A weapon clung to a foreign land, covering himself in water most days in hopes he would not burn himself out nor the vegetation around him. A mix of muddy waters and burning flames surrounded his body at nearly all times now, a testament to the conflicting elements within the very nature of himself.


Sleep is not an option. It never really had been.

But, now,
he's got something to look at. Something he can always, always look at. Whenever he wanted to, it was there. Right above him. And he can see it.
All by himself.

Some instincts have been settled, food has been obtained, he is not dehydrated, he does not seem to be in any particular danger, and sleep is not an option. Boredom may be the first feeling he can identify in a long time. The silence of it all captures him, the night filled with various hoots, crickets, and other ambiance to answer his body's own crackles. His eyes drift to a place they refused to look for a long time, unable to help himself now. He's no other distractions.

The experiment's glowing gaze slowly shifts upward, his head leaning on a rock and he rests within a puddle in the marsh. The stars reflect in his own eyes, his focus now entirely on them. Constellations dance in his brain, an almost calm look washed over the young boy. His fires die down, creating only a mild blaze. What a nice night for a campfire.

[align=center]
— s͢uv̷i͡ ̷k̛iir͜a ó f͞a҉olá҉in | t̢àn̢glewo̧o̷̢d̷͢ | medic —

Much like the other two staring up into the sky, Worm could not manage to get any sort of sleep for himself. Too many things were cluttering his mind, such as the welfare of his boyfriend, the welfare of his newly returned friends, and at the entire state of things after the raid on the Pitt. The other group may not have had as much brute force and firepower as Tanglewood had now, but that didn't mean that they wouldnt find some way to fuck things up and hurt more people, and that made the lion's pelt constantly prickle with subtle anxiety.

He tried to keep his worry tucked away and subtle, not calling attention to it at all as he went along on his normal everyday schedule, doing everything that he could to help the group while also occasionally stopping to visit Sam or Beck, or spend time on his own. Seeing as, even with his good feline night vision, Worm wasn't particularly interested in hunting in the middle of the night, or trying to figure out what story to read while stumbling around his small house. After a while, he had decided to stop just moping about in bed and actually get up and do something. That something happened to be stepping out onto his deck and looking up at the sky. The stars that cluttered the night sky had once been his only comfort in a hostile and unfamiliar group of faces, and while the group of Tanglewood was neither hostile nor unfamiliar, the stars still provided a welcomed comforting glow throughout his body, right to the tips of his toes. Even if he couldn't sleep at the moment, at least he could enjoy something that he didn't get to do often.

His eyes caught sight of Suvi – or rather, Kiira? – and the slightly strange newcomer, Roy, sitting out and staring up at the sky, after only a moment. He descended down the steps of his porch and out to where the pair was, his gaze lingering for a moment on the muddy water that was surrounding and sort of covering Roy. He remembered being quite cautious and uncomfortable when Roy had arrived because of his flaming pelt, but he felt a bit more at ease now that there hadn't been any injuries reported – not yet, at least. Moving over to Roy's other side, the lion slowly settled into a mostly laying down position, ignoring the water that soaked into his pelt that would surely soak his golden form. He then mumbled very softly as he rested his chin upon his paws, his blue eyes staring up at the skies and tracing slowly along the stars that caught his attention, [glow=#165042,1,400]"I learned, fairly recently, about the different constellations up there in the sky. It was from a book that looked very interesting to me... and it's fun to know the stories behind all of those little glittering lights. It makes it feel even more like the sky is alive when nighttime comes around, even if it doesn't seem like it at first."[/glow]

A stranger approaches softly, causing the boy to quickly tense, flames increasing in size now. He huffs silently, only glancing from the sky once to keep an eye on the small female. However, as she sits, saying nothing, he feels his muscles relax ever so slightly, though his ears remain alert as his glowing gaze drifts back to the stars. There is always the chance someone could turn on him - it would just take an instant, a single breath. But, for now, they may watch the glittering lights dance above together, an almost sad expression seeming to develop on his face.


And another arrives, interrupting his thoughts. He tenses once more. They were surrounding him. He recognizes this one - he would be big enough to put up a fight. The male now takes his eyes off the stars entirely.

But then the lion speaks up and the tiger's head rises, his expression locked onto the male. He looks back to the stars, lifting one of his burning paws. He points to a cluster of stars, eyes drifting between Wormwood and the sky. "Lion." He explains quickly, his flames dying down further as he seems to grow excited. His tail twitches back and forth, his focus now remaining upon the Leo constellation that he's pointed out.

Wormwood blinked in surprise when Roy lifted a paw to start pointing toward the sky, and he followed the line of the male's arm up to the constellation that he was pointing to – Leo. Immediately, a soft smile came to Worm's face as he recognized it, feeling an odd sense of proud warmth that Roy was making the connection between the constellation up above and him. Watching Roy's flames die down a bit, Worm made a mental note of the fact that it seemed like when Roy was happy or at peace, it seemed as though his flames died and he seemed to become more focused and present in the moment. Giving Roy a slow nod, Worm rumbled in the closest thing to a purr that he could imagine as he watched Leo twinkling up in the sky, [glow=#165042,1,400]"Ah, yes, Leo, the lion. I remember when I first learned about the constellation. It was always my favorite when I was a cub, because it felt like my family was represented up there among the stars. Now I see that was a bit self centered of me, but I still love it a lot because of how beautiful it is."[/glow] He chuckled and shook his head a bit, a toothy little smile coming to his face. For a while as a cub, he hadn't been able to appreciate the constellations because of how simple they were, when people attributed such grand things to just a few lines in the sky, but as he got older, he found that he could appreciate the stories behind the glittering spots more and more. They made him feel happy, and at ease.

Stretching out his large and powerful body slowly in the wet ground, he said calmly as he twitched his tail lazily from side to side, mimicking Roy's excitement as he glanced over at Kiira, [glow=#165042,1,400]"For the longest time I thought that all of the different constellations were in the sky around me at once, and I just wasn't observant enough to see them all at the same time, and then I found out just how vast the entire sky was around me, and I learned to look out for particular formations at particular points. It started to help me think as each of the constellations as very special, since I might not see one of them the next day."[/glow] It felt nice, going back and talking about the parts of his childhood that he had actually legitimately liked, instead of focusing on the parts that had ended up hurting him in the long run. It was far nicer to go back and reminisce about the nights were he would lay on his back with Poetking, pointing up into the stars to show his younger brother the vast amount of interesting star knowledge he had, rather than go back to the days where his mother and father had berated him for being so useless and stupid, and for filling up Poet's head with useless information about the stars as well.