as we fall [ explosion/injury ]

[adomania]

[align=center][div style="borderwidth=0px; width: 55%; line-height:115%; text-align: justify;font-family: calibri;"][ no need to match muse - basically what happened was that des had lost control of his powers and made a giant crater on the edge of the southern border while trying to save himself from falling out of the sky,, needless to say he failed and now he's also injured
injuries include: broken right front paw, broken right wing, a bunch of cuts/bruises everywhere on his body ]

If anyone were to ask for a word that described his life the best, it would be running. Ever since he had been born he had been running; from his demons, from others, from himself... everything blended together in the end, and all that Desperado was left with was running. It was the best coping mechanism when the entire world was after your throat and when all you've ever done warranted it. He wasn't above running. He had grew up with it.

And so he ran once more.

The lion had thought that he had exhausted all his stamina at this point, lethargic upon coming to the Typhoon and settling down for about a month, but he had been proven wrong as his demons found him yet again in the form of the bottom of his empty mug. Everything had started to come cascading around him yet again, his problems revealing themselves anew as he realized that yet again he had gone and fucked up, lying to himself that he could do something beneficial with his life. He had thought The Typhoon would become a home for him, but it turned out to be anything but, and the creature had once again felt the itch underneath his skin that screamed for him to run. To forget about the people he had met and befriended and start over again where no one knew him until his demons caught up yet again.

He didn't even look back when he left them. He didn't bother saying goodbye.

In order to leave with as little recognition as possible, he had changed into a body he rarely used before. He didn't hate it, per se, but it was hard to use when he knew next to nothing about flying and it came just about as natural to him as a fish trying to live out of water. It was the fastest and easiest way to escape, however, and after some thought about it Des chose it as his option.

He was an idiot for doing it, although that wasn't new information. He was an idiot regardless of what he did.

At first the flight was easy sailing, comparatively to prior instances. He was still shaky in the air, far from graceful as his wings just barely caught on the wind streams and he faltered multiple times, catching himself just in time. It seemed like everything was going well enough, his presence masked by the darkness of the night, but his luck had a funny tendency to run out at the worst times.

One second he was in the air, hovering precariously between life and death... the next he was falling, and no amount of flailing and trying to right himself was working.

It happened too quick for him to grasp, the adrenaline in his body working against him in a panic as he tried to do something before he hit the ground and killed himself in the most pathetic way possible under the pretext of escape. A smarter person would have calmed down, for starters, tried to find a current to catch... but Desperado was not a genius when it came to flying, far more accustomed to the ground... and his mind, as stupid as it was, decided to provide him with an answer that was, in hindsight, the exact opposite of what he had needed.

So he did what he felt was natural - manipulate both fire and earth.

Only to have the entirety of the land before him cave down upon itself in a burst of fire and shrapnel, followed by a large explosion that was very hard to ignore as his body slammed into the crater he had created. The silence that followed was almost deafening (or maybe his ear drums had popped) and all he could feel was the pain that suddenly filled his entire body, the taste of blood on his tongue, and the warmth of the fire that was still roaring around him (thankfully dying out by itself, for he didn't think he had the energy to try and put it out when his entire body seemed to be working against him.)

"Ah... fuck," with a clenched jaw the dragon attempted to stand, only to have his paw give out underneath him, rendering him immobile and, frankly, fucked. He didn't know where he was beyond the fact that it smelled strongly of something he vaguely recalled (through the pain it was hard to focus enough to give it a name), and no matter where he was there was the very likely possibility that he'd end up dead.

He wouldn't have minded if he hadn't already proven to himself that he'd come back eventually regardless, and he wanted to spare himself the trouble.

A few seconds passed in silence (he could neither hear nor see anyone approaching through the foliage that covered this part of the border), and after regaining some of his strength the dragon shifted yet again, this time more carefully as to avoid putting unnecessary weight down on the broken limb. But Desperado had no idea where to go from there. He could have turned right back around, tried to fly away to save his ass if the creatures here were malevolent enough to attack him... but at the same time, going forward could mean finding someone who could help him more than he could help himself.

