[size=9pt]The world was too bright that day. The air was suffocating and electric, running itself through his fur and making him restless, tense. He was worn to the bone and yet, that morning, after a long and sleepless night, Moon left the Observatory and took to the collapsed city of stars, to the fields, to the trees. Anywhere.
It was with bleary, glassy eyes that he found the cub. His cries split through the air and at first Moon swore he was imagining it. Too many poppy seeds, too little sleep, too many thoughts crammed in his head. But the sounds continued until he decided that he'd follow them and check, and if he found nothing, he'd bid an official farewell to his sanity and find a straitjacket large enough to fit.
But what he found wasn't nothing. It was a child. One that reminded him so painfully of his youth that he stopped in his tracks a few feet away, ears flattening to his head and body folding in on itself like a dog kicked one too many times. His mother, and his pride, and himself. Memories so black and brutal he wouldn't be surprised if this actually was his breaking point and the child before him was his very first hallucination. A physical embodiment of his trauma. The beginning of the end of whatever stability he'd previously had.
So moments, minutes, passed with the cub wailing and Moon standing frozen, and it was with great contemplation and bizarre bravery that he finally convinced himself to walk to the child's side. Hesitant and weary and with the caution of someone convinced they were about to be ambushed, the lion dropped his nose to the child's side and nudged him, gentle. "Mtoto?" He said, soft, entirely unaware he'd slipped into his mother-tongue. "Where'd you come from?"
It was with bleary, glassy eyes that he found the cub. His cries split through the air and at first Moon swore he was imagining it. Too many poppy seeds, too little sleep, too many thoughts crammed in his head. But the sounds continued until he decided that he'd follow them and check, and if he found nothing, he'd bid an official farewell to his sanity and find a straitjacket large enough to fit.
But what he found wasn't nothing. It was a child. One that reminded him so painfully of his youth that he stopped in his tracks a few feet away, ears flattening to his head and body folding in on itself like a dog kicked one too many times. His mother, and his pride, and himself. Memories so black and brutal he wouldn't be surprised if this actually was his breaking point and the child before him was his very first hallucination. A physical embodiment of his trauma. The beginning of the end of whatever stability he'd previously had.
So moments, minutes, passed with the cub wailing and Moon standing frozen, and it was with great contemplation and bizarre bravery that he finally convinced himself to walk to the child's side. Hesitant and weary and with the caution of someone convinced they were about to be ambushed, the lion dropped his nose to the child's side and nudged him, gentle. "Mtoto?" He said, soft, entirely unaware he'd slipped into his mother-tongue. "Where'd you come from?"
[align=center][div style="width: 500px; height: auto; text-align: center; font-family: ; font-size: 9pt; color: COLOR; letter-spacing: -.5px;"][i][b]and die like a hero going home.[glow=black,2,300]