Six months was all it took to forget about the lonely little ghost. Time, his ever-constant nemesis, insistently ditched him in the dust, leaving him to prop himself up on his elbows and spit dirt from his mouth. Six months ago, the poltergeist was unceremoniously dragged by his mangled scruff back from the hellish desert the others warred against, battered and bled out a dozen times over. Six months ago, he was sentenced to bedrest, rendered helpless by the wounds tattering his flanks; wounds that refused to heal no matter the medicine and comfort provided. Six months ago, he lost every ounce of the fragile hope remaining after the sadistic hand of fate raked him through the mud one last time.

    By this point, it was expected for his name to only surface as a murmur of a vanished generation. The worn and haggard founder of Tanglewood finally joined the long line of missing posters pinned to an ignored lamp post. To everyone who didn't approach the decrepit houseboat sunken into the wetlands, he was as good as gone. Had his so-called friends forgotten him too? Or were they just as gone as he was? The very thought kicked him back down to bite the dust. And so, he surrendered to the soil, willing himself to be six feet underneath rather than six months behind. Alone. Forgotten. Gone.

    Yet he wasn't gone. He still remained, as beaten and hopeless as he was. He still cowered within the four walls of his house turned hospital. Who was he kidding? It'd been half a year -- oh, how much changed within that measly timespan, even if it only translated to a speck of sand within the infinite hourglass. The poltergeist was absent for all of it. Six months he squandered within his houseboat, willingly confined to the swaddle of blankets adorning a bare mattress. For six months, he grit his teeth and ached through the day, one by one, falling into a motionless daze; a slumber without dreaming. For six months, he practically withered away with bloodshot eyes glued to a television screen, the windows eclipsed by curtains and dust gathering around him as he only shifted to change the tape.

    Selby visited almost daily throughout the six months. He couldn't help but feed the festering guilt gnawing at his fractured ribs for demanding so much of the sawbone's time. And yet... Beck looked forward to every single visit, greeting the tabby with a fatigued, but real, smile. Friendship often bloomed in the most unlikely of places. And Selby... well, Selby had saved him from the brink. For once, someone extended a hand -- er, paw to help him from the ground he was beaten into. Desperate and lost as he was, he did not bite the paw nor did he shun it as he did to all those who came before. Meekly, hesitantly, he accepted it, allowing himself to be lifted from his self-made grave. And even now, he still clung to it, seeking a comfort never once before found within all the junk food or pain or movies.

    Selby became his merciful savior, his patient guidance, and most stunningly of all, his first true friend in years.

    How was he ever supposed to word his gratitude and loyalty? Did Selby even return the feeling or was it all a ruse for the poltergeist's own sake? No, he needed to stop doubting everything. Two or so months prior, an idea struck him, rattling the murky cobwebs inside his skull. He could return the favor in the form of a gift! Lots of gifts! And why stop with Selby? Beck had nothing better to do than sulk and laze around. Plus he figured his newfound family needed compensation for tolerating him, too.

    Bandaged paws wound a sturdy cord around a groove in enamel, the final product of his crafting frenzy. Audrey III just so happened to shed their teeth every so often, similar to a shark. This particular tooth he had to wrestle away from them once it was pushed out by sharper newcomers; the flytrap often ate the now-useless teeth, although the poltergeist couldn't quite tell why. But now, the large polished tooth hung on a necklace as its lone pendant, tightly tied on. Nipping away the excess from the securing knot, he gingerly placed it atop the first of two cardboard boxes full to the brim with various presents. A content sigh slipped past his half-disfigured snout, pleased with his handiwork. Soon, he will be able to deliver each and every present to his peers.

    But for now, dizzying fatigue sunk its hooks into his mind with an accompanying headache. Bringing a paw up to rub his forehead in dismay, he pushed himself to his feet, legs shaky from remaining motionless for so long. A stumbling limp brought him to the tattered old mattress he dragged in from the junkyard an eternity ago. Flopping onto his side with a ragged wheeze, he wiggled his way beneath a fortress of fleece and yarn blankets. He tucked his head down to his chest as he willed sleep to wash away the pounding tides of a migraine.

    A well-deserved rest never arrived. Even with his eye closed (one missing due to a friend needing it more at the moment), the air crawled with unnerving paranoia. Beck lifted his head up, shaking aside the blankets. Something was wrong. His nose twitched, then twitched again. The distinct scent of smoke riddled the air. Was somebody cooking nearby? Or... he opened his eye only for it to stretch wide in horror. The bitter cloud of smoke was coming from his door. And his door was engulfed in a vicious, spreading inferno. Panic overtaking his senses, he jerked upright and scrambled from his mattress, claws scrabbling on the hardwood. Instinct screamed at him to get the hell out of there, but before he could bail through an open window, he glanced back at the boxes of gifts dangerously close to the hungry blaze. It didn't take much time for him to make a decision.

