(SE) tread on me

// grass stains cut my bloody knees, it's goodpain, it means i can't be phased
that little death inside my sides, won't make it right //

Mistake #1, he’s left Haai behind, albeit with instructions on where to find him (useless now).

Mistake #2, he’s gotten turned around somehow and lost the pathway back toward home. And where he’s ended up, the jungle’s foliage is too dense for his shifts to be able to try and find the sky.

Mistake #3, he’s pretty sure he hasn’t taken this pathway before, even if his footsteps say otherwise. It could be a trick, it could be many things.

He doesn’t know entirely what it is, only that he’s gotten a bit more confused as of late, things appearing where they weren’t before, things disappearing where he was sure he’d left them before.

One constant that remains the same, a trickling stream that he orients himself to, following it through the lush jungle, entirely on edge – his face bruised still but more yellow than purple. Healing, hopefully in time for the reception soon.

He follows the stream until it comes beside another, then another, then another until it almost appears like veins with the ocean sounding nearby. This, at the very least, might be able to reorient himself toward home – to cast himself out over the ocean and find his way back. For now, however, there’s something peaceful in the way the water seems to drip, the vibrant hues of the foliage nearby.

Calling out to a macaw, he sends it out toward the edge of the streams where they drop into the water, searching for anything and everything that may be a marker of home.

And he waits.

Shaju

he wins every time i find myself inside, alone all night

SUNJATA

i'm just waiting 'til you really let your guard down

Children wander.

Men watch and wait.

Sunjata is walking farther from home, whether or not he knows it. And the man who waits for him along these spidery riverbanks knows as much, for he has been circling him for some time.

It will not do for the pup to die before his time, even useless as he is.

And so he waits, until a bright macaw swoops into view. With a smile to make sharks shiver, he adjusts his cuff and strolls back the way he came, until he comes across the boy.

Shaju looks like anyone else about now. Like someone instantly forgettable. Another face in the crowd; another branch in the jungles.

"You are lost." It isn't a question.

SHAJU

// grass stains cut my bloody knees, it's goodpain, it means i can't be phased
that little death inside my sides, won't make it right //

The macaw is sent, a breath held internally as he watches the red and blue feathers disappear into the rest of the vibrant jungle. And with nothing else to do, he exhales with a quiet sigh, a hand raising to run through his hair as he tries to figure out what to do next in the meantime. His steel gaze flickers along the winding veins of the streams, winding and winding until a voice is heard, until a presence is shown, until he realizes he’s not alone.

There’s a few choices Sunjata can choose between – flight is a strong one, one that he very nearly gives into. The second is to freeze, which he does do. The third is to fight, which is something he absolutely doesn’t do. Because while it looks like his father has done well for himself here, to blend in and mix well, the voice is one that makes him shiver, it makes him fragile and brittle and lined with anger and frustration.

He’s always hated it when his father was right. His father was right a lot.

So he bristles, clenches his sore jaw, the partial shift of his dragon shift appearing along the skin of his chest and neck, covering over the scar he’d gotten when his father had murdered Lusea, even if it’s one of the last things to go. He keeps his distance regardless, muscles feathering in his jaw, his throat dry and suddenly hoarse. “You are actually here.” It also isn’t a question. A defiance, with the native tongue and noble undertones that leave his lips, neither confirming nor denying the previous Arbiter’s sentence.

It’s a new season, it should have ended by now, and part of him questions whether to get close enough to touch him just to be sure. The smarter part of Sunjata avoids that completely and keeps his distance, wariness glimmering in the dull steel of his gaze.

Like a cornered animal.

he wins every time i find myself inside, alone all night

SUNJATA

i'm just waiting 'til you really let your guard down

"Put those away, you look ridiculous." Smooth and ever-so-sharp, like a razor's edge, the words go for the throat. He means, of course, the appearance of whatever partial shift Sunjata has chosen to taint himself with. The lines of ink are enough already to curl his lip, but this base addition of an animal goes far beyond tattoos. This is a matter of self-respect, something that the boy has shown to be sorely lacking.

A matter to be corrected, in time.

"And you are mad." There is neither confirmation nor denial in his tone. Is Sunjata really even hearing his father's voice coming from such an innocuous looking figure? Or is he just imagining whatever his feverish mind wants to believe? Either way, Shaju breezes on by, barely sparing the boy a glance. It's an act of contempt and disregard in one, the way he puts his back to Sunjata, anticipating nothing but obedience.

"Walk. The shore is some distance away."

SHAJU

// grass stains cut my bloody knees, it's goodpain, it means i can't be phased
that little death inside my sides, won't make it right //

”Put those away.” There’s that sharp demand again, Sunjata flinching internally at the words that grate and sharpen, and he clenches his sore jaw, doing as he’s told, the partial shift disappearing slowly as it struggles to take hold again. “Yes, Father.” Comes the grated out response.

