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 Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 5:32 am
Tousled looks up as the medic tries to explain herself, and only shoots a quick, confused glance at Moult when he mutters to himself. She can't help but notice the Ghost's unwillingness to remain in Lichen's company, but she also can't help trying to smooth things over a bit. It's in her nature. And besides, she still rather likes the strict medic - if nothing else, then at least for having saved Moult's life.
"Um, yes... i suppose you should have. But-but it's okay, really. I can understand your curiosity, and I think it's very, very nice of you to want to... help." She clears her throat and looks down at her feet again, for a moment. "I just don't think that... There's much you can do about it. Not that you're not a brilliant medic and all, but... I think... this is just the way I am." She shuffles her feet awkwardly. "Maybe Notcus just meant it that way. I don't know. But... thank you for the kind thought."
She looks up and finally gives Lichen a genuine little smile, burying her sadness somewhere deep inside where it won't show, and finishing off on a slightly non-committal tone:
"Maybe we can talk about it... some other time."
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Posted: Fri Feb 08, 2008 6:27 am
Some Sentinels might be offended by being 'encouraged' to leave their own territory, but Lichen has never made a habit of getting too attached to the space she is currently occupying. A good Medic knows when to leave and let their patients be; proper social interaction is a part of the recovery process after all. And the environment she'd inadvertently created was anything but calm and healing.
"Of course," she replied politely to Tousled, ignoring Moult's comments in favour of maintaining as professional a mien as possible. Her retreat towards the exit continues, and is delayed only by a short but polite bow of her head to each of them in turn. "You know where to find me."
Lichen isn't going to make excuses for her departure - they all know why she's leaving, and she's not interested in pretending otherwise. While she may not have other patients to see, there is a graduation coming up soon and there may be an aspiring Medic among their ranks, that is as good an event as any to go attend while Tousled and Moult have a private discussion.
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Jaeger Erdarastrix Vice Captain
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Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:46 pm
Moult watches without emotion as the medic flees her own territory, still hunched in the position in which he chose when Tousled told him to sit. He bids Lichen no farewell, and only relaxes his ruffled plumage when the Mist female's pale form disappears into the thick trees.
The old ghost then bows his head, studying the stubby, broken talons on one foot. He seems reluctant to speak with Tousled, now that he has the privacy he had previously seemed so interested in. Awkward embarrassment slicks his patchy feathers, and he opens his beak and clacks it shut several times before he raises his head to look helplessly at the Deep Woods female.
"I-- I am sorry," Moult repeats, and then stops, dropping his head again. "I suppose I should..." A cough, and he sags in place, still avoiding eye contact. "I mean-- I would like to explain, if you can spare a moment."
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Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 11:35 am
Tousled has been thoughtfully watching the old watcher's indecisiveness, the only signs of an inner struggle of some kind evident by a few small, impatient twiches in her wings and feet. However, when Moult finally manages to speak up, she seems to snap out of her own daze as well
"Mm," she quietly asserts, stepping closer to him. "But only if you really want to. It seems like... a private matter, and I... I don't want to pry." She nudges him gently. "But first of all, I want you to settle down a little - get comfortable again. You don't want to make me worry even more about you, do you?" She gives him a gentle, encouraging smile.
Tousled knows embarrassment and awkwardness when she sees it, and even though Moult did scare her with his strange behaviour and even though she still feels a bit edgy inside from having been "inspected" without first being asked - by someone she rather trusted, no less - the poor old bird makes such a miserable figure that she can't help but melt at the sight. She has a thousand questions to ask, but they can wait: Moult's health - and comfort - comes first.
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Jaeger Erdarastrix Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 12:38 pm
"Hush now... I'm not going to break into pieces, I promise." Moult drawls gently, all the while doing exactly as Tousled says without even seeming to realize it. A fluff, a slow shift, and in a moment or two the transformation is complete-- he has shuffled off the strange mood that had taken him when Lichen arrived, and he's back to being Moult as Moult should be.
With one small exception, that is. The ragged ghost male can't quite manage to keep that smile of his steady, and it fades completely when his absent gaze falls on the discarded package of medicated food. Shaking himself, Moult forces his attention back to Tousled, and he studies the little female with a slightly distant look.
"I wasn't born like this," he begins suddenly, and continues after a further pause. "My feathers, I should say... although there aren't many who know it." His eyes close. "Or believe it, I suppose. It isn't a disease either, though most seem to think it is."
