[BACKLOG] Teary Goodbye [Arita & Tawa]

[Quaji]

Today was the day.

The day she had dreaded. The day all of her siblings dreaded. It had been their time to leave, earlier, well before it had been her's. She was the last of six to leave. None of them were able to stay with their parents. By traditions, those damn traditions, they all had to leave because of something none of them could control: their color. Or in Arita's case, the lack of it. For all she knew, she was supposed to red. But fate had decided to throw their dice in favor of screwing her over.

Goodbyes had already been said to her parents and technically she had already been sent off by them, but she had lingered around the edges.

Her entire life up to this point had been training, preperation for her having to leave the only thing she truly knew behind. It was...hard. Hard enough that the lioness had chosen her time of day to leave to be at night. While most of the pride was active, they were active away from her, allowing her some moment of final peace. It wasn't hard for Arita to raise her head and stare into the dark, silent sky. With the moon nearly gone the stars seemed to shine brighter.

Would the stars be different wherever she ended up?  

[SilverLutz]

Traditions. Traditions sucked major monkey balls. Tawa hated them, he had decided, upon finding out not only would his sister have to leave because of the color of her tail, but also his best friend, Arita, because of her pale coat. It didn't make any sense to him - there were pure white Firekin that were allowed to stay, as well as pure black. There was no red on them, but because Arita had colorless markings she had to go? All of her siblings were being sent out as well and, while he didn't know them as well as he knew Arita, he still felt that it wasn't fair.

His own pelt was more than welcome to stay, but Tawa couldn't help but feel no kinship to those that said his sister and best friend had to go. How could they turn them away like this? It frustrated him to no end.

The night was cool and dark as he walked through the sands to the edge of the pride. His sister had left some time before and it had been awful. Now he had to bid farewell to Arita, and somehow he had the feeling this goodbye would be even more painful. He loved his sister, of course, but there was something special about a friend. You could pick those, after all. Siblings just happened.

He spotted the pale lioness looking up a the stars. He glanced up as well, scowling at the night sky. Once he got close enough he butted his head against her rump, a glum look on his face. "Hey," he said quietly.  

[Quaji]

Arita felt her throat clench as she heard the simple greeting. He had come. Oh god, he had come. Of course he did, but part of her had still held onto a fear, or was it a hope, that he wouldn't. He was her friend, surely, but this felt harder. Maybe it was because she had expected goodbyes from her parents and the feelings that had come with it. She had said goodbye to sibling after sibling as their bodies grew and manes came in, but she had remained, a solemn reminder to her proper-colored parents. Her family was broken, shattered by traditions and now she was the final piece of the puzzle to be torn away, but not before this. Not before the final goodbye. Not before Tawa.

With extreme caution and methodical movement the once-huria, now rogue, turned her head to look over her shoulder. Not once had she realized that she had been crying at the twinkling specks in the sky above the two of them. "Hey." she replied, though even that word broke.  

[SilverLutz]

The slow turn made Tawa's chest ache. This was the last time he'd see his friend. Ever. The thought alone made him want to take on every single adult in this entire pride and beat them up until they said she could stay. He noticed the damp fur around her eyes and made a quiet noise, almost as if he had stepped on a cactus spine. It physically hurt to see her upset and for a moment he felt his own eyes stinging.

Should he let it out? Cry with her? Or try to be strong? At this point he didn't know, so he tried to distract himself by comforting her. He moved forward, pressing against her the whole time until they were shoulder to shoulder.

"Hey...don't cry," he said quietly, nuzzling her cheek with his nose. "You don't wanna stay in this place anyway. You wanna...go to the jungle or the mountains. I've heard stories from the rogues that join, there's lots of places out there where you can go and not have to worry about the sun giving you burns." He tried to put a cheerful spin to it, but it wasn't that convincing when every word tore at his heart. Those places were far, far from here, after all.

"You'll have lots of fun out there. So many adventures and...and meeting all kinds of creatures. And when you come visit you can tell me all about it and I'll be super jealous about all the fun you've had." The words 'without me' hung heavy between them, and even though he tried to make his tone cheerful it still fell rather flat.  

