Explaining Her Actions (Finished!)

[The Jenn]

Ah, oblivion. The 'easy' way out. He took it shamelessly and enjoyed hours of rest interrupted only by the horrible things his own mind threw at him in the darkness of nightmares. He slowly became aware of the world after being woken up by a particularly disturbing dream and finding a small, warm, furry bundle pressed against his stomach and chest. Eyes crusted with the residue of sleep blinked blearily down at the boy and he reached one paw up to wipe at his face and eyes, trying to be quiet.

His son was here with him... so where was he again? This certainly wasn't their apartment. He-

Ah yes, the palace of Hearts. Memory intruded on his waking mind and he winced reflexively, drawing his wings closer with a rustle. Whose room was he in? Who'd carried him here? Did anyone else know he was back yet? Judging from the rumor mill he'd known his entire life, some of the people he'd passed in the hall had probably put two and two together. The gaunt Highland bipedal feline with the aura of death was in fact the son of Serafino who'd left so many years ago. He wondered with trepidation who would be the first to enter the room.

It didn't matter just then, though. After abandoning the children they hadn't wanted - and something in him just died every time he thought that callous statement - he'd thought of little else but returning to the children that they had and the woman that he loved. He reached his nose down and nuzzled at Kieran, then started grooming him. If pressed, he had to admit in the privacy of his own mind that his son had always been his favorite child. He would never say it out loud, of course, because he loved Treasa dearly. But... something about the boy had caught at him from the first few days he'd existed. Even when his lack of a face had been visible, it hadn't mattered as much as some of his siblings' oddities for some reason.

He started to purr quietly, knowing it would make the boy happy. In truth, he was happy to be here with his family. He just wasn't looking forward to everything that would go with it. He'd expected repercussions, but... Xiven was looking to make things especially awful. Hopefully he wouldn't have to face that again so soon.

Rhi's form in the chair behind him hadn't been noticed yet.

[Kari Muffin]

Xiven sat in a chair close to the door, her tail swishing with rage the entire time. She wasn't about to go to sleep until she finished everything with Lior. He had taken everything from her, and he was entirely too blind to see any of it. Her claws tightened around the arms of the chair. She was going to make him realize everything once he was good and awake--and then maybe she would be able to get the fucking truth out of him.

She didn't care about the people who had heard all the rumors at the moment. They would wait until she was done. Mercy was too much to ask for after what he had done to her without even realizing it. He had even taken away the person that she loved. What was next? Her title?

Her ears perked when she heard him stir. With a small sigh of exasperation she stood and walked over to the feline on the bed. Sitting on the edge she looked at the figure of both him and his son. Children. Even that he had stolen from her.

"We need to have a long talk Lior. You need to realize what you've done to me to make me so angry." She said flatly. "You're not going to run away. You're going to stand up and take it like a man if you plan on being a guest in this palace." She wasn't whispering. She wasn't going to play games.

[carcinoGeneticist]

In her sleep, Rhiannon clung tightly to the scythe, her brows furrowing with concern. This was all her fault. She should have warned Xiven somehow as to who was coming back, should have talked things over more with Lior... She needed him here with her, but she needed Xiven just as badly and it was tearing her apart. Would she be forced to chose? She'd never wanted this to happen, having children and falling in love with someone else - in essence, everything that had gone on between her and Lior, but it had and now she couldn't imagine life without him.

If he hadn't stumbled upon her in that dark alley, she wouldn't be fit to be anyone's King, except perhaps Serafino's.

When the sound of purring reached her ears she twitched in her chair, slowly stirring and opening her eyes slowly. She could see the figure of Lior, curled protectively around the smaller body of Kieran, and beyond them, the elegant black-and-purple of Xiven. She let out a soft little noise, not quite a sigh or a cry, almost a whimper, but didn't say anything at all. She couldn't interfere. This wasn't an issue of her having found a lover in Lior, but rather an issue with something he'd done in the past. It wouldn't be right for her to step in.

Oh suits, she was going to lose them both. She would die if that happened. She would die if she lost either one of them, she realized.

