I DON'T WANT TO SEE IT AT MY WINDOWSILL | return

[Ivan]

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IVAN
slav. "god is gracious"
---
a son, a brother
tormented soul

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ALYOSHA, MY DEAR, MY ONLY SON, I'M AFRAID OF IVAN.
I'M MORE AFRAID OF IVAN THAN THE OTHER ONE.

How can one love if he cannot love his own brother?

Ivan departed in the morning to travel to the Pitt. He stole strengthening herbs and left without telling anyone.

What transpired at the border was something Ivan was ashamed and guilty of. He had deeply violated his moral convictions. The crying and pleading of his brother rang in his head all day long, tormenting him and giving him migraines.

Maybe when he’s finally home, he’ll realize that Moth is alive, and that Atticus and Winston are still here.

The journey home was tiresome, physically and mentally. It felt that all of his capacities had been thoroughly drained from him. He could not even cry, he felt so empty and shallow. By some strength of will, he managed to reach Tanglewood by dusk. The day was a bleak overcast, and now rain started to pour down in the beginnings of a thunderstorm. Ivan sought refuge in the library. His paws naturally carried him to his hidden stash underneath some floorboards. Ivan lingered on the bottle of rainwater that he had captured when he first experienced rain. He managed to salvage some comfort in it, and tried to hold on to it as the thunder raged on outside. It was his last grounding to a better place.

The migraine caused him delirium, and he paced the library with his bottle. He passed the entrance, suddenly aware of a very fat and not particularly good-looking tomcat that he hadn’t noticed when he came in. The visitor’s brow and whiskers were ragged. His shaggy dark fur was kempt at the barest of the minimum. His vapid yellow eyes traced Ivan’s movements. The young cat was only dimly aware of his presence, but ignored him. Ivan’s library visitor made the first chess move.

“You’re ill. Perhaps you should seek your father and tell him what’s been really happening. You meant to do so, after you saw the snake with many eyes.”

Ivan turned back around in the doorway of the library to face his tormentor for only a moment. Ivan stayed angrily silent, seemingly recognizing or realizing the situation he was in.

“Ah, that’s right,” The visitor continued after a moment of pause. “You have your brother’s blood on your paws, you Romulus. Do you think Mars would have approved of that fratricide? It was necessary to found a city, after all. Why won’t you speak to me? I’ve been waiting so patiently. Well, it’s unfortunate, I thought you were finally beginning to accept my reality. What? Don’t make that face to me. Well I heard one of them call you brave! Brave is it now! Hah! The world is coming around.”

“I won’t humour you.” Ivan spat. “I hate you, why won’t you leave me alone? My head is pounding, I need to sit down.” He tightened his grasp on the bottle of the rainwater.The chill of the glass dissipated in a moment from the heat sweating through his toes.

“That German philosopher!” Ivan’s unwelcome guest suddenly exclaimed. “He was so clever, just like you, and scorned all his childhood peers because they were too stupid to understand him. Vivo, ergo cogito! Not cogito ergo sum. Surely you understand that Latin, you Romulus. Wouldn’t it be better to live as a fat cow with dead eyes, only knowing the present and never caring about the past or future? What I’d give to incarnate as that thousand kilogram cow — yes, they use kilograms in Hell! Ivan, you don’t understand, my suffering is eternal, and I have no end in sight. And you ask, why?”

“I don’t ask why.” Ivan snarled hatefully, trying desperately to mend the void ripping in his soul.

The visitor only carried on. “Well, says I, perhaps it is because I am the only one who actually loves humanity. Without me, the world would be so painfully dull, no history, no suffering ... No chance for redemption if the world was just one long drab prayer. You see, the devil is a very misunderstood and slandered entity. Yes, you understand, I can see it although you hide your face. I know you hated the drudgery of a repeated life. But I love your earthly world! You must love it as well, because you are still here, breathing and living. You spit at it to feel intelligent, but you are still so young. Born with a gift. But still young.”

“I’ve had enough of your stupid monologuing. You’re tricking me. You’re the ugly extension of myself, twisting my thoughts. Hardly the fallen angel you want me to believe you are.” Ivan laughed sickly. The pounding in his head was becoming unbearable.

“A fallen angel? That’s too kind. Maybe that is what your uncle is, with his wings and powers. Do you spit at him like this too? I was never an angel, I was never fallen. But you can become a god, if you can just break past this horizon and proclaim Gott ist tot. It would be glorious, Ivan. There are no rules. Everything is allowed, with no guilt attached, even the physical attack on your dear brother —”

“Shut up about Atticus, you idiot!”

Ivan flung the glass bottle at the visitor. It shattered at his feet, and he jumped up in perfect elation.