He didn't have much time left to decide. The sound of footsteps finally echoed through his ears, head snapping back in time with the tensing of his muscles as he waited for the answer to his question, nursing his broken paw in the meantime.

[GABRIEL]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-size: 9.4pt; line-height: 1.4;"]/this is awful because i have class but i wanted to post

If someone were to ask him to describe his life with one word, Gabriel would, most likely, put a boot in their ass and tell them to take that horoscope shit to someone else. Then the question would lodge itself in his brain, and he'd mull over how to reduce his life to a single word before settling on the phrase, "fucking things up trying to unfuck things up." It was definitely a pattern of his days, less so when he was a child, although arguably the things he did to help his mother did, in fact, fuck things up for himself. He didn't regret them. What he did regret was all the mistakes that followed, the wide-eyed idealism that had Gabe believing he could make a difference that resulted in a total success, when in reality, balance in life was just...shit. Tilting it when it was already tilted to attempt to straighten it didn't usually work out that way.

In reality, it'd tip a little too far back one way, completely throwing off the two sides. He couldn't even say one was for the better- sure, you could give a person good things, but that didn't mean they knew what to do with them, or that they'd stay.

Trying to unfuck other people's lives really had a tendency of biting Gabe in the ass later. But not always. When he pulled Laz out of that alleyway, when the kid no longer treated him like he was the next top dog on the block he had to begrudgingly bow down to, Gabe tentatively counted it as the start of success. Then when he went from addressing him as kid to calling him mijo- well, it wasn't about whether he succeeded in giving Laz something better than before. It became giving him the best, though he would be the first to admit he couldn't always deliver like he wanted to.

With Des, though, Gabe hadn't even known where to start. Some people would miss the fact that there was even a need to lend a hand, but that was shit. He couldn't claim to know him the best, or even to know him, but he figured out a few things. Mainly when he died, and there was no sign of a struggle. The cause wasn't a slow one, but when you went somewhere unwillingly, no matter how quickly, there was something. Not easy acceptance, and then returning with a heaviness to him Gabe couldn't miss. The kind of heaviness he saw in himself when deeply disappointed.

For as little as he knew, that wouldn't keep him from trying. He kind of figured he wouldn't have the chance again, though, seeing as Des was in The Typhoon and Gabe just ditched them. But the kid didn't have much to call a home there, not in the people. If he could've caught him on his way out of there, he might've passed him a word of advice, but he hadn't, and it was one more regret on the mountain he'd built. Sometimes, though, things had a funny way of working out.

If crash-landing like a UFO and breaking important bones in his body counted as working out.

Gabe didn't recognize the body, and very nearly went into a spiel about how half of flying was making the proper landing, but the scent he knew. It drew him up short, and he didn't do a physical double-take, but he did stare at the dragon with onyx eyes for a long, heavy moment. "Jesus, kid, I thought I had dramatic entrances down. Just sit tight- somebody'll be along soon to make sure you didn't fuck yourself up irreparably."
[align=right][i]——INFO

[ONISION.]

[table]
[tr]
[td]

[/td][/tr][tr][td]

ASCENDANTS
- LUNAR LIEUTENANT
7 MONTHS OLD

PHYSICALLY varies
EMOTIONALLY hard
MENTALLY easy

DEMIHOMOSEXUAL
HOMOROMANTIC

TSUNDERE ASSHOLE
SHORT-TEMPERED
WERE-VAMPIRISM
TAGS

[/td][/tr][/table][table][tr][td][table][tr][td]

♦ -
"Did he fuck himself up?" Came an excited voice from a bundle of bushes as Onision leaped out of them, trotting over to look at what the fuck just happened. Well, shit. A crater, a fallen animal, and a broken wing. Was this a pop-up horror story or something?

Onision looked like he was about to cry laughing, but immediately glanced away to call out for Moon or Imperia or even Roman. He didn't care which, but he didn't need blood everywhere. "OI! WE'VE GOT AN INJURED METEOR OVER HERE." Screamed Oni, his ear twitching from the crack in his voice. Oh gods, the puberty. He read something about this in his books.

