[Sappara]

S A P P A R A Art | Aesthetic BG Credit

Sappara, Serrate, and Kol Nidre

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In which Sappara awakens from her nightmares, only to find herself facing her demons yet again.

She lay motionless, staring at the wall. She had done for what felt like weeks now, her chest ached (was it her heart, she wondered?). Her sleep was haunted by nightmares, and her senses were dulled. Her vision was a blur, just shapes and colours that she couldn't piece together. She couldn't reach out to push them away as they tried to fix her body, and so she just lay there.

Eventually, time moved on. The damage of what she had done continued to sink into her very core, and soon she was able to move her head, speak to her visitors, but there was not enough strength to stand up and walk.

Her recovery was slow.

(Why were they trying to save her, anyway?)

(Did her children still want her to be there for them?)

There was a pair of medics who often visited her and checked her wounds. Whether they were the ones who initially patched her up was unknown (they sounded young, she had passively listened to their conversations when they thought she was asleep). Originally they had tried to question her, but soon realised there was no point - Sappara desperately wanted to forget, and she certainly wouldn't haunt a pair of youths with her living nightmare.

So they kept her company when she was awake, sometimes they brought in family members (Zasha, Khanda, others). They would tell her about how the weather felt outside. How eventually they'd like to take her out for a walk, feel the fresh air and the soft grass beneath her feet.

Today she had blacked out while they were chatting to each other, and when she woke up, she was alone.

Or at least, she thought she was, until a shadow swept over her.

"Who--" She croaked, dragged her head across the floor to see who was in her room. They did not smell like her medics, and yet...they seemed familiar.

Her eyes locked with Serrate and Kol Nidre and time froze. Her mouth opened and closed, speechless, unsure of what to say, what to think. Serrate was supposed to be dead, surely? She disappeared from her throne and no one seemed to mention anything about it.

(And was it any surprise that Kol Nidre flocked to her side?)

The reality of the situation settled in, and Sappara wheezed a broken laugh, one that developed into a painful cough.

"Sabor. Sabora." Her breath rattled as she forced the words from her mouth.

"Are you...here to...kill me?"

[Sappara]

Akki left her with her head bowed, teeth fastened around an inconspicuous brown mushroom. She had plucked it and held it delicately in her mouth as she thought of what she would do next. Saliva pooled over its smooth surface, so softly she held it and so long she thought that she wondered, detached and distant, if it would put out new growth. Sprout between her teeth. Force itself into her lungs, her eyes, her ears, her limbs. Stuff her with fungus like Kol Nidre had been stuffed. Was it minutes or hours that she sat, her eyes staring at nothing, bulb held with promise between her teeth? 

It is not with flourish that she finally rises, but with wet chin. She has not the steely, unforgiving eyes of her forbearer, but vision lost to fog, to the white hot chasm that still burns. Funny, that the first thing to cut through this haze of pain and misery was the thought of vengeance long held in her heart; cold, sharp, focused. It would be miserable, later, to realize that this was the first thing to matter to her in the wake of her son—it would be miserable, but she saw nothing but the sharp RED TATTOOS painting the X on the map, felt nothing but the tingle of the mushroom on her tongue. As she found her way through the ancient tree, she could sense the white demon shadowing her. He was never so close that she could see him in her growing darkness. But she knew.

She bows her head and enters Sappara’s sanctum. It should be safe. Serene. Quiet. There had once been a cave not unlike this in the heart of Saboro. Dark. Secure. Hidden. Safe, serene, quiet. A haze of color swims before her—Sappara, prone, red eyes red tattoos an ocean of blue. It’s all swallowed by the darkness, but she can HEAR HOW HER BREATH SHAKES.

Akki’s body coils and cuts off the exit. His shadow swallows the light.

