[EP] The eye of the storm

[st_arkcrowblack]

Anybody coming to find out what all the noise in the lobby had been about would find a girl sitting on the floor with a cat in her lap, bloodied hands stroking over its black fur.

When Yasmeen had gone away, when Sansa had gone away, Snow had managed to get herself out and away from the inn where she could let her noise out without fearing any person, or more importantly, the horses. And both those times, Kash had found her and helped her scrape herself back together. She had come so much to rely on him being there, that at first she hadn't believed it. She'd gone searching, like a child trying to grasp the meaning of dead. She'd wandered all over the grounds, gone to his room, gone to the stables, gone to the clinic, walked miles of paths. It was only then that she'd given up and asked Darryl.

Then she lost her shit.

She howled, threw anything small and breakable that she could lay her hands on, and punched the walls until her knuckles were raw and bleeding.

What was she going to do without him? Kash had always been there for her when she didn't think she could talk to anybody else. He had saved Juno. Who would help her now when any of the animals were injured or sick? Who would hear what she was saying, even when she couldn't say it? He was her friend. Perhaps the best friend she'd ever had.

This was what happened when you trusted people. They just left. They just fucking left.

And she probably would have screamed herself hoarse if it weren't for the feeling of a furry little body slinking around one of her ankles. Of course she wouldn't have been the only one left behind (which was a cruel and unfair thing to think, she was not the only person who loved Kash. She just didn't care right now). She crumpled to her knees and Socks climbed into her lap. After a long moment she began to pet him, no longer the little kitten she'd held out to Kash last Christmas. There was no peace in the silence, but she could not continue to rage with Socks holding her down. The moment he left that place, it would all rise up again. So for now, she sat there in the mess she'd made, staring at nothing, her blood running into his fur.

Comments

[st_artandstoke]

Jag stepped gingerly over to Snow, but stopped a cautious few feet from her, and sat down across from her, cross-legged. "Hey."

He wasn't sure what the fuck was going on, but something was. He wasn't sure he could help, but she was even angrier than him. So he could be there, and not judge her, just in case it helped.

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow said nothing in answer. There were not words for this. There had barely been wordless noises for this. The howling, for all the racket it had made, was hardly a dent in the maelstrom. It was all still whirling around inside her, telling her to tear down the ceiling, the walls, the tacky furniture. Tear down the whole world. It was a little world, surely she could do it.

But she didn't reject the company either. She didn't shrink back or hiss at him or show any other sign of displeasure. Well. No further sign of it anyway. Her hands stayed soft on the cat's back, and she continued to pet and bleed and pet.

[st_artandstoke]

Jag wasn't a big talker, anyway. He reckoned if she wanted him gone, she would have told him to fuck off somehow. He let the silence stretch, watching the steady stroke of her bloodied hands over the cat's fur.

Eventually, he looked back up at her. "We should stop by the clinic, when you feel like moving. For your hands."

He wasn't looking for an answer; it was a statement, really.

Snow & Jag

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow was all but ignoring the pain in her hands, or using it on some level, a physical distraction from how much her heart hurt. She had been by the clinic earlier, but now, knowing Kash wouldn't be there, knowing that the only people who would be there were a bland little man nobody seemed to know and an alcoholic buffoon, neither of whom she trusted or liked...

She screwed her eyes shut and shook her head.

Kitty & Snow

[st_alksthroughwalls]

One good turn, do unto others, simple kindness. Call it what you wanted to call it. Piotr's departure yesterday didn't make her less sensitive to Kashaw and Zahra's departure. If anything, she was more so.

And without Kash to heal the wounds Snow had made in her hands, well. When Kitty saw her, she brought water, gauze and betadine she kept behind the counter in the bar. She didn't try to talk anymore than Snow had.

Re: Kitty & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow's eyes were wide and wild like any horse she'd ever had to bring back out of a state of panic, and she stared at Kitty like she hardly dared to blink. But she didn't shy away. Didn't growl. Didn't hiss or spit. Her breath hitched and sped up, but she only watched. And watched. And kept her hands soft on the cat's spine.

Re: Kitty & Snow

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"If I promise not to talk, will you let me tend them?" Kitty asked, coming near enough to put the supplies down for Snow if she said no, but not invading her space all together.

She knew perfectly well she wasn't anyone Snow wanted. But if she didn't offer sympathy or ask any stupid questions, Snow might at least tolerate her presence.

Re: Kitty & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

To be fair to Kitty, there was only one person Snow really wanted to see, only apparently she was never going to see him again. She couldn't accept this. Couldn't bear this. If it weren't for the cat, she knew she would fly apart.

