SWEATER WEATHER | oneshot + entrance ritual (tw)

★★★

//tw:: child abuse

"You have to drink the jungle juice, spend the night alone, and then you may return."

The instructions were simple; drink this so-called "jungle juice", remain in isolation a bit longer, and then join the rest of the community. Of course, if it really were that easy, it wouldn't be an initiation, and Coldblue's addition of it being "great fun" wasn't exactly comforting. What was "jungle juice"? A poison? A drug? Could it possibly kill him, or cause him to hallucinate? 'Cause he hadn't come this far just to die, but he figured he didn't really have much of a choice. Besides, he was a big guy - some of the people in this place were rather slight in build, which, if it was poison, would give him a great advantage. If they'd survived it, certainly he could, too.

Hesitantly, Junior had accepted the drink, its flavor indescribable as it trickled down his throat. While not enjoyable, it wasn't gross, or anything, either. It was like nothing he'd ever experienced before, and despite the hammering of his heart and roaring of blood in his ears, the twist in his gut that told him not to do this, he forced himself to down it all. That... wasn't so bad. Now all that was left was to ride whatever this was going to be out- that shouldn't be too hard, right?

It was early evening, the sun just beginning to set, and Junior was on his way down the boardwalk that led to Haven Island. For the time being, he felt fine - his throat didn't burn, he felt no pain in his stomach, and his head was clear. Whatever the hell that jungle juice stuff was supposed to do, he didn't think it was working. Paws sinking into warm sand, Junior glanced around at his surroundings. Actually, this place was pretty nice. The boy was used to being alone, and he didn't mind it, really. When he was somewhere like this? He wouldn't mind spending a few days by himself here. Considering he wasn't seeing or feeling anything out of the ordinary, Junior figured he may as well kick back and enjoy the rest of the night in this place. The young tabby felt a half-smile tugging at his lips as he wandered further onto the small island, taking a few minutes to walk around before plopping himself down at the shore to watch the sun set over the water, which reflected the sky's oranges and pinks and reds. He could definitely get used to this.

Relaxing into the sand, Junior couldn't help the small laugh that escaped his parted lips. Was this really supposed to be so hard? He and these Typhoon people must have a very different perspective on the world, if that were the case. Warm, salty breeze, a pretty sunset, cool water, all to himself? They'd just given him a private paradise for the night. His smile remained on his striped features as he watched the sun dipping lower and lower in the sky, tail curled around his paws. Even after the sun was down, he remained where he was, waiting for something, anything to happen. As time passed, he felt his head growing heavy, eyelids drooping, and began nodding off, but his head snapped back up with a bit of a start. He hadn't gone to sleep, had he? He... didn't think so. His thoughts, however, were cut off by the quiet sound of sand shifting beneath a sturdy paw.

Turning to check who had shown up - he thought he was supposed to stay here alone? -, Junior felt his heart stop.

[color=#5B81AE]"D-Dad?" he uttered, wheeling around to stand and craning his neck to look up at the angry form of the man. He'd walked so far, brought nothing with him, left no trail. He'd taken every precaution, even skipped over a couple of groups so, if his father did go looking for him, it'd be more difficult. He'd thought he'd been careful. He'd thought he was safe. "What do you think you're doing here, son?" The man's voice was booming, far louder than Junior ever remembered, and he was oh, so tall, and so big, but why? Junior had been inches taller than his father when he left, but now, he was so small, fragile, even. The boy glanced down at his paws, feeling the blood drain from his face at the sight of them. Tiny. His shoulders were slender, voice squeaky, eyes huge. He wasn't any bigger or any stronger, and certainly not any smarter, than his father, not anymore. He was just a kid. Small. Vulnerable. Part of him - most of him - was petrified, but the other was screaming at him to fight back, and beneath all the anxiety, a fire of hatred ignited. If he could, he sure as hell would."Dad- I'm- I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'll come back, I promise." The far larger ginger tabby took a step closer to him, lips curled back in a snarl as he took hold of Junior's chin in his iron grip. The little boy flinched, biting his tongue to keep from crying out in surprise. "I told you to stay at home, Junior." He had. He had, and Junior had disobeyed him. Why would he do that? He knew what disobeying Dad meant.

