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Post by The Jenn on Jun 11, 2009 21:31:58 GMT -5
"I missed you toooo, Sa," Jak whimpered happily, throwing himself down onto his knees awkwardly with digitigrade legs and flinging his arms around her neck. A green muzzle with a yellow underside buried itself into her mane and whined, sentiment matching the wagging of his tail.
She was here! She was back! He wasn't just dreaming it up this time, she was really here with him, not the product of some food-induced hallucination or magic-induced seizure.
And she was happy to see him, and to see Amhal and Dell. He could have cried. When he rocked back, a few tears did manage to squeeze their way out, forced by the fit of high-pitched giggling that he just couldn't seem to control. That sound would be familiar to her young memory, if nothing else. He had always been a giggler and it had always sounded insane.
He pushed himself to his feet again, reluctantly letting go of her, and stared down with watery red eyes. His head jerked when he heard his brother's happy voice from behind one of their piles of stuff and something in his chest swelled even higher to see both of his siblings so happy. Together. His family being together, and being happy. There was nothing more that he wanted in this world than to see such a thing regularly.
Reaching out, he carefully pet one of his brother's skin flaps and couldn't suppress a gleeful yip. "She's here! She came to see us, and she's happy to see us! I need to go get Dell!" He jumped in the direction of the bedroom, running out of sight and rummaging through the piles of things around their sleeping blankets before he found his sister. With one quick shift, he became his true self, complete with bone tails and angler-dangler and wax-filled eye sockets and flaming, fiery, floating eyeball. He wriggled his sister's pelt over his shoulders and fastened the thing awkwardly with his mouth, then went digging for his eyeball scarf. The wax-filled goggles were also hastily wriggled into place. If he was going to show her Dell and all of his changes at the same time, he wanted to make sure he had everything!
Familiar paraphernalia firmly in place after about three minutes, he stood in his odd hunch and shuffle-capered merrily back into sight. "Deeeeeell, say hi to Treasa! She's finally come back to us!"
Obediently, the wings of his sister's pelt raised and flapped in a morbidly terrifying fashion.
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Post by carcinoGeneticist on Jun 18, 2009 2:43:35 GMT -5
She couldn't say why, but as they waited for Amhalghaidh to come to greet them, Treasa found herself shifting somewhat nervously. She really didn't remember very much about either sibling, and with Jak looking more like an Avington dog than anything else she was wondering what would have changed about her other brother. With Jak giggling and clinging her neck, however, it was hard for her to worry too badly about much of anything. When she heard footsteps, she perked, and her eyes caught a glimpse of familiar Highland swirls and slashes.
Her tail began to wag wildly, so hard she thought that her entire butt would pop off. With a happy yip she raced to meet her other sibling, licking and kissing at his face, not even noticing the skin flaps.
"Oh, Amhal! It's really you!" she exclaimed, happy tears sparkling in her eyes as she finally gave him room and looked him over. Her stomach did a strange little flip-flop when she did, and she tried to press it down - she hadn't remembered his weird skin being quite so... exposed, or so strange looking. But... This was her brother, and she loved him, and so she simply beamed at him and licked his nose again, tail still wagging. "I can't believe I've finally found you.. both of you. M-mother and father always told us you'd died... Where's Dell?"
When she heard what sounded to be Jak returning, the girl looked up again, golden eyes bright.
Then she froze.
She had remembered, dimly, Amhal's skin flaps. She had also remembered strange facts about Jak, such as his wheezy breathing from odd tubes that made her think of straws - she'd imitated it once, but never again, after it had made her mother's hair all stand up - and a shuffling gait-step, but she was certain that she would have remembered a flaming eyeball floating above his head. In fact, Jak had a whole multitude of bizzare and sickening deformities, each one stranger than the last. Strangest of all seemed to be the fact that he and Dell almost looked to have merged.
When she realized that her darling sweet Jak was wearing the skin of her sister, Treasa screamed, the sound one of purest terror.
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Post by The Jenn on Jun 18, 2009 21:56:54 GMT -5
At the screaming, Jak's ears flattened against his head and he stared at her in blank confusion. Of course, his staring consisted of the flaming eye... continuing to float and flame, and his eyeball scarf turned in her direction. That was not a happy sound at all. What happened? His sister had been so happy! Now she sounded scared!
