[ THE SILENT ARE DAMNED | MOON ]

[LAZARUS]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1.4;"]/ local emo thinks of nothing but angst all day

The realization that feelings have places is an odd one. Anger is hot in his chest and guilt is low in his stomach. They mix somewhere in between, the way that river water meets the ocean. Battling for hours and then slowly merging, submitting to the other. It ends with a hot, heavy weight throughout his entire body, and today he finds out that his word for it is defeat. He feels like he's lost, and it's not entirely wrong to say that he has. It goes without saying that when you end up sending off the one person who gave a shit about you (he didn't mean it, he didn't mean it), you feel alone. People had tried to talk to him as he sat at the water and the most Laz could do was bare his teeth. Socialization had always burned like putting water on an oil fire, but after Gabe left, he'd just lacked — everything. The tether that kept him here, the nips of his beak to keep him in line. Before the hybrid, there'd been someone else holding his chain. Then there'd been gentle nudges. Now he finds himself entirely without a direction.

It's not a pleasant feeling.

The Cane Corso still spent his time at the edges of their territory, though green eyes hesitantly turn towards the observatory, debating whether or not he would allow himself to explore it fully this time. The answer was inevitably no, and the canine would curl up in the grass underneath the stars. Normally it's not unpleasant, but last night had been one of the worst ones of his life. The older cuts on his body pulse a hot red, tender to the touch. He's well aware of what that means, but still can't force himself to do something about it. He's sweated out fevers before, this is nothing new. He takes his rather awful condition in stride, though remains away from physical activity. Lazarus sits near the observatory with a piece of wood, of all things, his claws slowly carving out a messy shape in the softened material. His expression is twisted to some sort of frown, though it's hard to tell with how he ducks his head. (Loneliness is felt mostly in his throat, like a rock that he can't spit out.)

[MOONMADE]

[size=9pt]Moon knows all too well of betrayal and hurt and loneliness. He remembers cold stares and a foreign language never shared with him, alcohol by the gallon and a Mother that'd sooner let him starve than spare him a glance. And that's exactly what happened. Starved from food and starved from attention, as a cub, he was aimless and angry. He'd sit, rigid, for days in the endless, dry plains and stare into the horizon, and on some days, the sun would blind him but he wouldn't look away. He'd feel it burn into his already golden gaze and turn everything white and he'd just keep staring. Sometimes he can still see the blank specks in his gaze of the damage he's sure he'd done.

He thinks he sees the same in Lazarus. Some mistreatment, perhaps a lot, some alientation but also perhaps a lot. A product of someone else's decisions, of someone elses faults. Sometimes he can feel the anger in himself and he thinks of his Mother, how it ran hot through her veins and passed onto his own, and when Moon spots the Cane Corso from afar he wonders if it's the same. Not from the hand of a Mother, but someone else, maybe. And then he looks back to their Clan, sees everyone laughing and joking and smiling and feels wrong. Why the fuck is this kid sitting here like this and no one's even sparing him a thought? Do they even know he's there?

"Hey," Says the young Lion, a grab for attention as he stops a pace or two away. He's seen the viciousness in Lazarus when Gabe had left, and he doesn't want to trigger that again, and though he itches to look the canine over, to see his wounds and treat them, he knows it's just not gonna' happen. Start with the mundane shit. "Wanna' tell me what you're up to?" He probably didn't.

[LAZARUS]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: helvetica; font-size: 9pt; line-height: 1.4;"]If they were going to compare families, Laz supposes that they at least have that much in common. His memories of family — blood family, born family — begin and end with other warm bodies fighting for food at the stomach of a mother who didn't seem all that interested in them. As soon as he'd been old enough for real memories, Lazarus had been on his own. Gabe had first found him when he was three months old, fighting over a bone and leaving another child bloody on the ground. He didn't know it at the time, that the dog who told him to get out was the same hybrid who'd dragged him out of there bloody when he didn't walk away on his own, but it wouldn't've changed much if he did. All he'd ever known was a fight, and Gabriel had brought him here for opportunities that the dog really just didn't know how to touch. Because yeah, he looks at these people and feels out of place, feels some choking, burning jealousy when they sing (he knew little of music before that point) and laugh out nicknames that aren't Devil or Mutt. They take care of each other. He hates it.

So really, it's his own damn fault that people here don't pay attention. He doesn't let them. Actively avoids them whenever he can, gets awkward when he can't. Like when Moon approaches him and Laz is already pinning his ears, a warning growl building as a low rumble in his throat before the lion stops. Moon was right: he doesn't want to talk about what he's up to. But he remembers the reproachful nips about behaving himself, and the hybrid had always liked Moon, so — he feels like he owes it to him, kinda. He shuts himself up mid-growl and his expression switches to something childishly annoyed, almost petulant, as he stares at the wood between his paws. "No. Para de molestar." Laz moodily shoves the piece of wood away from him, sending it skittering over the dirt until it lands with the half-carved, rather owlish face face down a few feet away. "Don't you have something better to do?"

[MOONMADE]

[size=9pt]Moon'll be honest; he wasn't surprised in the slightest. In fact, his face remained completely unpertrubed, blank with one brow raised. Perhaps it was the sleepless night that had left him this way; lacking a smile or mollycoddling he'd typically get up to. Like this, he was flat. He listens to the foreign language and, this time, doesn't even bother himself asking for a translation. He doubts he'd get one, anyway. "Para de whatever." He says, and carries himself on heavy paws to the wall that Lazarus sits at. The canine's growl lands on deaf ears and Moon drops himself a space or two away from him, facing towards the grassy plains instead of looking the dog in the eye. So what if he lunged for him; maybe Moon was asking for it. It's not like he couldn't patch himself up.

"Probably. But I tend not to pick the better things." He says, failing to stifle a yawn that rips through his words. "So you got me. Consider yourself lucky. There's a whole lot worse fuckers in this place you could've ended up with."

The sound of the wood across the ground gets his attention and, cartoonish, he flicks his gaze to it without moving his head. He's a curious dumbass, that much he knows, and some day he'll get himself killed for it. No self control, no filter, no care. But now, he stares the wood down and considers that maybe he should respect Lazarus' privacy and not dive for it liked a starved woodpecker. He stays seated, claws latched into the ground, and tries for an alternative route in. "It's not a secret portrait, is it? You carving me, tortured artist? 'Paint me like one of your french girls' type shit? I'm flattered."