THIS ISN'T SOME ACCIDENT && One-shot

[trojan g.]

[align=center][div style="bgcolor= black; width: 500px; font-family: georgia;font-size:12px;text-align:justify"]More often than not, Moth could usually be found wandering around the territory, looking for things she could potentially add to her collection, ears pricked and mouth open slightly for signs of things of the unusual or cool-looking. When she had first joined, it had been sticks. Random sticks that she had seen around and thought were cool or could be useful at some point. She came to the realization about a month after joining that there wasn’t really a use for the sticks, and, after a while, they became boring. After so long of collecting the sticks, eventually you notice a pattern of things. The places the sticks could be found, the time that they fall, the thickness of the ones that fall, and, eventually, patterns that you thought were cool when you had first found the sticks become something you see more and more often. Scratches from animals climbing the trees, weathering from the constant humidity and the days of rain. It became more and more mundane, until eventually, you move on to other things.

She recognized this pattern in herself as she lay on her mattress in her own little house, wishing that there was something more that she could do other than simply sit there, limping around the room when she was too antsy to do anything else, but afraid of going outside in case Selby came by to scold her for being on her feet. Of course, she was careful with the arm that had been dislocated, but no one ever knew when things could happen, when there could be something when she trips and falls over those damned sticks that she used to collect, falling on the ground and messing up her arm even more. But inside? Inside the sticks were in a corner of her little one-roomed house, buried under other things she now collected, rotting and useless, just like she felt trapped in the house.

But it was her own fault she was trapped here, wasn’t it? She was already useless before the attack that had come from the Pittian. If anything the attack had proved just how much she was worth. If it had been someone else that had been hurt, she wouldn’t have been able to heal them, and when she was attacked she couldn’t do anything but lay there, frozen, not even try to attack the one who had attacked her. Animals of her size were nothing to mess around with when it was a simple wolf, if she wasn’t so useless, she would have been able to fight him off easily, she wouldn’t have frozen, she would have fought, and Wormwood wouldn’t have had to protect her from Roman. Roman could have died on the border and she wouldn’t be trapped in the house, she would be able to walk around Tanglewood and pretend like nothing happened.

Oh how she wished she could pretend like nothing happened, but the slow throbbing in her shoulder and her jaw was the reminder of her worth. The puncture marks on her paw where the wolf had grabbed ahold of her to begin to drag her away was the reminder that she couldn’t fight even if her life depended on it, as it had then. The thoughts swirled in her head, overwhelming the mutated leopard until tears began to fall from her eyes, and she angrily shoved her head into her mattress, disgusted.

[wormwood.]

When Wormwood thought back to the incident that had happened with Roman and Moth, he didn't blame Moth. He didn't think that Moth was useless, or that she had somehow caused her own attack by being so weak. Honestly, though, Worm could definitely understand what her thought process was going through at the moment. For the majority of his cold and lonely childhood, Worm had thought of himself as the worst of the worst. He had that small voice that was constantly around him, clinging to his shoulder and creeping up his spine to whisper to him, voice cruel and manipulative, although to him it had just sounded logical, "You're nothing, Wormwood. Youre nothing but a useless liability that can't do anything. That's why nobody loves you. That's why you won't one day be king..." That voice, while it had originally come from the mouths of Judith and Aethelwulf, had eventually blended into a dark shadow that had lurked over him constantly, reminding him with every movement that he was a disappointment to the people who were supposed to love him. It had taken a very long time for him to learn to shake off that little voice that had plagued his mind for years now. It had taken a lot of love. It had taken him meeting many on his way to Tanglewood, and it had taken the reassurances of all the new friends and family that he had made in Tanglewood for him to finally feel like he wasn't a failure. Like he wasn't the weakest link of the chain that had made up the pride. His confidence had been damaged slightly when Poet had left, but it had been mended by his promotion, by the words of people like V, Red, and Moth herself, and by his own willingness to just cope with what had happened. 

If Moth was going through that process herself now... well, Wormwood would always support her through anything she did, since she was practically a little sister to him now, but he also knew how infinitely difficult it would be. It hadn't been easy for him, and while Moth had more support in her younger age than he had... that didn't mean that it would only be a couple days, and then she would feel fine again. At the moment, however, he didn't realize the way that she was feeling. He had been checking up on her fairly often, since he was worried about how she was doing – something he did with pretty much everybody right now who was confined to bed rest – but there had been a couple of days when he hadn't been able to trot over to her home. Those had been the days when Selby had seen him out of his house, and the medic had immediately descended upon the now half blind Chaser, angrily fussing over him and reminding him over and over that he was supposed to be on bed rest as well. He didn't really think he needed that much bedrest, since the only injury that he had right now was his missing eye, taken out very recently by Beck's frantic clawing. Selby insisted that if Worm was constantly out and about, he had a higher risk for something to end up infecting his eye socket and potentially making the injury deadly, but... he couldn't stand the thought of just laying around in his house, not fulfilling his duties as a chaser while also being stuck alone with his thoughts.

The hellhound had been ignoring the doctor's orders yet again, making his usual rounds around the little town that most of Tanglewood called home, stopping at the houses of those who were injured. He had decided he would visit Red last, since the gorilla was definitely the most out of the way at his home in the bunker. Wormwood had been moving to the front door of Moth's house when the sound of soft crying reached his sensitive ears, and he immediately frowned. He padded slowly closer, pressing on of his bat like ears against the wood until eventually the muffled sounds of sobs coming from inside became crystal clear. The chaser sighed and closed his eyes for a moment, hesitating and wondering if perhaps he should let Moth have some alone time, but ultimately deciding against it. He knew of several people in Tanglewood who he was fairly sure it was better to just let them be alone when they were upset, but Moth didn't seem like one of them. Plus he really didn't like the sound of her crying, and it would be echoing off the walls of his skull for the rest of the day if he didn't do something to intervene.

Gently nudging the door open with his head, his horns scraping a bit against the old wood, he stepped inside and frowned when he saw Moth there, her muzzle buried within the mattress as she cried softly. Heavily sighing, he glanced back out the door before leaving it just a bit open, just for the sake of fresh air. He then moved over to where Moth was, moving to carefully press his nose to the top of the mutated leopard's head in a sign of comfort. He barked softly as he sank into a sitting position nearby, a small worried frown pulling at his muzzle as he watched her, "Moth...? Moth, are you alright? Why are you crying?" He kept a bit of distance between them, desperately hoping that she didn't fear him after what had happened with Roman. He wasn't sure if the medic was even aware of the extent of the damages he had inflicted upon Roman, but he still felt anxiety crawling beneath his pelt, hoping that he hadn't alienated someone who was practically his little sister.

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