i've got bones breathing underground / sick

[ROSEMARY]

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Rosemary stumbled through the jungle, tripping on roots and rocks despite her slow crawl. All four eyes, usually vibrant orange-amber, sunk into her skull. Nothing but monotone grey colored her irises – life and all drained out of her. For weeks now, she felt the withdrawals coming; how she fought to hide her lethargy, sneaking off to the ocean for a day or so, only for the symptoms to start strong the next morning. She handed Sephorith her resignation of the nomarch position recently (hours ago? She couldn’t remember right).

The woman blinked, chin falling to her chest. Startled, she looked down to her paws. Standing ankles deep in the underground lake, she blinked again. Traces of color came back to her eyes, but the orange faded back to grey when the stillness of the air pressed against her. Rubbing the side of her head with a sigh, the ocelot knew this wasn’t right. The atmosphere of the cavern stifled her as much as any pillow held over her muzzle might. Even the largest body of water here reminded her of nothing more than a prison. Atrocious. Wrong. Longing for the crashing waves and salt wind, the wildcat thought to scream. But that wouldn’t do anything. It would only serve to remind her of this dreadful place, with her own voice reverberating off the stones back at her.

Instead, she stood with the chilly nothingness. Those four cold eyes stared out across the lake, focused on some meaningless fuzzy image in the distance. Why come here at all? Rosemary regretted the decision now, the original reason blurred in her mind. Because the Rouxes of the Typhoon never quite managed to compare to the coven? The distance between the water coven and regular people became clear to her, now that she lived among them for months. Rosemary always hated the bonding process with these non-telepaths; trusting someone with secrets appeared impossible, when you couldn’t peak into their mind to know their character. As a child, she never needed to make a leap of faith when it came to friendship or family. And she couldn’t adapt.

Besides, who could trust her? The coven said her nature betrayed everything they stood for. Leaving the Typhoon without a goodbye, only to turn back now with seconds thoughts – but only because of this emptiness, this brain fog and weakening magic. Rosemary abandoned both sides of her family, cast aside two opportunities to gain power in powerful groups. And for selfish intentions! She knew all too well how she cut the strings of attachment whenever it suited her. Abandoning anyone and everyone on a whim, even when one of them loved her… what was a third betrayal in her long line of selfishness?

Wild as a storm. Deep as the ocean. The witch moved around people like water rolled over riverstone, careless of how she changed them. Yet she toughed it out in the desert, completely missing the objective to simply get away from the Typhoon. And for what? So she could continue to slink off to the ocean, lurking by the shores? This was no life for a water witch. Her blood ran with salt water; she needed the ocean like any other sea creature. Why deny her own nature like this – she tried living in the desert, of all places! She wanted to escape her past mistakes, but she dropped right back into old habits.

Abandon everyone again. Move out without a word. Find some new home, where nobody knew what terrible things she witnessed and worse atrocities her own claws committed. Give up on her new life. Rinse and repeat.

Rosemary’s thin legs weakened, her body dropping into the water – her muzzle struck her paws, smarting like mad but keeping her nose out of the water. How pathetic of her, weakening like this. Emotions ruled her head for too long; the witch knew she should’ve moved out of the desert weeks ago. Before her promotion to nomarch. The moment she got the chance to slip away after seeing the young lion sacrificed to Sephorith’s delusions. The medic knew violence; she committed plenty of it, but seeing a sacrifice changed everything. The moment played over and over in her head, haunting her in her sleep.

Just another thing allowed to happen, because she stood there doing nothing. What a joke she was. Standing by and watching others’ suffering – only acting in her own self-interest. And now too weak even for that. The ocean was too far.

How ironic, Rosemary supposed. She lived her life on the run from her own demons. But, by her own stubbornness, she couldn’t even manage that. Gritting her teeth, the ocelot dragged herself up to sit in the shallows – panting even from that effort, dark splots over her vision for half a moment.

Pathetic. Weak. Everything she hated about her mother, she’d become by her own bad decisions.

tl;dr
Rosemary's in the underground lake, in the shallows with a dead look in her eyes. She needs the ocean but is too weak to get there -- water withdrawals as a water witch are a bitch, basically.

waded through the spirits like a flood on the floor

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SHE PUSHED THE WATER INSIDE

© LEXASPERATED

[Jiyu Simul Stamus]

The jungle was one of her favorite places to be within this new territory, the intense heat or moisture existing elsewhere in the confines of where Sep had relocated them was just too much for her. Of course, the thick jungle was also overwhelming in its own way for someone used to being able to find spaces to just run. Jiyu could tolerate any biome for long enough to do what she had to there, but honestly she always liked cooler locals with open skies and lush but sparse growth the best. The only thing that was better than the open sky? Was an open field during a thick fog, though a few graves or some nearly solid marshland didn't hurt. If she was to be perfectly honest her preference in territories was hypocritical and extremely picky, but that was likely connected to other things she cared to think about just as little. The calico could accept she disliked this place and not think about it again, just go about her life. Years of emotional stoicism served her well in less than ideal conditions because annoyance or misery didn't take root within her logic, even if they always surrounded her heart against her own knowledge.

