the fractures in our foundation

Kamaria

Soft morning light filters in through the window beside her bed. But the bed is empty. Her dresser drawers have been thrust open, the bookshelves ransacked for whatever little trinkets or what few books she sought to keep. Clothes spilled out of her dresser, too-small garments scattered across the floor. She took only the clothing that will fit her now, shoving her chosen items into a bag she'd snatched from another room. Even then, she isn't taking much.

She pulls on a light jacket haphazardly, not bothering to fix the collar as it tucks inward, not bothering to tie the boots she shoves her feet into. Taking a deep breath, she faces her door and opens it slowly. She warily examines the hallway for any sign of her father or Nate. At first, all she sees is one of the cats lingering in a spot of sunlight. It tilts its frighteningly flat face up at her and lets out a mrrraow, obnoxiously giving her away.

So much for sneaking away unnoticed.

She steps over the cat and into the doorway of the kitchen, where she's immediately hit with the aroma of freshly-brewed coffee. Looking up, she finds her father here, going about his morning as if it were no different than any other. Which only makes this harder, only makes the emotions rampaging through her mesh together all over again.

"Dad," she straightens up, pulling the strap of her bag over her shoulder, forcing her voice to come out stronger than she feels, "I'm leaving."

to call for hands above wouldn't be good enough

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

For once, it’s a good morning. A rare gem among the rest of everything that’s happened lately. He doesn’t know just yet that it’ll add, eventually, into the rest of the murkiness of the waters of his mind. For now, it’s nothing more than an easy morning, of coffee brewing and the briefest hint of cigarette smoke, the running of the cats all over the living room before they settle, and the two twins that Sunjata is doing his best to try and get to eat their breakfast.

He doesn’t hear her when she steps down the stairs, not even the meow from the cat in the hallway. She likely could have gotten away with sneaking out, though without knowing where she’d gone Sunjata would have likely torn apart the ends of the earth to find her – given the events happening in Torchline and elsewhere, some he has heard, some he has not.

Amadeus has just finished making an absolute mess that Sunjata’s in the middle of cleaning up when he hears Kamaria speak, and he doesn’t look up right away as he wipes away a bit of the mess. “Where to, klein voëltjie?” He asks softly, finally glancing up to give her a quick look over – imagining she was telling him she was heading out for the afternoon.

He doesn’t know that she means essentially forever. But his brows do pinch at the state of her, the franticness that she seems to display without really displaying it at all – idly he wonders if she got that from him. “What’s wrong?”

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

Kamaria

Oh how she wishes things were different, that she could tell him she'll only be gone for a few hours, that she'll be back for dinner - that he hadn't betrayed her and Safrin. Her gaze draws over the twins, watching their adorable faces as they make their funny little expressions, and for a time she can't bring it back to Sunjata's face. The concern in his voice as he finally looks at her makes her want to hide.

She adjusts her coat, turning the collar back out and moving her hair back from her face. When she's ready, she looks back up at her father and the fingers that grip the strap on her bag stiffen, tighten.

"I'm going to the Greatwood-" she breathes out to calm her nerves "-to stay. Ronin's coming to get me, he'll.. be here soon." She hopes, anyway, because she can't stand this. Quickly, before he can try, she blurts out, "You can't stop me. I've made up my mind. I'm not your little bird anymore, and you-" her voice catches in her throat as she feels her anger crack, but instead of finishing the thought she turns her head away and says, "I have to be with people who will protect me."

to call for hands above wouldn't be good enough

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

That look is a look of heartbreak and he can’t understand just yet – confusion continuing to pinch his brows, one with a scar running through the edge of it now – but he’s patient. He can wait for her to tell him what the issue is. He isn’t his father in his demands, just a terrible, quiet, waiting period before she unravels it. Already he’s setting down the spoons and such out of the way of the twin’s grabby little hands, turning to face her more fully as she tightens the grip on her pack’s strap.

His lips part to respond, but she cuts him off, hurt flashing in his gaze before he masks it – so suddenly it’s a piercing arrow straight through his heart as it begins to thunder wildly, eyes widening a fraction as she trudges on, the anger nearly palpable in the air, affecting the twins as they start to bang their little hands on their tiny little tables. Sunjata doesn’t pay attention to that, though, instead he focuses on his daughter just enough that when she turns her head to look away, his steel gaze breaks from her face too.

“You’re always going to be my little bird.” He murmurs quietly, trying to find a foothold in this. He won’t stop her from leaving, not if it’s with Ronin – anyone else and they’d certainly have a problem – but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. “Can we talk about this for a minute?” He hopes it’s clear that he’s not going to prevent her from leaving, but he wants some answers first. “What happened to make you decide this?” It had to have been something after all – and he remembers being a teenager, recalls just how it was to feel his emotions so terribly deep.

