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For some time, Isi had been keeping himself out of the way of Aphismet's doings, like his interactions with Chloe, his own hobbies, and his work. But he didn't do the same for Rivener. At the beginning he had tried to be patient and understanding and flexible, but that was just too much for Isi to do, especially with his type of personality. After trying repeatedly with Rivener to be kind and having nothing but spit and insults in his face, Isi had had enough. No more Mr. Patient Cripple. he wasn't going to deal with any more insults. He wasn't going to take any more blame. He wasn't even going to add just a little sugar to his words. All Isi wanted was all this negativity to stop! He had too much of it, all his life, too many bad things. Now he had a family. He had an adopted older brother that loved him. Isi had his own ward to care for. Everything was supposed to be good. It should be getting better! For his sake, at least...Now, Isikoro had the thinking that he was going to do what he wanted when he wanted and he didn't have to rely on the other's opinions. He was tired of playing as if his emotions didn't count. Unfortunately, it was this kind of thinking that got him into even more brawls and disagreements with Rivener.

However, today was not a day where Isi intended to step on Rivener's ribbon. He was irked, of course, but that was only because Eiry found a doll in the attic, tied a folder knife to its hand and placed it on Isi's night desk, its plastic eyes staring in Isi's direction. So, it was by coincidence that Isi had headed to the room where Aphi had invited him to go paint to as well. Isi had set up his canvas against a wall since he had no easel of his own yet. He had already collected the acrylic paints he was going to use. So now he was sitting cross legged before his canvas, selecting a brush from the brushes Aphi used.

Isikoro had just started to apply paint onto the canvas and start work again on his picture of an angel fallen into a bed of rocks, when Rivener opened the door.

Isi jumped a little bit and he turned around to look at the door with widened eyes of grey. His gaze landed on the covered figure of Rivener and his body stiffened, preparing for an onslaught of insults. "Good Afternoon, Rivener."

Well...

...Isi wasn't expecting that.

Sure, he was expecting some snappy comments, some cruel insults, and the like, perhaps twice the dosage than what he usually got since Aphismet was gone, but he wasn't expecting an all out scream fest. The was the LAST thing he was expecting from the frei. It was so sudden that Isi even leaned back and twitched a bit as if all those words had physical form and were raining down on him like a hail storm.

The words that were hurled at him, though...Hurt him. Which was weird. Usually, he could take Rivener's insults, but for some reason, he couldn't take them now. Each word hurt him and hit true...And each word made him confused. Did he really mean all that?! Is that what he truly felt for him? Hate?!

"What the bloody blazes is your issue!?" Isi screamed back at him, his chest clenching with rage. He twisted himself around on the floor and he started to pick himself up from the ground. He hadn't brought his crutches with him today. He didn't think that he would need them since he could walk to the room without them. "What have I done to you, huh? You selfish half-formed brat! I haven't done ANYTHING to deserve your anger besides asking to be a part of your family! What's so BLOODY wrong about that?! If you think that I want to steal Aphismet away from you, then you're bloody wrong! I never had the intention! You're the one who's always bitchin' and moaning about never having Aphismet all to yourself! Well, Aphismet has a life too, you know! He has his own choices to make and he can't dedicate all of himself to you, you sniffling experiment! BOLLOCKS, do you really think he's going to stay with you and hold your hand, follow your every whim and feed you from a silver? NO! I'm not asking for much, Rivener! I can take care of myself AND others! All I'm asking for is family! That's all!" Isi was stepping up now, pushing his hands against his knees to pull himself up from the ground. He still had his paint brush and paints by his feet, "I can stand by myself! I don't NEED attention like you, you attention whore!"

Now, fulling standing erect, Isi furrowed his thick brows over his angered grey eyes and he pointed his finger in Rivener's direction. His heart was racing and each pump of blood got hotter and hotter, "And you know what? After all the bitchin' and bloody CRAP you've given me, I will not HATE you! I'm more mature than to stoop to something so stupid and low! You're my family now whether you like it or not and I will NOT HATE YOU!"

Isi's eyes were flaring with belligerence and his body shivered with tense anger, "Then tell him that you need time with him, Rivener! Don't wait for him to come to you! Don't wait in a bloody corner and cry about it! DO SOMETHING. It's your fault that he's not paying attention to you! You're not DOING anything about it! So get off your bloody ribbon and TAKE some damn time for your bloody self!" Isi's legs gave a faltering quiver, not only because that they were weakening fast, but also because he was scared. He was truly and honestly scared. His words, particularly the comment, "You're an orphan because nobody wanted you" sliced through him to the bone. Then there was the confession. That scared Isi out of his mind. All this time, Rivener had hated him, had wanted to kill him. Hated the sight of him, the mere way he looked, heat to toe, guts and all. Rivener wished that he was dead. There was so much hate saturating his voice, bloating him, and blinding him from reason, that Isi almost didn't know what to do. There was no way he could call Aphi, and he could only run so far. Who knows were Eiry was right now and they were out in the middle of no where. NOBODY would hear him scream. He was cornered, as helpless as a little lamb. However, there was no way that he was going to go down without a fight.

