Like a Sleeping Cancer }}Assyria{{

[.Rabid Lycan.]

It starts with pain
Followed by hate
Fueled by the endless questions
No one can answer

Irony wasn’t quite the correct word.
Actually, perhaps it was. Euphrates could hardly decipher anything as of late. Stealing a glance at his smaller companion, the powerful male then lifted his chin to scan the horizon. A sort of haze—not suffocating, but all the same infuriatingly distracting—obstructed his concentration. Doubts and fears reached up at him, pulling at him with their weak yet serrated fangs, and he subconsciously allowed his tail to sink between his legs.
Beside him, Sumer slipped into a crouch, having spotted (or, at the very least, scented) a snowshoe hair amongst the decaying weeds.
For what was this all for, then? Euphrates wondered. I brought Sumer to the Destinians to bring him up away from the constant killing, but to what purpose? Babylonia is back, and Sumer is her son… I am her son…
He shuddered at the recognition. Sumer was creeping forward, skillfully silent as always.
I haven’t asked him much since he returned, especially with that bad paw of his. He’s not a pup anymore, I know that, but he’s still…
Sumer broke into a sprint, revealing surprising agility for a wolf with a severed foot.
…naïve.

A stain
Covers your heart
Tears you apart just like
A sleeping cancer

[Sivoncé™]

Damn the traitors to the blackest pits of hell. Burn them for their blasphemy!
It was against her nature, to go out and seek her worthless brothers. Cold hatred burned inside of her for the two of them. Well, more for Euphrates than Sumer. It was all their fault the family had broken. They'd gone, and then slowly, they'd unraveled. Ashur was long gone, Lust had fallen over some stupid femme that hadn't even liked him much, and now Assyria was the only true heir to Babylonia's royal blood. She, and the children to come. Her heart quickened in a sudden jolt of pain. If they even make it through the birthing. Her mother was the only one left to love her, and the only one left to love. So Assyria would find the thankless, heartless brothers who'd left them behind.
She knew where to go, even though she'd been dead for eons. They'd be with Grey Mist -- the Destinians. Where Babylonia had originally been born. She wandered aimlessly through the territory, set on her goal, yet lost in thought. Sadness pierced her cloud of anger. Any Blood Mist who'd of seen Assyria now wouldn't have recognized her in the torments of emotion.
They left me behind.
Worse than the fact that they had left Blood Mist and betrayed their brethren, they had brerayed her. Assyria remembered her death well, with painfully sharp clarity. They were there, with the enemy the night I died. Their new little family killed me.
They forgot about me.
Irony....
A grown wolf, a bit older than she, stood in the brush but feet away from her. Snarling darkly, she challenged him.
"Face me!"

[.Rabid Lycan.]

A blistering sound whirred in his ears. Euphrates froze, his tail rising and stiffening in the same motion. His pupils dilated, and his muscles tensed. It was not the sound of danger wolves instinctively cringe against. The roar of a bear, the wild hiss of a mountain lion. No, it was something far more familiar, and more terrifying.
Slowly pivoting his body, Euphrates met eyes with a whispering ghost of his past. He stared almost stupidly at the fae, unable to conjure up a response except for one single, prevailing thought.
Sumer, don’t look back.
Unfortunately, the words did not fall on deaf ears. There was a soft scraping noise, and Sumer halted, watching the rabbit bound away unscathed. He whirled his head around, seeing two figures: a recognizable brother, and… someone else. It was a familiar tone, but a threatening one, and Sumer immediately sprinted back to his brother’s aid, snarling silently with bared fangs.
“Assyria,” Euphrates noted rather numbly. “You shouldn’t be in Destinian territory.”

[Sivoncé™]

Sumer...
She remembered him well, the small, tiny little brother of her youth. He'd been the only real littermate she'd had; Lust had abandoned them from the start. And then Euphrates had taken Sumer. And Mother had been all that was left to her...
"You've grown so big," she mumbled weakly to him. Her eyes were soft on Sumer, though he was poised to attack her. She ignored Euphrates completely and took a few tentative steps forward. She'd remembered only because of Mother... Her head snapped to glare murderously at Euphrates.
"I've missed you, Sumer. But I bet dear Euphrates never told you you had a sister!"
She whirled on Euphrates now, sneering at him with pointed fangs. "You betrayed your own family! You left us there to die! You took him," her tail gestured towards Sumer, "and you left. You left me to die. And you call us evil!" Fierce, hot tears burned in her hateful eyes. "And you let your damned packs rip your own siblings from your own mother's chest! You let them kill your family! You relished in it! And then you fought with them to kill us on that mountain! And you call yourselves...heroes!" With a furious forepaw, she kicked dirt in his direction.

[.Rabid Lycan.]

Despite his uncertainties, the beige male relaxed his jowls and his fierce expression melted into bewilderment. Sister? It would explain why her voice—and, he soon realized, her scent, too—carried such distinct familiarity. For all he knew, she could be lying. Memories of his days in BloodMist were muddled, few, and far between. There were vague sensations that he recalled, such as the warmth of bodies (presumably his mother) and the faint, nearby reek of wartime, but nothing definitive as the faces of his siblings. Euphrates never talked much about BloodMist life as a whole, except to warn Sumer of their cruel practices, and he hadn’t ever truly known about his family.
And yet, the interaction between Euphrates and Assyria seemed to confirm her relation. How well did I know her? He silently tracked his puphood memories, but to no avail.

