captive of the night;; self-para
Time heals all wounds. At least, that was what everyone seemed to tell her, but Ari wasn't so certain she believed that anymore. The longer she thought about what had happened, the worse she seemed to feel about it all. Her father was dead, she was still hurt, and despite what she had managed to accomplish in her mission, the Obscura threat was worsening with each day. Without the full mobility of her dominant arm, Ari felt useless. There was still a lot she could do, certainly, but it didn't feel like it. The brace enveloping her shoulder made her feel constricted, a suffocating thought for someone like Ari. She wanted to move, to do something, to fight back against everything she was feeling, but she couldn't.
In Ari's situation, time was simply exacerbating the wounds and making them all the worse, a slow poison in her mind. The feelings of guilt had infected her every thought, making it nigh impossible to escape. No matter what Ari seemed to do, the thoughts were consistently there at the back of her head, festering and dragging her down with every passing second. Time wasn't healing anything and Ari was starting to question if it ever could. It didn't matter what she tried to do, everything ended up the same- a failed attempt to fix everything that was broken. Her arm would be fine, but Ari wasn't so sure if she would be. Whatever it was she needed to snap out of the current funk she was in just wasn't happening and she was starting to get quite perturbed by it.
On a normal day, Ari was already aggressively irritable, but those feelings were simply enhanced by the state of things, as well as the approaching full moon. With every passing day, the full moon was drawing nearing. Ari grew sicker from it's effects, but also angrier. If there was any overwhelming feeling in her at the moment, it was anger. Anger over her father's death, anger over her shoulder, but most of all, anger over the Obscura and everything they had done and were threatening to do to the remaining shreds of her life. They'd taken almost everything from her as it was, so she certainly didn't like the sinking feeling that they could just as easily finish the job.
Letting out a shaky breath, Ari gripped onto the side of her desk as her body started to shake again. The anger was taking over once more, Ari could feel it's effects seeping through her, and there was little she could do about it. She tried to calm herself down, she always did, but nothing seemed to work for her anymore. Not now, with the full moon looming ever closer. She was bound captive to the whims of the moon, the intensity of her feelings varying with the onset of the darkness each night. No matter how much Ari liked to think she was a free person, able to do as she pleased, she would forever remain bound to the moon and damage it wrought through her body day in and day out.
Despite her attempts to calm down and continue working, the rage building up inside her was starting to take over completely, rendering Ari completely incapable of functioning. Clenching her hand into a fist, Ari shoved her desk back away from her, shaking her head in her best attempt to clear it. Breathing out again, Ari was still unable to focus on anything, her mind a jumbled mess of emotions and thoughts. Sliding backwards in her chair with a loud clatter, Ari stalked out of her room, her three dogs trooping after her with concerned interest.
Howard paused, his head drooping when he realized that his human wasn't okay at all. Putting his nose down, Howard pushed Nutmeg back away from Ari, making sure the tiny pup didn't try to bother the human. The three dogs watched, their eyes growing with sadness when Ari left from the room, the door slamming behind her. Howard ushered the other two back into the bedroom, nosing at them lightly to head back in to the bed. Obviously, they had to keep their human's bed warm to make sure she was happy upon her return.
Without any destination in mind, Ari left from the castle in a daze, paying attention to nothing more than her feet moving one after the other, taking her away from her office. Keeping to the trend of the last few weeks, Ari found herself out by the lake again. It was the one place in the castle where she felt most at home. There weren't any people around, just the calmness of the lake expanding in her field of view. The small ripples battering against the shoreline in a rhythmic fashion tended to help Ari relax some, but for whatever reason it just wasn't helping that day. Though they calmed her minimally, she couldn't seem to put a cap on the rage coursing through her.
A low growl in her throat, Ari ripped at the brace around her shoulder, shredding it and ripping it from her arm, and letting her arm fall free. It was healing well, now capable of large movements, but the finer touches were still lost to her as it continued to slowly repair itself from the trauma she had endured. However, none of that mattered right now to Ari. She didn't want the restriction of the brace, she didn't want to feel suffocated. For a little while, she wanted to feel normal. Well, as normal as the situation would allow.
Balling her hands up into fists, Ari was blinded by the increasing anger as she started to pound her fists into the tree next to her. Every punch with her right arm sent intense, shooting pains up her arm, unsettling the healing process with each blow. Both of her fists started to tear up, the skin being ripped away from her knuckles as they dragged across the rough surface of the tree bark. Blood started to pool within the grooves of the tree, her efforts weakening more and more with every passing moment.
A few minutes into her rampage, Ari lost her energy, sinking down to the ground in a shaking heap. Both of her hands were bleeding, broken, and bruised, and her right arm was once again starting to go limp. All Ari could do at the time, however, was sit there, silently brooding in her thoughts as she started to calm down from her outburst.