Yet...There was this bloody side of compassion that twisted in Isi's stomach like an iron gauntlet in his intestines. He could see where this poor frei was coming from...He knew that feeling...Of feeling forgotten, forlorn, and unwanted. Begging for attention was something Isi used to do to survive. He could sympathize with the damn raevan, but hell if that would work now! Damn it, he couldn't do anything!

"So, what? You think you're the only one who feels forgotten? You think you're so unique in your pain? Well, you're one out of bloody thousands, buddy!" Isi was howling at the frei now, screaming with all his body and being, half in attempt to let somebody know, and half to try and scare Rivener away, although he knew it was useless. Now, his face was flushed with anger and his eyes were glossy, "Are you going to try and kill me again...my own...your own family?" Just staring at this frei made him frightened, but he was brave enough to stand against it. He had faced murderous ghosts, possessed friends, and a crazy grandma. Sure, he handle a furious raevan. This isn't the first time that someone had been trying to kill him. In fact, there were many times before where Isi had feared for his life, which is unfortunate considering that he's only fifteen. This was another one of those times. Bending down slowly as he stepped back, Isi reached his fingers out for the acrylic paints. Then as Rivener advanced closer, Isi threw his paint into Rivener's face, hoping to make a distraction long enough for him to gain an edge.

His heart was clawing through his chest and he seemed to shrink back down into his age even though that he was swelling with frustration and rage. Isikoro Etul Delaran was only a boy.

Isi had just managed to try and duck away, but the raevan was far too fast for him to escape. Clawed fingers dug into his shoulders and before Isi could try and struggle away, the boy found himself slammed into the window with a resounding thud sound as the back of his head smashed into the glass. From that point on, everything happened in slow motion for the boy with a kind of drunk stupor or whirled blur. It felt like it wasn't happening, how could Rivener be attacking him, how could he wish with all his heart for him to die that it was a dream, but the pain was far too real for him to deny. The dusk light was fading behind his shoulders and it illuminated the frayed edges of his hair like an ethereal halo...His breath was sucking into his chest as if it were the last gasping breath he would take...And the crippled angel lifted his shining greyed eyes to stare into Rivener's, hardened, determined, filled with fear, and void of hate.

An explosion of pain rocked Isi's body as the stingers of Rivener's scorpion's wings sank into either side of his shoulders, like some sick knighting. Isi could literally feel the poison inject into his skin, into his blood and it burned like a flaming hell, but then it was followed by an intolerable numbness and tingling. It hurt so much that Isi couldn't even make a sound. He simply choked and stared at Rivener through widened eyes that began to leak and tear. The boy began to choke so hard on the screams that wanted to rip out of his throat that Isi actually began to gag. Like draining color, Isi's face bled itself free of all color and he became deathly pale and white. His skin was beaded with a sudden sweat. His halo began to dim as the sun sank beyond the horizon.

"Riven-n-n-n-"

Suddenly, as Isi's gags and chokes became more and more prominent, the boy's body began to convulse as the poison spread throughout his speeding blood stream. His crippled legs buckled underneath him and he slid down from the window, losing the angelic halo that framed his face. Isi collapsed upon the ground, slowly beginning to twitch and convulse more and more on the floor, propped up against the wall before he simply slid off to the side. His arms were jerking involuntarily and Isi actually began to froth at the mouth as his eyes lolled back into his head with the pain. Rivener's poison had completely rendered Isi's body incapable of movement.

Isi was trapped in a poison-induced paralysis...And the sick thing was that he was still conscious. His grey eyes flickered wildly in their sockets and his chest began to rise and fall rapidly with crazy unsteadied breathing. He was watching, scared and tearing with stinging pain.

With a snap and twist, Isi's neck jerked his head to the side in a sick manner, as if he were some mechanical doll undergoing some terrible malfunction. Isi's jaw clenched tight, so tight that the muscles in his neck pressed against his skin from the strain and the boy finally released some semblance of a scream although it was done with his mouth tightly stretched shut. It was just this sound, this terrible sound that ripped itself from the depths of Isi's chest, all the way from his diaphragm. He was struggling against the pain of the poison, and he was fighting even though it controlled all of his body by now.

