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Description

(taken from an rp with gildes 's Jason.)

[ jason | green soul ]

I'm not weak. Jason glares at the water's edge, watching dark and unknowable shapes writhing underneath the water, as if there are shadows springing to life just inches from the riverbed. He pictures himself, staring dumbfounded, at the monsters that burst into the clearing. He sees himself, a marble statue, petrified in time whilst in every other direction his teammates sprung to action. He fights the urge to hiss at himself in contempt.

A few feet away from him, a bird is chirping. Either it hasn't noticed Jason, or it doesn't care. He has been silently, deathly still for a long time now, and perhaps the bird is starting to mistaken it for another rock in this passive landscape. He is dead like everything else here.

I'm not weak. Jason scowls at his own paws. Yeah, keeping thinking that, you waste of space. Maybe if you wish for it hard enough, it'll come true. Like a wish upon a fucking star. Ahead of him, the bird, bored of this scenery, takes flight.

Green lines of light start to appear in between his fur. They trace his jugular veins and clavicles and hint at the shape of his cervical spine. They wrap around his neck like strangling paws. For a second, two sudden gusts of wind blow in opposite, paradoxical directions. As if pushing. As if pulling.

Then Jason looks up again, pulling himself from his train of thoughts. The lines on him disappear. The soft thud of the bird hitting the ground reaches his ears. He draws closer, peering down at the ground for the small, vague shape of the bird. It's eyes are still open, peering into the cloudless sky with an unreadable expression. There is a mixture of terror and recognition. Jason's stomach lurches.

It's neck is broken, jagged in opposite directions, as if someone had grabbed it by its tiny throat and started puling from two sides. I'm... not weak. Around him, the wind whistles delightfully.

-x-x-x-

[eaden - blue soul.]

Ever since Fisher's pep talk, Eaden had been forcing himself to wake up. To eat and drink and walk around like a normal cat. He'd managed to have a sip from the blackened rivers around here, and the water was crisp. It was refreshing. But it made him so much hungrier that his stomach was tying knots just thinking about it. He hadn't eaten a morsel since he'd gotten here days ago, and he wanted to hold out as long as he could.

He had been created to deliver Her unto the earth so she could undo it permanently. Not only had he succeeded, despite his best efforts to keep his mom six feet under like she deserved, he was in her home. And if he ate and drank her gifts, then what was he? Not only was he a messiah, he'd be a houseguest.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard the faintest whistle. Turbulent storms reigned in this world often. It was the subsequent thud that got his attention, and he couldn't help but slink over to the source.

In front of him lay a broken bird. Behind him, Jason. Eaden remembered him fondly; the two hadn't talked much, but Jason was kind and friendly and never mentioned how useless Eaden was or would be.

"Nice," he croaked out, shocked out how tired and raspy his voice sounded. "Caught it yourself, I'm guessing?"

Conversation here felt so pointless. So trivial. He wondered- not for the first time- if he should just go back to the caves and continue to go hungry.

-x-x-x-

[jason - green soul.]

An approaching voice causes Jason to perk up. In front of him, Plip regards his kill with a sort of distant ennui. He looks more gaunt than Jason remembers. "Yeah... I... have never been good at catching birds normally, so I tried to test out more unconventional methods of hunting them." He paws the bird carcass with a paw, tentative, as if afraid that a touch too hard would cause it to disintegrate like flesh rotting off bones. He laughs awkwardly, "Some might call it cheating, but hey, it works."

Jason doesn't want to bother explaining how he hadn't known it would happen. How the wind had reacted to his most deeply hidden thoughts. Jason had been picturing how he might have had his neck broken into sections by the beasts, had Greyson not jumped into the fray in time to divert the monster's attention from him. He pictured his own body, pallid and limp, spread across the clearing like a sacrificial offering. He had thought of Spaark, and he had shuddered.