    Already wheezing and heaving from the overwhelming smoke invading his creaking house, he rushed to the boxes, grabbing one's edge in his jaws to drag it and kicking the other to slide it closer to the window. An awkward process, painstakingly slow as his sanctuary erupted into a hypnotic dazzle of lapping orange, red, yellow, and black. Despite the embers swirling in the sweltering air, the beams of wood collapsing within mere feet of his desperate struggle to the window, and the momentary pause to retrieve his old cloak packed full with belongings not stowed safely away in his basement, he reached the window. Now came the tricky part. Boosting the boxes up one at a time to shove them off the windowsill and down to the marsh below, Beck's chest burned and stung with effort. Or was it the smoke? Breathlessly panting, he clambered up onto the ledge, swiftly tumbling to lay among his scattered, yet spared, presents.

    Disheveled fur smeared with soot and blood with the bandage covering the empty socket equally as dirty, he rolled onto his belly, oil dripping from his mouth from the force of his coughing. He wobbled, unable to keep himself steady on his legs like a newborn fawn. His knees buckled. His intact cheek hit the dirt. Beck stared into the fiery mass that once stood as a sunken little houseboat, his unorthodox paradise away from society. He couldn't think. What was he supposed to think? Sides heaving in determination to suck in at least one shallow gasp, Beck sprawled there like a fish out of water. Where was Audrey? They hadn't been in the house, had they? He didn't remember seeing them. He didn't even remember what happened.

    The ash-smudged cat gagged and sputtered, croaking out a call for the gluttonous plant. "Audrey?! Audrey!" He forced himself up from the mud, dark eye frantically searching around him for any sign of the flytrap. He even managed out a shrieky whistle through his teeth, the signal for them to return home. But nobody came. Had the worst happened? A hoarse sob escaped him, his throat now charred and bitter. "AUDREY!" The little ghost collapsed, too breathless to produce another sound. He curled his claws into the earth and squeezed his eye shut, listening to the crackle of flame consuming everything he had known for six months. And he returned to the dust, refusing to pick himself up once more.

He could relate, in some way, to the struggle of being alone for a very extended period of time.

Maybe it was worse when you had society taken away from you than when you never had a community to begin with, as he hadn't, but - well, he was still alone, for a year or two, driven away from groups of people because of his body. It wasn't something that left him broken and scarred, but it did damage him, even if he seemed emotionally healthy enough. Now that he was here, though? He couldn't imagine life outside of Tanglewood. Even if he hadn't really made any major friendships, outside of Roy maybe, it was still so much more interesting. The library alone made this entire experience worth it, even if he wasn't going to spend time there anymore.

The thought of his decaying visual abilities soured his mood somewhat, but not enough to make him severely angry, as he crawled through the overgrown undergrowth of the swamp. He wished it weren't so - his life, namely his dedication to science, was going to be so much harder without being able to see, and he was forced to either forsake independence in research or give it up entirely, and he couldn't see clearly which path to take. He could see, however, the inferno now in front of him - he could feel the smoke clogging up his lungs as he neared it, and could feel the heat emanating in waves from the wreckage. It hurt his eyes to stare into it, even if the sight was fuzzy, blurry, seeming so far away. It was almost like a dream, how it seemed to lure him in, inviting him to stay and sit with it for a while, let him soak in the heat.

The screams shook him out of his stupor - clearly he had spent far too much time in the cold, if the mere sight of a fire left him stunned by the sheer longing for heat. Someone was yelling for another someone named 'Audrey,' and in increasingly concerned manner, which did not bode well for that subject's health. Immediately, he moved, before he could fully process or make any decisions, deciding that the health of this screaming person was paramount, in case of burns of bruises or worse, being stuck in the house boat thing.

Thankfully, Beck was out in the open, the spider being able to pinpoint his location exactly from the shrieking whistle (which would have given him a headache, had he been closer). "Is subject okay? Any burns?" He asked, concerned, eight paling green eyes staring level at the ethereal child, as he lowered his body down, for purposes of talking.

