#byhalves

[andundone]

A FUGITIVE’S LIFE HASN’T BEEN AN EASY ONE. Not even for The Conqueror who had once stalked coastlines, mountains, plains, and woodland to stake his claims in fire and brimstone. Though he’d walked his purpose alone, he hadn't truly been alone. Not with his fellow skeksis always eager to welcome him back to the Castle with open claws and a feast to celebrate his blood-stained return. And though he doesn't miss them — can't miss them when they so cruelly deny them all the comfort of wholeness — he still finds himself aching with a dull throb he's certain is supposed to translate into a feeling he can’t name. 

urGoh could. But urGoh is out foraging far below amongst the rocky crags, leaving skekGra to thoughts that scrape at his skull like his own talons. The further his urRu trails off, the less he feels in the moment and the more he glares out at the horizon from their makeshift hideaway of desert stone.

A welcome distraction comes in the silhouette of a visitor; a visitor that both halves of a ruptured whole know well in one form or another. In fact, The Heretic hadn't actually been sure if it would be skekMal or urVa who would pass through this time. Any familiar face is a cherished luxury for an exile still unaccustomed to the long spaces of silence. Even if that face is one that always seems so displeased to see him.

“Ah, yes, come in, come in! We knew you would find us again. Took you long enough!” But The Archer’s stern eyes cut through him, sharp as his well-aimed arrows. Stops him in his tracks when he’d rushed over to greet him and props his clawed hands atop his hips with a very dramatic huff. “Oh, what is it this time? Think I’m gonna go crawling back to the Emperor with urGoh in a cage? Bound and gagged for the dungeons? Hmph. Always so suspicious, skekM—” A slip of the tongue, clumsy and cumbersome in his beak. Hitches his breath sharp in his throat and instantly turns his face away with an awkward shifting of weight from foot to foot.

Technically... he hadn't been wrong. It doesn't help that his kinship with The Hunter has only endeared The Archer to some part of him still churning warm with innate recognition; the lonely outcast greeting an old friend, no matter the shape. “...You, uh. You look good, y’know. The past trine been kind to you, then?”

@byhalves   /   skekGra for urVa

[andundone]

FRUSTATION. IMPATIENCE. SKEPTICISM. ANGER. Turmoil visited often within a vessel torn a pale shred from its whole — a half of something so much better, so much more that this sundered thing can't shake the ache of wanting in its bones. Not since Thra illuminated his path in a vision that had rocked him to his fractured core. Not since he'd finally sought to reunite with a counterpart he'd once leered at beneath warpaint and spite.

That counterpart lurks somewhere behind him; a presence he feels as much as hears in a crunching of sand beneath feet used to long wanders. It's been like this since they've lingered at each other's sides. A stirring of heat that either swells with the mystic's closeness or fades with his distance. Right now it's a warm weight at the back of his neck that soothes the edges of frayed nerves like a low, hummed note. But not entirely, as suggested by bristled feathering and a growl simmering at the base of his throat.

“...Still bothers me. The prophecy,” he admits. “Aaaand the waiting, the watching, the listening, the waiting, the wondering, the thinking, the pleading, the waiting.” He clacks his toothy beak in garbled gnashing. “Did I mention the waiting?”

skekGra’s tail gives a sudden flick, a hard swish through the dirt. Like any predator with a hollow ache and no bone to chew into. “You think Thra really cares about specifics? Our hands are perfectly capable of doing what some scrawny gelfling's supposed to.” Talons flex with blatant restlessness and to further emphasize his point. “I mean, we got so many more of ‘em!”

@byhalves  /  skekGra for urGoh