[PRP] Begin Again

[Pandorus Sphinx]

Slowly Ausi made her way across the barren wilderness. The lands felt so familiar under her paws. She was alone, all of her children were grown now and for the first time in years she was traveling in the company of solitude, this was unusual for her. Normally one of her sons would travel with her but most of her offspring now had offspring of their own.Though the prospect of being alone didn't frighten her as much as she thought it once would. Maybe some part of her past self would have been afraid right now, but she knew better. Age made her wiser and maybe even a bit more cold and closed off. She had been on her own for years. She raised her children and moved on from the life that she once lived.

For most of her early life she had been stuck in perpetual love with her closest childhood friend, the father of her children, her other half - Fedha. They grew up together, they shared the same blood and spent years side by side and as one. It was hard at first being without him, but as time went on the scars did heal even with how deep he had left them. She never took another partner or lover though. That part of herself closed the day he left. The shadow of his absence still followed her to this day. Apart of her would always carry that demon around.

She stopped and took in breath deeply, exhaling only to find herself repeating the process a few more times. She felt on edge and her nerves unraveled. Something wasn't completely right and she could feel it in her gut. Slowly she turned around and frowned. What was this sixtieth sense? What was coming?

Why was she even back here after all this time?  

[Lethrossen]

The days had dragged on long and pointless, the sun rose and fell and the moon took her place like clockwork. He had given up everything he'd built over the years on a whim... on a mad rambling of his brain to see if he could create more with his gift. If it was feasible... and if his love had had the gift to begin with his life would not have been left so desolate... so alone. After Tisis ... well after Tisis and the disaster that had resulted where he and Arusi were concerned it had seemed pointless. None of the cubs had been special... and though he was no longer tethered to his red goddess... continuing to experiment had just seemed so... well, why bother?

The dreams had stopped visiting very soon after... and though they still sometimes flickered through his sleep they were fleeting... foggier than ever. Pieces so tiny that none of it made sense, not even a tiny bit. He thought of ending his life many times... so much of it seemed pointless now. But each time he found it in himself, go on, go on. He couldn't do it, he simply spent his time surviving. Solitude had done very little good for the silver furred lion, his ribs showed through and his fur was matted. The most that could be said for the male that he was more well rested than he ever had been in his life... mainly due to spending most days and nights drifting in and out of sleep for lack of anything better to do. His paws steered him away from prides, from strangers, from society.

But today... today his paws hit the ground with a sense of purpose. His blood buzzed with something electric, something meaningful... but why? When? His steely gaze scanned the horizon continuously as he moved,
his ears and posture alert. A lazy breeze half picked up... and he stopped in his tracks. It did not matter how many moons had passed having not smelled this particular scent... he would know it always.

Arusi was near.  

[Pandorus Sphinx]

"How cruel." She spoke with words laced with pain and anger. Her tone was shaky her and harsh. How could this be? Out of all the places, during all this time... here he stood before her, that demon, that shadow. She was in disbelief and discord swept through her mind like glass shards.

"Why?" She questioned with lowered ears and bristled fur.

"Why are you here?" She questioned again giving him no time to respond. Perhaps she wasn't really looking for an answer. Perhaps she already knew the answer. He had the gift of sight after all, a power that changed him, a power that took him from her. It was a demon just like he was, A curse. He didn't ask for it and she knew it, she did. Still a part of her resented it. She never even knew if he loved their children because none of them inherited his gifts. She spat in his direction as her blue eyes narrowed on his figure. Damn him.

"How dare you. After all this time..." Silence fell over the lioness as she stood still. The x shape scar on her hip still visible to this day. He looked awful. She hoped he felt as awful as he looked.  

[Lethrossen]

He moved with a sense of urgency now, his speed picking up and his eyes flickering over the lands more wildly. Was the scent old, or new? He felt need... he... he felt it pushing out from all through his body... he felt as though his ribs would crack open, tear through his flesh. His breathing quickened, his thoughts wild now. Was she here? Could it be?

And then she was there, he had come face to face with her. His body froze, his thoughts fled from any coherent process.... It felt like every fiber of his being was being consumed with her. And yet... and yet... his tongue was frozen inside of his mouth, the pain only seemed to double as the first words slid from her mouth, slipping sneakily around his throat and suddenly being pulled taught. Even as warning flags started to pop up he couldn't bring himself to move, to back away, to beg forgiveness. He stood, steel blue eyes drinking her in. He needed to know every bit of her, again.