The fire blazed behind him, and he could feel every snap of wood or other things, leaving him on edge as he waited for the structure to collapse.

tags - "speech"

Forgetting Beck was not an option for Aurum. Never had been, never would be. Not only because of the ever permanent reminder of the other that took the form of his missing right eye, but because he cared about the kid, too. Although Beck wasn't truly a child, he gave Aurum the same feeling of desperately needing to comfort and protect him, and make sure that the world knew to think twice before raining down chaos upon the boy's head. Unfortunately for Aurum, and even more unfortunately for Beck, it seemed as though the world did not care at all about the threats sent its way, instead perfectly happy to rip and shred and take until there was nothing of Beck yet. Aurum had been there when Beck had been pulled from the battlefield of the Pitt, his breath catching when they returned home and he saw the full extent of what had been done to the ghostly feline. Everyone had been worried then, Aurum included, and it had honestly been a miracle that anything could even be done for Beck, even if perhaps the boy didn't truly think of it as one. The proxy had made his best efforts to try and cheer up or comfort the seemingly grieving founder, but eventually the lion just realized that he couldn't really do anything. He wasn't one of the few that had gotten through Beck's tough outer shell, and so, he was forced to watch from afar, caring but unable to do anything without fucking up. Hell, the blackness that consumed the right side of his vision was enough of a testament to that fact. He had been trying to help then, and it hadn't exactly ended well, even if Beck hadn't been anywhere near in his right mind at that moment.

Aurum often tried to keep tabs. Not only on Beck, but on pretty much everyone throughout the group. It was an exhausting, rotten way to go about when you were anxiety prone like Aurum, but it was really the only option he could accept. He couldn't bear the thought of losing someone without even knowing why, especially after Leroy's passing, even if the canine had returned. He had known that Beck wasn't gone. Not... entirely, at the very least. It still didn't quite feel real though, to just be told that Beck was alive and still lingering when he hadn't seen the feline in weeks, and then weeks turned to months, and months turned to half a year. Supposedly Selby often vanished off to the houseboat that Beck resided in, but that wasn't proof of anything. For all anyone could've known, Selby could've just been going to mourn for a lost friend, leaving flowers at his final resting place. It made Aurum's skin itch, and there were many times where the lion lingered near the houseboat, eyes cast upward before he turned away. No matter how much he tried to rationalize it, he couldn't move inside. It wouldn't end well. Either it would end with Beck, mad at him for intruding upon his space and probably still angry and reeling from his injuries, or it would end with something even worse... confirmation that the boy was gone, lost to them. Just the thought made Aurum's stomach roll unpleasantly, and there wasn't only one night where he found himself in the same bed as Roy, the two of them pressed together for comfort as the lion tried not to think of all of those that had already been lost, and whether or not Beck had joined their ranks. For fuck's sake, Beck practically was Tanglewood. He was the one who had started it all, and without him... well, Aurum wouldn't have the home and family that he had today. He'd still be stuck, listless and unloved and angry at the world, and that was never a state he wanted to return to, or even think about.

Faces. They came and went, and it was a simple fact of life that, while Aurum knew it well, still hurt like a thousand knives digging deep beneath his skin, searching out his heart like a heat seeking missile. For a long while there, it had seemed as though faces were dropping from the collective like flies, with people vanishing or dying before his very eyes. People like Red, or Leroy, or Vathmos, or Crow, with his stints of alcoholism and vanishing away. There were too many names for Aurum to even remember them all, and while he had put on a happy face and pretended he could move on, that didn't mean it didn't hurt. That it didn't hurt whenever he heard a name he hadn't heard in ages, or that it didn't sting and fester whenever he was reminded of them, standing in places they had once stood. He knew that burying his head in the sand and letting himself fall apart wasn't an option, but there were days, and there were nights, were he just sat, and he cried. And let himself mourn for those that he wasn't sure would ever return or become known again. Thankfully, gloriously, it seemed as though things were changing for the better. Leroy was back, and Delilah was back, and Vathmos was back, and Crow was even beginning to emerge from his shell again, albeit slowly. Red... Red was still nowhere to be found, and Mikolaj was gone, apparently having passed away in Indie's arms, but at least some of them were returning to Tanglewood again. Beck was always at the periphery of that list, a silent wish that Aurum, along with many others, were never sure would come true.