Kieran was filled with much less dread than his mother. Angry words were being said, sure, but he was with his Papa now. When the older feline woke up, the boy's purring only increased in volume, bumping his masked face up against Lior's chin. He turned shining glass eyes on Xiven when she began to talk, his ears flattening slightly - he didn't understand why she was so mad, his papa was a good person... But right now, there was nothing he could do to make her feel better, he was sure of that.

Instead, he would try and keep his papa happy while his mama's Xiven and him spoke. He pressed his small body up tightly against Lior's much larger frame, purring as much as his half-canine heritage would allow, splayed fingers continuing to knead at Lior's side.

((THIS THREAD CONSUMES MY SOUL))

[The Jenn]

The peaceful spell of morning was broken almost immediately, to Lior's intense disappointment, as Xiven made her way into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. He hadn't realized how close she was and hunched his shoulders involuntarily as she approached. He really wasn't going to have a moment's peace in the Court, was he? What could he tell her? The truth? And how would that possibly satisfy her? What good would it do her to know where he'd been and what he'd been doing? It wouldn't do anything for her, only leave him more exposed. Maybe that was her point. The thought was awfully... cruel. What kind of person had she grown up to be in his absence?

He had no choice but to deal with her if he wanted to even stay on the palace grounds. She was a titled Queen now. She could kick him out in a heartbeat and it would override anyone else's word on the matter excepting the Queen, who had no stake in the family drama one way or the other.

Sighing unhappily, he shifted to sit straighter, one wing curling down to keep Kieran close. The pack beneath his cloak pressed in uncomfortably against his side, not having been removed before he slept. It contained the only things that mattered to him enough to keep. He still hadn't realized that Rhi was in the room, having been too focused on the Queen's approach to pay attention to the whimper. "What exactly do you want to know? Why are you angry at me? You already have Rhi - she was coming back here for good, to you and your children, whether I followed her or not. You're a titled Queen, you have your King and your children, and my leaving couldn't have possibly affected you that much. We were never exactly close. You're holding all the cards right now besides my son and daughter. What do you have to be mad about?"

((Aaaaand I'm sure Xiven is going to hand him his ass for not knowing things he shouldn't know, and Rhi is going to... I have no idea. Heh.))

[Kari Muffin]

"You are so blind," she said laughing, tears trickling down her face. "You always have been so absorbed with your self pity you never understood how many people loved you."

But that wasn't the point. She shook her head. "You've taken everything I've ever worked for and made it your own. It started from the time you were born. Papa loved you because you were a Highlander and the son he always wanted. He may be crazy... but on some level he still cares about you. I had to work for his affection because I was born a Torque and a girl. He never wanted me--I was just an accident. I worked so hard to get a tiny bit of affection and when I've finally gotten it after years you stroll back into my life. But Suits, Lior, if that were it I wouldn't be as furious."

She could feel the tears getting worse. She was angry, depressed, everything. It was all coming out at once. "Everyone loves you. Hell. Even my mother likes you better than she does me. Even after becoming a titled Queen no one cares about me. They were all worried about if you'd ever come home. But then you come back and...." Xiven took a deep breath. "You even took the woman I love away from me. Ever since we were children she was the only one who cared about be unconditionally besides Fluffy. And I was pregnant when she left, and I had to face everything alone. I had to talk to Papa, Mom, even her parents all by myself without her there to help me. And you still have her Lior. She still loves you and... and I'm still not good enough for anyone to love. I'm just waiting for you to stab me in the back and take my title from me... because it's the only thing I have left that you can take away."

She inhaled sharply trying her best to control the tears. Breaking down like this was becoming a common occurrence. She hated it. "So... the very least you can do for me, Lior, is tell me the whole truth. I don't want any more lies... I don't care how awful anything was, how ashamed you are of it, what mistakes you made. I just want to know. You've already torn out my heart and stomped on it with your oblivious disregard for my feelings--my every waking moment of existence--so please just tell me the truth."

She wiped her tears away. She would cry later, properly, when she was alone. She was a Queen. She had control, she wasn't going to break down. "You've made my life a living Hell, Lior. So... think carefully about what you're going to say before you say it."