Her prisoner names her. Had Kol Nidre named her from his prison cell? Had he cried, begged for mercy, or had he asked if they meant to kill him? Wordlessly she lowers her head. She lays the mushroom, wet and slick, upon the ground. She leaves it between them, gathering dirt, lips peeling back as she tries to relieve herself of its departing taste. She doesn’t speak. She lets mycorrhizae speak for her. It is loud. It has questions. It demands justice.

“You,” she starts, broken, raw, like a boy who was meant to be KING, “Will answer to me.” Not the other way around. It was never meant to be the other way around. She hid herself as the dark Sabor carried out his dark plans. His kin had danced and twitched at Coven’s calling, but they had always been meant to ANSWER TO HER. They had not. She had not the presence nor power to make them.

Well. There was always time to change.

“Why… are you here?” seemed the most logical start. She was vaguely aware of the doctor, no doubt worried for his patient (WHY?—HAD AKKI LET HIM IN?), the lukewarm presence of the king who wasn’t meant to be. In another time she might have cared. She might have stayed her hand. She might have pulled the mushroom back and hidden her teeth. That Queen was long dead. Her threat hung in the air. It forged its way through the dark places. Between the roots of her very kingdom.

Mycorrhizae.

“Who sent you?” she asks, more pointedly, the beating of her heart sending lancing pain through the fissure in her head. Answer her. Make it quick. Or perhaps let it be drawn out, like a boy withering within the breast of a kingdom he’d loved. Let your eyes not focus, let your limbs not work, let your mind find itself forced into a box where it doesn’t belong, SAPPARA.

WHERE IS COVEN TO PROTECT YOU NOW? WHAT IS HE WORTH TO YOU?

(What a shame, that Kol Nidre would have to see this.)

[Sappara]

He had hesitated for a long time. The world around him spun, knocking down his barriers and securities until there was nothing left. A monsoon of emotions that swept over his furrowed brow as he stood in the door way to the Vulture's den. Golden eyes stared into that darkness for so long, contemplating what he was to do with her, if he could do anything at all. The Sabor — no — the Doctor shivered in his spot, seemingly ignoring the guard dog by his side, those pale eyes glistening with sharp intention. Nails pressed into soft Earth as the Fallen King tried to suppress his anger. His hurt. His grief. His desire to snap her neck. 

This was her fault. She was the reason behind Coven's excuse. Her and Zasha both had woven themselves into Coven's hand that they would take down their own King and Queen and for WHAT? 

But at least sweet Zasha didn't know any better. 

The Sabora, the Red Queen with RED TATTOOS was beside him, a mushroom clamped into her maw, ready to release Karma onto the blue Vulture. His golden stare moved to her, his own RED TATTOO glistened in the bands of sunshine peeking through the roots. If this had been Saboro, if their reign had not ended by the hands of a slave, perhaps the fallen Sabor would have hardened and punished her himself. Ordered the dogs to teach her a lesson. To let his Sabora bring down the hammer, crushing her will and traitorous desires. Coven too, would have been shoved down into the dirt he belonged to. 

But this was Gemini. Where Serrate was Queen and Kol Nidre a mere healer and nothing to the eyes of her kingdom. No authority, no say. Yet he followed her, quietly, within the confines of the Vulture's sanctuary. They had been healing her, healing Zasha. Kol Nidre had been so afraid for so long, shivering against Akki with promises not to hurt them. 

(You've always been so naive, Kol.) 

(THAT WAS YOUR DOWNFALL.)

The stale silence only ached his soul, remembering the lost and lonely nights. Never knowing what was up or down, or who was really there or just an illusion. Everything in that long year had been a daze, calling her name, begging for release and yet that bitter bile rose up every time. They meant to break him, grind him, to bleed him dry until he had nothing left to say. Until his name was forgotten and his power no longer influential. 

(And yet here was the Sabora, still a Queen.)