It was out in the jungle leaping from tree branch to tree branch that her blue optic caught sight of the only thing in this group that had honestly managed to make her feel since the last time she chose to live with but apart from everyone again. Empty as the deep blue spots in the ocean her gaze followed as the other mutated feline moved across the forest, stalking closely behind not able to put her paw on why. If she had any connection to her own emotions anymore she would have realized that she was worried about the only cat who had tried to fix her in years, but she didn't even try anymore herself. Down into the tunnels she trailed after the other feline, it was something she had never been able to help, always just a step behind everyone else even if she seemed to be in the lead or passive most of the time. As everyone else went on? She got left behind because no matter how capable they saw her, she just wasn't who they thought.

She stood in the entrance of the tunnel for what felt like hours, frozen in time as she simply observed the cat who spent hours of her time worrying over things that to Jiyu meant nothing. Heck, this time of just staring as if she was a statue seemed to mean more to the calico than anything else she did and that was just because for a moment she was still of her own will. Perhaps it seemed she didn't even care about the concern Rose showed for her because now she was just ignoring the agony in her back and waiting to die so she could claim a new body, destroying the witches efforts to heal her. The herbal type went down, and it seemed as if the vizier had no care for that either, walking towards the fallen female as if it was just another normal day, as if nothing changed in the world for the calico. Large paws touched against the ground, claws out to make sure she retained grip due to how close they were to the water, heck Rose was in the vile stuff that life forced upon her.


She caught sight of the other females eyes, dead as her own.

Time unfroze for the first time in years.

Jiyu ran towards the water, towards Rosemary, a soft splashing sound filling the air as red blood painted the ground and diluted within the lake around the healer. Amongst the darkness of the cave the calico stood out remarkably most times, but right now she stood out so much more than normal because a six foot wingspan had just erupted from her back. Per normal she put nothing together, not realizing her body had been reacting to ocelot from day one, mutating a new pair of wings to replace the ones she had lost long ago due to her own coldness! However even Jiyu was not dim enough to miss the fact they had finally emerged from developing beneath her skin when Rosemary was in danger for a second time. "...." Apart from the sound of desperately flapping wings barely able to keep her in the air, only silence filled the cavern for several moments. What was she supposed to say, empathy and sympathy they were not things she did, she had never done either well at all.

"Rose" the Ocelot couldn't turn into her, it just couldn't happen! The other female wasn't allowed to die the way she had, all the time she pretended it wasn't absloute agony that it was nothingness but this kind of death it hurt worse than anything hell could conjure up. Her normally foggy aura that just had flickers of color beneath was now a complete light show, something like the stobe lights in huanted houses. "You're dying?" it was the first time she had sounded unsure inspite of how uncertain she was all the time, right now that honey tone question actually made it into her voice. Had the healer been poisoned? Jiyu kinda hoped so, it was so much easier to deal with murder than what she already knew in the back of her mind from their talks while the ocelot tried desperately to help her. Even without comfirmation? Some part of her knew the problem and didn't want to instantly admit it because she blamed herself, afterall she seemed to be one of the few things keeping the witch here.

As her paw extended something changed entirely unnoticed by the calico, the biologically that typically allowed a cat to retract its claws back in morphing to force hers to stay out a small ridge appearing against the line of her spine between her wings, two pairs of thin membranes developing against the top half of her tail and the base of it. What was a greater trigger for sudden mutation besides emotional turmoil within someone who normally denied even having emotions? Nothing. Same story for triggering a sudden transformation into a form much like the one she had gotten killed when she lost her wings the last time. As she remained locked within her own head she completely missed her entire body changing to streamline growing to five feet tall and much longer than that with wings finally large enough to flap silently as she hovered above the water keeping her away from Rosemary. Who was she kidding it was never the Ocelots affiniatity for water that drove her back, it was the fact that the water witch actually honestly cared about her!


Long now completely white forelimbs reached out wrapping around the healer and lifting her up out of the water inspite of the shiver that rain down her smooth ridged back. Jiyu cradled Rosemary in her scaled arms, pressing half of the small feline against her chest as she readjusted her limbs so she could safely hold the ocelot while in the air. "Rose." it was weird saying that, especially when she was fighting to keep her honey voice from showing any tone. She wasn't going to let her break. "I'm Sorry." not for what had already been done, no, the calico stopped apologizing for the past long ago even if she never dealt with it. She was going to shatter all over again, but she couldn't let Rose stay like this. The apology was for what she was going to do, not what she had done.

Yet, for a brief moment she let time freeze again just holding Rosemary as she hovered several feet above the water.