((OOC: omg I ended up crying because of Xiven. ))

[carcinoGeneticist]

Rhiannon couldn't breathe. The air was far too thick with tension and her natural instinct to run away, to flee, to never look back was completely overwhelming. Her eyes were round disks of pain and terror, the whites showing all the way around the colored iris, her pupils barely visible.

The only thing that kept her in her chair as Xiven and Lior spoke was the scythe that she was clinging to, whispering in her head that if she left she was guaranteed to lose them both completely. She would lose everything if she ran, everything she'd worked so hard to accomplish.

As always, he was right.

So she stayed, cringing back into her chair, leaning so heavily into her weapon that a line of blood appeared on the blade where it was digging into her shoulder. Apocalypse was trying to shift away, but her grip on him was too tight - she needed the pain, needed something physical so she could distract herself from the emotional pain she felt, pain which she was completely unaccustomed to feeling. Most of what Xiven said went over her head in a blur, but several of her words stuck like arrows and the woman lifted her head, expression completely blank.

"What I did was not Lior's fault.[/b]" she said, her voice barely audible. "He was not the one who made me leave here. He was not the one who got you pregnant. He was not the one who acted in such an irresponsible way. And nothing has changed about the way I feel about you, that's never changed. I'm just too... too fucking emotionally stunted to show it. I can't show anyone any of how I feel and that's no one's fault but my own.[/b]"

She started to cry, pressing her snout against the shining flat of the scythe, biting her lip in an effort to keep from sobbing violently. How could she have ruined everything so completely?

[Kiki]

Jenn, Kari and Xenon receive 4 tokens each, to be redeemed in Ashwin's Shoppe. This will automatically be added to your recorded totals in the shoppe. Congratulations, and keep up the good RP!

[The Jenn]

Lior stared at Xiven, half of him wondering if he was trapped in some bizarre, exhausted dream for her to be saying these things. He'd always been selfish, he knew that, and he still was. He wanted Rhi all for himself, but he would never say it. He wanted his papa to care about him, but he would never say that either. He wanted people to love and miss him like she hissed that they did, but he would always have trouble believing it. He just couldn't see it. He'd always had problems with things like that, expressing himself properly and seeing it returned in others. He was, ultimately, an extremely self-centered person.

Regardless, he had no idea that he'd had such an impact on his half-sister's life. It had never really crossed his mind. Really, she herself had rarely crossed his mind unless he saw her in passing or exchanged a few words. He'd always been with Linda, and she had always been off doing something else. Just about everything she said floored him, and his ears went mostly back in an uncomfortable, unhappy gesture. His every word would be weighed by her now, wouldn't it? And he had to tell her something if he wanted to be allowed to stay in the palace with Rhi. He just didn't know what. Well, of course the truth, but how much was the question. He abhorred lying.

He heard Rhi's voice whispering behind him and his ears pressed flat to his skull, eyes widening as his head twisted to look behind him. She... she was in the room?! He hadn't even realized. And she was crying, and saying that things were her fault when they so obviously weren't. She was just... easy to love.

"I- I'm sorry," he said, looking at her pleadingly, then quickly turning back to stare up at Xiven. They were both crying, even though the Torquehelm seemed in better control of it. He wanted to sink into the floor. This was not what he'd intended by coming here, any of it. He didn't know what he'd expected anymore. Anything? Nothing? Home, he supposed, even if it hurt. He just hadn't expected things to be this... complicated. He wouldn't even be allowed to try to comfort her until he said something to her Queen, would he? If even then...

The presence of Kieran pressed into his side was both guilt and reassurance. He swallowed and blinked slowly. She wanted to hear something? Fine. And then she could get angry at him for telling stories. That was how it usually worked without 'proof'. His voice was strained. "I left because I had a fight with Linda. I found a cloak that forces me to find and kill people who are dying. I can bring people back to life. I only know what happened for about three quarters of the time since I've been absent from the palace."

If Dell had been present, she probably would have killed them all by now with her six-year-old rage. Something in his head shied away from the thought, already trying to protect itself from the memory of the children he abandoned.