“He throws it at me!” Ivan’s guest crowed. “Hehe, did you see that! He throws at the devil he doesn’t believe in! Run now, little Romulus. I shall play with you longer, I would not like it for you to kill me!”

Ivan lurched, but found himself stuck in place. He strained his muscles, he pricked his ears but heard only static. It was growing louder with each passing moment, to the point where he thought he would surely lose his mind.

Suddenly the spell broke and Ivan gasped in a flash of lighting, finding himself in the doorway of the library, his bottle held carefully in his polydactyl left paw. He glanced about himself feverishly, but did not see the tomcat in his corner.

“No.” He whispered. “No it was real, I saw - I saw him, I heard him. N-N-No, no, no, no.”

A frosty panic took over him, he raced out into the pouring rain. “No!” He raised his paw and slammed the bottle to the ground. It shattered; the rainwater that meant so much to him was gone in a moment, mingling with the rain now falling from the heavens. He watched the rivulets through dim eyes, noticing now the water started to run red.

He turned over his paw, seeing two angry red slices made from the glass shards.

His haunches sank into the ground as he heaved a dry sob. The rain beat at his neck. He didn’t want to tell them what he’d done all day today. He didn’t want to tell them what he’d done to Atticus. 

[QUIET]

[align=center][div style="text-align:justify;width:55%;font-family:verdana;"]She could feel it long before any cloud began to go dark, before the first rumble of thunder rolled like the earthquake that had shaken her to life. Every cell, every nerve ending in her form had begun to buzz, a low vibration that detected even the most shallow shifts in pressure and temperature as the breeze picked up, the sky darkened. Rain. A great joy even in this space, where water continuously permeated the forest floor to create a thick, swampy muck. The taste of it, fresh water on her skin, was a joy that she could not ascribe to words - not that she could speak, anyway, for the disease in her throat constricted wildly at any attempt. It did not help that her ailment had been awakened by the low pressure and humidity; she didn't stand a chance in attempting to appear more civil than she had.

(Which was to say, most thought her feral. Her agonized attempts to join civilization gave her very little grace.)

The library, a monument in the center of town, was a vast structure whose gutters had long since ceased to function. Where the piping bent and broke in places, the heavy rain cascaded down in waterfalls and pooled in the dirty asphalt. It was, in her terms, perfect - the weather, the opportunity to refresh herself, the silence of the quiet day. The parasites in her throat, her chest, buzz low in a purr. The algae-laden creature gives little thought to her surroundings, to the child passing to enter the library, as she situates herself beneath a broken gutter and grins. The flora adorning her pelt unfurls and she gives a happy shake, ignorant to the plight of Ivan until a cry rings through the open double-doors.

She can feel his racing pawsteps, low and pounding like the rain as they made a path through the bookcases within. She does not blink an eye - the going-ons of her surrounding peers meant little, when she had only allowed her presence to be known for a week and a day. It's only when the half-open doors are shoved aside and Ivan comes tumbling out, hurling a glass bottle at the stonework, that she allows herself a silent glimpse of the contained chaos before her. The swarm in her lungs buzzes at the soft tink of broken glass on stonework.

The creature stills, allows the flow of rain to cascade down on her head for a moment longer. Ivan curls in on himself, and she can hear a soft sob escape his throat. Poor thing. Shame, there was little she could do but watch and wonder what had gone on behind those doors. She plods out into the open rain. Tilting her head, she opens her maw to reveal a row of teeth, and attempts, in vain, to comfort him. "Ch-ch-ch-ch..." The sound is a low chatter, the beginning of "Child." The parasites allow her nothing more. But, with glass pricking both their paws, she lowers her head and allows him a meaningful silence.

[CAUSTIC.]

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CAUSTIC

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If he was being entirely honest, he didn't notice Ivan's disappearance. Most of the time, the boy bothered him first. Caustic wasn't one to instigate interaction with others- it just wasn't in his nature. No, Octavio did that for him.
The wolf was on the way back from the tavern when he saw the boy run out of the lobby. Caustic looks like a different beast entirely in the rain- the glow given from his eyes is more obvious in the dark, illuminating little else. His brown form is reduced to little more than gas and eyes and teeth, as green venom glints from his fangs. He is unaware of his own beastly appearance- the wolf is little more than hugeness and gas and eyes in the night.

Caustic is drawn in by Ivan's choked sobs, glowing eyes landing on the creature from the other day. He remembers, how she attacked Aurum when the lion extended her a paw. He notes, not to do the same. His gaze glances to Ivan for a moment, weighing over in his head the likelihood of the creature doing just the same.
Caustic considers what he would do.
"Ivan," he looms over the boy, glancing between him and the creature. "We should get you inside," Caustic attempts to be soft, letting himself loom over the pair. "You'll be alright," he says, trying to coax the boy to security as he places his paw on the tomcat.