Her words did nothing more than choke any sense he might have once had, falling on deaf ears. As she spat he did finally move, flinching as her saliva smacked into his face. There was... there was relief. Relief she was not moving away... and she was not lunging at him... was not... there were so many other ways this could be going... "Beautiful.." The word whispered barely there from his mouth, despite how clearly angry she was.

He could feel tears brimming his eyes, feeling so overwhelmed... feeling so powerless and lost. How had he ever been so stupid to let go of the only good thing in his life? Yes, even better than the very children he had created with Arusi... and he was sure she hated him for that too. "I d-on't.." His words were strained, unused for so long... He tried to clear his throat, tried to summon some amount of spit to clear the dryness. "Because it's always been you, Ar." It was not an explanation of what he'd done or even an apology... it just was.

And if anything were to kill him, he would be happy it be her... and if that were how things were to go he would be fine with it... elated at having seen her one last time.  

[Pandorus Sphinx]

"You don't get to say those things to me anymore. You lost that right." She snarled at how pathetic he seemed. It was obvious the anger in her outweighed the love she once felt for him right here in this moment. In this moment all she felt was fire. It was fitting really, the half of her that was born from flames was raging inside of her now. She was always a little bigger than him, stronger. It was in her genes, only half of her was Mist born after all. She carried a lot of her father's likeness inside her. Rage included.

"You left me. You abandoned me." She could feel her own tears swell as she spoke to him harshly. Maybe hate was the wrong word for what she was feeling, maybe it wasn't hate that she felt for him deep down inside. Passion comes in many forms after all. Whatever it was she felt right here in this moment she couldn't help but let it all out.

"Was I ever even good enough?" She questioned, her tone breaking under the weight of the question, it felt almost too much to ask. There he was, that shadow she could never escape, the shadow she didn't want to escape. He was her shadow after all. Closing the gap slowly she moved closer to him placing paw in front of paw until she stood only a few inches away. He could feel her warm breath against his face as she opened her mouth to speak again.

"I looked for you. I looked for you for two years. I heard you had children with someone else." Here it was, those tears she so badly wanted to contain.

"When I heard that... you died for me. You are dead to me." Tears trickled down her cheek as she spoke, her head lowering in disappointment. To her it felt as if he had scorned her. Disrespected their family name, disrespected her. Like the children they made together weren't good enough, like she wasn't.

"How is a dead man standing in front of me?" She whispered under her sorrow, never allowing her eyes to reach his.  

[Lethrossen]

Her words stabbed all over. She hated him, just like she'd always hated him... and how could she not when he was exactly who he was? And how could he deny the words that fled from her mouth, only true? "Yes." He whispered, there was no point in denying it... though long ago he might have been able to weave his words in a way that would leave her anger simmering instead of burning so bright. Words that would have calmed her, for a time.
"Yes!" He said more urgently, his voice choked as he hastened to answer her second question.

She had been... so good. Every single time so good, and he never... he never really appreciated that, had he? He had wrecked her life from the inside out, from the very moment he realized their fates were so tethered together. "Yes..." Softer now, filled with regret. Yes, he'd had cubs with another... "Not... not out of love... not out of..." Oh, but that sounded terrible. It didn't make his love for her mean anything more than what it did, it still painted him in such a horrible light. Maybe even more so.

He took a step forward, though she was already face to face with him. He wanted to nuzzle into her, to rub her scent all over... to mark her as his own... because she was his. And he was hers... "Please I.... there are so many things..." His throat cracked again, speaking felt painful. How could he explain everything? Any thing? How could he begin to say that he was sorry... because he was not sorry for why he did or how he did... he was just sorry the idea had latched so tightly to his brain... he was sorry that he'd become so obsessed over it that he could no longer think of anything else... not even his beautiful goddess before him...

"You are... and were... the only thing keeping me.... tethered to this earth Arusi..." His words were solid, true. "And for as long as I go on... I will follow you... haunt you if you never wish to speak to me again... or you can kill me now... here where we stand.... there's only you... there's only you." And he was crying now too, unable to explain everything he wanted but unable to just walk away, to just offer her some peace in her life. Some break from the heartache.  

[Pandorus Sphinx]

"Please stop trying to explain it. You don't have to explain it to me." She snarled.

"I know what you're trying to do, don't you think that out of everyone in this world that I would be the one that knows you best? Look at me. If I could have given you what you wanted don't you think I would have given it to you by now?" Her voice cracked. She felt like such a failure in front of him.