He was shaking now, fighting back tears. He couldn't believe this was happening all over again, and he was totally defenseless. He couldn't yell, he couldn't push him away- all he could do was beg and cry and hope his punishment wouldn't be as bad as some had in the past. "I know. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please, please d-don't hurt me, Dad," the child pleaded, soft voice cracking. The sun was well past set, now, stars in the sky visible, but the only thing Junior could focus on was the pain in his jaw and the tremor in his voice. His father said nothing, but he let go of the boy's face and stepped back, his paw raised, and the smaller tom clenched his eyes shut, waiting for the first blow to hit, hoping it would all be over soon, but it never came. Tentatively, Junior allowed baby blues to flutter open, only to have them assaulted by harsh sunlight.

The young tabby sat up, only to be met with a sharp pain in his temple. "Shit," he mumbled, blinking rapidly as his vision adjusted to the brightness. Stretching stiff muscles, Junior glanced around, searching for a trace of his dad, but he found nothing. How much of that had been real? Aside from what looked to be his own, he didn't see any sets of pawprints, but he figured the wind could have stirred up the sand a bit. His chin did hurt, and the fear had been very much real, but he didn't think he had turned back to a kitten and then grown again in only a few hours. Some of it had been a hallucination or dream of sorts, but how much, he wasn't sure.

Wobbling to his paws, Junior began on his way back to the larger island that his apparent new "crewmates" had told him was called "Barracuda Bay". He had no idea what a barracuda was, but maybe that was just its name. He'd been told he could leave at sunrise, but by the looks of it, it was nearly midday; he had overslept, and quite frankly, he wasn't planning on ever going back there. He'd spent his share of time in that place, which, too, now held dark memories that reminded him of his past. Once he'd made it across the boardwalk and safely to Barracuda Bay, he came across the bottle and parchment he'd been told about (too bad no one had bothered to warn him that he was going to fucking see things). A confession. That was what he was supposed to write, and he was supposed to "tell it to the ocean", or whatever. Grabbing the pencil and paper, Junior hurriedly scribbled,

My dad scares me. He always has, I guess, but I never really acknowledged it. That's just the way it was. He's always made me afraid and angry, but today, I felt something new. Rage. Hatred. I wanted to run, but I also wanted to hurt him. To see him suffer, like we did. It's what he deserves, isn't it? Maybe I deserve what he did to me, but the way he treated my mother is unforgivable. He deserves all the pain that will come to him and more. I probably shouldn't even be writing this, but it's not like anyone's gonna read it, anyway, I guess.

Carelessly, Junior rolled up the paper and shoved it into the bottle, which he quickly corked and tossed into the water that lapped at the shore. He hadn't signed the note, but he found himself fearing that someone would come across it and read it. There wasn't anything bad in there, but it was something he'd never admitted, or even realized, before, so he was certainly a bit anxious about it all. Fuck it, though. It was just some bullshit ritual, he reminded himself. Anyway, it was time to head to the base, he supposed, now that he was an official "Typhooner", or whatever the hell he was supposed to call himself.

"speech"

Soon he will have to take his own entrance ritual and frankly he wasn't sure what to expect. Right now he needed a good nap before he could take one otherwise he'd probably fall asleep in the first hour of it. So for now he was going off to find a place for himself to nap when he turned his head to see a boat push up to the shore in which the cheetah naturally went to go investigate. Marcellus began to push through the bushes, peering over to watch the guy write down his confession through it into the water, and by the looks of it he could tell that this was probably a part of the entrance ritual. So this guy passed it huh? Slowly, Marcel pushed his way through the bushes and began to pad over to the guy, his paws sinking in the hot sand. He looked down at the water and then back at the guy. "Congratulations." He spoke with a nod. He wasn't exactly sure if he had the right to ask how it went and besides, he wanted to be surprised when he took his own ritual and oh boy was he in for a very bad treat when he would. The time of his ritual wasn't far off now. In fact, it would soon be in a few hours after his nap which he badly wanted to get started on.

"My name is Marcellus. You are?" Voice lax and mellow, the piebald cheetah introduced himself with a nod, sitting down on the sand and pushing his limp leg out from under him. He wasn't going to stick around long as this guy probably wanted to sleep and Marcel definitely needed to catch a few z's as well. "So how was it, was the island nice? I gotta take my ritual soon so it would be nice to know what to expect." Though the last part held a bit of compassion. The guy didn't need to talk about what happened if he didn't want too, and he certainly didn't want this guy to blow off on him just because he asked a few questions about the ritual. Whatever happened, Marcel wasn't guaranteed to need to know.

// sorry for the lack of muse! i'm not sure how to reply to it since it was all on a different island