But she didn't bare her teeth or snap or snarl. She didn't answer either, not in words. Instead her body... deflated rather than relaxed, back melting against the wall.

It was as close to a yes as she was capable of giving anyone.

Snow & Vax

[st_abby]

When Vax heard the howling... He hadn't known who it could be. And it occurred to him, as he watched the girl rage from a hidden distance, that he hardly knew Snow's voice as he heard it. Shit. However much he would miss Kashaw and Zahra, for all his love of them... He didn't need them to function, as Snow had needed Kashaw.

Once the violence seemed to have bled out of the girl, the cat settled into her lap, her wounds tended if not healed... That was when Vax approached. He was silent as shadow, but he knew how easily she startled, so he made sure she could see him walking towards her from the front and at a ways off.

Re: Snow & Vax

[st_arkcrowblack]

Even if someone had been able to heal her wounds magically, Snow probably would have turned down the offer. She did not like for magic to be used in or on her body. Poisonings would do that to a girl. The only person she'd likely allow to do that was Kash, and only because it was Kash and it would mean he was not gone after all.

She did not consciously know how much she appreciated the gentle approach, but when she looked up it was at least a largely blank look and not a hostile one.

Re: Snow & Vax

[st_abby]

When he got close enough to look her in the eyes, his own a bit red, he was silent for an uncomfortable moment. Struggling with what to say or do. He would've hugged her, if he thought she'd left herself be.

Instead, Vax eased himself down to sit beside her on the ground a good foot away, glancing over at her hands and the kitten. Kashaw's cat. He should've gone to get Trinket, probably, but he didn't want to take her sister's companion away from her just now any more than he would take the cat from Snow. "It's a shitty thing that's happened with Kash gone," he said, quietly and a bit hoarsely. "And I'm sorry that it has."

Re: Snow & Vax

[st_arkcrowblack]

No one had just said it. No one had just shot right through the heart of it. Snow was not given to displays of emotion other than anger. She could scream, she could punch, she could kick, she could shoot. She could be solid, silent stone. But it was a good deal harder to smile or laugh. It was harder to talk, to share, to vocalize.

And the hardest of all...

Snow sniffled, and surprised herself by sniffling. And then the tears started running and she couldn't lift her hands to scrub them away. And then she was just crying.

[st_alkingherprey]

"Do you need something alive to hit?"

She'd heard the commotion, come to see--and while Snow's rage was a little frightening, it wasn't disturbing. It was, in a lot of horrible ways, familiar.

It was the thing she ran from for so long, cutting out pieces of herself so she wouldn't fall into that pit. It was the fire and the fury that became love and pleasure and healing when she let it in and cherished it the way Jason had taught her to. Until he'd gone, she'd stopped running, stopped fearing...she grieved and moved and thought like a normal person.

Allison couldn't do that anymore. So she went back to cutting.

Standing near the desk, out of the way of projectiles, Allison waited until the sleek little cat (dark like Todd, put him away, forget him and cut him out) stopped the torrent, then finally spoke up before she walked towards Snow, crouching a couple of feet away out of both caution and deference.

When she'd lost Jason, she'd feared and craved help. When she lost him, she died inside for a while...when Jason was gone, Allison had put on the mask and torn through a lot of bodies.

"Sometimes, your own blood isn't enough." she continued, a mixture of grim knowledge and sorrow in her otherwise stoic expression. "If you need something alive to hit, we can go outside. Only thing I'll ask is you let me check your hands--as long as they aren't broken, we're good to go. I can take it, promise."

Snow & Allison

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow didn't realize Allison was there at first. It was like trying to sense the world through water. Everything was slow, blurry, muffled, indistinct. And not particularly wanting to come up for air, Snow didn't fight to make sense of the words. The meaning sank in slowly and not all in order.

She lifted her head slowly and stared, eyes wide and blank and uncomprehending. Broken? Her hands? A body was just a body, it didn't matter if they were or not (but she knew they weren't, they didn't hurt nearly enough for a broken bone).

Re: Snow & Allison

[st_alkingherprey]

The blank look Allison got in response was worrisome--but she'd still seen worse, or at least similar. She'd seen varying degrees of animal emotion in her life, felt them in some degree...if Allison hadn't learned to compartmentalize so early on, she could have been Snow, which was a troubling thought.

With a breath, Allison rose, but didn't straighten, shuffling forward and sinking to a crouch again closer--about a foot, still on Snow's level. It was a compromise between behaving normally and taking the same caution she'd give any wounded creature in the wild.

"Can I see your hand? Please?"