Serrate spoke, demanding and authoritative. Sappara had no power here, no voice loud enough to call her brother. She was weak, cornered. (Like he had been cornered with teeth gnashing.) Kol Nidre's golden stare was wide, focusing on her, ears listening to words he maybe didn't want to hear. The Sabora beside him questioned who sent her, though in the back of the Sabor's... Doctor's? (Who was he now?) A ping of paranoia called for Sappara to spill that Coven had been searching for them. Had been searching for him. The volcano eruption had spread many of the wolves residing within that jungle, did she escape? Or did Coven send her to reel him back into his cage? 

"Does it matter?" he said, swallowing the sticky saliva that clung to his throat like tar. He had been in no way harmful or menacing; Kol Nidre was far too innocent to have been the Sabor of Saboro, yet he pushed forward as if the broken crown had been picked up and placed upon his dirty head, pieces still embedded into flesh. (They took it away. THEY TOOK EVERYTHING AWAY FROM HIM.)

"Eat it."

[Sappara]

S A P P A R A Art | Aesthetic BG Credit

Her eyes don't leave the mushroom once it is placed on the ground, steady breaths echoing within the den, despite the feeling of something clawing within her chest. To think, after everything she had been through, after dragging her family out of the very depths of hell; she had led them straight into the arms of a vengeful Queen who had been wronged.

Sappara could admit, she had made many mistakes in her life.

(Would Serrate have let Knife happen? Would they have let a creature like Sol Katti flourish?)

“You, Will answer to me.”

Her gaze finally leaves the mushroom, meets Serrate's in a clash of red on red.

“Why… are you here?”

She wonders if her children have gone to their father's grave; if the Sabora had even let them. She wonders if Khanda is alive, or if they were burying her beside him. The thought is the first crack in her shell, and whatever was clawing inside her now had a firm grip.

“Who sent you?”

"An eruption," She began, unaware that Gemini had attended the scene of the disaster themselves. "Saboro had taken...so much from me...I wouldn't let it...do the same...to my children..." Her story came with each breath, an exhaustion from her illness that had lasted days or weeks (who even knew anymore?).  "It had already...taken their father..."

In a worthless war that gained them nothing, other than succeeding that making Sappara's life more miserable within the jungle. She hoped there was nothing left but ash.

"We buried him...outside your borders..." She was unaware of his presence, but perhaps Akki was reflecting on his choice to let her live. To let her rush off and unknowingly let her slip into a rage that would injure the majority of her own children. But then again, if she had not arrived there in time, would anything have stopped Sai from murdering Khanda?

Khanda...

"My daughters, they...wanted something to remember him by...but Khanda...she...she wandered too close..."

The shell shattered into pieces, and tears began to sting at her eyes. She forced them shut as she croaked out pathetically--

"Did I kill her?"

The first revelation for the group, perhaps, the discovery that Sappara remembered her own blind rampage.

"Does it matter?"

(Probably not, it's far too late to change anything now).

"Eat it."

A strange noise left her then, a mixture of a sob and a laugh; unnaturally high pitched and broken as she gasped for air.

"Only if it kills me."

[Sappara]

Kol Nidre is at her side. She doesn’t know when he got there. So absorbed in her narrow world view, she didn’t notice him until his voice slices through the air and aims for Sappara’s heart. But. But. But. The mushroom is not what would do it. No. Those had only been a tool. They were the mark left by Coven on them all. Their strange, contorting shapes, whispers and gasps, shadows clawing their way from the bottom and rising, rising, rising.

She is silent. She lets them speak. Sappara tries to meet her eyes. But they were milky and unfocused. Did the other wolf notice? Did she know? You are not the only one that has suffered. Saboro has taken from them all, but in the end, they were their own worst enemies. They could run as far as their legs would take them. They could press their backs against the end of the world. But the one thing that would always be there was THEMSELVES.

It does matter, Kol Nidre. It does matter. They hurt you, but there are so many other people here. But she stays silent. She pushes him forward. In this, he wore the crown. In this, he would decide. This was justice, the true kind. Not the kind that Sabora on high wielded. Not the kind that tore throats from daughters and swallowed the skin of lonely girls. She was angry. But Kol Nidre had been the one wronged. She and Akki agreed, silently, on one thing—and together, they presented to the Sabor a gift with apple in her mouth and bow fixed to her head.

