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 Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 7:07 pm
"I cannot allow myself to fight. And I won't risk fighting someone even without killing because there's always that possibility that they might die," Isis was speaking these words as if she had read them from a book. A book that she had memorized as a child. In reality, she didn't truly believe in dying without even trying to save yourself, but it was what she had been taught. Her kind does not stick up themselves, they do not beg for mercy, and they do not, under any circumstances, fight back.
"It is good that you have someone to stick up for. I'm certain Aruka is grateful to have you around," Isis said. She admired his courage, she wished that she could do what he does and fight to kill but at the same time, she knew that she couldn't do it. Isis watched Khazi for a while as he was flying and imagined him fighting something off. He just seems so strong and he's very well respected. At least by some creatures anyway.
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 9:06 pm
Khazi nodded thinking of Aruka. He was getting tired again, and he folded his wings, divebombing down to the grassy area full of oaks and willows on the north side of the island. He looked back to see Isis following him down. "Have you ever been down here Isis? I love it 'cause it's just so different... it's beautiful." He smiled over at her, then let himself fall to the ground, his wings stretched out on both sides of him.
"Before they died were they good? I mean... better than most?" He paused thinking about his own parents. "Mine were truely unimaginably evil, even moreso than most. I suppose that's why I didn't try harder to save them and Aruka as well. I probably could have. But I didn't even try." He looked to Isis trying to read her face, but he couldn't tell if it was horror, shock, or understanding for himself, his parents, or herself.
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IfYouNeedMePMAysina Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2007 9:25 pm
Isis followed the movement of Khazi, though her landing was much more graceful. She fluttered down as he dive bombed. Once her paws were on the grass she looked around her. The willows were gorgeous, absolutely stunning. The oaks smelled like heaven to her. She looked at Khazi and smiled at him, "No I can't say that I have ever been here. But I'm saddened because of it. This place is beautiful. I'm assuming because of its untouched conditions that not many have been here before?"
"I'm sure you did what you felt was right, given the situation you were in," his question about her parents stunned her. She didn't really know how to answer. "Yes they were good. Sadly no, not better than most. They were strict. I wasn't allowed to say certain things or do certain things. There was always some rule that I ended up breaking because I didn't know it existed. Laughing was almost out of the question, they drilled it into my head that my species was respectable and had honor and pride. I was always getting yelled out for not being like my brother. He was always the up-right one, he was always more...responsible," she spat out the word and continued, "I never actually knew how they had so much pride and never fought for anything. It never really occurred to me to ask. My parents were wonderful yes. But they had their flaws, just as any parent does."
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 5:40 pm
He shook his head, walking below one of the willows. "No, I have never brought anyone but Aruka here. I do know that a pink ninfea resides in one of the willows, though. I believe I took her for a fly once when she was just a pup..."
Khazi listened closely but it didn't make a whole lot of sense to him. "How can you have pride in yourself when you give up your life so easily?" He shook his head and fluttered his leathery wings, landing on one of the low branches. "They're the steriotypical Uccello Ninfea then. You're clearly not though." He thought back to how she landed on the ground, it almost looked like dancing. "Or you're trying not to be at the very least." He looked upward, jumping up to a higher branch with ease. "Why did you try so hard to please them? Why did their approval matter so much when... in reality it wasn't you they would be approving of, it would be what they wanted you to be?"
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IfYouNeedMePMAysina Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 6:04 pm
"As much as I would love to, I cannot change who I am. This is how I was raised. Stereotypical or not I have to do what I was taught. If I start thinking for myself, what's to stop other Uccello from doing what they want as well? What's to stop an Uccello from joining in the war? Then the Uccello will be the hated ones. If we just 'lay down and die,' so to speak, we are not as fun as others who fight back. They eventually get bored of us and move on to others who can fight. We are protecting our kind by doing as we are told. All it takes is a single one of us to get the rest of our race killed. At least, those are the stories they tell us when we are young." She paused for a moment and looked up at Khazi, "I have often dreamed of fighting though. The thought of taking all of your anger out on someone who was rushing at you to kill you. It seems as though it would be quite a release."
She shook her head, "I tried hard to please them because that was the respectful way to do it. We are taught how to act and how to be, if you excel and show an amount of respect that none other has, you were rewarded with the love by your parents, otherwise you were just a nuisance and a disgrace to them and the entire race. I was friends with one of the ones who became labeled as disgraceful, they don't feed you and they turn their back on you when you need help. See my kind doesn't fight back, but they do know how to not act. In the elders' eyes, if Fate gave you a bad child, you must ignore it. Kai ended up dead before the Levigare attacked us. There was no burial ritual for him and he was eventually forgotten by all of them, except me because I had been the only one to befriend him. So in answer to your question, I tried so hard to please them so that I would not end up the same way he had," Isis had to try her best to hide the tears in her eyes, "They used to tell me not to cry and that I should accept everything that happens."
