the clouds overhead open up, for the wicked and the just all the same
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Post by Damian Wright on Mar 5, 2018 22:00:15 GMT
This is a private thread between Kayah Hart and Damian that takes place around 3 years or so before present day. It's mostly here for archive purposes, and because we both love angst. Younger readers beware! This one gets pretty dark.
take all the courage you have left When they were done with him, they left him in the snow. They dragged him into the forest, leaving a trail of red, and tossed him there face down, beaten, bruised, and broken. Alone. And then they walked away. Damian heard them laugh, the sound echoing in his ears until their voices faded away into the distance.
Snow fell from the sky, blanketing the forest, pearly white in the moonlight, except where it was stained red from Damian's blood. He didn't know that the snow could burn, but it did. Cold enveloped him entirely, numbing bruises yet piercing through his skin at the same time. When he tried to blink open his eyes, his vision swam, and he squeezed them shut immediately. His head ached, his thoughts were fuzzy, and he was pretty sure there wasn't one part of his body that wasn't hurt.
His parents were dead- they'd gone up in flames, burned alive by the very same people who had done this to him. Damian had been lucky to escape- assuming that he still could be considered lucky after this had been done to him just because he'd survived. How could you still be lucky when you'd lost everything? A friend had turned on him- somebody that he had shared almost everything with. Now his home was gone. His parents were gone.
And they were never coming back.
The sense of loss overwhelmed him, cutting deeper than a knife. He started curling into himself, stopping immediately with a sharp gasp of pain when his right knee screamed in agony at the movement. When he tried shifting his wings to shelter himself from the falling snow, he found that the left was in similar shape, pain searing through it when he moved. It had been snapped by the men who had taken him so that he couldn't fly away.
There were plenty of other injuries, too. The combined pain from them all made it hard to focus on anything, and even harder to move. He wouldn't be able to get far, anyway- not in this condition. He had nowhere to go and nobody else to turn to. Damian was entirely alone.
He shifted his wings closer, moving the left carefully, and using the right to hide himself from the elements, golden-brown feathers sticking out against a background of white and red. tags: Kayah Hartword count: more like injury count over 9000 am i right notes: h'okay so there are tons of injuries my dude. most notable are probably broken right knee, broken left wing, various cuts (a small one on his forehead that looks scarier than it actually is bc head injuries bleed a lot, a minor stab wound somewhere, you can decide where tbh, maybe shoulder, others), several bruises, probably a split lip and a black eye. yikes. sorry, damian. |
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Dexter bringeth Doughnuts and some Dead Dudes
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Post by Kayah Hart on Mar 6, 2018 0:06:47 GMT
Kayah Hart She had too much to think about. Too many ideas and beliefs and feelings pressing down on her chest and against her temples. Around her parents she smiled. Around her friends and cross-legged on the porch swing, she smiled. She was always smiling.
In truth she didn't have much to smile about. More than many out there - she would point that out if someone caught her with a distant and defeated look in her eyes - but not enough. That brisk morning, she was trying to escape from her home, to clear away her swarming thoughts.
Snow crunched beneath Kayah's books, a thin sweater and jeans doing little against the cold. She shivered, but (though she didn't know it) she had little to complain about. The woods were eerily quiet, bare branches clawing up towards the sky. Kayah's feet led her in no particular direction, just forward or wherever a natural path had formed, her mind completely detached from her surroundings.
But the contrast of smeared crimson blood against the bright white snow had Kayah stopping in her tracks.
For a moment she simply stood there, gazing in bewilderment. Her thoughts first flicked to the possibility that it was a wounded animal, but tracks on either side of the blood trail were those of human shoe prints, and to her right, towards the beginning of the trail, were the imprints of tire treads.
Dread seeped into Kayah's stomach, and suddenly the cold didn't seem as noticeable.
Setting off at a brisk pace, Kayah followed the trail as it dipped off to her right. As she continued, the quantity of blood did not appear to decrease, and she realized with a sickening feeling that whatever had been injured was so severely.
The path veered off behind a slight hill, and as Kayah scrambled through the snow around the bend, she couldn't help but draw a shaky breath.
At the end of the trail of blood was a human- no, a therian, she could see its golden-brown wings now. Kayah shuddered, and not wanting to frighten the creature, who as far as she could tell appeared immobile, as she stepped carefully towards them.