There's another, much longer pause.
"It was an experiment." The word is almost hissed. "...and it was supposed to be a cure."
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Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:36 pm
Tousled's ear tufts sleek back for a moment as Moult makes his initial confession, but she keeps her beak shut and listens intently - until the next shocking revelation. Her entire plumage flattens and she stares up at Moult with wide-eyed disbelief.
"A-a what? But-but-but how... Why?" she stutters, alternating between staring at Moult's sorry feathers as though it is the first time she has ever seen them, and searching his face for answers to the questions that she can't even begin to properly formulate. It's hard for her to believe that any medic could be so horribly irresponsible, and yet she is absolutely certain that Moult would not lie to her. Not about this. "What-what was it supposed to cure? Why... Why?"
She blinks rapidly a few times as the dialogue between Moult and Lichen flashes through her mind, and her voice softens slightly in a peculiar mix of fright, incredulity and... a hint of hopefulness? as she looks right into Moult's eyes and whispers: "Were you... like me? Was that what they tried to cure?"
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Jaeger Erdarastrix Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 2:10 pm
Tousled's sudden flood of questions seems almost to frighten Moult, as his few feathers rise in alarm for a moment before slicking down again. "Oh! Oh, my dear-- no, no..." Foolish old bird! His subconscious hisses at him as Moult slowly makes sense of the female's reaction. Tell your tale because she deserves to hear it. But do it carefully! There's more at stake here than your own pride.
Moult collects himself and proceeds, taking obvious care now to pick his words and examine them before he speaks.
"My feathers-- they were fine. Nothing at all the matter, save for a few stress bars when I was around your age. I did quite well, became first a Hunter, then a Scout. Then an Elite." The old male seems faintly embarrassed by this, then continues on with a low cough. "War... was a harsh time, my dear. You must understand. The Spectres and the other Clans had terrible, terrible ways of cutting us down. Slicing off wings, diverting a flying bird into the twisted branches of a tree--" Moult's eyes go distant. "Or-- or rippling the flight feathers right out of a flying creature-- all of them, all at once. Imagine the pain of pulling one of your own feathers before it's ready to come out. Multiply it by a hundred-- a thousand-- and then imagine that burning pain followed by the sudden plummet, flapping bare wings, flapping madly, and falling... falling--"
The Watcher shudders, hard, and rocks in place once. For a moment, it seems as though he's lost all sense of where-- or perhaps when-- he is. But it's over in a moment, and Moult is left panting quietly, his expression clouded. "We lived in fear of it. Every time I went out, I expected to feel a tug, a rip-- but every time, I came back in one piece." Even if others did not.
"The ability to use Will so accurately on feathers is-- was-- a devastating weapon, and the other Clans used it freely." The male's voice is very low. "And so the Mystics came up with a solution."
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:15 am
Tousled quickly squashes a brief, inconsequential pang of disappointment. Of course Moult was never like her. She knew that. And hadn't Lichen in fact said so, just in not so many words? There is no one who looks like her, and maybe there never were, and of course she knew that. For a moment she had let that old fledgling fantasy run away with her, and she feels quite silly about it now.
She resolves to stay quiet for a while and just listen, and so she says nothing when Moult tells her of his prestigious career, only raises her ear tufts in surprise. However, her plumage flattens down somewhat as he goes on, talking about a darker time, before she was even hatched, and cruelties and horrors that she can hardly even imagine.
The ruffled little Deep Woods feels even worse about her selfishness now. She has grown up sheltered, in a world made safe by Moult and his generation, and who knew how many horrible sacrifices, and here she is, feeling bad because she just looks a bit different?
She doesn't say anything, mostly because there's really not much that she can say, but she leans in and begins to preen the old Ghost gently, trying her best to soothe his violent memories in what little way she can.
"What did they do?" she whispers softly, breaking her self-imposed silence only for a moment.
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Jaeger Erdarastrix Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 7:58 am
Nobody-- nobody-- has preened Moult in seasons... or in years, more likely. What is generally a normal form of casual physical contact between friends has long been denied him, since half the Clan thinks he's contagious, and the other half (mostly youngsters) come and go, at best sharing a few moments of polite words, and at worst-- well... it's not worth saying. The ragged old male falls still and silent, and his eyes close.