[member=1420]romanempire[/member] [member=1549]moonmade[/member] [member=598]imperia[/member]

[align=center]YOU'RE HARD TO HUG

[/td][/tr][/table][/td][/tr][/table]

ONISION MIKAELSON-FOLIE
tough to talk to, and i never fall asleep!

© ceilidh

[adomania]

[align=center][div style="borderwidth=0px; width: 55%; line-height:115%; text-align: justify;font-family: calibri;"]There were a lot of people who Des expected to see at some point in his life before he died again; namely Lirim, a bunch of individuals he remembered he hadn’t quite managed to kill while escaping his gang, and a bunch of people he remembered having something against him. He had never been one to place faith into seeing certain individuals ever again, moreso for their own good then his own... and Gabriel? Well, Gabriel was among them.

So it was to his surprise (he couldn’t quite call it pleasant when he felt guilty for even existing in the same space as he did) when the first individual to see him in such a sorry state happened to be the very man who he had met in a similar situation back on the border of the Typhoon.

A long, heavy silence pressed down upon him, Gabriel’s dark gaze boring into him as Des fought with himself not to break the silence too early. He figured that the man would recognize him (it wasn’t like he actively tried to scrub out the scent of sea water and cigarette smoke from off his body when he was preoccupied with running) but that wasn’t the bigger issue here. Something under his skin itched for a different reason, something akin to guilt pressing into his side as if he had done something to warrant Gabriel’s disappointment.

In reality it was his own lingering demons coming to bite him in the ass as he fought to convince himself that he couldn’t have done anything more in the Typhoon. There was still the sensation that he hadn’t done enough nagging at the back of his mind, telling him to go back and try harder.

The more stubborn part of him would gladly never return.

”Gabriel…” he wasn’t sure what he wanted to say, and so his words faltered and tapered off into silence yet again, broken only by the subtle crackling of the flames still around him. There was an apology somewhere on the tip of his tongue, but it seemed stuck in his throat and wouldn’t come out, until eventually he gave up in trying and slid back to the only thing he knew how to do these days.

With the easy grin spreading so readily across his features, it was almost impossible to tell that he had been in any pain (both mental and physical) had someone not seen the crack in the facade already. A chuckle rumbled through the air, deepened by the foreign body he inhabited but still uniquely his, and after a few more seconds following Gabriel’s words, he spoke as well.

”Don't suppose you picked up on anything useful when our positions were flipped?” his tone was easy as well, masking the pain he felt nearly perfectly if his eyes and the subtle clench in his jaw didn’t give him away. He’d felt this pain before, however, enough times to know how to deal with it and tune it out. Instead he focused on everything else around him - the warmth of the fire surrounding him, the darkness that surrounded them all broken by the golden light, Gabriel’s voice still echoing through his skull… and his eyes. Those were the easiest to focus on, unnervingly still and as black as the void Desperado had come from.

The silence surrounded him again, and once again the man broke under the pressure, speaking out of necessity lest it consume him.

”Thought I’d never see you again,” it was hard to tell whether or not that was a good thing in Des’ mind, purposefully shrouded in such a mystery because he himself didn’t quite know. Each familiar face was another reason for him to try better, but at the same time all of the facts he knew had a funny way of turning into his demons down the road.

He shuffled, suddenly uncomfortable and yearning for a smoke, but he didn’t bother asking for one, simply letting the anxiety slowly eat at him, waiting for the aforementioned help Gabriel had mentioned.

It didn’t seem like Onision was that help. He seemed just as useless in this situation as the hybrid was, calling for someone else to aid him because everyone seemed to conveniently lack the expertise needed to spare him the pain. He wouldn’t die of it, but he could feel himself drifting closer towards unconsciousness with each passing second as the pain slowly became more and more paramount. He hoped someone would come just to spare himself the embarrassment.

”Anyone gonna tell me where I am, by the way? I’d like to assume it’s the Ascendants given that you’re here… but I could very well be wrong,” he would never return to places he had left before… perhaps Gabriel was different, but it was hard to shake off the habit of putting others subconsciously into his shoes.

