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 Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:14 pm
Horatio was tired. He was tired of dealing with cursed normals, dealing with the drama that was his life, dealing with his brother who was all stupid ******** happy with his stupid ******** mate, of dealing with his stupid ******** life.
A small forest fire had started while he got more and more upset. He took some small comfort in that.
Sighing heavily, Horatio let his wings spread out behind him as he reached a small stream; it was growing darker as the sky above it did, only light by the bright, burning lights behind him. Unfazed, Tio leaned down and took a drink, even as the frightened calls of birds echoed in the trees. Mm...maybe he could take down a few if he got hungry. It would be quite easy while they were panicked.
Glancing up at the sky doubtfully and the clouds of birds over head, Tio suddenly noticed a larger shadow above him: that of a Modiphim. As long as it wasn't his curse of a brother, he could deal with it. No 'Phim besides Jiriki would be stupid enough to confront an angrier-than-usual 'Daeva.
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:30 pm
 Jiriki yawned absently as he did lazy aerial maneuvers in the empty dusk sky. He'd ventured away from Omaticaya for a few days to do an extended scouting mission for Ecthelion, which had somehow got him back to the area where he had grown up with his brothers. He sighed through his nose at the thought; being the only 'Phim (well, besides his father) with two 'Daevas for brothers had been rather unfortunate. Until the threats of being burnt had stopped fazing him; then annoying the crap out of Ig and Tio had proven to be great vengeance, and even greater fun.
Still, a part of him missed his siblings. Perhaps a small part, since he knew neither of them gave two shits about him, but a part of him nonetheless. Still, he wasn't here to reconnect with the two foxes who resented his existence more than anyone else ever could; he had come to the familiar territory to find a place to sleep for the night until he took off back home again. He'd figured sleeping somewhere he knew would be the safer move.
...Or not. Jiriki blinked as a swarm of frantic birds rushed past him, grazing his fur with beaks and claws as they scrabbled to get away from...
Riki groaned to himself. Vivid flames and smoke were rising from the forest below him. Fire in this area was likely no coincidence; one of his brothers had to be down there. Rubbing blood off his cheek with a paw, he squinted down through the smoke, and sure enough, caught a flash of teal.
Tio.
The one who really, really made it clear he despised Jiriki's very existence.
Riki waffled in the air for a moment, then shrugged and swung down to the treeline, landing in the sturdy branches of a tree above his brother. It was perhaps a stupid move, but he wasn't going to leave Tio to destroy a whole damn ecosystem with his bratty attitude.
"Evening, Horatio," he said quietly. "What's got you playing arsonist tonight?"
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:39 pm
Tio saw a flash of white and black out of the corner of his eye and rumbled lowly in annoyance; of all the foxes in all the world, it would be his brother, wouldn't it?
"Go away," Tio snapped, flames rising another inch around his paws. The grass nearby flickered into a hesitant flame, but Tio accidentally dripped water from his muzzle onto it, extinguishing it instantly. Damn. Maybe it would have caught the tree that Riki was sitting in and burned it before he could get away, if only it'd had the chance for life.
Figuring their conversation was over, Tio took one final drink from the stream, then started to turn around; he really, really didn't want to talk to his family--which Riki was, as much as he hated to admit it. Stupid 'Phim.
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:46 pm
"Now why would I do that?" Riki replied, cocking his head to the side. "You're only, you know, trying to take down a whole forest here. The one we all grew up in, by the by." He looked skeptically down at the ground, making sure Tio hadn't snuck up and lit a blaze precariously close to the tree he was in.
He certainly wouldn't put it past him.
"Anyway, I somehow doubt you woke up this morning and decided to take out a whole forest. Even you aren't that demented. So something else is going on." He leapt from the tree he was in and soared down to the ground, landing with a soft plunk next to his brother. "Which means I'm not just going to 'go away'."
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 10:52 pm
"You flatter me," Tio snapped sarcastically, pulling his ears back as his brother spoke. He didn't care if the 'Phim cared or was concerned. He didn't. He wouldn't be spilling his ******** guts to him.