”You are mad.” An understatement. This recent turn of events has him angry and on edge, frustration clear in what Sunjata can only assume his father sees through. And see through he does, his back to the Flood now, Sunjata’s steel gaze sharp and narrow enough to throw daggers at the back of his father’s figure. And he doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to give into the vision made not vision, but he doesn’t know where else to go. The muscles in his legs twitch, his jaw clenching harder, but he takes a step forward regardless.

There is one thing Sunjata knows, and it’s the fact that he’d done quite a few things that should have ended with him being killed. And yet, his father hadn’t taken the shot. Not yet, anyway, and so he hopes he’s right when he decides to follow Shaju. “When did you get here?” He asks rather suddenly, his voice sounding small in his mind despite his attempts to keep it from wavering.

he wins every time i find myself inside, alone all night

SUNJATA

i'm just waiting 'til you really let your guard down

"Good." It is the only acknowledgement Sunjata will receive as he walks, Shaju's footsteps slow and sure as they cut a path through the undergrowth towards the golden light of Torchline. There is still a ways to go, and that leaves plenty of time, apparently, for the boy to ask questions.

Shaju glances over his shoulder, steel blue eyes taking in the altered appearance as if checking it for any remnant of the taint that blemished it previously. Satisfied after a long moment, he ducks beneath a few vines and swats them away as they reach for him (they recoil, of course).

"The tide comes in quickly, on these islands," he remarks, utterly ignoring the question posed to him. "A wonder that it does not drag more people out to sea." Slipping his hands into his pockets, he pauses at the side of the stream, watching the water rush on by.

"Tell me - what fool named you Flood in this place?"

SHAJU

// grass stains cut my bloody knees, it's goodpain, it means i can't be phased
that little death inside my sides, won't make it right //

Acknowledgement, followed by silence. And he follows, because he’s lost, he doesn’t know which way to get home, and perhaps a small fraction of him believes that his father might actually guide his way home. Misguided, of course, but between the illusions and everything else, the hallucinogens he’s been accidentally taking… Well, it made for an easily molded mix. And so he follows, like a good child, until his father moves through the vines and completely avoids the question.

Fine.

Sunjata, too, slips through the vines after, taking up the space between where they recoil from his father. He doesn’t blame the vines. “It does.” He agrees quietly, pausing as he tries to warp his thoughts into something else. “It takes a fair amount out to sea, regardless.” Through monsters and magic.

He pauses by his father when he stops, his gaze lingering lower than where his father surveys, reverting slowly over and over again. “Nobody named me it, specifically. They just do.” He shrugs his tattooed and scarred shoulders, as if that explains everything.

he wins every time i find myself inside, alone all night

SUNJATA

i'm just waiting 'til you really let your guard down

"Not nearly enough," he laments, watching the riverbanks for a few moments more, the shimmering streams of water. A soft snort leaves him, Shaju's eyes flashing up to the boy's face. "More fool them. You are no Flood. You are barely a man. Were it not for the blood in your veins, I would have given this work to someone else."

What work? A good question, one that will soon be given an answer as Shaju's hand lances out like a viper's bite, forcefully jamming itself into the soft flesh between Sunjata's shoulderblade and giving him an unceremonious shove at the water.

These streams are barely ribbons of water through the Oerwoud in most places. Certainly not enough to drown in - not unless there's a boot on your neck. And wouldn't you know it - there is, right on the would-be Flood's.

"You are nothing, boy. Not a rebel. Not a hero. Not a fighter. You are a waste of time and effort, and you will remember it."

SHAJU

// grass stains cut my bloody knees, it's goodpain, it means i can't be phased
that little death inside my sides, won't make it right //

He wants to say ‘of course you wouldn’t think it enough’ or ‘there’s no amount of bodies dragged to sea that would please you’, but he refrains, biting down the sensation because he thinks it’ll prove safer for him. As it turns out, however, he isn’t safe at all. His gaze lifts toward his father, brows pinching together, lips parting to question just what work he means when there’s a sharp, vibrant and pounding pain between his shoulder blades, and he goes down.

Arms instinctively try to shift to protect him but he still meets the rocks and the water, a brief flash and panic of when he was six and shoved into water all the same. Only this time, this time Sunjata can’t push himself back up. A boot is to his neck and he finds his fingers clenching into the moist dirt, hissing his frustration and pain as it vibrates through him again and again. He could get out of this, but he doesn’t know what his father has. It’s better to try and keep as much of himself a secret as possible. So he opts for something smaller, trying to ignore the words he’d had beat into his head. “You’re wrong.” He grits out, those pained shoulders shifting as he partially shifts a wing to extend out from his back, scaled and leathery, to try and knock his father from keeping him down.

he wins every time i find myself inside, alone all night

SUNJATA

i'm just waiting 'til you really let your guard down

Oh, but he has been watching for some time, now. And wouldn't you know, the boy is quite liberal with showing off his digusting little flourishes (in a fight with a harpy in the market, for instance) and so Shaju is well aware of what to expect. He is ready for it.