[tori]

Explosions. A sure way to announce to the entire territory that you were here. Even by accident. Not to mention the damage they caused was more than enough to aggravate those that resided within the borders, hunter and prey, sentient and seemingly not so. It was just another worry to fret over later, or be irritated by, in some cases. Definitely some residents here with more irritation than concern in their strained minds.

Alex had ducked and taken cover when the explosion went off, pushing himself to return to the outside of the Observatory and hunt again, despite the taste of the raw meat making him feel ill, a gross combination of a shrunken appetite, the violent desire to fill his stomach, and pathetic internal bitching from his self conscious. And yet here he was, having missed his shot to get back on track. Not that it was important when a fucking explosion just went off. From what? There was nothing explosive down this far, was there? But once the dust settled and other sounds became audible, he did hear Onision and two others, more than enough to drag his ass over to investigate. Something about a medic, was it?

"You're awfully casual about this, don't you think?" Arriving to the scene with a slightly amused voice to start off with, Alexander's faint smirk soon turned to an obvious frown upon assessing the damage Desperado had taken during the impact. Broken, broken, cut. "Imperia and Moon have the medicine....and the wraps." The dark wolf muttered to himself, one ear twitching in thought. It wasn't his place, he knew that, but surely there was something he could do.

"Ascendants. Keep that paw off the ground." Alex said firmly, occasionally glancing between Des and Gabriel, realizing that one, they seemed to know each other and that made things so much easier and two, he had no idea where Gabriel had come from. "I'm going to try and at least elevate that wing, until medics arrived. They have all the things you'd need, unfortunately." And he went right to it, attempting to push the wing up to keep the broken bones in place the best he could for now. At least until proper bandaging.

♡♡♡

[MOONMADE]

[size=9pt]"You fucked yourself up irreparably."

Words of reassurance as Moon throws his make-shift bag -- which he still carries around with him, because he still cares about being a Cleric and fuck Bast for promoting him to General -- and tips it upside down so all its contents spill to the ground before him. It's his preferred method; his paws are too bag to root through the carrier and pick and choose what he wants. The lion turns to the dragon, the whole fucking dragon, and heaves a sigh when he sees what he's done to himself. "You pirate bastards get scared of the scurvy, or some shit? What the fuck is up with you all turning up at our border?" He says, unraveling bandages and attempting to hoist his shoulder under the wing to keep it from slumping and messing up the broken bones further, thanking Alex in passing. He mutters under his breath as he works, sounding scarily similar to a grumpy old man.  "You're lucky I'm a good fucking Samaritan, Spyro. But there's only so much we can do out here. We're gonna' have to get you back to the Observatory, at least. Doubt you'll fit in the Cleric's hide."

/ rushed yikes

— TAGS

[GABRIEL]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-size: 9.4pt; line-height: 1.4;"]He was glad to see Des again, although the current circumstances could probably be better. Maybe. Considering who the both of them were, Gabriel wouldn't count on there being too many peaceful interactions, or ones when neither of them had fucked something up. Not to mention a little reunion meant Gabe might have another opportunity to figure out what the hell was nipping at Des' heels- or who. He hadn't forgotten the amulet that wound up at The Typhoon, the one that pushed Des into the realm of aggressive and desperate, but again, Gabe was just seeing parts of the picture, grasping at pieces of a puzzle. He couldn't even say if Des would allow him to glue together more than what he'd already gleaned.

Not everyone appreciated a washed-up old man poking around in their business.

"In the flesh," the hybrid commented, although he could feel, in the drifting silence, that Des had intended to say something else. Gabe wouldn't pry, not right now, when the dragon was in some dire need of duct tape and alcohol. Which was probably the reason he wasn't one of the people in charge of patching everyone up. The very basics he could manage, but he'd never had a dragon land in his backyard with broken bits. At least everything was still attached to the kid. Hopefully. Gabe hadn't exactly gotten a full look at him, with how he was crumpled.