"H-hello?" Kayah stuttered, her voice coming out in a frightened hiss. She gingerly stretched out a hand to move the therian's wing away from their face, her fingers brushing gently on the soft, ruffled feathers
398// @yourbabyboydamian // AHH
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the clouds overhead open up, for the wicked and the just all the same
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Post by Damian Wright on Mar 6, 2018 1:27:43 GMT
take all the courage you have left He wasn't entirely sure why he started to wake up, at first. Consciousness started to drift back to Damian, and he slowly became more aware of his surroundings. Even with his vision still blurred, he could see that dim light was starting to filter through his feathers. Morning already? How long had he been here?
He heard footsteps in the distance, but they seemed muffled to him. Even as they grew closer, he couldn't really focus on them at all, his mind still in a daze, delirious from cold, pain, and exhaustion. Even when somebody spoke, he couldn't really hear it.
When something touched his wing, though, he woke up instantly.
His eyes snapped open, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He needed to get away from whoever was close enough to touch him. Immediately he moved his wing away and scrambled to his feet, then backwards frantically. He only stopped when his back hit a nearby tree. His eyes were wide with terror, his breathing erratic, chest heaving. The last person who had gotten too close had broken him- he couldn't let it happen again. "S-stay back!" he warned, hoping that whoever it was wouldn't hear the way his voice was trembling. When he realized who it was, though, he froze, breath catching in his throat.
"Kayah..?" he asked, his voice cracking when he said her name. Was that her? She couldn't be here, she couldn't see him like this-
Suddenly, pain seared through his leg and his wing anew as the adrenaline faded, his bruises throbbing once more. He lifted one hand to hold his head when it started aching again, letting out a low groan as his vision started swimming. Before he even realized that he'd been swaying on his legs, he stumbled and lost balance, collapsing forward. tags: urbeautifulgirlkayah
word count: 302
notes: im in pain and so is damian |
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Dexter bringeth Doughnuts and some Dead Dudes
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Post by Kayah Hart on Mar 6, 2018 3:16:00 GMT
Kayah Hart It all happened so fast she could have sworn it hadn't happened at all. One moment the therian was laying in a still heap in the snow, and the next he had leaped to his feet and shuffled back into a tree.
His panic found its way into her, and Kayah could practically feel the fear radiating from him. "S-stay back!" Kayah raised her hands in a universal sign for peace. She felt like she was going to throw up. His whole body looked about ready to disintegrate, as though he were so fragile and broken that even words would cause him to crumble.
Then his voice started to register with her. There was pain and anxiety heaped onto every letter when he had spoken to her, but she could have sworn it was a voice she recognized. There was his familiar hair and stature, he looked exactly like someone she knew, but that couldn't be because he had wings.
Couldn't it?
"Kayah..?
Now she really felt like she was going to throw up. It was him. "Damian..?" Kayah took a couple paces towards him, hopefully not enough to make the therian uncomfortable, but just enough to see him better.
No, no, no this can't be happening. But it was happening. Damian, one of her best friends, maybe even her closest, was a therian. He was a therian and someone - something - a monster had hurt him.
Damian started to stagger, and a groan of pain escaped him as he started to sway on his feet. "Damin..?" she muttered, closing the distance between them so that only a few feet remained. She couldn't be sure if he heard her. Then he collapsed forward, and Kayah instinctively reached out to help him gently down to the ground. She wasn't exactly strong, and it ended up being more making the landing softer than actually negating it.
314 // yourlittlepainian // better
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the clouds overhead open up, for the wicked and the just all the same
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Post by Damian Wright on Mar 6, 2018 6:58:53 GMT
take all the courage you have left This couldn't be happening. Kayah couldn't see him like this- she wasn't supposed to find out what he was.
The rational part of him knew that Kayah was different from the others. She wouldn't hurt him- she actually liked therians. She'd spent hours at length talking to him about them whenever she got the chance. She wouldn't hurt him- he knew that.. She wouldn't turn on him. That wasn't who she was.
But Damian could remember thinking the same of Aria. It had been a mistake. He'd lost everything because of it.
He couldn't make that mistake again.