He's hoping for it.

The wing snaps out and strong hands catch at it. They grasp, yank, twist - and a splintering crack echoes throughout the woods, as though he's stepped on a particularly dry twig. He wants the boy to scream, to gasp in a breath that is nothing more than water.

You're wrong, Sunjata says.

"That isn't what your mother thought, by the end," he tells him, the boot pressing more insistently before he removes it, stepping out of the stream as if this is little more than a detour. "My, the things she had to say about you, boy. If you had only done what you were asked, perhaps she'd be around now to coddle you further. A shame, that you didn't care enough to save her."

He snaps his fingers and gestures down the stream. "Keep walking. There is a ways to go."

SHAJU

// grass stains cut my bloody knees, it's goodpain, it means i can't be phased
that little death inside my sides, won't make it right //

A mistake and a trap that he’s fallen into again. What number of mistakes are we up to now? Too many, because as the wing snaps out, it’s grabbed, and it’s all Sunjata can do to try and tug it out of his fathers iron grip. It’s another terrible plan, because he tugs just as Shaju twists and yanks back, and the pain that shoots through him yet again is enough to have his father’s wants come true. A cry that echoes, that brings in a mouthful of water and soil, of a wing that goes limp and shooting with twinging pain with every heartbeat. There’s tears there, in his eyes and along his cheeks when his father steps back, he hopes the stream disguises them.

The ringing pain is added to, mentally, at the mention of his mother. And if it weren’t for that comment he might have simply stayed there, heaving and fragile and in pain along the veined streams. It takes him a bit of time, of arms that tremble, that push him up, unable to partially shift the wing back just yet because of the pain. He’s kneeling in the stream now, the wing a useless block to the words he hears, flinching with each accusation. “I didn’t even see it.” He hisses. A lie, because he had watched it happen, a broadcast to every single place in Korofi. He had known, and he had done nothing.

Keep walking. He spends as long as he can before he stands again, the wing drooped and dragging along the stream and rocks with each step, a hissed huff of pain with each and every one. His head remains down, focused intensely on anything but his father.

he wins every time i find myself inside, alone all night

SUNJATA

i'm just waiting 'til you really let your guard down

"If that is true, you are even more of a coward than I believed. You couldn't even watch a death you caused." Shaju wrinkles his nose, his eyes like steel blue glass as he watches the boy writhe in the stream, watches him dawdle in the act of getting to his feet. It's enough that he kicks him, in the end, a boot coming down on the back of Sunjata's calf to persuade him in no uncertain terms back to his feet.

And then off they go, and he is never too far behind the half-winged freak as they pick their way downstream. Eventually the jungle begins to thin out, the sands visible in the near distance, and Shaju huffs out a sigh as if he is the one who has been suffering all this time. "You will not last as Governor. We both know it."

SHAJU

// grass stains cut my bloody knees, it's goodpain, it means i can't be phased
that little death inside my sides, won't make it right //

He wants to tell his father he’s seen more than enough death. He wants to tell him that he doesn’t enjoy it like Shaju does. He wants to tell him that it’s horrible and wrong, but he refrains. If the boot to his calf as he tries to stand is the worst he gets for the moment, he’ll keep his mouth shut. The wing hangs limply as he finally stands, recovering even if the muscles in his back twitch and tremble with each step, each branch the leathery appendage snags on, Sunjata can’t help but to keep his jaw clenched tight, to keep from saying anything, even as the jungle fades out and sand becomes visible, and home is in the distance.

He swallows down the bite in his words from the ones that come to mind, swallows it hard as pain vibrates through him again and again. He wants to tell his father he’s wrong about that, about remaining as Governor. Gods know he’d do his best to stay there. But he has nothing to say that wouldn’t get more punishment for his outbursts. And he keeps walking, silently, cursing at the lies mentally as they come to mind.

he wins every time i find myself inside, alone all night

SUNJATA

i'm just waiting 'til you really let your guard down

Silence is golden, as they say, and for Shaju this is as close to a lovely stroll through the jungle as it gets. Yes, the boy is dragging his feet and that stupid wing to the point where he wonders if it might be easier just to cut the thing off, but there's sand beneath their feet before the thought can crystallise into anything more than a passing fancy. They emerge into the sunlight, father and son, and even in Deepfrost it's balmy and warm.

Shaju glances around, having stepped past Sunjata, and he turns to clap the boy on the cheek in a gesture as disrespectful as it is threatening. "Off you go, then," he says. "We will see each other again soon, I promise." Already he is heading off down the beach, though he pauses just long enough for something to occur to him. "Ah. Sunjata?" He glances over his shoulder. "No one will believe you about this."

SHAJU