// it's not enough that you're wrestling yourself
but your friends talk shit while you're going through hell //
but your friends talk shit while you're going through hell //
It’s a difficult tight rope to walk – one that has his shifts at war within him. The prey that want to simply hide away, to make it all go away in the face of the challenge versus the predators that want nothing more than to lash out, than to target the anger that brims under his skin. He’s already let it slip a few times, has already tried to retract a few times, tried to let himself calm down. “Of course I don’t believe you.” He says sharply. “Somehow you were there before the fire but also weren’t?”
But he needs a moment, a second to pause, Pemota’s tail bumping into him and being a physical reminder to step back, to retract, to gather himself again as he stares not at Hotaru but at the marks he’s left in the table, his arms folding across his chest, the claws pressing against the skin of his tattooed arms with just shy of the pressure needed to draw blood.
“Because regardless of what you think, Hotaru, you aren’t innocent in this.” He answers her gruffly, muffled as its grit between his teeth. But nothing, nothing of this holds a candle to what she says next.
Sunjata wonders if he’s ever felt anything like it – the blatant betrayal, the blatant lies that have been spun around and around him without his knowledge, dragging him deeper into what to believe just as he had when his father had been around, lurking behind every corner ready to strike. But he’s done letting people try and tell him what to believe. He’s done trying to fit himself somewhere in the middle when he knows that despite the things he’s done, he deserves to be able to trust himself at the end of the day.
Gods is he tired of being manipulated again and again.
It’s blinding and even he shies away from it as it pierces him, a sudden sharp pang of agony that bleeds like an open wound from his side of the bond. His wings flare out, knocking into a stack of papers off to the side, spilling them over into a small river on the desk adjacent to the one Hotaru sits at. “Who fucking said that?” It’s a sharp growl of demand in his tone, claws digging in tight as if he’s aiming to restrain himself. Which, truthfully, he is.
Otherwise he thinks he’ll do something he absolutely will regret.
“Who fucking said?!” He repeats, not caring or noticing if the iron on his tongue is real or if it’s a phantom of what he wishes was there. “Days after? Days? That’s fucking bullshit. Nate left not long after you. And I was alone for over a month.” He’s likely divulging too much information – if that voice of his father inside him has anything to say about it.
So he withdraws, wings trembling from where they flare, his gaze shifting into the slit pupils of his dragon shift as if he’s at war to prevent himself from fully shifting. “You know what, that doesn’t even fucking matter. You should know better, Hotaru. You who were a Queen who knows what it’s like to rule and keep on a face of normalcy even when it feels like your world is fucking ending. All to keep face and remain strong.” He sucks down a sharp breath, one that nearly has him whining as it slips against his raw throat.
It’s the most use it’s gotten in weeks.
But that? That paired with the realization of Remi being the father? Paired with getting his bargain thrown back into his face again and again as if he didn’t spend every moment thinking about it when he saw his daughter's face? Paired with Hotaru's Attunement? He doesn’t need to express the way he feels, for Haai curls around his feet to keep him rooted in place, growling with teeth bared right at Hotaru, while every single muscle in Sunjata’s body trembles in his attempt to keep him there.
And there’s that part of him that’s always been his father that pours his hurt and his rage in a whirlwind of a storm down the bond straight for Hotaru like an arrow, hoping it pierces the mark. And given that she’s attuned? Well, well. Among the flurry of agony and rage, his voice is deeper – accented thicker, heavier with the Korofi tones in this way, weaving and wrapping around the sensation he sends her way. How fucking dare you. He begins, swallowing against the blood in his mouth, his gaze snapping up to her face. So all this was, was you reacting over hurt feelings based off of lies, to show up and do nothing before or after Deimos started setting the fires? You don’t leash him but you couldn’t get him to stop?
But he needs a moment, a second to pause, Pemota’s tail bumping into him and being a physical reminder to step back, to retract, to gather himself again as he stares not at Hotaru but at the marks he’s left in the table, his arms folding across his chest, the claws pressing against the skin of his tattooed arms with just shy of the pressure needed to draw blood.
“Because regardless of what you think, Hotaru, you aren’t innocent in this.” He answers her gruffly, muffled as its grit between his teeth. But nothing, nothing of this holds a candle to what she says next.
Sunjata wonders if he’s ever felt anything like it – the blatant betrayal, the blatant lies that have been spun around and around him without his knowledge, dragging him deeper into what to believe just as he had when his father had been around, lurking behind every corner ready to strike. But he’s done letting people try and tell him what to believe. He’s done trying to fit himself somewhere in the middle when he knows that despite the things he’s done, he deserves to be able to trust himself at the end of the day.
Gods is he tired of being manipulated again and again.
It’s blinding and even he shies away from it as it pierces him, a sudden sharp pang of agony that bleeds like an open wound from his side of the bond. His wings flare out, knocking into a stack of papers off to the side, spilling them over into a small river on the desk adjacent to the one Hotaru sits at. “Who fucking said that?” It’s a sharp growl of demand in his tone, claws digging in tight as if he’s aiming to restrain himself. Which, truthfully, he is.
Otherwise he thinks he’ll do something he absolutely will regret.
“Who fucking said?!” He repeats, not caring or noticing if the iron on his tongue is real or if it’s a phantom of what he wishes was there. “Days after? Days? That’s fucking bullshit. Nate left not long after you. And I was alone for over a month.” He’s likely divulging too much information – if that voice of his father inside him has anything to say about it.
So he withdraws, wings trembling from where they flare, his gaze shifting into the slit pupils of his dragon shift as if he’s at war to prevent himself from fully shifting. “You know what, that doesn’t even fucking matter. You should know better, Hotaru. You who were a Queen who knows what it’s like to rule and keep on a face of normalcy even when it feels like your world is fucking ending. All to keep face and remain strong.” He sucks down a sharp breath, one that nearly has him whining as it slips against his raw throat.
It’s the most use it’s gotten in weeks.
But that? That paired with the realization of Remi being the father? Paired with getting his bargain thrown back into his face again and again as if he didn’t spend every moment thinking about it when he saw his daughter's face? Paired with Hotaru's Attunement? He doesn’t need to express the way he feels, for Haai curls around his feet to keep him rooted in place, growling with teeth bared right at Hotaru, while every single muscle in Sunjata’s body trembles in his attempt to keep him there.
And there’s that part of him that’s always been his father that pours his hurt and his rage in a whirlwind of a storm down the bond straight for Hotaru like an arrow, hoping it pierces the mark. And given that she’s attuned? Well, well. Among the flurry of agony and rage, his voice is deeper – accented thicker, heavier with the Korofi tones in this way, weaving and wrapping around the sensation he sends her way. How fucking dare you. He begins, swallowing against the blood in his mouth, his gaze snapping up to her face. So all this was, was you reacting over hurt feelings based off of lies, to show up and do nothing before or after Deimos started setting the fires? You don’t leash him but you couldn’t get him to stop?
// you said it feels like you're swimming through mercury
and every night you think you're gonna die in your sleep //
and every night you think you're gonna die in your sleep //
SUNJATA
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
