[Absinthe]

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'You've had a long journey'

From the choking vines of Saboro to the suffocating freedom of Gemini, she has had a long journey.

Absinthe looked back only once at the ghost who lingered on the borders before doing as her Queen commanded, and it was a simple instruction, but one she was reluctant to follow: 'Report to the healing tree and have your wounds tended to.'

But not all her wounds were visible, not all of them were red, on the surface, oozing vulnerability for all to see. No, the majority were beneath her skin, festering and spreading their rot in her veins from her heart to her ever-fickle mind. They took from her what her mother did years ago, and they never stopped. She has been bled like a gut pig, strung up for it all to drain, and now she's tired. Now she's ready for it to all go away, but it won't.

She sees the skull, she hears her mother. It doesn't stop. When the decapitated head is covered, she can still hear it- all the muffled screaming of a banshee, of a hungry monster who dines only on misery, and Absinthe enabled that sin. She gave the ghost of gluttony and wrath everything it wanted, feeding it her hatred and anxiety and FEAR.

But she is away from the skull now, she is away, but she hears nothing, and that's so much worse.

Eventually, in the shade of the tree, she hears someone approaching, their footfalls a welcome distraction from the bickering voices in her head. She never could get along with Derringer, so why would that stop now?

"I can't see outta my left eye," she begins, assuming whoever approached was there to assist with her injuries and not end her misery all together. "I could when she scratched it, but it burned for awhile, and now I can't. She got my neck, too, and a few other places.. it all stopped hurting awhile ago.." a lie. A bold lie, she never stopped feeling the pain, but she believed she deserved it, just as her mother did.

"I can't sleep, either. You got something to make dreams go away?" and her voice? Can you make it disappear? "Is Gaius alright, is.. is.." she feels her throat tighten, she feels the air in her lungs freeze, she can't speak their guest's name, because it isn't them anymore. "Is.. he.. is not.. Gaius.. okay.. Has Serrate let him in? He helped me, he helped me carry the skins, please don't send him away, he needs help, too. Please help him.. I can't.. I couldn't.. I.. I.."

Don't kill him.

He's all I have left now.

OOC: either Rip can join with Hawthorne or Gothy can join with Kol Nidre, please and thanks!

[Hawthorne]

Hawthorne heard his wife's summons and did not go. He wanted to help, he told himself, but this gosh darn leg was giving him so much trouble today. He held his aching left hind crisscrossed over the other and stood in the roots of the great tree while people rushed to what must have been the border. It must have been another great tragedy. It must have been another beloved body to string out on a branch. He trembled, telling himself there was a draft, knowing there wasn't, letting his eyes fall to the earthy floor to watch a pretty little blue butterfly flutter aimlessly among dark walls.

He sighed. Well! Poor thing. That won't do. He labored to his feet and in one swift movement clasped the insect between his front paw and chest. He cradled it gently in lamb's wool and, on two legs now, hobbled awkwardly towards the sun. There, he let it free, quite unhurt. If only others could be so lucky!

It came to him immediately, and his stomach turned in on itself. A sickly sweet twang, the rotten drip of infection, the smell of a racing heart. He turned eyes full of the shivering sky to the she-wolf lying by one of the main entrances and—his head cocked.

"Absinthe?"

" I can't see outta my left eye. I could when she scratched it, but it burned for awhile, and now I can't. She got my neck, too, and a few other places.. it all stopped hurting awhile ago.. I can't sleep, either. You got something to make dreams go away? Is Gaius alright, is.. is.. Is.. he.. is not.. Gaius.. okay.. Has Serrate let him in? He helped me, he helped me carry the skins, please don't send him away, he needs help, too. Please help him.. I can't.. I couldn't.. I.. I.."

"Dear, dear," he said, coming beside her, tail low and ears back. Oh, it looked terrible. Serrate had such an injury once before. Back in Inaria. Before... so much. How awful. To feel nostalgic for fever. "Come inside, dear, I've just the things for you. Can you walk? Oh, I'm not much, but you can lean on me."

She got my neck, too.

She.

Ah.

The border came to him, after all.