rogues come this way." The idea of this male having a son out here with him, made he anxious. Was his son young and going to starve out here? Something told her that this male knew his way around hunting, but still cubs were hard to fend for from what the lioness had seen and even heard from her unloving mother. Even as a passing thought, it made the lioness wince. That reality was hard and quite unnerving no matter if her thoughts were directly focused on it or not. She really hoped that wince had not caught the male's attention, but she had a feeling it may have. "I have very unpleasant things in my mind of late, I do not think they are fit for company... or that I am worthy of company."
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Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2017 1:51 pm
Oh, what was his luck that he might find a soul more troubled than his own? A part of him wished dearly that Ladon would hurry back so that he could point out how silly his worries were if there were creatures so unsure of themselves as this one. Surely he was not so bad? But then a part of him, too, felt the words she spoke like a weight on his own heart and all at once he needed to lift some of that weariness from her bones. He was out of practice at soothing anyone else's woes but perhaps even a little company might help her. He could hope, anyway. "There are always unpleasant things in this world, my lady, and my mind is no stranger to them. I could tell you a tale that would surely make you feel more at ease in my company but I do not think that my misery would solve yours." He did manage a gentle smile, though, and did his best to force it to his pale eyes. If he meant to make her believe he was pleasant company he was going to have to work at it. What had it been like to talk without worries? He could hardly remember. "We could just sit and talk for a while, perhaps. I'd like to think I'm not so terrible company even if Ladon likes to tell me I mope too much." He laughed, then, warm and soft and unsure, but it was charming beneath the hesitance. "I'm Fafnir. It is a pleasure."
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Posted: Tue May 22, 2018 1:08 am
"I am Dionysus." Dionysus snorted and rolled her eyes at the male. His reassurances were adorable, but it did not change the fact that she was a horrible lioness and not good company for anyone. Perhaps she should explain why she was miserable company so the poor male could run before she tainted him more with her presence. Yes, she should tell him her story and then he would realize he needed to walk away from her. She nodded to herself and took a moment to organize her thoughts before beginning. "Such a handsome male as yourself should not be so familiar with unpleasantness... but my misery is my own doing, my own arrogance and stupidity left unchecked ruined everything. I convinced my sisters of a lie I thought true, and lead them to do something horrible... we were barely old enough to survive in a group, and we abandoned our brother to his own fate. The worst part is our brother is my twin."
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Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2018 4:15 pm
Fafnir let his words fall to silence as she dove so unexpectedly into the story of her life and concentrated on listening to and weighing the words as she spun the tale for him. She was such a young thing to have felt so much weight upon her shoulders, he realized, and had to wonder if she had broken herself so cleanly that she felt compelled to speak openly and damn whatever future she might have as well. It made his heart ache and he wondered if that was why Ladon always gave him such sad eyes as well. "Well, Dionysus, I will not tell you that you have not earned the weight of your sins but you must know that all saints have a past, no?" The smile he offered was weak by comparison to the ones he had managed for her before but he tried to pour his compassion into it even as he felt the deep, painful stab of his own unhealed wounds. "I, too, carry the face of my loved one with me wherever I go. If I had been faster or stronger, could I have done something?" He shrugged, "Perhaps." With a sigh, he pushed himself up to his feet and leveled his eerie, pale gaze on her. "Take it from an old male that has been carrying his sins with him for longer than you've probably been alive: you must find a way to forgive yourself."
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