He looks down at the bird in his paws. The shape of its shattered neck makes the hair on Jason's neck stand up. Unnatural. Tragic. The wind had done that to the bird. He had asked the wind to, somehow, from some deep, unconscious part of his brain. Suddenly, he cannot stomach the sight of it. "I'm not terribly hungry right now. Do you want to have it?" Jason asks politely, pushing the bird ever so slightly in Plip's direction.

-x-x-x-

[eaden - blue soul.]

"I never caught anything that big before the trials," Eaden said tentatively. The old forest made his heart hurt- he wanted to be there so badly- but he didn't stop his story. "Nothing much bigger than a fieldmouse. "Sometimes I ate bugs," he laughed. It wasn't a very funny story once background was given. He'd needed to hunt for himself when his mom gave up on the task, and even with his dad's help, he still had to scrounge around.

It was still kinda funny, though, he guessed. Silver linings.

Plip couldn't help but recoil at the bird; no, he didn't want it. He didn't want a single offering from Helena. He'd finally drank some of the water, but he wouldn't eat. He wouldn't. Maybe his powers would give him strength, or the Legendaries would save them, or something ...

"I- I can't," Eaden blurted out, voice high-pitched and urgent. "I'm not hungry right now," he explained, voice quickly changing to its casual tone.

-x-x-x-

[jason - green soul.]

"Not hungry? Dude, I can see your ribs," Jason retorts, visibly frowning. He knows he himself had been reluctant to drink from the streams in this desolate, distorted realm, for fear that the opaque water running through the cracked ground is not actually water, but some lethal poison. The prey, Jason had also been wary of; he's never seen birds like this before, despite his frequent readings of his father's encyclopedias back in their old library. But still, when a cat is hungry, he needs to eat.

"I know this is a strange and hostile environment, but you need to eat something to regain your strength. We have no idea of knowing when, or if, we're going to be dropped into the next trial, so the most we can do is to be as prepared as we can be at any given moment." He nudges the bird closer to Plip, feeling like how his dad must have felt when he would refuse to eat medicine when he was a kitten. "Just one bite?"

-x-x-x-

[eaden - blue soul.]

Eaden couldn't help but look at his stomach when Jason spoke. Was he really that skinny? Yes, he was, because he could see his own ribs poking out ever so slightly.

"I- I'm--" Eaden tried to say, but he had no idea what he even wanted to tell the green soul. That he wasn't hungry? That was a lie. That he needed to go? Maybe. He took a tentative pawstep backwards at the thought.

But he nudged it again, and that bird's sightless eyes began to remind him of his mom-

"Jason, I can't!" he protested. "I can't eat anything here. Knowing that Helena made this just ... it makes me sick. If I eat what She gives us, then She wins."

Did that even make sense? Jason had Legendary parents, so he probably had background knowledge on Helena, but not everybody's past was so closely intertwined with Her. Eaden wished that he could've had that luck. "I'm sorry. It was a nice catch, really," he mumbled sheepishly.

-x-x-x-

[jason - green soul.]

Jason frowns, more out of concern than of disapproval, when Plip rejects his offer of the meal again; his tone is growing more desperate, and Jason notices his paw shuffling backwards, almost as if his paw had been forced. Jason himself backs away a step in a show of docility. He's not Plip's parent. If the young cat doesn't want to eat, Jason isn't going to take the responsibility of feeding him upon himself.

"Look, man, you don't have to eat it if you don't want to," the green soul finally says, moving the bird away with a push of his paw. "But you've got to keep your strength up somehow."

His voice lowers ever so slightly, and when he speaks next, something in his eyes shift for just a moment. "You don't really have the hubris to think that there is a 'fight' between Helena and us, right? A fight implies that both sides have a chance of winning, be it a fair chance or not."

Then he flicks his tail, and customer-service-Jason offers his usual laugh, a gentle mixture of politeness and self-deprecation. "Sorry, ignore me. I can't hold my own pretentious, pompous tongue from blurting out useless musings."

-x-x-x-

[eaden - blue soul.]