"Maybe I am that demented, brother," Tio drawled, purposefully making his flames higher about his ankles, closer to black and white bird-fox. "If so, you would be best to take your leave before I do something even demented-er," Tio huffed, shaking his head at the boy.
"And even if there was something the matter, which there isn't, I certainly wouldn't tell you,"
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:04 pm
Jiriki gave Tio a deadpan look for the implied threat when he increased the size of his flames. "You're not scaring me, you know. If you were going to barbeque me, you would have done it a long time ago." His brother had certainly come close before, but Riki had learned that holding his ground generally made Tio back off a little. And demented or not, Horatio wasn't going to kill him.
He kept pace with Tio in spite of his temper. "So who are you going to tell, Horatio? Your children? You abandoned them and their mother already. Certainly none of Ignacio's children. Will you tell him?" He looked around, but saw no signs of the other twin having been around recently. "No, he seems to have left. So that leaves you alone out here."
He hopped up onto one of the branches of a tree in front of his brother. "Now, I could leave, but like it or not, I'm still your brother. We've got the same parents, so don't try your Daeva pride bullshit with me, you know you're only half of one too. And I'm half like you." He offered his brother a smug smirk. "So I don't see why it'd be so damn awful to tell me what's wrong. Not like I'd go tell anyone else about it."
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:14 pm
"I don't need to tell anyone," Tio snapped, louder and meaner than even normal for him; that as much as anything might have been a sign that the 'Phim had touched on an issue: he was alone. For all the enemies he had made over the years, he had never been alone--he had always had Ignacio, or some little vixen to toy with, like the mother of his children (what was her name again?), or someone to put up with his antics, like Akutenshi. He had never been truly alone.
"Go away, Jiriki," Tio snarled again, picking up his pace even more; if worst came to worst, he could try to fly away from the annoying 'Phim. Who needed him anyway?
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:33 pm
Riki blinked in mild surprise at the sudden spike in Tio's anger. Well, that answered that question. "So it is that ypu're alone that's bothering you," he said quietly, turning to look over his shoulder as Horatio stormed past. He pulled his ears back some, finding that he actually felt bad for the brother who hated him.
He knew what it was like to be alone, after all. With their father not around much, Jiriki had been subjected to life with three Daevas. And consequently, he'd played on his own most of his kithood, and wasn't exactly a welcome sight in adulthood either. The Phim pulled his ears flat against his head--he had been the family disgrace, an accident to his mother and at most a plaything for his brothers.
"I know what t's like, you know," he called out to his brother. "Feeling alone. I felt that way for a long time." Tio would probably just keep walking after some more verbal abuse, but Riki was too much of a Phim to pretend he didn't care, no matter his history with Tio.
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:40 pm
"Well good for you," Horatio snarled, turning around to face his brother now, though he looked rather ready to tear the 'Phim's throat out.
"You're not alone anymore, are you? You have a family and a 'Deities-damned Tribe, you have a family that--" Tio cut himself off before he could finish the thought that threatened to spill into words. He would not, could not, sound so pathetic. Especially in front of Jiriki.
"Go die in a fire," Horatio said instead, though there was no malice in the words, not really. After another few quick moments, Horatio just shook his head (at himself) and turned away again, though he was walking more than slow enough for his brother to catch up to him if he desired--not that that was on purpose. Nnnooo.
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:51 pm
"That loves me?" Riki completed the sentence, then smiled wryly. "Maybe. But I also have a family that hates me. I might have a mate and children in my tribe, but that doesn't mean I can't remember how it is to feel abandoned."
Jiriki let Tio walk a ways away, then swung down to walk by his side again. "I think fire's probably the one way I won't die. You and Ignacio set off so many when we were younger that I learned how to dodge them quickly." It was a half-hearted joke, but a joke nonetheless.
Now that he thought of it, only being told to die in a fire was progress.
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Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2010 11:58 pm
Tio rolled his eyes. "I don't feel abandoned," he snorted, shaking his head. "I don't feel, remember?" One would think that growing up with him would give Riki a better understanding of how the teal twin worked--he wasn't supposed to have to deal with those stupid ******** things they called emotions.