Re: Snow & Allison

[st_arkcrowblack]

At first, Snow didn't move at all. Now that she had been pinned down here by the cat, she didn't know if she could. It was all or nothing, and she feared if she set herself into motion again, everything she'd tried to nail down in herself would come shaking loose.

She took a deep breath before she even attempted to lift her hand. At first, she could only get her fingers to twitch while still feeling something like stable. Then she managed to lift her wrist. After what seemed like half of forever, she offered out her hand.

[st_ripetail]

The lobby wasn’t usually a disaster area, but it also usually didn’t contain a bloody Snow with a kitten. Rocket’s ears flattened briefly, but he walked up to the girl anyway. “Bad morning?”

Snow & Rocket

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow looked up from her lap, at first not finding Rocket with her gaze. All she had registered was that a voice had spoken and she dazedly looked up to where someone of an adult human's stature would be before lowering her eyes. She stared at him for a long moment, trying to see if she could form words, any words, even something so simple as a yes or no.

Eventually she gave up and gave a single creaking nod.

Re: Snow & Rocket

[st_ripetail]

Yeah, that seemed about right. Rocket got verbal when he was upset, but Snow was different. “Wanna destroy some shit?”

Vex & Snow

[st_ubby]

Vex had been taking a shift in the clinic when she'd seen Lillith's message. She could have gotten someone else to cover, or put a damn sign on the door telling anyone to go looking for one of the doctors, but once she'd heard from Percy and Vax over the earrings to overcome the immediate panic that she'd lost one or both of them too, it had seemed best to stay where she was, where someone could find her if they needed. But she'd worried. About Lillith. About Curnen. About Snow.

So when, on her way through the lobby, she saw Snow, broken and bloody and cradling Kash's cat, she didn't even think. She released Trinket from Raven's Slumber, inky black darkness flowing from the necklace and coalescing into the beloved bear as she crossed to drop to her knees beside Snow.

Trinket dropped down in front of Vex and Snow, blocking them off from the rest of the room without Vex having to tell him something was wrong. His head pressed gently against Snow's leg, not disrupting the tiny (to him) ball of fur that smelled of cat and Kash.

"I'm so sorry, darling."

Re: Vex & Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow hadn't realized how much she'd longed for Trinket until he was there, and her first movement was to lift her hand from the cat's back to stroke his head.

What if he were next? And Vex. Vax. Jag. Rocket. Dyson.

Mama.

The scream started to build up in her chest again, and she didn't think she could hold it in. She screwed her eyes shut.

Re: Vex & Snow

[st_ubby]

Trinket's head pressed up against her hand. He didn't need words to show he was right here and not going anywhere. Snow was sad, and Vex was too, and Trinket would take care of them.

Vex could remember coming on Snow out in the desert after the quiet redhead and the brazen pirate captain 'checked out', and she felt like she could still hear her friend's screams. She knew she could see it building now.

"Scream if you want. Let it all out." From the state of the lobby and of Snow's hands, she'd already been doing that, but sometimes it felt like a void that would never end. "If anybody has a problem with it, they'll have me and Trinket to answer to." Moving slowly, carefully, she reached up to stroke a hand over Snow's hair, ready to stop at any sign it was unwanted. While touch and affection were natural and necessary for Vex, Snow so often shied away from it. From everyone except sometimes Kash, and fuck this place all over again for taking him and Zahra away.

The fear, when she hadn't known if Vax or Percy had been taken as well, was still close even though she knew they were still safe here with her. And while Vex tried not to think of it too much, she couldn't deny that focusing on Snow and her pain was keeping Vex from losing it herself.

Regina x Snow

[st_oriedqueen]

Regina had been out for a morning ride, so the message came to her late. She'd just brushed down Grace and returned her to her stall when she checked her messages. No sooner had she seen it than she felt the tears jump to her eyes.

Oh, Snow.

Focusing her magic, she sought the necklace Snow still wore and tracked it to the lobby. The mess she found there told her that Snow had already learned, as did the look on her face. Regina gave a pained sigh and slid down the wall beside her daughter and put an arm around her. Words would come later. Her presence mattered first.

Re: Regina x Snow

[st_arkcrowblack]

Snow had wanted her mama since she'd first received the message. But without her, she'd gone on her wandering instead.

And now that she had Regina, she could only flinch away from her mother's touch.

She was more aware than ever that Regina could be next, and she couldn't bear the thought on top of everything.

Re: Regina x Snow

[st_oriedqueen]

Snow hadn't flinched from her touch in so long that it startled her brows up and frown to her lips. She pulled her arm back but not without a gentle stroke of her hand over her daughter's hair.

"Will you let me see your hands at least?" Regina's skill with healing was paltry but cuts were within her province. She'd healed Henry's for years.