"I will," he promised, voice a bit more forceful than he intended. "I want to see if my powers can do it for me." Eaden cringed inwardly; of course blue soul abilities couldn't keep him strong. He needed to think of a better excuse than that.

Then Jason spoke again, and Eaden felt his heart sink. Those musings, that resigned speech- it sounded just like his mom. Eaden's paws fidgeted; his eyes refused to meet Jason's own, refused to see that momentary shadow cross his gaze ...

"You're--" Eaden blurted out, but his voice failed to deliver. For another moment, he was that same scared kitten who hid in the bushes. From behind the foliage, his voice died.

"Wrong. You're wrong, Jason. She lost once. She can lose again, as many times as it takes, " he finally coughed out, blinking so that the mesa came back into view.

And I'll be the one to do it every time, he promised himself. His whiskers twitched ever so slightly.

He looked at Jason for a moment and wondered what was going on in his head. Was it only Gods that Eaden couldn't trust?

...

"Ah, yeah, the mesa is a crazy place. Stay in these caves long enough and the whole world will turn to static." Eaden twirled one tiny claw around a strand of his cheek fur, over and over again, and looked up silently at the twin moons.

...

Afterwards, Eaden retreated, leaving the bird to rot under the reddened moons' glow.

Then he waited. He waited for Jason to bury it and leave, waited for him to look longingly at the sky for an extra second- waited for his form to vanish in the darkness.

And then, when he was alone, Eaden dug up the bird. And he ate.

It tasted so filling, so warm, so real, that it was completely devoured in no time at all. His first meal in the Mesa, a pitiful little bird, and it was the best meal he'd had in his life. He hated that he no longer hated the idea of eating here. He hated that he was playing into Her game.

But Jason's actions, the way his eyes darkened- it scared him. It made him worry about what the Legendaries would find when (if) they came for them all. Eaden was sure he could trust himself to fight against Helena, and if there was a chance that Her supporters might win-

Then, well. He would need to survive past this Mesa. And he would need to win.

Description

(taken from an rp with gildes 's Jason.)

[ jason | green soul ]

I'm not weak. Jason glares at the water's edge, watching dark and unknowable shapes writhing underneath the water, as if there are shadows springing to life just inches from the riverbed. He pictures himself, staring dumbfounded, at the monsters that burst into the clearing. He sees himself, a marble statue, petrified in time whilst in every other direction his teammates sprung to action. He fights the urge to hiss at himself in contempt.

A few feet away from him, a bird is chirping. Either it hasn't noticed Jason, or it doesn't care. He has been silently, deathly still for a long time now, and perhaps the bird is starting to mistaken it for another rock in this passive landscape. He is dead like everything else here.

I'm not weak. Jason scowls at his own paws. Yeah, keeping thinking that, you waste of space. Maybe if you wish for it hard enough, it'll come true. Like a wish upon a fucking star. Ahead of him, the bird, bored of this scenery, takes flight.

Green lines of light start to appear in between his fur. They trace his jugular veins and clavicles and hint at the shape of his cervical spine. They wrap around his neck like strangling paws. For a second, two sudden gusts of wind blow in opposite, paradoxical directions. As if pushing. As if pulling.

Then Jason looks up again, pulling himself from his train of thoughts. The lines on him disappear. The soft thud of the bird hitting the ground reaches his ears. He draws closer, peering down at the ground for the small, vague shape of the bird. It's eyes are still open, peering into the cloudless sky with an unreadable expression. There is a mixture of terror and recognition. Jason's stomach lurches.

It's neck is broken, jagged in opposite directions, as if someone had grabbed it by its tiny throat and started puling from two sides. I'm... not weak. Around him, the wind whistles delightfully.

-x-x-x-

[eaden - blue soul.]

Ever since Fisher's pep talk, Eaden had been forcing himself to wake up. To eat and drink and walk around like a normal cat. He'd managed to have a sip from the blackened rivers around here, and the water was crisp. It was refreshing. But it made him so much hungrier that his stomach was tying knots just thinking about it. He hadn't eaten a morsel since he'd gotten here days ago, and he wanted to hold out as long as he could.