"You c-can't be here," he said quietly, shying away from her touch as though it burned. Maybe he was worried that it could. He shouldn't have been, and he knew that, but he was anyway. "You can't...you weren't supposed to find out.." Damian wrapped his arms arms around himself, trying to stop himself from trembling. "Nobody was." He bit his lip, dangeously close to shedding tears, curling his good wing closer while the other lay limp in the snow.
He tried to stifle a sniffle, rubbing his eyes for a moment before he spoke again, his voice strained. "Don't...don't tell anyone. Please," he said. "I can't do it again..." His breathing shuddered, his eyes staring blankly down at the snow. He couldn't be hurt again. He couldn't lose anyone else. He couldn't lose the last friend he had left. "...I can't do this again." tags: kayah the benevolent
word count: shorter than normal oops
notes: squints loudly your notes and tags are so hard to see rn dude |
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Dexter bringeth Doughnuts and some Dead Dudes
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Post by Kayah Hart on Mar 7, 2018 3:23:05 GMT
Kayah Hart "You c-can't be here," he had muttered, noticeably flinching away, "You can't...you weren't supposed to find out. Nobody was."
Kayah bit hard enough on her lip for it to hurt. She wasn't nearly as strong as Damian, and she couldn't help it when tear slip from her eye, not that she was trying to keep from crying anyway. She would realize later how odd that was, that she was comfortable showing how she really felt around Damian. She would chalk it up to the shock and fear. After all, few people could keep from being true in such serious situations.
"Damian, I... I don't understand," Kayah croaked. She wasn't sure what part of it she was asking about. Maybe everything- what had happened to him, why he was so afraid of her, why hadn't he told her, how she hadn't known? But as soon as she spoke she knew now wasn't the time and she shook her head, her eyes pinched together as though she could erase her words, or at least copy and paste them for a better time.
Assuming that they would even have a better time. Damian looked close to death, she could see that even more closely crouched beside him. Blood caked his forehead, his wing and knee appeared bent and unnatural, and his cracked lip and swollen eye were horrific shades of black and red. Again Kayah felt herself pushing away panic. This wasn't the time or place.
"Don't...don't tell anyone. Please, I can't do it again.... I can't do this again."
Kayah shook her head fiercely, wanting desperately to comfort him somehow, but she didn't know how, let alone if he would accept it. "I wouldn't, I won't, not ever. I won't hurt you. I promise." Kayah assured Damian. She tried to ignore the fact that his plea had only begged more questions and set her focus on the immediate situation.
Kayah felt a new kind of determination flood through her, and when she spoke again her voice didn't sound so choked. "Can you stand? I don't think I can carry you on my own, so I need you to try." She looked at him with a cool calmness, her lingering shock and fear pressed just far enough the surface that she felt she might be able to think rationally. "Please. I want to help you."
387//damian the mess//howzat?
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the clouds overhead open up, for the wicked and the just all the same
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Post by Damian Wright on Mar 9, 2018 7:33:35 GMT
take all the courage you have left Damian could only get himself to stop shaking when Kayah promised she wouldn't tell anyone. He repeated her words in his head, forcing himself to believe them, telling himself that Kayah was different from the others. She wasn't Aria. She wasn't Aria's father. She was a friend. Kayah wouldn't turn on him. Not for something like this.
Kayah had just found out that one of her friends had been lying to her face about being human for years, and she was still here. She didn't even know what had happened, and she was still willing to help. That was the kind of person she was.
He closed his eyes, inhaling and exhaling slowly, trying to even out his breathing. In. Out. Breathe. Kayah was there. She was trying to help. She wouldn't be able to if he was still this close to being on the verge of a breakdown. When his breathing finally evened out, he opened his eyes again, nodding slowly. He could stand if he needed to. Walking was going to be more difficult, but he was going to worry about that when it happened. He had to focus on the now.
"...Aria found out," he told her, his voice still tight, but not as frantic as it was earlier. Since Kayah wanted to help, he figured he at least owed her an explanation. "About...this, I mean," he added, nodding his head towards his wings. "I...I don't know if she told her father or not, but either way, he found out...and..." He took in a shaky breath, barely managing to keep himself together when he remembered what had happened.