There were only short moments, small spaces of time in which Isi was able to choose where the muscles pulled and released. He spent all of his energy trying to reach for something, searching desperately for something to hold onto. His deft fingers, fingers that would craft things like dream catchers to help himself sleep, fingers that would offer his baked goods to the residents of the household, fingers that would caress Eiry's hair whenever the young frei fell asleep in Isi's lap, transformed into hooked twitching claws that raked into whatever they could, grappling for a hold.

Isi's weak legs kicked against the ground softly, every once in a while they'd push Isi's body off of the ground so that his back arced, before letting him fall once more.

There were wet streaks criss-crossing over Isi's paper-pale cheeks and his freckles stood out as if they were holes poked into his hollow shell of a face.

"D-d-un...sw-sw-err," Isi coddled between broken chokes and weeps of pain.

Another spasm wreaked Isi's body and the boy curled up into a twitching ball.

It was then at that moment, beckoned forth from the tree house where he had been feeding Shalbriri, his demonic lamb, by screams and shouts, that Eirdirsceol appeared. He pushed through the wall, not even bothering to use the door, his red eyes wide and curious. What he happened upon wasn't the scene he had imagined. It wasn't Rivener watching a new horror movie on the monster-vision. It wasn't Beauregard re-dubbing a Spanish soap opera.

It was Rivener, kneeling before...Isi...who was writhing in torturous spasms upon the floor. Bubble-speckled drool was seeping from his master's haggard mouth and his brother looked torn between frustration and fear.

It didn't take long for Eirdirsceol to fit the two together. He was an intelligent raevan, even though he seldom acted like it. The pieces snapped together within his mind and then he understood what had happened.

Rivener had finally snapped. He finally blew up and released all of that pent up anger and rage that had been resting within him for some time now.

...And his ill-fortuned guardian was there to take the shrapnel.

Anger is not an emotion often seen in Eiry, even when faked. However, this time, something triggered in the minty frei's heart. A little cog jerked itself into motion and opened a large metal doored pit in Eiry's stomach that lead to a dark deep hole. The young frei's face suddenly demented into something terrible, more terrible than all of Rivener's horror movies and all of Eiry's beloved ghost stories. A banshee would've paled in comparison. His brows were fermented with rage and his mouth pinched itself to something between a wail of grief and a shriek of rage.

"ISI!"

So, like a ghost train, Eiry rushed to his guardian's side and turned his terrible visage upon Rivener as he tried to collect the upper half of Isi's body into his arms.

"BROTHER!!" the ethereal frei shrieked, his voice was terrible to hear, almost painful as if it echoed over and around itself, "Whatever you've done, HELP HIM. I don't CARE why you did it! I don't CARE if you regret it! I don't CARE if he deserved it! HELP HIM, BROTHER! Help him! He's MY guardian! We need to help him, QUICK!"

Eiry's voice dampened then and he glanced down at Isi who was still whimpering and twitching uncontrollably, "There's more and more death to feed off of...Isi...Isi...Isi..." His voice thinned out to a small whisper and his face relaxed til it finally resembled the Eiry that fled at the single beeping light of a machine.

Still fighting the raging poison in his veins, Isi bit his teeth harder and harder. He was able to see his raevan float in through the wall and he had been able to hear what his shrieking ward had said. Unfortunately he couldn't focus himself enough to feel himself gathered into another's arms. He did feel, although, a little less scared now that his ward was there. He never thought that he would be feeling this way about Eiry (at least not so soon), feeling proud and saved by his mere presence. Then, at that moment, another uncontrolled jerk rocked his body and the boy gave another terrible sound from the depths of his throat, squinting pearly drops of water from his eyes.

Eiry watched his brother with a steely gaze. He couldn't bring himself to be much more angry at him, especially when he saw that his brother was truly regretting what he had done, when he saw those tears in Rivener's eyes. Rivener was learning from his mistake. However, he was still angry that his Isi was in agony. That was the only thing that made Eiry so cold and ghastly and even more so when Rivener suggested that he needed the other's blood.

Eiry's face frowned at the thought of hurting Isi again. There had to be some other way...But when Eiry glanced down to look at his guardian, to see him twitch and weep like that...There could be no other way. There was no possible way they could move him, not when he was in this state. Not only that, but how else could they take care of poison? Antidotes, sure. Eiry knew that some antidotes came from plants, but he knew from personal experience that none of the helpful plants that they had around their house were the kind they needed to treat poison. He knew that (and then made a mental note to plant some plants that DID help against poison when this was over). There was no other way to find an antidote that to hurt Isi again and retrieve some of his blood.