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[selby roux !]

[align=center][div style="width: 51%; text-align: justify; font-size: 10pt; letter-spacing: -1px; font-family: georgia;"]Missing children, missing Moth, so many missing people. The cycle never seemed to stop, but Selby allowed himself the shock of grief every time someone he loved disappeared. It was Ivan this time, his son. Another son gone. Winston. Atticus. Beck had been nowhere to be seen. The pain of it all threatened to swallow his heart whole.

Still, the dedicated machine continued to beat, and so the sawbones carried on, nevermind how much he wanted a moment of pause.

He was very much aware of Ivan’s affinity for rain. And so, he went out into it in search of him, ears pricked back as a measly defense against the onslaught of water. Sure enough, his son was out, as well as Caustic. Mild anxiety prickled at the wolf’s proximity to the child, but he reminded himself that he meant no harm. “Ivan,” he said softly, finding that he had lately been unable to raise his voice above a low tone. “Come inside, please. It’s... you.. I was worried about you.”

[alaric g.]

    Since the tremors, Alaric himself scarce, mostly out of the desire to cope with his newfound monocularity. As it turns out, learning to adjust to having sight in a singular eye was more difficult than he had ever imagined it would be. He still found himself stumbling and tripping, whether it be over his own paws or a stray object, due to a significant loss in his ability to gauge depths and distances. What he wouldn't give to go back to the night of the tremors and avoid the thing that took his sight.

    Nevertheless, the tabby had chosen to leave his home for now so as to get some fresh air and maybe find a new book at the library for his reading pleasure. Maybe this time he'd opt for one of the so-called classics. After all, there was only so much information and entertainment that one could milk from an old biology textbook. Unfortunately for him, the current downpour would undoubtedly prevent him from taking whichever tome he selected back to his home, but that was of no issue, he supposed. The library's dry, quiet confines would be just fine for now.

    His journey to the library was interrupted by the sight of a small crowd gathering just in front of the entryway. He spotted Caustic, Selby, a stranger who appeared to be made of plants, and Ivan as the center of attention, who was currently assessing his paw. From this distance, he could still discern the red droplets originating from the tyke's paw, as well as the crimson shade on the ground, starkly juxtaposed against the surrounding shades.

    Alaric approached attentively. As he neared, he spotted the nasty red gashes on the underside of the boy's paw. He regarded them from a close distance while still being considerate of the tyke's personal space. "Ivan, what happened?" he inquired with an uncharacteristic kindness.

♔ don't do love, don't do friends

[Ivan]

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IVAN
slav. "god is gracious"
---
a son
a brother

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ALYOSHA, MY DEAR, MY ONLY SON, I'M AFRAID OF IVAN —

At this point in time, Ivan was still quite beside himself. His heart pummeled his ribcage like a trapped mouse and his strange eyes had an equally strange look to him. His throat rasped and his nose sniveled in that heart-wrenching way that one does when one's tears have been completely emptied of him. The pounding in his head persisted, an acute ache directly above his right eye.

He did not respond to the chittering, thinking it a lingering sound of his hallucination. But a heartbeat passed and he suddenly jerked his head up and fixed the the creature's lowered head with a wide eyed stare.

"Oh, it's you!" Escaped the young cat. The weird familiarity in his voice held a stark contrast to the bewilderment and absolute raving look on his face.

Caustic appeared as a sort of anathema. Ivan was struck with dread at his approach. He squeezed his eyes shut. The glow from Caustic's own is hurting him. "Why didn't he come as a beastly figure too ..." Ivan rambled. "Not with fire and, and, eyes and, wings, and violence, no, he was just a fat ugly thing ... what an idiot, what an idiot ..."

His eyes flew open as Caustic's paw touches his rain soaked skin. He started. The feeling of something else warm and living on him is almost too much for his senses to perceive. His father approached as well, and Ivan felt a weight drop to his stomach. How can he face his father with his brother's blood on his paws? Selby's tone gave voice to his suffering over the loss of Moth, and Ivan cannot bear to tell his father that It is I! It is I who is tearing this family apart! I have Atticus's blood on my paws! I almost killed him! But Ivan was still raving. Maybe if he wanted to, he wouldn't be able.

"Go inside, inside where?" Both his father and the doctor were telling him to do this. "The library? The library? Can you hear me? This buzzing in my head is too loud. There's someone in there, I swear. He was talking to me just now, just now. Yes, that's what happened, you see, Alaric. Look and you'll see! He knows me more than I know myself! I've shattered my glass, the first one I used to collect rainwater ... only I don't know why I did it ... well, I think so!"

The truth was, of course, that there was nothing there. No scent or fur, or trace of anything.

— I'M MORE AFRAID OF IVAN THAN THE OTHER ONE.