Maybe because it was all so new. He'd almost forgotten, but he did look very different now from the last time she'd seen him. But he was bound to have changed, right? She certainly had. Belatedly, and only because his mind was now moving along that track, he noticed her missing eye.
"Sa, what's wrooooong?" he whined, the sound trying to be harmless and ending up wheezing creepily through his air tubes. "And what happened to your eye? It didn't melt out of your face like mine, did it, because you don't have the gunk? Or did you clean it out? Are you okay? What happened? Awwwwley, what happened?" He made as if to move towards them both in concern and distress. Why wasn't his sister happy anymore? She'd been so happy, and so had his brother!
Maybe she was surprised to see how different Dell was. Well, part of Dell. But her spirit was still there! "Look, if it's Dell, don't worry! She's fiiiine. Dell, say hi!" Obediently, the macabre wings of his cloak lifted in their familiar parody of waving.
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Post by Satra on Jun 20, 2009 23:54:48 GMT -5
Amhalghaidh had to purr at being acknowledged. She didn't mind that he looked different! Well, of course she didn't! She was his sister! She was family, the good part of the family. She only went away because Mother and Father forced her -- he felt his fur puff in rage -- and told them lies, apparently. It was fine. It didn't matter. Treasa was here now and it calmed him and made him happy. Maybe he could show her his collection of shiny candy wrappers! Not to mention the collection of other random things he'd been amassing since they were now in a more stable home.
All of these thoughts disappeared, shattered with the ear-splitting scream.
Why was she screaming? Why did she have to scream? Amhalghaidh saw that the only thing she could have reacted to was Jak. It was the only thing. His breaths became shakier as doubts and fears set in.
"Treasa...." he choked out a whisper.
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Post by carcinoGeneticist on Jun 21, 2009 0:11:28 GMT -5
It was a feeling unlike any other.
The second she saw the cloak made out of her sister's skin, it was as if her nightmares had come to life and were coming at her, crawling for her, wrapping their awful hands around her limbs... She couldn't take her eye off the macabre decoration and began to tense as Jak got closer. The fact that some small, sane part of her brain recognized what the skin had once been only made the sensation worse. She could hear them talking to her, reassuring her, trying to calm her.
It did no good. Treasa kept screaming.
When Jak took one too many steps forward, however, the pup bolted, knocking into him in her rush to get away from the terrible thing. She flew through the house like an ivory bullet, her body slamming against the wall when there was no more house to run through. She was pressed into a corner, her golden eye wide and wild with distress as she stared through the doorway, muttering to herself as she looked around the room. No. No. She couldn't be here. She should have never come here. She had to get out, but that terrible... terrible thing was between her and the door.
If they came to check in on her, they would find her muttering to herself, mad with fear of the Dell-cloak, as she tried to force a window open. "C-can't... n-no... g-gotta leave b-before they f-find me again... c-can't ever c-c-come back..."
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Post by The Jenn on Jun 21, 2009 0:29:33 GMT -5
Jak didn't know about the enchantment on his cloak, the one that controlled its movement or the one that sent Cards below a certain rank scattering in fear. His brother was the only person who'd ever seen her like this and Amhal didn't run screaming. He fully believed that his sister's spirit made the cloak do what it did, rather than his own delusions intermingling with an enchantment.
A confused, hurt noise came out of his throat in a whine, jumping to a quick yelp of surprise as she bolted past him, jostling his ever-precarious balance. Once he recovered himself, he stared at his brother. Screams, and those weren't the good kind. What had he done wrong?
"Maaaaybe she's sick or something?" he hazarded feebly, trying to put the best spin on the situation so that Amhal didn't get himself worked up. That was all they needed, the feline getting upset at family again. Getting upset in general, really. He hated seeing people unhappy, but he really hated it when his brother got mad. "I, uh. I'm gonna go find her. She can't get out any way besides the door. None of the windows are open."
He wandered off through the house, exuberance severely dampened, and stopped his shuffling when he reached the doorway to the room she'd entered. His ears flicked forward and red eyes stared, trying to piece together the muttering words. They failed to register at first.
Leave? Never come back?