Euphrates closed his eyes, restraining a sneeze as his sister launched clumps of dust and rock into his face. “Listen to me, Assyria! We were raised in Blood Mist. Blood Mist! Don’t tell me there wasn’t war and cruelty in our pack—we worshiped a murderer, for Lupus’ sake! We were all murderers! I wasn’t about to let our brother grow up like that! At least in the Destinians, there was a chance that he wouldn’t have to always be fighting for his life!” He growled, shaking himself of dirt. “And if I had two mouths, I would’ve grabbed you, too. Really, are you telling me that you see a future where Blood Mist is going to stop killing and being killed? What kind of life is that?”

Sumer had fixated his eyes on his brother, a sort of blank look washing over him. Euphrates meant well, he knew. His love for his brother, especially, was no secret. But all the same, Sumer willed Euphrates to stop speaking.
It’s not like I’m an idiot. I can make my own decisions.

[Sivoncé™]

Assyria shook her head fiercely against the words. Her chest was heaving with the adrenaline of this moment. She'd waited so long for confrontation, and now the grapes of her wrath had fermented into a chilling wine of bloodlust. She snarled coldly in retaliation, "You hypocrite! You chauvinistic piece of shit! You try to justify, but you forget it was a pack alpha who ripped unborn children from our mother's stomach! You forget it was a pack wolf who murdered me before I'd even grown into a neophyte! You are no saint! Your paws are just as filthy as any Blood Mist wolf's!"
She turned away from him, though she was trembling with overpowering rage. He's a lost cause...he can rot, and I would laugh! But Sumer...Mother needs him, she wants him...I have to get him before he's rotten too.
"S-Sumer," she murmured, eyes watering slightly. With her rage out in the open, her bitterness and sorrow were laid in plain sight as well. "Sumer...I know you don't remember me...but Mom...she's birthing. We're your family...your home! If you stay with Euphrates, there'll be more brothers and sisters you'll never get to meet...you won't even know they existed until your packs have killed them. Come with me...this place, this isn't your home! This isn't how it was supposed to be!"
Tears leaked from the corner of her eyes.
Damn you, Euphrates, you liar! You didn't even think about me when you left...you forgot about me so easily. You won't be forgetting again...

[.Rabid Lycan.]

((mm… delicious metaphors xD))
Euphrates opened his jaws to retaliate, but stopped himself. What was the point? Whatever he would say, he knew that he was only partially correct. Maybe he had his own points and perspectives, but Assyria had hers too, and they were just as valid. And either way, neither wolf could ever concede. There was simply no purpose in fighting anymore.
But the final straw remained. She had turned her attention to Sumer, and Euphrates could recite word-for-word what she was sure to say… except for one detail.
“Birthing…” he repeated quietly to himself.
He hated Babylonia. He would repeat the phrase in millennia to follow if given the opportunity. But, even so, a suppressed truth lay dormant in his beating heart. To hate one’s mother? Sure, he loathed everything she stood for; she was a demon, by all accounts. But something in her aura, in her scent—a sort of maternal quality—reminded him of home, and carried with it the reek of affection. Still more, the reminiscent scenes of this home, albeit familiar, had one distinct difference: the home was not in the Destinian pack.
It frightened him.
Sumer, in contrast, stood idle beside him. He was certainly watchful, but above all curious. He was less inclined to deny his desire to meet his mother again. He loved his brother, he knew, and he enjoyed the company of his pack. They accepted his disability, and, for the most part, permitted his participation in pack affairs. Fireflight, as his leader and his brother’s mate, received his upmost respect, and to honor such, he knew that he should turn away. But he couldn’t. Something so appealingly raw coaxed him forward, and before long he was shuffling forward to stand beside his long forgotten sister.
When Euphrates turned his wounded and furious glare onto Sumer, the younger male bowed his head and flattened his ears to his skull. He did not budge.

[Sivoncé™]

Assyria heaved a mountainous sigh of releif. Thank Verlust he's coming with me... But an instant later, the outrage was back on her face.
"You don't get to blame him, Euphrates. This is your own damned fault. We may hate each other, but leaving was your own choice. You chose for Sumer then, but he's not a pup anymore...he can make his own choice now. Or are you upgrading yourself from sainthood to God?" Bitterly, she snapped, "You could've left him and gone. This was inevitable...you only gave yourself more pain."
Slowly, she drew away as the anger began to ebb. She offered a small, yet gentle smile to Sumer as the thick of her fury passed.
Softly, almost inaudibly, she mumbled, "You could've come back for me. You let me die." She nodded to Sumer and began to turn away.

[.Rabid Lycan.]

An imperceptible wince shuddered in his eyes. Euphrates looked on, the ire dying from his vision with every length that expanded between them. Sumer had hurt him. Assyria had hurt him. And, what was worse, he knew that he was the cause if it.
“Tell… Mom… good luck with the new pups.”
The words felt rancid on his tongue, but he spoke them anyway. He turned away, but realized that there was no reason to leave. He was already in Destinian territory; where would he turn away to? Thus, he lowered himself to his haunches, stared at his paws, and wondered hazily about what he would tell Fireflight about Sumer’s disappearance.

Sumer looked to his sibling, offering a nervous half-smile in return. She seemed to understand his issue with his brother, although doubts still clung to him.
I want to see my family, but I am no killer. And, Euphrates… I’m sorry, Euphrates.

[Sivoncé™]

(That was quick and neat xD Fuphrates thread? haha...Fuphrates )

[.Rabid Lycan.]

((Fuphrates indeed xD Who wants to start it?))