"I might've, but I'm afraid I don't have any alcohol with me. Might be worth it to run back to your stash, if The Typhoon doesn't kick me out on my ass." He was hoping to be a distraction. Expert as Des was at concealing just about everything, a grin wasn't enough slapped paint, and he could see the cracks through the veneer. Of course he was in pain- Gabe would worry if he weren't. Not that he was worrying any less. He felt, quite frankly, fucking useless. Why didn't anyone ever need cloak and dagger shit? A dying profession, maybe.

His ears twitched, and he resisted the urge to bite at his fur, instead giving his shoulders a roll and knowing that, in terms of body language, he wasn't being discreet in his concern. But fuck it, right? He wasn't trying to hide his concern- it wasn't like Des hadn't already seen him vulnerable. "If that's your way of saying you missed me, it needs some work, vaquero." Dark eyes remained unwavering on the dragon, deeper with concern, and Gabe could recognize that if one of their many medical-adepts didn't arrive soon, shit would go further south than it already had. His talons dug into the edge of the crater, and he very nearly flinched when there was an unfamiliar voice. His head turned to follow the newcomer, some wolf he definitely didn't remember being here when he left, but at least he had the size to work on lifting Des' wing up.

Another voice, this one familiar, and he resisted the urge to sigh. He shifted out of the way so the lion could get to work, removing himself to the perimeter so he was even less of a space-waster. "It's the healthcare. The bedside manners here are excellent."

Moving Des, though- hopefully he could walk, with some assistance. Gabe would do what he could, but he was just a cat-thing, so unless the dragon needed a foot-warmer, he'd just have to settle on moral support.
[align=right][i]——INFO

[adomania]

[align=center][div style="borderwidth=0px; width: 55%; line-height:115%; text-align: justify;font-family: calibri;"]”Awfully casual” was an art he had perfected, one that seemed to be paying off given how it was announced upon Alex’s arrival. He knew how to pretend well enough to mask a lot of the pain he felt, and even though he knew some people (namely Gabriel, thus far) didn’t buy into it half as well as he wanted them to, he still kept up the act regardless. There was no point in worrying over someone like him when their time could be better spent doing something actually useful.

This time around, though, Des didn’t bother telling anyone off. He didn’t feel like dying somewhere he didn’t even recognize, surrounded by his own make shift grave. Hell, at least it’d be easy to bury him. Maybe if they gave him a proper grave he wouldn’t crawl back out from the sea, alive and sore where the killing blow had landed.

Almost upon cue a sharp pain stole his attention as Alex decided he was qualified enough to do something for the time being, his grin looking far more like a grimace. He squirmed under the touch, more because of the contact than the pain, but then fell still once more and gave himself up into (hopefully) good hands.

Yet when the first medic finally appeared, Des quietly considered simply dying instead.

His nostrils flared instantly at the mention of the Typhoon, and the part of him that would have easily jumped on the banter was driven far too thin to broach a subject so sensitive so soon. He had left for a reason bigger than being “afraid of scurvy,” running away from problems that he doubted half of the people here could understand... it took everything he had to tamper down his growing temper, even as the flames around them seemed to get briefly hotter as a response.

”Mind your own damn business,” he growled out from between a clenched jaw, having half a mind to simply wrench out of his grip if he didn’t know any better. Still. The contact and questions and the presence of Gabriel sitting almost eerily there in the corner of his eye almost like his demons... it was overwhelming. He didn’t need anything else making it worse.

”Just do whatever the fuck you want to but leave me, my past and my reasons alone."

He was glad for the distraction that Gabriel provided him with, even if it had been aimed to keep his mind off of the pain rather than his own personal problems. Sure, the man was technically part of them as well, but his concerns were bigger right now than dealing with a part of him he wanted to go away subtly remaining in the form of the hybrid. Gabriel was the least of his problems. At least the guy was tolerable and didn't scream in his ear like his memories did.

So instead of focusing on Moon and the anger slowly coming to a simmering boil inside of his body, he focused on his words, although the grin didn't return to replace the grimace and he was left squinting at the hybrid through the pain. "Sorry. Next time I'll bring flowers and a heartfelt love poem about how much your dark eyes remind me of a starless night and how you were in my mind each time I closed mine," there was a bitterness to his tone that didn't quite match his usual light demeanor, a lot of his mask crumbling under the pressure of his given situation. He didn't have the heart to be anything but petty right now, even though some of it was thinly veiled amusement as well.