[Kari Muffin]

"Guh," Xiven choked and shook her head at Rhi's statement. She didn't understand. She couldn't understand. She hadn't suffered years of being ignored and trampled on by some insensitive family members. Xiven's tail puffed up slightly. "No. Rhi. You don't understand at all."

She stopped crying completely. Even her faint hiccups stopped. Her ears pulled back at Lior's story. If looks could kill, Lior would have been dead ten times over.

It wasn't a matter of not believing him. She didn't but that was besides the point. It was the fact that he had summarized years of his disappearance in a few carelessly strung together sentences. And worst of all he was not sorry. The stupid prat still didn't understand. He never would. Why did she hope for something so amazing?

The feline took a deep breath, blowing the air out with a hiss. She was trying her hardest not to leap up and strangle the man in front of her. Think of the children. Right. "Did you think summing up years of your disappearance in a few sentences would make me happy? Are you trying to piss me off? When I said "tell me the truth" I meant everything. Your week little story isn't enough. And your sorry doesn't cut it. You are obviously far from sorry if you plan on giving me such a heartless response."

A young child had his face pressed up against the door. He was listening to the entire conversation. Othello choked back a whine. His Mommy and Mama were really crying? And what was that horrible feeling he felt through the door? It was like... no. He didn't want to think about it. He stayed pressed to the door and continued to listen to what was happening, even if he didn't quite understand all of it. He wanted to know why his parents didn't come to see him last night.... Mommy Xiven always said good night no matter how bad she felt. This was a big deal!

[carcinoGeneticist]

Rhiannon's ears flattened in shame at both Lior and Xiven's replies. She wanted the fighting to stop. She wanted to bolt and get the fuck out of the room. She could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate, paranoia seeping into her dark thoughts. The air was poison once more, she could feel it in her blood, wished she had her mask somewhere nearby to keep her breathing under control before she passed out. If it wasn't for the tension in the room, she would have run away long ago, but as it was... She was too afraid to leave the two in the room together without her keeping an eye on things.

The lack of control in this situation was almost too much for the woman to bear. She was scared to death that Xiven was going to send Lior away again. The whimper that came out of her when Xiven hissed was loud and panicked, and the whites of her eyes showed plainly around the yellow irises. Strangely, her tail began to wag, but it was a quick and nervous motion.

What was she supposed to do? The fight was between Xiven and Lior but her own mental health was inexorably wrapped up in its outcome. She loved Xiven, but Lior made her sane.

Without saying a word, the woman sent her scythe back to wherever it was that he came from, ignoring his desperate pleas to keep him by her side where he could potentially be of use should things go wrong. In the weapon's mind, things very much had the potential to go wrong. Rhiannon herself didn't really know where things were going to go beyond the fact that she needed to do something before Xiven brutally murdered Lior. Her head and tail held low, she padded across the room and sat at her Queen's feet, ears pressed firmly back against her head as she bowed slightly. She gave the other woman's feet a timid little lick, a soft touch that she hoped was reassuring.

"Xiven, my Queen, please..[/b]" she whimpered softly, raising golden eyes to look into the feline's black ones. Her tail gave a small wag, almost hopeful. "I understand that he hasn't fully answered your question, but... What he's told you thus far is a very big deal and... And I'm the only one who knew about it, really, before now.[/b]"

The woman extended her wing slightly, bringing into clear view the scar tissue that covered the place where her thumb joint had once been. It had ached for a long time, but now it was just a strange reminder of her meeting with the feline and so she honestly treasured it. She had no idea what'd happened to her thumb, but that didn't matter. "I was dead,[/b]" she said softly, licking at Xiven's hand in the hopes that the physical contact would help the woman deal with what was being said. "I was dead and Lior saved me. I lost my thumb but I gained my life. I was terrified that.. that anyone could have that kind of power. I can only imagine how he felt when it was himself with it.[/b]"

Please, let this be more successful.

From where he pressed his snout against his father's side, Kieran whimpered slightly. What was going on? What... what was his mother saying? It sounded like his papa had saved her once before... his tail began to wag slightly. Did that mean he could save Jak, Dell, and Amhal? Even if Xiven continued to be so angry... that would make everything okay. He purred soothingly to his father.