He had been created to deliver Her unto the earth so she could undo it permanently. Not only had he succeeded, despite his best efforts to keep his mom six feet under like she deserved, he was in her home. And if he ate and drank her gifts, then what was he? Not only was he a messiah, he'd be a houseguest.

Somewhere in the distance, he heard the faintest whistle. Turbulent storms reigned in this world often. It was the subsequent thud that got his attention, and he couldn't help but slink over to the source.

In front of him lay a broken bird. Behind him, Jason. Eaden remembered him fondly; the two hadn't talked much, but Jason was kind and friendly and never mentioned how useless Eaden was or would be.

"Nice," he croaked out, shocked out how tired and raspy his voice sounded. "Caught it yourself, I'm guessing?"

Conversation here felt so pointless. So trivial. He wondered- not for the first time- if he should just go back to the caves and continue to go hungry.

-x-x-x-

[jason - green soul.]

An approaching voice causes Jason to perk up. In front of him, Plip regards his kill with a sort of distant ennui. He looks more gaunt than Jason remembers. "Yeah... I... have never been good at catching birds normally, so I tried to test out more unconventional methods of hunting them." He paws the bird carcass with a paw, tentative, as if afraid that a touch too hard would cause it to disintegrate like flesh rotting off bones. He laughs awkwardly, "Some might call it cheating, but hey, it works."

Jason doesn't want to bother explaining how he hadn't known it would happen. How the wind had reacted to his most deeply hidden thoughts. Jason had been picturing how he might have had his neck broken into sections by the beasts, had Greyson not jumped into the fray in time to divert the monster's attention from him. He pictured his own body, pallid and limp, spread across the clearing like a sacrificial offering. He had thought of Spaark, and he had shuddered.

He looks down at the bird in his paws. The shape of its shattered neck makes the hair on Jason's neck stand up. Unnatural. Tragic. The wind had done that to the bird. He had asked the wind to, somehow, from some deep, unconscious part of his brain. Suddenly, he cannot stomach the sight of it. "I'm not terribly hungry right now. Do you want to have it?" Jason asks politely, pushing the bird ever so slightly in Plip's direction.

-x-x-x-

[eaden - blue soul.]

"I never caught anything that big before the trials," Eaden said tentatively. The old forest made his heart hurt- he wanted to be there so badly- but he didn't stop his story. "Nothing much bigger than a fieldmouse. "Sometimes I ate bugs," he laughed. It wasn't a very funny story once background was given. He'd needed to hunt for himself when his mom gave up on the task, and even with his dad's help, he still had to scrounge around.

It was still kinda funny, though, he guessed. Silver linings.

Plip couldn't help but recoil at the bird; no, he didn't want it. He didn't want a single offering from Helena. He'd finally drank some of the water, but he wouldn't eat. He wouldn't. Maybe his powers would give him strength, or the Legendaries would save them, or something ...

"I- I can't," Eaden blurted out, voice high-pitched and urgent. "I'm not hungry right now," he explained, voice quickly changing to its casual tone.

-x-x-x-

[jason - green soul.]

"Not hungry? Dude, I can see your ribs," Jason retorts, visibly frowning. He knows he himself had been reluctant to drink from the streams in this desolate, distorted realm, for fear that the opaque water running through the cracked ground is not actually water, but some lethal poison. The prey, Jason had also been wary of; he's never seen birds like this before, despite his frequent readings of his father's encyclopedias back in their old library. But still, when a cat is hungry, he needs to eat.

"I know this is a strange and hostile environment, but you need to eat something to regain your strength. We have no idea of knowing when, or if, we're going to be dropped into the next trial, so the most we can do is to be as prepared as we can be at any given moment." He nudges the bird closer to Plip, feeling like how his dad must have felt when he would refuse to eat medicine when he was a kitten. "Just one bite?"