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:01 pm
Khazi snorted at the ninfea's foolishness. "Do you know nothing? There are Uccello everywhere that are fighting. I'm sure that half of those who killed my parents were of the feathered wings. Of course, that's not to say that some of the Uccello died, many did, but they also got their teeth into the Levigares before they had a chance." He jumped back to the base of the willow tree he had been in, laying down instantly in the cool grass and night air. "Fighting used to be a good thing, but I left that life with the exception of two circumstances. For Aruka's survival and for food." He grinned at the last word, eyeing a little bird on a branch overhead.
"I don't think I've actually ever cried... I've only felt sad once when a ninfea attacked Aruka a couple years ago and I wasn't sure she would pull through. I banished the wingless to another world." He smiled, looking back to Isis; his smile faded into a frown and he got to his feet, nosing her a bit. "Hey, hey, it's okay Isis." Khazi was unsure of what to do... he'd never cried and he'd never seen anyone cry. What was he to do?
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IfYouNeedMePMAysina Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:23 pm
Isis' voice was ripped out of her chest when Khazi told her that there had been her kind fighting, "But...but I was.. I was taught. The elders told us that it could get us all killed. No one was ever allowed to fight. Even the adults told us that it would create something of a hate-plague and that our kind would be the first to die. I had no idea that while we were being told this, others like us were actually out fighting." Isis was actually very angry at this point; the elders, who were supposed to be wise, lied to everyone. And the adults...they actually believed it all enough to teach their children the same thing. Her entire world, her entire life had been built around a lie.
She looked to Khazi, fire burned deep in her eyes and said, "I listened to them, I spent what life I had with them trying to please them. Buying into the stupidity and untruth. How could I have been so stupid!?" she yelled the last word at the top of her lungs as she lunged towards the nearest tree and rammed her head into it. She wanted to hit herself so hard that she forgot entirely what she had been taught as a child. "They lied to me!" the tree shook again with another blow. Tears were actually falling from her muzzle as she had her first fight, a fight with herself. A fight actually against everything that she had learned and adopted as the truth.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:41 pm
Khazi sat back and watched Isis's range of emotions as she realized the truth about her past and her life. "There are different areas of every species, many adopt different principles, but the 'elders' in your race and the leaders that earn their positions through fighting all keep in touch with the others of their kind so there are no surprises. They confer with each other so they know if enemies are headed each others ways, if they are retreating, their stance in the war. It was not your stupidity, it was their ways of life that made them the way they were." Khazi chased after Isis, tackling and pinning her to the ground before she could hurt herself a third time.
"Isis, this is not your fault. You can't punish yourself for the faults of your family, your pack. It's not going to change what they've done, or who they are. You can only change yourself, and throwing yourself into that willow is not going to do that." He backed up off of her, walking away and sitting himself at the base of the tree, watching her silently, and a bit worried though he didn't let that much show.
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IfYouNeedMePMAysina Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 7:52 pm
Isis lay where Khazi had pinned her even after he got up. She didn't have the strength to move anymore. She wished death even more so than before. "Khazi, how can the leaders allow this to happen? Wouldn't they want help fighting?" her voice was soft now and the tears just fell, "No surprises? That doesn't make any sense to me. And here I was, being taught to lay down, give up, and die while there were others just like me, probably even young one's like I had been, fighting. I could have been with them. I could have been living a meaningful life. Not one of trying to please the adults and elders of my pack. I, me, could have been fighting for my life and the life of my pack. I lost good friends the day that that Levigare came, and all along, they could have fought back. Hell, I could even have been the one to rip its throat out."
She thought long and hard in a few moments of silence, just staring up at the stars. She had an idea but she didn't know how to approach even asking about it. She gulped and then heaved herself to her feet. Isis looked at Khazi and even though he was trying to hide it, she could tell that he was worried. "My parents and the elders deserved what happened to them for lying to all of us. Khazi, I don't want to end up like that. I don't want to just accept death," she paused and looked down at the ground, "Khazi, I want to learn how to fight." Her eyes looked back up at him, she wanted him to see that she was serious, because she was beyond even serious.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:06 pm
How could she be this angry? Except for the Aruka incident, Khazi himself hadn't been that angry in a century... and he was oh the species that killed this uccello's family, and yet she blamed her family. Yes. Maybe they deserved that. His certainly had. He stood and circled her, as if getting a feel of if he could teach her... this Uccello who at the moment acted more Levigare than he himself did. It would take work though, even her angry mindset was not deep, could not erase the way she was brainwashed.
He came around her front sitting down in front of her. "What can you do? I know that as an Uccello you must be able to do something special... all creatures with extra appendages can do something. What's your talent Isis?"
