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 Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 5:39 pm
Lawrence made a face at the name. It was really unfortunate that it stuck. He'd have preferred something a little more dramatic and dignified.
"Yes, I suppose. I did not choose the name."
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 5:50 pm
He had to laugh at that. "I don't think you would. Everyone on the island thinks there is some freak minipet out there in towns and here I was about to get jealous you guys had a pet on top of the magical marriage you had and now I just find out it's you all this time. What - what are you even doing? Flapping around? I - I can't even imagine you as a bird."
He stared at him and just smiled at some goofy image of Lawr with wings and a beak. It did not match his idea of him which had been far more cat than anything else.
"Does this mean we're going to be vacuuming up feathers in the house? Do you have a cage or something?"
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 6:08 pm
"It was a mistake." he said. "I went on a mission with Malkam to well..I suppose trying to bond somewhat with him." Malkam of course hadn't been interested, he didn't like him and that was all there was to it. "It bonded to me so I couldn't sell it, so I'm stuck with it. I'm trying to learn to fly, if you must know. I can fly short distances now."
"And no. No cage. Sometimes feathers, they just...fall out. The wing ones less so."
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Posted: Sun Apr 16, 2017 6:51 pm
"Sounds like a pretty amazing mistake. Being able to fly. Who can say they can do that without a plane?" He looked up at the passing birds and then back at Lawr.
"I'm not a bird expect, but if you ever need help or to make sure you don't hit a window, I'll be there."
He smiled up as he looked up ahead at the path. "Tweetheart."
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 3:53 am
"Windows look really different when you have owl senses, they are very much like the sky or something open, it's not surprising they fly into them. The help is appreciated however, it is fairly trying doing it all on my own. Well, not entirely my own, America does help somewhat, and Mikael, though neither of them know who I am."
He irritably spurred his horse on to walk head of Melvin a little. "You can only help me so long as you don't call me that."
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 5:04 am
"Well I will around the kids, won't I?" He asked, looking at Honey a moment before giving her another little squeeze and having her move up a little. It was still at a slower pace as Lawr as he was more trailing around Max's rear than by Lawr's side directly.
"So tell me. What else have you been doing while....we were not together? Anything else with your kids?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 6:12 am
"If I'm an owl then fine I suppose." Lawrence said grudgingly. "And not much, mostly trying to get Malkam to like me, but he doesn't want to, he blames me for Melody and I don't think he'll ever let that go. Mikael likes me in a strange sort of way, but I don't think it runs very deep or loyal." he sighed. "They both moved out with Rodney. Malkam's still bitter about what happened with Mikael and you."
"Honestly other than learning to fly and studying medicine, I have not been doing a great deal of anything. I spend a lot of time wishing I could escape into a new persona somewhere far from it all, but that is just a pipe dream, it isn't something that will ever happen."
He sighed. "I remember we used to talk about what it would be like to get away from the island. If only we could just take Atlantis and run."
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 6:48 am
He nudged Honey to move up a bit more that still left him now a tad further ahead than Lawr.
"You are trying and sometimes just seeing that you are making a constant attempt is a comfort and a sign you aren't giving up. That in time can convince someone that you really are true with your intentions. That or they might just never will. You did kill Melody. I would hate anyone who killed my brother or sister."
As for Malkam, he shrugged. "I don't need to win Malkam's favor. I don't deserve Mik's trust either after what happened. It's not me who is important but what is best for Mik and his feelings. I was prepared to live next door if you and them demanded it."
He looked ahead and them tried to ease Honey back which she started to understand just to align herself with Max.
"Do you...find any relief in maybe going to a base or on leave to be someone else? I..won't mind if you use yiur leave to help those feelings. To be someone else so you don't feel miserable. Even if I like spending our leave together, it probably won't help you feel fully clear of thus life if I was around. Would that help?"
He thought about his book.
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:16 am
"I didn't kill her." he said, very quietly. "The horsemen killed her. People will always argue with me on that one but I know what happened, I was there, I saw the moths. It is my fault that it happened, I will accept that much, and I let it happen, but I did not lay a hand on her, I will defend that much." He didn't understand how you could be accused of the literal murder of an individual when all you did was stand aside and let it happen. He'd have died himself if he'd fought back, he didn't doubt that either. This way at least someone survived. "All I can do is continue to try and prove to Malkam that family is important to me. He might never believe it now though, it might be too late." And he was resigned to that in some ways, the same way he was resigned to everything. He'd been resigned to failure with Rodney before he even began.
"I don't care about what happened with Mikael." he said. "I should, but I don't. Everyone gets so upset about sex, I just don't see the point. No one was injured, no one is hurt, what is the issue?" he shook his head. "I just had to abide by Malkam's rules in the hope that he'd like me better for it, I don't actually /feel/ any of it." Max under him was full of energy, longing to run and explore the path they were on and tossing his head at being asked to stay at a walk. Lawrence could sympathise in some ways with the feeling.
"You don't need to be gone for me to do it. Rodney went to Japan once with Valeri, it was liberating. I enjoy being able to lapse into the personas, it simply relies on my companion not having an issue with it. I wouldn't use deliberately use Jan around you without well, being sure it wouldn't distress you given the history."