"They burned it down- him and his friends -they went to the house and burned it." His voice cracked then, but he swallowed and kept speaking. "Mom and Dad didn't make it out." Breathe out. "When I did, they did this." Damian fixed his eyes on one point, knowing that if he didn't focus on anything else, he'd be dangerously close to breaking down all over again. He bit his lip and looked down, loss weighing heavy on his shoulders and his heart. tags: kayah the friend
word count: 360
notes: aw yiss i can see ur wonderful notes now |
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Dexter bringeth Doughnuts and some Dead Dudes
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Post by Kayah Hart on Mar 10, 2018 2:04:54 GMT
Kayah Hart Kayah studied Damian as he sat in the snow, his eyes closed. When he didn't respond, she began to worry. Did he pass out? Is he dead? Her eyes began frantically searching for a sign of life, until rational thought hit her; she could hear him breathing. Kayah calmed herself down, though a part of her still felt lingering unease as the quiet crept on.
Then finally Damian opened his eyes and nodded. Kayah release a breath she hadn't realized she was holding.
She froze again when he spoke. Again her eyes flicked back and forth from one eye to the other, concern oozing from her expression. Kayah hadn't known Aria very well, really only heard about her, but she knew she had meant a lot to Damian.
To her alarm, Kayah realized she wasn't just sympathetic for Damian. What Aria had done, intentional or not, sickened her. She felt an unfamiliar feeling of anger pooling in her gut. How could someone do such a thing? Aria's father was even worse: he had definitely and deliberately tried to get Damian hurt.
But that flicker of anger burned out almost as soon as it had ignited, replaced solely by horror and sympathy. "I'm so sorry, Damian," Kayah murmured, her eyes falling away to the snow. She, too, felt the pressure of tears on her eyes.
She did appreciate that he had told her. Part of her wished she had never known, that she could have gone on imagining this fantasy world for therians where they weren't harmed just for being genetically different. That part of her willed everything to go back to normal, movie-style where the main character didn't know her best friend was the mythical creature she was enraptured with.
Kayah gulped back her grief. "We should get you somewhere safe," the blonde-haired girl mused aloud. She bit her lip in thought, then finally looked back up at Damian. "I know somewhere. There's an old shed on my property my family never uses. No one would find you there." She winced when she realized how alarming that last remark might sound. "I mean, you'd be safe there, where the people that did.. this.. the people that would hurt you can't find you there."
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the clouds overhead open up, for the wicked and the just all the same
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Post by Damian Wright on Mar 10, 2018 4:14:57 GMT
take all the courage you have left His breath hitched she said she was sorry, and his arms wrapped around himself a little tighter. "Not your fault," he said quietly, partly to remind himself of that fact. This wasn't Kayah's fault at all.
"Right," he nodded when she reminded him that they needed to leave. He couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy when she told him what place she had in mind, though- not because of the somewhat darker implications of what she'd said, but rather because of who owned the property in question.
"And...what about your parents?" he asked, trying to hide how nervous he still felt about all of this. Damian knew all too well how Kayah's parents felt about half-bloods. Kayah had talked about it before, and he'd avoided them whenever possible as a precaution, despite what little good it had ended up doing him.
"I know that they don't...like therians...I can't imagine they'd be happy with you if they found out that you were helping one of them." He didn't want to be hurt again, no- but somehow it was more important to him that Kayah wasn't hurt for helping him. He didn't want to put her at risk. "I don't want you to get hurt because of me." tags: kayah the kind
word count: 210
notes: damian does not have his priorities straight |
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Dexter bringeth Doughnuts and some Dead Dudes
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Post by Kayah Hart on Mar 10, 2018 4:43:58 GMT
Kayah Hart A flutter of anxiety coursed through her gut. She had been thinking the same thing. Kayah looked away, unable to deny what he had said about her parents. The young girl absentmindedly massaged her wrist.
Kayah had talked briefly about why she didn't approach her parents about therians with Damian, but certainly not much else. He was more right than he knew about how much danger the both of them would be in if a therian was discovered on their property.
Finally Kayah forced away her unease, giving a reassuring shake and lifting her gaze. "They won't. Like I said, the shed hasn't been used for years." She flashed him a slightly-forced smile. "Besides, you're much more important than some 'what-ifs.'"
121//dami the damsel//sweety♥
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