If you had asked Aurum whether or not he wanted Beck back in Tanglewood and actually interacting, he would've answered with a wholehearted yes. Even with all the trauma from his eye – which still wasn't entirely Beck's fault – and all of the troubles Aurum had with the other male in the past, he did want the ghost back. However, if you had asked the lion whether he wanted Beck back like this? Well no, of course not, never like... this. Never with flames engulfing what had once been the boy's home. Never with screams of desperation and pain, begging for one of the only things the feline had loved to be okay. Never with Beck, charred and sobbing before finally just collapsing. Aurum probably would've sooner died than come across this scene, but unfortunately, as the proxy was forced to find out time and time again, the world was cruel, and no matter how many times you threatened it, it would still hurt those that didn't deserve it. Those like Beck, who, with all his flaws, didn't deserve this. Never deserved this. When the scent of flames and smoke and soot reached Aurum, and his paws and wings carried him desperately towards the source, he couldn't help the way that his heart sank. Down, down, down it went as he grew closer to Beck's houseboat, the realization of the only place where the flames could be coming from an unpleasant and agonizing one.

Sure enough, when the lion emerged from the trees, his vision was suddenly filled with fire and smoke, the sky stained an unpleasant rusted dark color as billowing clouds moved upward. Staring in shock, Aurum could only watch, stunned by the stark contrast of the flaming house part of the boat, the darkened angry sky, and the ugly green bog below. However, his shock was short lived, as the screaming agonized cries of Beck for Audrey split through the air, the pure desperation in the male's voice enough to make Aurum's head whip around. When he pinpointed the location of the boy, he rushed over beside Abathur, looking the collapsed figure over. His one good blue eye focused on Abathur for a moment before he spoke, his voice strained, "Abathur... I don't know if he can answer you. If he doesn't respond, you have to look him over, okay? I... I'll try to handle the flames." He knew that he couldn't deal with the medical things as well as Abathur or any of the actual medics, so he left that to the massive spider, launching himself up into the air. Flying nearby the houseboat, the proxy carefully balanced himself between the clear sky and the sky blotted out by angry smoke, stretching his paws out in an attempt to use his elementals. He tried to force the billowing flames back, trying to curl them in on themselves and snuff them out, even if the majority of the damage had already been done. His body and head immediately began to ache from the effort, the flames so massive and angry that Aurum was unsure if he could even combat them. For what was probably one of the first times, the male wished he had water elementals instead, so that he could vanquish the flames easily, and save whatever Beck had left.

Beck was not an individual that the cur could shake from his mind. Having such an immense impact on where, and who, the wolfhound was even today, the poltergeist would always exist as an icon within Leroy's mind. The ghost likely didn't understand how important he was in the canine's eyes, even in spite of his many misdeeds and transgressions. That's because, unbeknownst to Beck - and hell, unbeknownst to all of Tanglewood - the general's initial intentions upon joining were not noble. Nay, Leroy's mind  harboured fouler dispositions, immoral schemes which possessed the potential to bring tremendous disorder into being. After all, that's all he knew how to do up to that point. Blackmail, extort, and cheat others into carrying out some sort of wrongdoing, and once everything goes to shit, take control of the people that were fucked over and claim the top spot as king. His methods, albeit unfathomably atrocious, proved successful each time they were utilized. They worked in 42nd Street, they worked in Cooperstown, and they were incredibly close to working in Tanglewood. And with a toddler in charge of the place, taking over Tanglewood appeared as though it'd be his easiest feat yet.

So why didn't he do it?

Beck. The rambunctious spectre. The reason as to why the mongrel refused to repeat his past offenses was Beck. He saw how the tyke ran the bunch, acting as a leader, yet not one of a tyrannical manner, treating each and every one of his underlings with propriety - despite seeing a high number of opportunities to treat them poorly. Meanwhile, the leader's subordinates acted not as peons, but as free individuals. Free individuals that looked out for one another, rather than look for any chance to stab the other in the back. Undeterred by their status of group, the region's inhabitants formed an expansive family. And, as a family was something that Leroy lacked throughout his entire life, he pushed aside those wicked intentions and joined the ranks. In the end, he still became general - though through much more ethical means - and he had Beck to thank for it.

Unfortunately, as was customary for many of the tribe's members, Beck soon faded into obscurity. Whether the little ghost had actually left the area or simply retreated to the confines of his home (wherever it was), Leroy did not know. It saddened him to lead a clan without its most iconic member, even with his staple tendency to cause trouble, and he wished that the spirit would return soon enough. At the same time, however, he utterly refused to go looking for the boy. From what he understood, the kid really dug isolation, so attempting to locate him would simply be going against his personal wishes. And those personal wishes he respected.