Stupid Jiriki. Stupid Ignacio. Stupid world. Stupid, stupid feelings.
"I hate you," Tio threw out, though again the normal venom was lacking in the words. "Your family will probably just abandon you, kits and all and your tribe will crumble and you'll end up alone again. Would serve you right. Why won't you go away?"
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Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 12:08 am
"I know you hate me," Jiriki said offhandedly. "You've told me every time we've seen each other since you could talk. Mother and Ignacio too. So I don't exactly think being reminded of that fact is going to make me run away crying, Tio." He'd learned a long time ago that he couldn't change a Daeva, especially not Tio. He could roll with the punches these days.
"And I'm not going away because, like it or not, you are feeling emotions. You think you're oh so good at hiding them, but you aren't that hard to read, 'm afraid. So, you can keep pretending Ignacio finding a mate--it's the Akatsuki Elder, right?--doesn't bother you, or you can talk to me. Likely as not you'll take Option A, destroy our childhood home, storm off, destroy another habitat, run out of satisfying places to destroy and go wallow because emotions make no sense to you. But I thought I'd offer anyway. "
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Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:23 pm
"It doesn't bother me, Ignacio can do whatever he damn well pleases. We both can," Tio argued, and he was about to agree that yes, he did hate him and would always hate him, but then his eye caught a particular tree that his fire hadn't gotten anywhere near yet...but he could still see the patch of permanently-dead grass where Ignacio and he had cornered Jiriki once, when they were young; even then, Tio had taken some sort of joy from terrifying the smaller 'Phim, from seeing the bright yellow flames (which had seemed much bigger when they were both tiny) reflected in Jiriki's black eyes, from Mother's laughter circling above them, not stopping them from hurting her mismatched son.
With a heavy sigh and a loud thump, Tio simply stopped walking and flopped down on the grass, huge head resting on black paws and sharp talons, glaring at that damn tree.
"He's like a ******** gooney-eyed 'Phim kit around her," Tio growled lowly, sounding as disgusted as he could make his voice go. He was focusing on not thinking about the fact that he was--first, talking; and second, talking to Jiriki of all foxes. Anyone would've been better than that 'Phim, who would most likely lord it over him for all eternity.
Stupid family.
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Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:48 pm
Jiriki cocked his head curiously as Tio suddenly stopped walking and glared at a tree. Not sure what his problem had been, the Phim moved closer to the tree to investigate, then managed to not visibly tense at the path of dead grass. Yes, he remembered this place; the green-eyed male looked up into the branches above them, remembering Mother perched up there laughing while hir brothers nearly killed him.
Despite his happy go lucky attitude, Riki couldn't help the low growl that built in his throat at the thought. b***h.
He turned his head to look back at Tio when he spoke, then sat down across from him. "Not sure you know many gooney-eyed Phim kits," he said, bemused. He certainly made a point of not drawing attention to himself around his family like that. "You've never met my children before, they're the only ones you'd know." He knew that wasn't really the point of what Tio was saying, but words were the only weapons he had against him. They were the same size now, and Riki could hold his own in a fight, but he still wasn't all that experienced in using brute force against someone.
"If Ignacio can do whatever he pleases, then why does his taking a mate bother you so much?" Riki stood and padded closer to his brother, looking down at him. "Ignacio is not as violent as you, it was going to happen eventually."
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Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:59 pm
Tio rolled his eyes and ignored the growl from his brother, though normally he would've complimented him on showing more of his 'true' parentage--now that he was talking, though, he just couldn't quite seem to stop.
"I know the type," Tio huffed, pulling his ears back as Jiriki brought up his own children; that certainly wasn't helping any matters, being reminded that he was the only one in his family who was still miserable. It wasn't fair.
"It wasn't," Tio growled, frowning. At least, Tio'd never thought it would, and Iggy had never given any indication that he thought it would either, nor any indication that he wanted it to. When had Ig made up his mind to change everything?
There was a brief pause during which neither one of them said anything, but then Tio shook his head.
"Never mind. I don't want to talk. Go away."
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