-x-x-x-

[eaden - blue soul.]

Eaden couldn't help but look at his stomach when Jason spoke. Was he really that skinny? Yes, he was, because he could see his own ribs poking out ever so slightly.

"I- I'm--" Eaden tried to say, but he had no idea what he even wanted to tell the green soul. That he wasn't hungry? That was a lie. That he needed to go? Maybe. He took a tentative pawstep backwards at the thought.

But he nudged it again, and that bird's sightless eyes began to remind him of his mom-

"Jason, I can't!" he protested. "I can't eat anything here. Knowing that Helena made this just ... it makes me sick. If I eat what She gives us, then She wins."

Did that even make sense? Jason had Legendary parents, so he probably had background knowledge on Helena, but not everybody's past was so closely intertwined with Her. Eaden wished that he could've had that luck. "I'm sorry. It was a nice catch, really," he mumbled sheepishly.

-x-x-x-

[jason - green soul.]

Jason frowns, more out of concern than of disapproval, when Plip rejects his offer of the meal again; his tone is growing more desperate, and Jason notices his paw shuffling backwards, almost as if his paw had been forced. Jason himself backs away a step in a show of docility. He's not Plip's parent. If the young cat doesn't want to eat, Jason isn't going to take the responsibility of feeding him upon himself.

"Look, man, you don't have to eat it if you don't want to," the green soul finally says, moving the bird away with a push of his paw. "But you've got to keep your strength up somehow."

His voice lowers ever so slightly, and when he speaks next, something in his eyes shift for just a moment. "You don't really have the hubris to think that there is a 'fight' between Helena and us, right? A fight implies that both sides have a chance of winning, be it a fair chance or not."

Then he flicks his tail, and customer-service-Jason offers his usual laugh, a gentle mixture of politeness and self-deprecation. "Sorry, ignore me. I can't hold my own pretentious, pompous tongue from blurting out useless musings."

-x-x-x-

[eaden - blue soul.]

"I will," he promised, voice a bit more forceful than he intended. "I want to see if my powers can do it for me." Eaden cringed inwardly; of course blue soul abilities couldn't keep him strong. He needed to think of a better excuse than that.

Then Jason spoke again, and Eaden felt his heart sink. Those musings, that resigned speech- it sounded just like his mom. Eaden's paws fidgeted; his eyes refused to meet Jason's own, refused to see that momentary shadow cross his gaze ...

"You're--" Eaden blurted out, but his voice failed to deliver. For another moment, he was that same scared kitten who hid in the bushes. From behind the foliage, his voice died.

"Wrong. You're wrong, Jason. She lost once. She can lose again, as many times as it takes, " he finally coughed out, blinking so that the mesa came back into view.

And I'll be the one to do it every time, he promised himself. His whiskers twitched ever so slightly.

He looked at Jason for a moment and wondered what was going on in his head. Was it only Gods that Eaden couldn't trust?

...

"Ah, yeah, the mesa is a crazy place. Stay in these caves long enough and the whole world will turn to static." Eaden twirled one tiny claw around a strand of his cheek fur, over and over again, and looked up silently at the twin moons.

...

Afterwards, Eaden retreated, leaving the bird to rot under the reddened moons' glow.

Then he waited. He waited for Jason to bury it and leave, waited for him to look longingly at the sky for an extra second- waited for his form to vanish in the darkness.

And then, when he was alone, Eaden dug up the bird. And he ate.

It tasted so filling, so warm, so real, that it was completely devoured in no time at all. His first meal in the Mesa, a pitiful little bird, and it was the best meal he'd had in his life. He hated that he no longer hated the idea of eating here. He hated that he was playing into Her game.

But Jason's actions, the way his eyes darkened- it scared him. It made him worry about what the Legendaries would find when (if) they came for them all. Eaden was sure he could trust himself to fight against Helena, and if there was a chance that Her supporters might win-

Then, well. He would need to survive past this Mesa. And he would need to win.