What he didn't respect, though, was some dimwit starting fires off in the woods. How often did he have to stress that bonfires should only be started in an open area? Vegetation could burn, and after all the shit the territory had endured over the years, a fucking forest fire wasn't necessary at all. Scowling, the general retrieves a steel bucket, fills it to the top with well water, and hauls it towards the smoke that puffed in the sky above.

What he sees upon making the scene causes his jaw to drop, unclasping the bucket's wooden handle and thrusting the pail towards the sodden ground below (the bucket landed on its bottom, compelling only a minimal amount of water to slosh over the rim). It was a boat, a boat that went ablaze. Outside, tended to by Aurum and Abathur was the aforementioned feline-geist. The boy lies prone, evidently not spick-and-span. Without taking a moment to think, the mongrel chomps on the bucket's handle and begins dragging it once more. Perhaps it could prove useful in the near future. Leroy encroaches on the spider and spectral feline (Aurum had taken off to the house in heroic fashion), grip abating a final time, and clears his throat to declare his presence. "I got a bucket here," he mutters, motioning to it with a soft nod, "could drench him and see if that does anything."

    As the fire raged, clawing up the flanks of his helpless home, he pressed himself closer to the boggy earth, splintered ribs and crippled lungs shrieking in agony with every failed gasp. The flimsy house stood on its last legs, humbly enduring its fiery demise. The final screams of a woman echoed through his skull; he flattened his ears, paws moving to grip and tug at the fur of his chest. Milă! Milă! Her pleas went ignored. The fire continued to wildly dance around her bound figure, agitated by torch and hay. He yanked a claw-full of singed fur from his collar, punctured with a croaking sob. He couldn't save his own mother then. He couldn't save Audrey III from the same hellish fate now. And so, he ripped another clump from his soot-covered pelt, oblivious to the pain in his distress. The thought of his beloved friend writhing and dying as its leaves curled inward to escape the unyielding heat, only later found charred and inanimate among ashes and debris worsened the sour taste invading his mouth. Another wad of fur was discarded in the mud around him.

    The houseboat creaked and groaned, spitting blackened smoke from every opening in a dreadful display. Beck peeked a bloodshot eye open, his squint watery and blurred. God, it stung. Rubbing at the surviving eye did nothing to halt the venomous burn. He grimaced. A paw acting on its own instinctual accord pulled the bandage plastered over his once-missing eye in desperation to see; while his eye opened for the first time in months, blinking away a seal of grit, the eyeball itself failed to perceive what was directly in front of it, pupil unshifting. Structurally, it recovered. Functionally... not so much.

    Nearly sightless and trembling like a grounded bat, he flinched as a voice cut through the house-burning choir. Sputtering, the poltergeist twisted his head to stare up in alarm at the fuzzy mass of black, throat constricting even when he soundlessly mouthed, Audrey, Audrey's still in there! A frantic jab towards the flames, then a glance back before he tried once more to communicate without a voice.

    In the next instance, what the spider anticipated happened -- the houseboat collapsed with a startling crack, remnants of four walls and a roof buckling to the deck. He scrabbled to lift his front half from the mud, the firelight bouncing off his watery eyes, spinning iris into gold. No, no, no! A strangled scream escaped him, the call of a grief-stricken banshee.

    Memories marched right from his head and to the flame, throwing their wispy bodies like lemmings into a fiery gorge. A thin vine tripping him on a stroll through the swamp; ravenous jaws gnawing on his wrist, only to release and lap the ink beading where teeth once were; leafy tendrils brushing past his freckled cheek, taking fresh tears along with it. Flames shot up from where flung lemmings of memory disturbed the skeletal furniture and framing. A drip of slobber suspended from its tooth-lined trap; the scrape of a metal bait bucket across the terrain as it drags its bulk like a paralyzed dog; the head of the flytrap resting on him as he idly pets the rubbery striped surface. All stolen away from him within an instant of heat, oxygen, and a spark.

    Tears slipped freely down both unscathed and missing cheek now, the salty tang mingling with the licorice blood staining his tongue black. He didn't care what was going on around him anymore. When had he ever? Mighty wings beat the air -- he flattened himself to the earth once more, ears twitching in an instinctive need to quiet the world entirely. Yet the familiar mutter of Leroy caused him to stir, jerking his head up to face him. Drench him? Bloodshot eyes widened in fear, only seeing a shallow creek's bed as his own thrash for survival cast ripples around him. The boy scrambled away from Leroy, away from the bucket of water, head shaking frantically. And with that, the final beams of the houseboat finally collapsed, sending a flurry of embers into the polluted sky.