He continues his tale almost reluctantly. "They... they decided to use their Will to change our feathers. To make them impervious to Will in the future... so that we'd be safe from that sort of attack. Like water slipping off a duck's back, they said, if anyone tried to 'grip' our feathers like that. But to do it, and to do it successfully, they needed to test the procedure." Moult shifts. "They'd done it successfully on Parus... scores of them... but they needed a Sentinel who was willing to volunteer as a test subject before they started using it on all the combatants. Just to make sure it was safe. They wanted an old Sentinel to volunteer, or someone who'd been injured and couldn't fight. Someone who wouldn't be wasted if the test went wrong."
There's a long pause, and Moult's voice lowers to a monotone. "...I had a mate, once. An Elite, like me-- we were in the same squad. We were at the borders-- there was an ambush. ...She died. Her feathers--" He cuts himself off abruptly. "...I was... distraught. Went to the Mystics to offer myself, so that nothing like that could happen again. They tried to turn me away, because I could still fight, but I insisted."
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:09 am
Tousled keeps preening, since it seems to calm the old bird down a little, but it becomes hard for her to keep it up as Moult's sad story progresses. Her wings begin to droop and her irregular feather creep even closer to her little body, which starts to tremble very slightly with her effort not to show the sadness that she feels for poor old Moult. And for his mate that she never knew, who had met such a horrible end.
This isn't at all the story of shocking medical irresponsibility that she expected at first, it is a tale of grief, desperation and loss more profound than any she has ever heard before - probably because for once it isn't enhanced and embellished by a mediating bard, but told directly by the story's own, tragic hero.
And there is no happy ending to this story.
She knows what he must have suffered since that day - she might not be able to fully understand the pain of losing a mate, and she may not truly grasp the terrors of the Great Clan Wars, but she knows only all too well what it's like to live the life of someone who is different from everybody else. And he doesn't deserve that. She finally stops preening him and leans her forehead against his patchy body for a moment, not sure if she is trying to support him or herself. He hasn't been telling her this story to make her feel bad, and she knows that, so she fights hard not to let her emotion show and tries to take long, slow breaths to calm herself down before she really works herself up over something that she can't do anything about.
But he doesn't deserve it. It was a choice made in the heat of the moment, and he has been punished for it for a lifetime. It's not right. It's not fair. But that's exactly why it rings so true.
"Oh Moult..." she whispers, still hiding her face from him. "I had no idea..."
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Jaeger Erdarastrix Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 12:01 pm
His eyes still closed, Moult's head slowly droops and twists, resting gently on top of Tousled's. The soft but constant contact she's providing is like a healing balm for the old bird, and with that support his voice slowly becomes stronger as he goes on to tell the remainder of his tale.
"Neither did they, truth be told." The vibration of his speech can be felt through the feathers on the top of Tousled's head. "They didn't know at first that the test hadn't worked. So they did it again, and again-- until this patchy, horrible covering of invisible Will protection coated my feathers, soaked in to the roots. A few feathers began to fall out. That was all, but they knew something was wrong. I wasn't worried-- what's a few feathers? It wasn't so bad..." There's a faintly wry tone to the Watcher's tale now. "...It wasn't so bad, until they sent me to the Medics to 'reverse the damage'. Will-Medics. Medics like Lichen."
"It all went wrong." Moult is silent for another moment, then continues. "The... the damage the Mystics did was bad, but it was the Medics who... who made it permanent. And after it was done, and I could no longer fly-- after I was forced to resign my post due to my condition-- each one of them said to me, by way of apology, 'I was trying to help'."
With the weight of telling the story lifted from his chest, Moult breathes deeply and raises his head. "That is why I treated Lichen poorly, though I owe her my life. She knows my story-- she will forgive my behaviour." His few feathers ruffle, and he glances down at the little deep woods female he's become so fond of; who makes him imagine a different course of life-- where his mate still lives, and the chick they raised together would be much like Tousled. He smiles, if softly.
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 1:57 pm
Feeling the comfortable weight of Moult's head on top of her own, Tousled calms down a little herself, regaining her composure as Moult's voice grows stronger. She still feels sad, but it's not quite as acutely heartbreaking anymore.
Now she understands the exchange between Moult and Lichen, Moult's sudden transformation of character and that one line, I won't let you do that to her. The sensation that bubbles up inside her when the full implications of the old Ghost's fierce defense of her sinks in, is so profound, so clear and yet in such conflict with the sadness that she still feels on Moult's behalf, that she can't make any sense of it at first.
