THE BEAUTIFUL ONES \\ OPEN, JOINING

[Sheogorath]

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[CATALYST]

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[LINK]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-size: 8pt; line-height: 1.35; padding: 4px;"]Oh, to walk into war without knowing — his father would laugh if he ever knew. Brittle, pained and through clenched teeth, eyes wide and frightened, but still — he'd laugh. He'd always wanted a soldier for a son; perhaps this would give him what he'd asked for, what he'd been denied twenty-five years ago. [As if anything had ever been taken from him. As if anything had ever been given to him in the first place.]

The first man was older than him. Few so far out ever seemed to be — lifespans were condensed into a couple of decades at most, dreams severed midway and crushed beneath a heel. To be a city-dweller again would be to accept security, an existence longer than half a breath or three mere heartbeats — but this was more exciting. His veins itched for more than cyclical constancy; his sister had always maintained that it was better to burn out than to fade away. Link had been content to fade, comfortably waning, but the exhaustion of travelling, the burn of the cut on his thigh, the fear of not knowing when or where from or if an attack would come— it pushed life into him, setting his soul alight.

He opened his mouth to speak, closed it as a second man interrupted him before he ever spat out a word. In comparison to this, the first had been practically mundane, though he knew very little here would ever count as boring. Interest bled into alarm bled into interest again, pink high on his cheeks, and he scuffed a foot against the ground, mulling over Sheogorath's words and refusing to look him in the eye. There was something empty about that laugh, lacking to those jokes, as if once, the redhead hadn't been kidding. Link wondered how long it had been, wondered if he had the right to judge. He'd known what he'd been getting into, but he didn't feel afraid — Sheogorath seemed... sad. Vacant, lacking in places. Absently, he wondered where, and how, and why, and if there was a way for him to fill in the spaces.

The warning stuck, though, blaring like bells as a third dragged themselves over. More dangerous to go against us. Link was no fool — he smelled the threat, tension palpable in the air. If he dragged his finger through it, he imagined it'd come away dark and murky, muddied and viscous. He swallowed, throat clicking, and suppressed the urge to busy his hands, realising with an abrupt, aborted flinch that he hadn't yet said a word. He'd stayed silent for so long that he was beginning to resemble a mute. [If only.]

"I know where I am," he finally managed, though by no means unkindly — he spoke warmly, easily, offering Mordecai a gentle half-smile. "And—" his gaze flitted towards Sheogorath, up and down and away again— "I know it's dangerous. 's good to hear that you won't– uh– hurt me, though."

Shifting his weight to his back foot, he restudied the trio before him. Number one didn't seem to be a threat at all, just disgruntled; number two posed a threat, but had explicitly stated he wouldn't; and number three was quiet, dangerous, like a panther waiting to strike. An injured panther, but a panther nonetheless. "I want to stay," he continued after only a brief pause, "danger or no danger.– oh– I'm Link."

[CATALYST]

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[LINK]

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i’m on my mobile so sorry for any mistakes )

For a group often in close contact with others, the Badlands was surprisingly isolated. It wasn’t that such a location wasn’t smart— from a defensive point of view, it was certainly a logical place to settle, mountain pass notwithstanding — but for an outsider looking in, the journey from any place outside the Badlands inwards was… exhausting. Perhaps, he reasoned with himself, that was the point — making a place unavailable typically wasn’t a subconscious decision — but he was allowed to entertain himself with selfishness. To make the journey alone was surprisingly monotonous, and having arrived without being mugged, he hadn’t seen another face since he passed the border of his home city. Not that he wasn’t well-accustomed to the quiet anyway, but introversion aside, it was nice to know that soon, he’d be speaking again, irrespective of the situation in which his voice would be required. He was no stranger to the rumours surrounding this group, but his sister had told him to try something impulsive. Inexplicably, he doubted that by impulsive, she hadn’t meant join the Badlands, but he’d never done things by half. If he was to break routine, he’d sever it, not snip ineffectually with blunt scissors.

His calf burned from a shallow cut, but it was nothing he hadn’t suffered before, and nothing comparable to the many broken bones he’d acquired over the years. Still, he could hear his mother’s fretting in the back of his mind, his father’s hypothesis that the coddling was what had made his son so… non-confrontational. Haunted distaste had always sliced deeper than any physical injury, and though he hadn’t been privy to every instance of his father’s irritation, he had felt each remark like a blow. His father wasn’t here, though, miles from home. His father was, he knew, just as worried as his mother.

Breath released in a low sigh, Link stopped the minute the mountains broke into plains. The ocean called to him, pungent salt and screaming birds, but the path cut through the town and he had the sneaking suspicion that such a walk would be mistaken for infiltration. Death, surprisingly enough— he knew— was not on his to-do list for the day and patience had always been a virtue of his. It was smarter to be discovered here than in the thick of their winding roads, stealing towards the sea like a man possessed.

[MORDECAI]

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