Eiry wouldn't be the one to do it, though. He had never hurt Isi and today wasn't going to be his first time.

Hardening his face and twisting his mouth into a frown, Eiry picked up Isi's twitching arm with his grey hand and held it out from the rest of Isi's body towards Rivener. "Go on," he prompted coldly, "Hurt him again. You're the one who did this to Isi, you're the one who hurt him first. If you hurt him once, you can hurt again can't you? You get the blood sample. I won't and will never hurt Isikoro."

As Rivener advanced upon him once more, Isi's twitching body did convulse more, as if he had tried to flinch away and pull his arm back from where Eiry held it out for the scorpion raevan. A renewed stream of tears trickled down in criss-crossed patterns over Isi's cheeks as the raevan dug his nail deeper and deeper until Isi's skin finally broke and bled. At that moment, Isi released another gravelly noise and he tossed his body as the raevan collected his blood. His bare feet pushed into the ground, arcing his back higher until his feet slipped from the clammy sweat that beaded upon his skin. Around his shoulders, he could barely feel Eiry's grip tighten upon him to hold him in place and he simply screamed louder in his throat since the only way Eiry could hold him down would pressure his sensitive shoulders.

All the meanwhile, Isi had kept his grey eyes focused and trained upon the tear that was rolling down Rivener's cheeks. There was still no hate in his silver eyes.

When the scorpion had finished collecting his blood, Isi's body gave another great convulsion and he ripped himself out of Eiry's arms to writhe upon the floor as if he were some worm that had been mercilessly prodded by a curious child.

Eiry watched with ever softening eyes as he watched his brother do as he was told. It hurt him to see his brother sad and it worried him even more that was happening to his skin. Eiry had noticed, watched over the days, but he had never said anything. He was sensing something. Something was amiss, something was awry, or maybe something was changing. If Rivener wanted help or wanted to talk about it, then Eiry would be there for him. He was his brother, and he would be by Rivener's side through thick and thin. That was his secret promise. But he wouldn't ask. He felt as if it wasn't in his place, even though he was dreadfully curious and preoccupied about it. But he would not say a word.

However, Eiry was glad that his brother was learning his lesson, paying for what he had done to Isi.

"Isikoro only has so much time!" Eiry called after him as the red raevan whisked around the door, his voice threatening at first. But then it softened to the voice of a brother who was concerned for his other half, "...And be better, Riv. Atone and come back. Come back..."

He waited for a moment, to hear the clanging of the front door before Eiry finally turned his whole attention to his master. What could he do? Stop the bleeding. He had to tie up or bandage Isi's arm where he had been hurt. So, whispering soothing words to Isi, hoping that he would hear, Eiry moved away and rushed to the bathroom. He had seen Aphismet cut himself before when he was cooking and he had gone to the bathroom to find the bandages. So after frenzied searching, Eiry found the bandages and cotton and he returned to Isi's side, passing through walls as he needed. He floated down to Isi's side and immediately began tending to his wound the way that he had seen Aphi do it and the way Riv's own wounds and even his own were taken care of.

It was his first time, and it wasn't so bad. But Eiry was a bit squimish when it came to looking at Isi's blood. He even felt a slight bit lightheaded, but he shook it away. Now Isi's arm was taken care of.

Alright...What next? Eiry watched and bit his lip as Isi thrashed softly and tried to keep himself as stiff as possible. Every time he kicked against the floor, Isi would moan. Well, obviously he needed to be put somewhere soft, but...That was out of the question. Eiry couldn't lift his master even if he tried. So that meant that Eiry had to bring the bed to him. Fortunately for them, the laundry room was just down the hallway. Without a second's hesitation, Eiry floated up again and pushed through the walls towards the Laundry room, braving the noisy raving monsters that slept there. With bated breath and tense heart, the minty frei gutted the cabinets of their blankets and pillows and grabbed as much as he could carry before dragging it all back with him through the wall. When he returned to Isi's side, he quickly made a soft spot on the ground where Isi could lay and he surrounded the boy with a militia of pillows.

After that...Eiry didn't know what else to do. There were no plants outside to help, he figured that out before. He had taken care of everything that he could. Now, all he could do was...

Wait.

Eiry gulped and he settled himself on one of the pillows beside Isi, constantly looking over him and trying to persuade the death he felt from overcoming his master. This waiting would be the hardest part. Eirdirsceol placed a hand on Isi's clammy forehead and he watched his with a saddened worried face, his own bottom lip trembling.

"Isi...Isi...Isi..."

He could do nothing else but wait...And hope that Rivener came back soon with an antidote.