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

Kamaria

She can see the hurt in his gaze as clear as if she were looking through glass, and however much he tries to hide it from this point on wouldn't matter. Any other time, it would be a gut punch, it would be the worst thing she could do - hurt her parents. But now? Now it just spurs her anger, coaxes it to the surface.

"No," she tries to argue but, finding the right words is harder now than it's ever been and so her jaw clenches down, her cheeks redden. And her head tilts when he asks what could've happened to make her do this, her brows furrowing with confused frustration, "How can you even ask me that?" Her voice cracks again but she pushes through it this time, "You turned your back on Mom! You broke her heart. But you know what? I don't even care about that right now, because she's strong with or without you... she doesn't need you," her chest heaves and tears spring to her eyes try as she might to fight them off, "but I need you, I needed you and you-you didn't even tell me before you did it. You just-you just- you didn't care! You didn't care who you hurt, and you didn't even bother to try to make sure I'd be protected. You knew I was going to ask her to make me older, you knew I wouldn't be safe anymore!" And her voice raises to a yell, in the moment not caring how it might effect the twins, too caught up in herself to care about anything else except how bad this hurts. "But all you care about is-is Nate!"

to call for hands above wouldn't be good enough

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

No? The word is grit out and then suddenly Sunjata can see all the pieces of himself in his daughter, in the way her face reddens and the way her jaw feathers. She’s fiery, blowing up like a wildfire that he can only assume is from Safrin herself, because Sunjata knows he tends to shut down before he gets too fueled like this. Except… When it came to her mother, most recently, something he hadn’t quite told her because he’d almost died at her hands and he hadn’t wanted to tell Kamaria that her mother had nearly murdered him from his betrayal.

Judging by her face and the words thrown at him, would she have agreed with it?

His thought process on all of this has been terribly misconstrued as per usual and Sunjata perks up a bit, swallowing down the upset that settles in the pit of his stomach. “She is strong, Kamaria. She’s a goddess.” He tries to put the point out there as gently as he can, but gods it’s difficult. He moves to stand, to take a few steps closer so that their argument? Debate? Doesn’t rile up the twins much more than it already has, evidenced by the banging of the fists on the tables more and more.

“Listen to me, please,” he pleads, trying to draw himself as small as possible, not wanting to command the room as his father once had in a room. “I made a mistake in assuming that when I wanted my family safe that it included you, the twins, Nate… I haven’t been to Frey to clarify yet. But that was my intention. I never planned to– never wanted to abandon you.” He stutters because if there’s one thing Sunjata knows far too intimately, it’s abandonment. And here he was…

Here he was.

He can’t even bring himself to tell her what had occurred at the shrine, that Frey hadn’t answered him, hadn’t made an inkling of whether they’d heard him. “I just couldn’t stay tied to your mother anymore and there wasn’t a way out until Frey gave me one.”

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

Kamaria

She doesn't know what she expected, maybe for him to match her fire with that of his own, for this to all come crumbling down, revealing the ugly truth that he didn't care. But instead? Instead what happens only makes everything so much harder, so much more confusing, and her gaze diverts away from him as he stands up, approaches her, but only tries to make himself appear nonthreatening. Her gaze lands on the twins, where they fuss and make clamor of their own, clearly soaking up the energy in the room like little innocent sponges.

And she feels like she can't truly be heard because of it, because there is so much she's competing against. Nate, the twins, now Frey. And when she turns her gaze back to Sunjata's face, her eyes round with heartbreak, she makes an effort to lower her voice - but that's all she'll give him. It's not even for him, for her little brothers. "Don't bother," her lip curls, "I don't want Frey's protection." Whatever that entailed, she didn't care, she didn't care to hear about it.

She fixes him with a harder stare still as he describes her mother as though she's some sort of trap, something that one would need to escape from. She starts to back away, slowly. Her lips tremble this time instead of curling with animosity, "Then why did you even have me? If things were so horrible and you've been trying to get away from her, why have me?" It didn't make any sense.. unless.. "Or was I another mistake, too?"

to call for hands above wouldn't be good enough

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

Her lip curls and his stomach drops further – more than he thought was possible given everything that’s happened. And even still, he swallows hard against the lump in his throat, taking another step toward her. “Okay.” He agrees to her own demand – not wanting Frey’s protection, even if by some strange miracle it ended up being him once more. Because after all, he was Frey’s now – and the protection he could offer her now would be Frey’s indirectly.

Her stare is harder now and the seams start fraying more and Sunjata feels like he’s grasping at straws – only the straws are coated in slime and he’s helpless at even getting a hold of one of them as he shakes his head immediately. “Of course not, Kamaria. You aren’t and never were a mistake.” No, if anything, despite the circumstances of her coming about? It had made him better. She had made him better.