[MOONMADE]

[size=9pt]Moon's short nerve sets alight about as quick as Desperado's does. He's got his teeth latched in a bandage and one paw holding the other half down as he wraps the dragon's wing when the stranger replies. He clamps his jaws shut around the fabric as soon as the words reach his ears and promptly yanks at the bandage. It tears in his mouth. "Listen, sweetheart. Don't think I want to do this. You're the one crash landing on enemy territory with Typhoon scent stuck to your scales, and I'm the one fixing your fucking mistake." He steps back, sweeps his equipment back up into his bag and fixes Desperado with a unwavering look. With his tone dead cold and his scars layered thick over a muzzle made for snapping spines, the lion, even in all his gaunt boniness, looks something frightening. "I don't give a shit about your tortured past. But if you want to turn up at our border like a stray dog looking to get your wounds licked, understand whose land you're stepping foot on. Or turn tail and get the fuck out."

It's blunt and it's brutal, and Moon knows he'll stand a stark contrast to Bast-- who'll likely not give a fuck about Desperado's previous allegiance, but he can't find it in himself to care. He's dull-eyed, exhausted, bitter, and not in any mood to cut slacks for self-proclaimed victims. Everyone has their demons; you still don't bite the hand that feeds you. He turns his back on the scene and throws harsh words over his shoulder as he goes. "Gabe, smack some sense into your Juliet for me and find Imperia if you want him fixed. I'm busy."

— TAGS

[adomania]

[align=center][div style="borderwidth=0px; width: 55%; line-height:115%; text-align: justify;font-family: calibri;"]

A sharp bark of a laugh filled the air, and suddenly all the lightness of his tone was gone, snuffed out completely and replaced by the frigid cold that he was so much more used to. It settled down upon him like a blanket, comfortable despite the ice, for he had lived in it for a major part of his life and it was nothing strange. Moon didn’t scare him, the emptiness in his eyes nothing worse than what he had dealt with already. He was barely even a half of what Lirim was. He was barely a third of what the gang had did to him.

“Then why the fuck did you bother, then? Find a different profession if someone who crash landed in your territory gets your panties in a fuckin’ twist,” he growled out, jaw still clenched and the pain sparking down his entire side doing very little to help curb his temper any more than he was already trying. At least the fire wasn’t rising. He was vaguely aware of Gabriel’s presence, enough to control his powers lest they get out of hand even if it was a subconscious effort. ”That or leave me to die. You’re not very bright if you decide to shove presumptions up my throat and telling me lies you convinced yourself before even arriving and assessing the situation. But, here, I’ll inform you a little. I did not show up here to lick my wounds, because I didn’t have them prior to crash landing because I’m shit at flying.”

”And, if you hadn’t realized, I never called for help because I was considering turning tail to ‘get the fuck out,’ especially if I knew a little pretentious brat like you was here to greet me thinking you know everything ‘bout everyone’s life,” he wasn’t taking the shit from a kid who felt like he could throw words around without consequences because he felt like it. Just because the kid had every ability to both help and save him, knowing more about sewing flesh together than Desperado ever could, that didn’t mean he was willing to throw himself at his mercy.

He had relied on others too much in that regard. He was more than prepared to die if it meant he wouldn’t give those who felt they had too much power more of it.

The attention was promptly directed towards Gabriel, and a bitter grin forming on his face as the pain shot back up his leg and the effort to keeping up his persona was gone and replaced with the same bitter tiredness that Moon claimed to carry. ”Better yet, put a bullet through my head and leave me here. Already made myself a fitting grave, no point in wasting resources when this kid obviously wouldn’t mind,” hell, he wouldn’t either. He never asked to be here, never asked to be helped. He wouldn’t mind it too much if Gabriel was the one to end it all, if he was to be honest. At least he wouldn’t be alone.