He whimpered. No...
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Post by Satra on Jul 6, 2009 21:06:28 GMT -5
Amhalghaidh just stared after her. For a few seconds, he'd forgotten to breathe. When he tried to again, he found a lump there in his way. His body made a few light convulsions before he could fill his lungs again. He felt sick. How could she...
"Yes..." he answered Jak in a quiet voice, "Yes... find her and bring her back. I'll stay here in case you miss her and she comes back for the door." He watched Jak leave then took his place pacing in front of the door.
It was that feeling again. That feeling of betrayal. He didn't know the word for it when his father had left him for dead, but he knew it now. She was just the same as Mother, just the same as Father, just the same a pre-cloak Dell. Amhalghaidh made a short bark of a laugh. He wondered what they'd make Treasa into.
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Post by carcinoGeneticist on Jul 7, 2009 1:28:13 GMT -5
It was bizzare. There was a part of her mind that knew she should be scared - after all, Jak was wearing their seemingly-dead sister, to say nothing of the other bizzare trinkets that absolutely covered his body - but she shouldn't panic as blindly as she was. Of course, logical thought meant nothing in the face of a fear more powerful than anything she'd ever known and she bowled it over in her rush to get out of the house before they could do something equally terrible to her.
It was an awkward movement, but the teenaged canine did her best to wedge herself against the windowpane and slam up into it. It didn't budge, and pain rocketed through Treasa's shoulder. She yelped loudly, but repositioned herself to give it another good ram. Before she could, however, the terrible feeling renewed itself, and she turned to look her brother right in his hovering, flaming eyeball.
Jakodi's whimper didn't even register with the girl as she was gripped again by mindless terror. Tail tucked firmly between her legs, pressing against her belly, Treasa sprinted back the way she came, slamming past her brother. Each step sent a jolt of pain through her, and then she put her leg down too hard and the whole thing gave out beneath her. She skidded to the ground between her brothers, yipping in terror and curling in around herself, trying to ward off the sight of them. The smell of urine filled the room as the girl shook harder and harder, unable even to raise her head to tell them to leave her alone.
They were going to kill her. She was sure of it.
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Post by The Jenn on Jul 7, 2009 1:37:20 GMT -5
Jak watched her face, her body, the fear that practically radiated off of every fiber in her body. Why? What was causing it? Was it... him? But she'd been fine with him before! Was it the eyeball? Was she scared of fire? Or the bone tails? But she wouldn't be scared of bone with her wings, no, of course not. He didn't understand and whined in his throat like the pup he still was. The sound echoed bizarrely in his air tubes.
She was so unhappy. It hurt his brain, how unhappy she was.
His body jerked when she jolted past him, slamming him back and into the wall with a pained yelp that turned into a wheeze. He got back up and shook himself, shaking a little, and then followed after his sister into the main room. He stared first at her, then at Amhal, and once again at her shaking, trembling form. She wasn't even talking. She was just shivering and pissing herself and yipping in utter... unhappiness.
He had to make her happy. He had to cheer her up. The floating eye swiveled in his brother's direction as his face remained pointed at Treasa. "It's like Dell was, but worse," he whined, voice sounding utterly distressed. He rarely sounded distressed. It was an odd thing. "Wh- what do we do, Amhal? What should we do? We've got to make her feel better." His brother usually had good ideas. His brother was bright as a bonfire and sharp as broken glass. He had to have an idea.
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Post by Satra on Jul 7, 2009 2:19:21 GMT -5
He stared intently at the noises. He heard footsteps approaching him. Fast. Then there she was. He hissed, preparing himself but setting his body in a fighting stance and held his pain spell ready to stop her. However, she stopped herself. How convenient. He went back to pacing in front of the door as she just sat there pissing and shivering.
His pacing slowed to a halt as Jak spoke. A malicious grin spread across his face as Jak spoke. Oh yes. He remembered the story Jak brought back with him. He'd seen this coming. His own bitterness helping his come to and settle on that conclusion. He wondered which part of her would go well with the skull Jak had given him.
"Just like Dell you say?" he asked, the grin still plastered on his face. He sauntered over to her cowering form and stood over her, "How was it you made Dell happy again, Jak? I don't remember..."
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