“Because…” He trails off, having no idea how to mention the fact that she was a direct result from Sunjata trying to save Nate in the war. So he chooses an easier path, one not entirely the truth yet also not a lie. “Because Nate and you are intertwined… In a way. Or… At least, you were when your mother and I had you.” When did this become so difficult? It isn’t made any easier by the sniffles and the sound of the cries of one of the twins that gets the other one going and Sunjata sucks in a sharp breath.

What does he do other than let her go? He’s not going to make a prisoner out of her like he was growing up. “Ronin… Ronin is a good man. He’ll keep you safe. He’s saved my life a few times.” Just a few days ago, in fact. “He’ll protect you like his own.” Of that, Sunjata is sure. “And I’ll… I’ll be here. I can bring over the rest of what you left so it feels a bit more like…” He swallows hard, his hand faltering before he can reach out to her, instead twitching at his side as he looks away. “Home.”

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

RONIN

the darkstar

light is easy to love.

It has been a hell of a day already, and it feels as though it has barely begun. But Ronin puts that to the back of his mind, leaving Stormbreak and its problems to soar forth towards King's End as quickly as he can on starlit wings. He won't be using his dragon shift on the way back, not until he knows how Kamaria is with flying, but for now this is the swiftest he can be.

Either way, here he is, standing outside the door with his nimbus floating nearby, still dressed in the clothes he'd dragged on when he'd first woken up that morning. It's a shabby sort of appearance to collect his new ward, and he'll apologise later, but for now he reaches out to knock at the door and run a hand through his hair to try (and fail) to neaten it up.

show me your darkness.

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Kamaria

Of course he says she wasn't a mistake; he has to say that. Kamaria turns away from him, shaking her head in disbelief, facing the hallway toward the door. If only to hear what comes next, she remains standing there, fighting against the urge to take off like she'd hoped to.

"Tied to Nate?" She echoes with incredulity, her brows furrowing as she tosses him a quick, confused glance. All Safrin had done was tell her how dangerous he truly was to her, to Sunjata, to anyone else. Why would she connect them to each other? "What does that even mean? What are you talking about?" She fixes him with a firmer look yet, demanding the answer.

Everything else he says falls on deaf ears, unable to truly hear it through the steady stream of questions in her mind. She can see his lips moving, can hear his voice, but it's already fallen apart. Doesn't he see that?

Suddenly there's a knock at the door and, although she'd expected Ronin to come, she still jumps.

to call for hands above wouldn't be good enough

SUNJATA

the flood

but am i too late? or hearts to your spades,
if i don't suit you? then what do you want from me?

“Yes.” Sunjata says with an unhelpful sigh, realizing that she doesn’t hear the rest of what he says. But when she starts to demand it, with the state of her emotions, he shakes his head – knowing that he would fuck up the explanation or she’d just tune him out after the first thing he said. He fights with himself on what to say to push the conversation until later, when fatefully the knock at the door happens and Kamaria’s jumping and Sunjata’s head is immediately tilting toward it.

Now that they’ve moved a bit further away from the kitchen, the twins are more relatively calm now, happily snacking away and babbling to themselves blissfully unaware while internally Sunjata wonders just how planned this whole thing was. “We’ll talk about it later.” He says with a hint of finality in his voice. Now isn’t the time, especially when Ronin’s on their doorstep already.

He steps past his daughter, swallowing hard before he opens the door and steps aside, casting one glance at Ronin before he looks toward Kamaria and works his jaw. “I assume she thought to try and sneak out before I ended up ruining that too. So, if there’s anything she needs that she forgot in her haste,” he looks toward Ronin more fully this time, “I can send them to you.” He doesn’t want to fight any of them on it, especially not now when the babbling of the twins is growing louder by the tension and their succeeding attempts at blocking it out.

Either way, he still remains somewhat in the way of Kamaria departing completely without coming to him without him getting a parting word before she's off to the Greatwood.

so we're not written in the stars,
but i'm okay with that. i'm okay with anything

RONIN

the darkstar

light is easy to love.

The door opens and Ronin half expects it to be Sunjata. He shows no anger or bitterness in the face of his old friend(?), merely a gentle understanding of a difficult decision that hasn't entirely been under his control. Nodding in response to Jata's remarks, he glances past him to Kamaria, offering her a steady smile and standing aside for her to be able to join him whenever she's ready. "Good morning," he greets her. "Take as long as you need."

And to Sunjata, he engages through the Attuned bond. I'll keep you up to date, he tells the other man. I'll send you a letter once she's settled, and I'll see if she wants to write to you as well. I'm sorry that it came to this - I'll keep her safe, though. More than safe. Gone are the days of rage to even discover the girl's existence. Now Kamaria would have a guardian at her back willing to raze cities and tear down the skies.

show me your darkness.

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!