[Quaji]

It was easy for Arita to fall into his touch. It was familiar enough to be comforting, but just enough so that it still made her chest hurt. She'd be alone out there and there was no way she could ask Tawa to turn his back on his pride to come with her. Even her parents had ended up with that dilemma and decided to stay in the end to be a point that Arita and her siblings could always come back to.

Despite the tears in her eyes, Tawa still managed to make her laugh.

"Mountains sound too cold and jungles...I hear they're humid and full of weird insects." Just thinking about it made the pale lioness shudder against him. "It just won't be fun out there without you." The word 'fun' was obviously a replacement for another word, another feeling that right now Arita just couldn't pin down. "I'm not adventurous enough to go out there. I don't want to meet others. I don't want to be a huria, fireless, or whatever they want to call me!"  

[SilverLutz]

The laugh, although sad, made Tawa smile just a bit. He was glad he could still lighten her spirits, even on this dark day. Or night, he supposed, glancing up at the sky again a for just a moment.

"Don't knock it 'til you try it," he chided gently, bumping his nose against her cheek. As her words turned sad again he felt his stomach drop, his eyes stinging again. He shook his head slightly, agreeing with her completely.

"I don't want to be here if they think your'e fireless," he said quietly. "You have more fire than anyone I've met. It's just inside." He wanted to go so badly so she wouldn't be alone, but the pain his family had gone through sending his sister away wasn't something he wanted to replicate. That, and he hadn't been trained on how to survive in the wild completely alone. Some day, though...he knew he couldn't stay here forever. Not with the way they sent those 'unworthy' of the name Firekin away.

Feeling his eyes start to tear up finally, he pressed his face against Arita's neck. "I'm gonna miss you," he said very quietly, his voice cracking at the end as he sniffled.  

[Quaji]

She didn't want to go and hearing him say 'I'm gonna miss you' only solidified that sentiment in her mind. At least someone else, aside from her parents of course, would remember and feel some sort of emptiness without her there.

Arita's head turned to let her chin come to rest on his head, letting him push against her neck with ease. His mane, however small it was now, still tickled her nose. "I'm gonna miss you too. I'm gonna miss these dunes, even the damn sun. It won't be the same out there." She knew, she had been out there before, briefly of course. It had been part of her training, the small excursions to the roguelands to study under the guidance of another.

Pink eyes raised skyward to look at the stars again. "At least we'll both be able to watch the same stars, right? No matter where I am?" For the most part at least, but it the sentiment behind the words that mattered to her right now, not the actual truth.  

[SilverLutz]

Tawa would have tried to cheer her up a bit more, but he had been trying since they realized she'd have to leave. There was no energy left in him to try once more. This was it. He knew she was right when she said it wouldn't be the same out there, and even though he tried to tell her it would be an adventure and she'd make new friends and have fun and not get burned so much, it never lifted her spirits.

"Yeah," he said, looking up at the sky. "And the moon. There's only one of those and it goes all across the sky. Let's look at it every night," he said, smiling weakly even though his eyes were shining with tears. "That's how we can say hi."  

[Quaji]

It seemed like such a cliche, like from one of the stories she had grown up on. Two friends, separated, but connected through the night's sky.

"Yeah." The agreement from Arita was simple, but that was all her choked throat would let out and even that was hard to get out by how the long the silence was between his suggestion and her reply.

"Can we...stay here? Just a bit longer." The sun was still hours away from dawning on the horizon, she certainly spare a few more minutes with him. That and the guard wouldn't bother them here, not yet anyways. She supposed that was one perk of having a mother that was one of the guard; she had some idea of patrol patterns from all the times her mother complained about them.  

[SilverLutz]

"Of course," Tawa said instantly, bumping his nose against her cheek. He'd stay as long as she wanted and then some. He didn't want to have her last few hours in the Firekin spent alone. He didn't want her to leave without someone there to watch until she was a speck on the horizon. He'd stay until he couldn't see her and then some.

The moon moved slowly across the sky as the two young Firekin sat in the darkness, talking quietly and letting their tears flow a bit more. The sun eventually rose and the moon set, taking Arita with it. Tawa stayed in his spot long after she disappeared from sight and only moved when a passing guard told him to do so.

He had never felt his heart so heavy, and he knew looking at the moon wouldn't be enough to comfort him.

FIN