But as soon as she does, her self-consciouness sets in and warns her about taking anything that seems so good for granted. "Moult, you..." she begins uncertainly, but can't seem to find the words, so she falls silent for a moment. When she speaks again, it almost feels like the words are speaking her, and not the other way around:
"You know, when I was little... I mean, small enough not to have learnt to fly yet, but just big enough to understand that I was... not like everyone else... And I saw you at a distance... I used to think that maybe... that maybe you were my father. Of course, I learnt pretty quickly that that was impossible, since I'm a Deep Woods and you're not, but still, I always sort of felt that... you, if anyone, would be able to... You wouldn't laugh at me. Or poke fun at me. Or... think that I needed be... cured." She finally looks up, shyly, and seeks Moult's eyes for the first time since he finished his story. "I'm... glad to know that I wasn't wrong. And... I want you to know that I'm proud to have got to know you like this."
Her voice wavers a little as the awkwardness of what she is saying sets in, but the shy little smile that she gives him is as genuine as it could possibly be.
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Jaeger Erdarastrix Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 4:34 pm
Moult, overall, has rarely looked worse than he does at this moment. Between the feathers that are normally missing and the ones ripped out by his fall, he's disturbingly bare, and the majority of the remaining feathers are snapped off, ragged, or stained with dried blood. Visible patches of pale skin are discoloured with purple bruises or smeared with foul-looking salve. His talons and beak are blunted and cracked, and the rest of him is splinted or bandaged in a way that makes him look like a monster out of a fledge's nightmare.
But at Tousled's words, an amazing change takes place-- Moult's eyes widen slightly, and shine with a youth that make him seem whole and healthy again. He seems, in fact, like an entirely new Sentinel... albeit one who is also a bit tongue-tied. The ghost male stammers quietly for a moment, then stretches his neck out to give the top of the female's head a heartfelt preening.
"You don't need a cure," The old male finally agrees, a little awkwardly. "There's nothing in the world wrong with you, dear-heart. I've watched you since you were small, and I've watched you grow in size and in thought. I may not have the honour of being your father by blood, but I am as proud as any parent of the Sentinel you have become."
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 5:47 pm
Tousled closes her eyes while Moult preens her head, letting that warm, bubbly, giddy feeling spread out through her body. When she looks up again, she is beaming. Eyes, beak, feathers - it's as though her entire being is smiling, brightly enough to challenge Helios himself.
"Thank you," she whispers breathlessly. "Thank you so much. And I don't care if it's stupid or selfish of me, I am really happy that you are the way you are, too. What happened to you was horrible and unfair, but it did happen and because of that..." She can't seem to finish the sentence, as there is so much that she wants to say that it can't really be put into proper words, instead she just dives in and presses her head against Moult again, quivering with happiness even as she apologises: "I'm sorry, you must think I'm awful for saying something like that." She glances up at him, the glow in her yellow eyes almost cheekily unrepentant. "Have you really watched me for that long? All this time?"
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Jaeger Erdarastrix Vice Captain
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Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 6:55 pm
"Well," Moult says, with a bit of his usual humour, "I am a Watcher..." With a soft chortle, he nips at one of Tousled's wayward eartufts. "But yes. I kept an eye on you from a distance, when I saw that you were special." He likely means her feathers, but there's no hitch or odd inflection of the word 'special'-- he said it exactly as he meant it. "My territory was once very near that of the Minder who hatched you, so I got a decent look at you not long after you started popping around on your own. But very few Minders would relish having 'the featherduster' hanging around their hatchlings..." He trails off, glancing down. "One day, when you were very young and I had accidentally made my interest in you too plain, the rumour started that it was my proximity to your nest that had caused your condition. I knew it wasn't so, but shifted my territory anyway and kept my distance after that. I didn't want to make things harder for you." Or for me.
"And I don't think you're awful," Moult adds, with another playful nibble at Tousled's eartufts. "We are as time made us, and had things been different, we wouldn't be here as we are now-- and I'm glad we're here, so I can be happy that the past lead to this."
Perhaps it's the physical contact-- perhaps it's the warmth, the heavy food sitting in his belly, or simply his injured body trying desperately to heal itself. Whatever the reason or combination of reasons, Moult's head has drooped a bit; he's begun to get a little drowsy. The ghost muffles a yawn, then shakes his head as though to wake himself up.
He eyes the young female hesitantly. "Tousled... may I ask something of you?"
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