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 7:38 am
"He isn't going to see it that way." Neither did Melvin. His hatred for the horseman ran deep and if Lawr had continued associating with them, he knew he would not tolerate it. The scar was one deserved.
"I betrayed Mik's trust and feelings. I wad an older figure offering guidance and took those feelings to serve my desires. He wanted it but that doesn't mean it wasn't wrong. He wanted more, and I shouldn't have been so weak and instead just given advice and let him have fun elsewhere. I also was with you and that's awful to be with you and then your son. I hurt both of you. I have no self control. Even now. I want too much."
He watched Max and felt a bit nervous about how he was acting.
"If you wanted then I can go with you if you want to escape that way. I .. also have a boom from that library mission. It takes you to that world of monsters. The ones you capture and fight for you. I'm different there though."
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:18 am
"Yes. I suppose so. I can still hope one day I'll be permitted a second chance." he could only shrug. Melvin's explanation of why what he'd done was wrong also seemed very odd to Lawrence. "Who cares if you were older or if you did what he wanted? I was only irritated because it seemed like you were replacing me with a younger model. Now that I know you were not, it doesn't matter much to me."
He brightened though. "I'd like it if you'd indulge me sometimes with the personas, they are rather enjoyable to don, an act where we can be someone else, out in the world, not hunters for a day." He recalled the strange pokemon world and shrugged. "I think that everyone was different there. I stumbled into a world where Rodney killed me. Rather vividly. I still think about it quite a lot. It was a world where I didn't mind, I was going to be caught any way. It felt like an excuse to stop running."
He fell very quiet for a few moments, simply looking ahead at the road.
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:24 am
He was quiet as he watched Lawr.
"Do you want to talk about Rodney? I don't mind."
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:29 am
Lawrence gave Melvin a slightly anxious look, jarred out of his reverie. "You are sure about that? This isn't one of those traps people set for people to walk into? I don't want to say positive things about him if that makes you feel bad in comparison. Because you aren't bad, both of you are incomparable, utterly and completely different."
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 8:45 am
"I don't hate Rodney as a person. I never felt I really got to know him. He is quiet, very shy, and easy to unnerve. I always just wanted him to feel safe and relaxed when he moved in and liked him as a workout partner. What I hated was how he treated everything. It was like he implied I was a bad person and ruining you. He put me outside of everything and made me feel that I was the reason you could never be happy. I felt betrayed by both of you."
"But I don't hate him for falling for you. For trusting you. For believing you. I don't hate you for loving him. I don't care if you were still with him because I want you to be happy. I feel bad Rodney can't be happy now but its not like I'm gonna go out of my way to upset him. I just got.....bitter with how he talked to me. About us. About making me feel like a disease because you two were married. I hated you too for that. But he is still a good person despite me not agreeing with his beliefs."
"But I want you to talk about what upsets you. You married him. You had to feel he was worth giving up so much for. That must have meant something. I am not telling you to ignore that for my sake."
"I need to be stronger about these things."
"It is not a trap."
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Posted: Mon Apr 17, 2017 9:09 am
"Well." he took a deep breath.
"When I first met Rodney it was with the realisation that he was something extraordinary. He was artistic, soft and simultaneously unsullied and yet ravaged. He seemed naive and yet his tattoos were not. He knew that evil existed and yet he chose to forgive it. That was something I had almost never seen. You've witnessed how people respond to me, as if something is off, something is wrong. They treat me differently from the moment they encounter me if I don't have a persona in effect. They smell it and they want to hurt or conquer me. Rodney just wanted to forgive me. He'd never been with anyone, he wanted a sanctuary. I brought him into our house with no intention more sinister than giving him that and keeping him there." He nodded sadly. "I hoped that somehow we could work out a life where we co-existed, and with the boys I dreamed that Rodney could help teach them a little emotion and softness, a little of art, the things I couldn't, and that you could volunteer your curiosity, your practicality, your strong sense of loyalty. I just wanted something good."
They made their way along to a very shallow little river and the path turned along it in the shade of some trees. "I didn't expect or want things to go how they did. I told him so often that I couldn't be with just him, that I'd never leave you or hurt you. When it happened it was in the wake of a wild decision, saving him from something I'd never expected to. I was devastated that it would move me away from you. Things only really got more extreme after that world I saw, where I wanted to die and let myself die. It felt like a warning, some future where I got to do everything I wanted and yet was never happy, a divine hint that perhaps there is.. or was some other future for me where there is still time to change and be forgiven."
"As far as it went after that with you being a negative thing, I have never felt that way myself, not ever. But when I signed up for redemption, or at least to try for it, I had to believe everything he told me for it to work. If that meant you being a bad influence then that was what I was prepared to believe. I just realised afterwards that I couldn't do it. Redemption was a lonely place. I didn't even want much, I was willing to give up promiscuity, just not you. I couldn't understand why something that was supposed to be a good thing was causing someone I cared about so much obvious pain."
He shook his head. "I still love Rodney, I still mean and meant all the vows I made when I married him, he's important, even if he left me. I don't want just another failed marriage I run away from, but I don't want a world where I can't be with you, even if that means giving up that slim and fragile hope of changing my future. I just wanted nothing more than for it to be all of us. "
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