Force-claiming is not allowed here. This is a peaceful, neutral area meant for socialising.
| NUKA and now it's a knife |
| This’s jus’ for now, ‘kay… ‘M’not gonna stick ‘round this place for long.
When he’d murmured those words in the ear of the foundling girl he’d wrapped himself around in the depths of winter, there had been a cold bite in the wind and in his voice. Nuka had meant them, too - he wasn’t looking for friends, didn’t have family no more, and it was better for him to be alone. But when dawn had broken after the first night he hadn’t spent alone in months, when he’d actually been able to sleep a little, the rising sun pushed back the darkness, and the small, spotted filly, with her blue eyes and delicately curled ears - without even realising it, she was as a sun to him, chasing away loneliness and the bitterness that plagued the sable stallion’s soul. ‘Just for now’ turned into another day, another night. A week, and then a month. And before Nuka knew it, it was almost a year they’d spent together, wandering the Crossing. Many times Nuka had considered leaving for one of the smaller islands, to look for Tabaxi’s kin. For days, they’d linger near the coastline, until the gruff stallion would lose his nerve (change his mind). ‘Water’s too cold’, he’d say. Or ‘looks like storm’s comin’ in.’ And their wandering would resume. On his good days, Nuka’d feel bold and roam further north, in the secret hope that the girl who’d become his pale shadow would wonder about the mountain, and want to explore its rugged slopes. But as of yet, nothing had eventuated, and Nuka was growing restless in his spirit. The last thing he wanted was to be more obvious in his intentions, but it was something that weighed heavily on him. Tabaxi was a blessed thing, and she had come to mean more to him than he’d ever intended. So in the days leading up to their second winter together, he grew colder and ever more distant from her. It was for the best, or so he told himself. It’d hurt less, if there was distance carved between them, before the day came when it was time to let her go and be where she belonged, with those who’d be good for her. It’s not that Tabaxi wasn’t enough for him. Just that Nuka has never given consideration to the fact that he could be enough for her. That maybe he already was. He stirs not long after dawn, one blustery and dull day, in a particularly foul mood. “Bloody wind howlin’ all nigh’,” he gripes, his countenance darkening further as his bad leg wasted no time in giving him grief. It was always stiff in the mornings, or any length of time he spent standing still, but in the winter, the bone-deep ache of his weakened hind limb was almost unbearable. There was only one thing that Nuka found to reliably minimise his discomfort. Pulling away from Tabaxi’s side without any sort of acknowledgement he hobbles away. “ ‘M goin’ fer a walk. D’know when I’ll be back,” he grunts over his shoulder, not quite meeting the young marwari girl’s gaze. It had become something of a ritual of his, and as of late, his lone ventures were becoming more and more frequent, more and more necessary. How else could he spare his sweet companion from the ugliness of the anger that ever roiled inside him, ceaseless as the sea? And yet, instead of scrambling headlong toward the trees that would serve as a shield between them, the brooding brute finds himself dragging all four of his hooves. When the snowmelt enticed young shoots of grass to grow, he decides right then that they would leave, really. Start on one of the warmer islands - Salem, Atlantis. Keep going 'til they found answers. And if they did find them? Maybe this was all the time he had left. “Hey. Tabaxi?” Nuka stops, turns back, and the way his lips twist in a grimace of pain - fleeting and quickly hidden - wasn’t for his lame leg alone. “Y’wanna come?” From an outsider’s perspective, the sudden change in him would be jarring, but to one who was as familiar with him as Tabaxi was (and there were none like Tabaxi), the syllables, so softly spoken, came as close to an apology as Nuka was able to give. It was there in his stony grey eyes too; I’m real sorry. “I c’n wait, go later, if y’don’t wan’ ta go now,” he adds quickly, stumbling over his words more than usual. And then he lingers, waiting for her to indicate her desire, making an exerted effort not to shift his weight too often and give himself away. He would suffer a little in silence now if he had to, if it meant sparing himself from a condemning heart later, when he found himself trying not to drown in the first moments of silence and solitude that caught hold of him. “Where’re we goin’ t’day?” Nuka finds himself asking, as Tabaxi closes the distance he put between them (or he does). Regarding her for a moment, the sooty stallion tips his muzzle, gesturing as he continues speaking, his voice tilting sharply - unsteadily - towards nonchalance in a measure too great to be truly genuine. “The meadow or the mountain?” Nuka feels his heart throbbing low in his throat, and he turns to hide how he hastily swallows. The stillness gets to him, and he caves, pulling himself a few steps ahead, earning him a moment's respite from the stringent twinging in the damaged bone of his right hind leg that had never healed right. He feels the claws of apprehension scrape at the surface of his mind, and he doesn’t dare dwell on it too much, nor allow his hope to flicker too high. After all, he can’t even be honest with himself; and it wouldn’t really mean anything, would it, except reveal what landscape Tabaxi felt like surveying temporarily because at the end of the day, they’d both be back here, settling down and doing their best to shelter one another from the cold. The meadow, where they’d first met. Or the mountain; a place that he considered a last resort, where Tabaxi would be safe if, after he shook off his cowardice long enough to find that, whatever - whoever - the spotted filly had been looking for when he’d found her half frozen last winter, would not be found. Because he wouldn't be able to let go of her, not unless he knew his little white dove had a safe place to land. |