Our name now (If you'll take it)
Hyun finally meets Brutus's family after being her kesska for nearly 2yrs. However, they both have a secret they're keeping from the other... Brutus wants to give Hyun her clan name, thereby officially making them siblings/family, but is worried if Hyun wants the same. Meanwhile, the travel there is straining Hyun's keyaa wings, of which, he has yet to tell Brutus about, and feels guilty for. Lots of fluff + hurt/comfort and a bit dialogue heavy.
❒5: Let it lay heavy on both of their shoulders
After Rebecca had disappeared into the house, Brutus steeled hemself for whatever this conversation was about to be.
Xe could hear Hyun’s tail swishing against the grass. The silence between them was like a taut thread – both waiting for the other to act.
“Can you actually stand,” Brutus asked.
“Mm-hmm,” Hyun grumbled, yet stayed still.
“Yeah? Stand then.” Brutus countered with a flick of hir ear.
“Maybe I don’t want to yet. Quite enjoying my time on the floor, actually. ‘s real comfy, good quality coilgrass your family’s got here.”
If xe were in hir fragile form, xe would be pinching the bridge of her nose right now. Or maybe hugging hir waist, though only after xe was alone. The emotions this child put hir through…
Carefully, Brutus lowered hemself to sit next to Hyun. Hir belly pressed into the springy coilgrass, close enough that xe could feel when Hyun tensed.
“I’m not mad.” Xe said.
A pause. But Brutus was content to wait.
“…You seem awfully mad.”
“I’m not mad,” xe reassured, gentler. “I’m concerned. I’m concerned because I know you’re lying, and you know I know you’re lying.”
Brutus let that statement sit for a moment. Let it lay heavy on both of their shoulders. Hoping it would be enough to push Hyun to speak, but knowing it wouldn’t.
“Yet you keep lying, and that’s not like you. You usually don’t keep things from me- and you’re allowed to- of course – I don’t need to know everything. But.”
Brutus bit the inside of hir cheek, struggling to find the right words. “Normally I wouldn’t pry. You know that. But whatever this is, it’s hurting you. And as your-“ friend, family, sibling, the words bristled on hir tongue, “As your Rershasud it’d feel wrong to… to ignore it. Do you understand?”
Xe felt Hyun’s hesitation in the air. Her lack of immediate response meant she was at least thinking about it, telling Brutus.
There was a small blip of hope that maybe xe was getting through to Hyun, but xe didn’t let hemself hold onto it. Still a part of hir felt fragile, crumbled. Xe had thought xe and Hyun were closer than this, that Hyun would be more willing to trust hir after everything. Had xe done something to make Hyun think otherwise?
Brutus heard a scoff.
“You’re really making this out to be much more than it is, Brutus. I fell out of a zeitting tree, I’m fine. Body’s just a bit stressed from all the travel and that, I think.”
The tone of Hyun’s voice felt damning.
It was brittle, and so empty. A frail mimicry to the joking, overconfident zeal that Hyun’s voice normally held – Brutus thinks it would’ve hurt less if Hyun had just let herself sound angry or frightened or whatever it was she was feeling.
It was like a wall of brambles, tangled, and thick with thorns, had risen between them. And Brutus didn’t know if braving the thorns and tearing through the tangles would help, or just make both of them bleed.
“So you’re not telling me.” Brutus said, because xe didn’t know what else to say.
“Nothing to hokking tell, is there.”
“If you don’t want to tell me,” Brutus grit out, pathetically. Xe was probably coming off as angry again, or at the very least cold, but xe hadn’t felt this lost talking to Hyun in a long while and hir emotions felt like they were boiling over. “Is there at least anything I can do to help it. Or, or ease it,” xe tried.
“Nope.” Hyun suddenly got up, brushing against Brutus’s side as she did so and making the sheepdrake jump, “And I can walk now so you don’t have to help me or whatever. You can go to supper, I’m not very hungry so I’ll hang in my room.”
“Do you want me to bring you foo-“
“No, I’ll get it later, no thanks.”
And Hyun left. Her claws scraping quietly up the stairs until Brutus was met with the woosh and slam of the frontdoor shutting.
With it, hir blip of hope from earlier had twisted into an awful, heavy dejection. Which xe knew wasn’t fair, Hyun was clearly dealing with something, so that only made it get heavier.
Xe sunk into the grass and rested hir cheek against the ground. Xe couldn’t find it within hemself to move when a twig poked uncomfortably into hir neck.
Then xe remembered the suneyashad laying hidden in hir room and felt even worse.
Xe needed some advice.
-x-
Hyun’s back hit chilled stone as she slid to the floor. And she shuddered, her nails digging into the skin of her arms. That sensation, she tried to focus on it alone.
Her pulse was thick in her throat, like a wild animal.
Tiny crescent moons burned into her skin, and she clenched harder and harder, until her hands shook – wanting her pulse to calm, her brain to ease, but that burning, it only reminded her
(of her wings ripping through her flesh, the keyaa searing)
(of frightened hands holding her down, and her equally frightened hands thrashing for release)
(of red warmth pooling from what used to be her arm, and the sick knowledge of how to fix it)
why all of this was necessary. It reminded her why she kept it a secret. Ame was the exception, not the norm. Like her, they were different.
(Like her, creatures feared them for what they were.)
They understood. And they weren’t affected by Hyun’s… hokked-up-ness and zeit anyways. She didn’t know how it worked, but whenever Hyun’s wings were out, Hyun’s keyaa… changed. Creatures usually reacted two different ways.
Scared beyond hokk, and hightailing out of there. Or. Scared beyond hokk, and more than ready to be irrationally violent.
The first was definitely easier to deal with, lot less painful. Physically, that is.
And she couldn’t –
Hyun brought a hand to her mouth. Her teeth sunk into her thumb as she breathed, ragged, through a wave of nausea, a wave of hokking misery.
She couldn’t deal with Brutus feeling either of those things toward her, she couldn’t.
So xe couldn’t know. Xe couldn’t know.
Even if, more than anyone hokking else, Brutus deserved to know. Even if an idiotically hopeful part of Hyun wanted Brutus to know, xe couldn’t, it could ruin everything.
And she had no problem lying, she did it all the zeitting time, but this felt different. It felt like a betrayal. Like she was tricking Brutus or something – tricking hir into caring for a creature who wasn’t really a creature at all.
Brutus was devoting time to teaching her, and making her stupid headache-tea, and remembering her favorite foods, and talking to her about her interests and xe didn’t have a hokking clue.
And maybe xe wouldn’t do all that, if xe had a clue.