"I'm sorry all of our children were failures to you." Maybe this wasn't what he actually felt but it hurt her thinking it all the same. Apart of her wanted him to hurt too. To carry that weight like she had.

"But I love every one of them." She sounded as broken as she looked. She spoke flicking her tail in annoyance. She couldn't give him the satisfaction of looking him in the eye, not yet at least. She knew that when her gaze would lock with his own it would be over for her, it always was. He was intoxicating, his personality could absorb you like a dying flower seeking water... but his thrust never felt totally satisfied and she always came back trying to feed it all the same. Hoping that someday maybe she would have been enough.

"I can't always pull you through time Fedha." She paused, gasping softly.

"I can't always be responsible for this. Why do I have to be the strong one?" This question broke her harsh look as she moved her eyes forward staring him dead into his soul.

"Don't you think I'm connected to you? Don't you think I've always been a part of you? The only times in my life I have truly been happy have been with you. The only times in my life I have truly been broken have been because of you." She stopped, her voice softer now, her body language open and insecure.

"I've never loved anyone else." Admitting this truth wasn't easy. A part of her felt like he didn't deserve to know this intimate information but she felt guilty being so awful to him. Even after everything she felt bad being the harsh one. Deep down she knew he hadn't always been right in the head but she loved him all the same. Whatever she wanted to call it, a disease, a curse, a mental illness... she chose him she stuck beside him through thick and thin.

"What do you want from me?" The question seemed so simple though she knew the answer would be much more complicated.  

[Lethrossen]

"You... Arusi it's you that I want, that's what you gave me... that's what I need... and what I threw away so carelessly... please..." He pleaded, though he didn't know how many chances she had given him. Too many. And yet... he couldn't just not ask for another. He honestly would have to be dead and decaying before he would ever be able to fully leave her side.

"They aren't." He breathed, broken. They just... she couldn't understand that she was most important to him... and that while they were growing...
while he had been so obsessed with the idea of... of what? Being able to impact the gift of sight to their children... it wasn't that he didn't love his children...
it was that he'd been too overwhelmed with the need to explore his gift... understand it... and now? Now again he wished someone could dig their claws into his brain and scratch it out.

"Let me... let me then.." More begging. He could do it, he could be strong for her... protect her... but the solid one. He could give... couldn't he give, for Arusi? "You have always been connected to me... and I have always always been connected to you..." He closed the space between them,
even though it was a mood that could bring her anger back two fold. His head nuzzled into her neck, uncaring if she wanted his advance or not. "And I've been... afraid so long... rejecting that for so long... I've been... terrible... and cruel.... I've been... so stuck in my head... with these stupid f@#&#xin;g visions..." But she knew all of that already, and he knew she knew... "I can be better... I can..."

He just.... he just needed another second chance. This time he could prove it to her, could show her. "I've only ever loved you." He said, this time his words fiercer... as if their intensity might convey the truth. There had been times when he thought this not to be true, where he had wavered and tried to escape the red thread so tangled around them... but over the past two years he'd lived like a ghost. Had reflected on his life... on the horrible things he'd done and said... and how he might never get a chance to show her anything different,
and he truly would have to die if she wouldn't take him back.

The silence lay thick in the air after her words. What did Fedha want from Ausi?
"Please... please.. just... I just want to show you... I just want to be better...
for you ... for us... I can. I will..." He still pleaded, unsure of what else he could say. "Anything Arusi... I will do anything"  

[Pandorus Sphinx]

She felt his fur against her own and took in his scent softly. Every bone in her body ached as he stepped closer and brushed himself against her, leaning into her. That familiar feeling, that familiar place, she knew it was home. He was always home to her. Even when he burned that home to the ground she stood in its ashes and waited. She was always waiting.

"Stop." Her voice begged as she closed her eyes and sighed deeply. She could have stood there forever like that, stuck in this moment forever. She could have died right here and she would have died with meaning, but that anger that she knew lay deep down inside swelled and and wouldn't let go.

She pulled back and gazed at him for a moment, longingly as if begging for him to never walk away again before lifting clawed paw high into the air only to swipe at him harshly. All of these feelings she felt, all of these conflicting emotions... they burned at her good ends. From where she was standing they had some unresolved issues that needed to be addressed. She wouldn't be sucked into his charm so easily

She lunged at him, wrapping her claws around his neck as she pushed him to the ground using all of her weight to keep him pinned beneath her. For a moment she simply looked down at him with blue eyes as clear as the sky. For a moment she simply took him in.