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IfYouNeedMePMAysina Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 8:18 pm
As Khazi circled her, she stood still unmoving, like a soldier awaiting orders. She looked forward and tightened the muscles in her body, which weren't much. I want to learn how to fight. I'm going to show Fate that I can run my own life. Me. Mom... Dad... you both lied to me and you paid your price. Fate must have wanted me alive so that I could eventually find out that you were liars and that everything that you've ever said or done have been a lie. You are both gone, and you are both not missed by me. Did she really mean what she was saying? Did she hate her family that much that she would think all of these cruel things about them? Truth is, yes she did. This new-found hatred that she was feeling was the first step towards changing, and it was very much needed.
Her big tough-ninfea stance faltered when Khazi had asked if she had any special abilities. Hers was almost embarrassing, especially now that she wanted to fight. It just seemed so petty compared to strength or agility. "Symphony Heal. I can sing to a wounded one and heal them. It takes energy off of me, but not that much."
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:05 pm
Khazi chuckled and shook his head. "That doesn't surprise me in the least. It's a typical Uccello ability, healing is... though I can't say I've heard of healing by song. However, it should come in handy if you do ever get into a real fight." He sighed and looked up to her again.
"If you really want to learn to fight I can teach you. But you are going to get hurt, you are going to bleed, you are going to want to quit. You can either say yes and pull it out for the long haul, because after you agree I'm not going to let you quit, or you can say no." He let himself fall to the ground, looking away from Isis, instead pawing at one of the long strings of willow that was hanging down within his reach. "But you should know that learning to fight will not take back what the elders have done, nor what your parents have done, and it will not take back what my kind have done to them." There was a bit of spite in his last words, knowing that Isis had a certain disdain for the leather wings. "This will not change the past, Isis."
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IfYouNeedMePMAysina Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:18 pm
Isis stood her ground, she knew what she was in for, and it scared the s**t out of her. But she knew what she wanted, and she wanted to fight, "Khazi, I don't want it to change the past, I want to change the future. If I ever have young ones of my own, I am going to let them choose their own path, but before I do that, I have to experience what the path different from the one that I have learned, is like. I'm not saying that I want it to change what my pack and own family have done nor what your kind have done to them. But I can no longer sit back and believe that we didn't even have a fighting chance."
Her breathing became a little more ragged as she thought about it. She knew that she would get hurt, bleed, and want to quit. She was willing to take the pain however. She needed this to become a better Uccello ninfea, she needed this to become a better ninfea in general. Isis straightened up her stance and stood with her wings folded to her sides, head up, neck straight, and muscles tight, "I am ready to undergo anything that you throw at me," she said with a voice rarely heard coming from a Uccello, a proud one.
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:31 pm
Khazi smiled and stood, nodding to Isis. "Alright. But your first assignment is to get some sleep. You look like s**t. Clearly night time is not a good thing for you." He chuckled and shook his head, unfolding his wings and displaying them proudly. "Be ready to get up early. I'll find you tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn and have your alerts up. I'm not going to go easy on you just because you have feathers and have never bled a day in your life." He smirked, shooting his wings downwards and rocketing into the sky.
He flew slowely over the forest, admiring a beauty he'd never noticed before. Khazi wondered if Isis would really stick it out as he'd hoped or she'd want to quit when she got hurt. He knew she would want to, but in the end it wasn't going to happen. She'd made a promise and now he would hold her to it. He tucked his wings in a bit, and fell a ways until he opened the leather again like a parachute, catching him before he hit ground outside of his den. Terra was sleeping silently outside, and entering he could see Aruka's still form making quiet snuffly sounds. He laid down next to her and fell straight to sleep.
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IfYouNeedMePMAysina Vice Captain
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Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2007 9:56 pm
Isis nodded proudly and said, "You bet. I'll be up and ready for you." She smiled when he said that he wouldn't go easy on her, "I wouldn't want it any other way. Good night Khazi."
She stayed for a little while after he was gone and just enjoyed the scenery. After everything that she's learned about her life, things around her appeared different. She didn't know how or why, but maybe because of the truth being uncovered she was seeing things in a different light?
"Mom? Dad? If you can hear me wherever you are, you need to know that I am going to go my own way now. You both lied to me from the start and because of those lies you let yourself die. Everyone in the pack died because of this stupid lie that we weren't allowed to fight for our own lives. I am letting go of everything that you and the elders have taught me and I am going to experience the real world. I am going to fight. And I am going to be good at it, that I promise to myself."
With that said she spread her wings and kicked off the ground. Flying above the trees, she didn't even know if she'd be able to sleep tonight with the anticipation of starting her life over, but she had orders. Before she knew it, she was back at the beach that her and Khazi met. She fly above the water and let her back paw graze the surface. Isis landed just as gracefully before on the part where the sand was the most dry and laid down. She yawned, "Khazi's right, I'm not my best at night." She giggled slightly and put her head down, closed her eyes, and was asleep within minutes.
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