"Show me what what could you possibly show me?" She chuckled under her breath as her claws extended into his mane.

"Anything? You will do anything? Where was this before? When we needed you. When I needed you." As she spoke she lowered her head closer to his own resting her forehead against him before speaking again, just softly enough for him to hear and him alone.

"I could kill you right now. I could kill you and never look back. What would I honestly be losing? I lost you a long time ago." As she spoke she nuzzled her forehead into his holding him down still with every ounce of strength she had in her.

"Do you want to live? I mean really live? If you are still hellbent on this path of destruction let me end it for you. Let me give you that sweet release you so desperately crave. The last time I saw you... you wanted only to find death and despair. What will it be?" She spoke so seductively about death and its permanence. She would do that for him, if that was what he truly wanted.

It would have to be her. Only she could kill Fedha. His life belonged to her.

"Will you live again, Fedha. Or do you long for death?" The question was simple. She stood over him, holding him close.  

[Lethrossen]

He couldn't stop the snarl of pain as her claws raked across his face, his own whipping away from her. Little pots of red flew from his flesh and plipped against the dusty earth, warm liquid pooling almost immediately in the fresh claw wounds before seeping over and running down his face, soaking into his fur. He had little and less time to understand what was going on before the weight of her was being thrown at his body, he felt himself flung to the ground like a rag doll. He grunted and wheezed as the air expelled from his lungs, trying to gasp for breath. His duller blue eyes bore into her own, not shocked and unafraid. So this was what she chose... but then the pin pricks of her claws lifted from his throat, retreating more so into his mane. He wouldn't be foolish though, he knew they were close by... in case.

He felt... hurt. But it wasn't the kind of hurt one felt for ones self... no, it was much worse. He felt hurt for her. He felt hurt for everything he'd caused, all of his monstrous actions. Every waking moment he'd spent... purposefully or accidentally making her life a waking hell. And right now, now he could end that all for her. Should have let that end for her. But he was selfish... and how! Always so selfish... but this was the last selfish thing he had to do in his life. If he was selfish just this one last time... then he could give everything to her. He could do anything for her. He could be a part of her life that he should have been so long ago... he could do that.

"I give that... all up for you... this life... this life I have left, I want to spend with you." He whispered, deciding now that he would never mention a vision to her for as long as breath still left his body, that would be step one.  

[Pandorus Sphinx]

"You have to stop. You have to come home. If this is going to work between us you have to come home." Apart of her knew that apart of him would always be this way. He could change it no more than she could change the love she had for him. So in the end it was something that she would have to learn to live with. Whether she could or not was still up in the air, but she would try for them. Softly she retracted her claws and stood firmly back staring at him with crystal blue eyes. She wouldn't hurt him, hoping that he would do the same for her; spare her the pain. Her voice lowered as she sighed speaking to him directly.

"I can't raise you from the dead, I can only help you stay here in the land of the living. I need you. I need you to need me. I need you to be better for both of us." As she spoke there was a sadness to her tone because of course she knew deep down some part of him would let her down even if he didn't mean to, even if he tried everything in his power to prevent it. It was the curse, But it was one that she willingly took on and would continue to do so until she died. She couldn't lose him again, anymore.

"I need you."  

[Lethrossen]

As she slowly climbed off him he let his breathing steady, relief starting to flood his veins. He could come home. She was his home, and she always would be. He stared back, ignoring the blood still soaked into his face for now. "I need you." He repeated, his voice cracking, as he reaffirmed what she was saying. He did, he always did no matter how much he messed it up. It didn't even matter that she sounded half broken admitting these things to him, because she was still his. And he could be hers, fully hers. He didn't need to let the visions ruin that this time... even if they had ruined it over and over and over.

He waited a moment more as she repeated that she needed him, and he would never really understand why. She was strong and smart and beautiful... she hunted well and she was a good mother. He was none of those things, nothing that really was equivalent... so why him? But he never spent a long time wondering about it, he just always accepted it. Hell, a long time ago that thought had never been present in his mind, of course she would want to be with him because he had a gift, he was special. Life had dragged that away from him, had made him understand it wasn't really how the world worked.

He moved forward, taking a shaky breath as he bumped his head into her own, rubbing his scent into her. "Okay, let's go home."