Still. She wasn’t only the Sabora. She was Queen. She was Serrate. She was a mother. She’s known loss. She’s known grief so deep she felt she would never rise above it—she lived it. SHE WAS LIVING IT NOW. Her boy, skull still pink. Her boy, gods above, her boy, her boy, HER BOY. She owed Sappara nothing. She owed her less. And yet, as sure as her anger cleaved through the fog that consumed her, so quickly did a mother’s grief plunge her back into the mire. 

She wets her lips. Her child lay dead. Her little heir. He would have been good. He would have been great. She notches an arrow. She knew it would fly true and strike Sappara in her blackened heart. She quivers and pulls it back. She could loose it at any time and it would

DESTROY.

HER.

“No,” she finds herself saying. The mother breaks free and the mother works her jaws. “Your children are alive.”

It was a mercy. It would be the last one she granted. The mother sinks back into her heavy bones. Suddenly, she feels so, so tired. Her head pounds and something burns just behind her eyes. Suddenly, all she wants is for this to be over with. The mushroom lays between them. The Sabor has made his decision. “You will do as he says,” she instructs. That was all. There was nothing more for them to say.

The mushroom sat between them. Saliva dried sticky on its surface. Brown and earthy and common, it was not like the colorful growths in Saboro. It was something entirely different. It would do none of the things that Kol Nidre was forced to endure. She knew that. Kol Nidre must, as well. But fear was a powerful thing. The brown and earthy and common things could do a whole lot more than they were born to. They could do anything the masses thought of them.

A forepaw lifts and pushes the mushroom forward.

[Sappara]

[size=8pt]She begins to weave her story, a story he knew all too well. One Kol Nidre lived through as the world was plunged into fiery chaos against plumes of ash. The eruption had sent Saboro into a frenzy, one that stirred the hive into action. The Doctor could feel the ghostly teeth wrap around his throat once more, squeezing and suffocating. If the fallen King hadn't pulled the broken crown back onto his head, he would've trembled, would've felt the fear bear down upon him heavily. Maybe he would've been more sympathetic to the mother's decision to leave her brother's empire in order to save her children. The war had taken from her. 

As it had taken from all of them. Akki still saw the blood on his hands, heard the whistle of a young girl's body flying through the air. 

Again, Kol swallowed the thick saliva accumulating on his tongue. He kept quiet along side Serrate, thoughts buzzing like static on a screen. Sympathy could not come easily from any of them, they all felt the loss that life dealt them. Sappara lost her mate, tried to save her children. Kol Nidre lost his daughter, tried to save a Queen. Serrate lost her son, tried to save her kingdom. Blood was thick on their fur, the smell of death fresh within their minds. The only difference between now and then, was Serrate was still QUEEN. 

(You fell long ago.)

Sappara gave an unbelieving laugh at the broken King's demand to eat the small fungus before her. Irony had always been funny, one of life's many thorns that both tickled and stung the side. Kol Nidre shifted on sore paws, ears resting against his skull as he felt like lunging forward and forcing the mushroom down her throat just as he was forced to endure Coven's poison. Patience, he told himself. The key to being a ruler was patience, a trait he could hardly contain now when before it was but a simple concept when he actually was KING. The Vulture's response was met with a same type of laugh, one choked and forced, cracked and high-pitched that reverberated against the earthen walls unnaturally. "Kill you?" he breathed with ragged breaths. "Why don't you find out?" he offered. Kol Nidre was running out of patience. 

The calm voice of Serrate broke his intense trance. She offered that the blue woman's children were alive. Golden eyes shifted to the Queen, noticing she was faltering. The crack in her head was not healed just yet, it may never heal he feared. Kol Nidre did not know the fate of her prognosis, and the worry began to chew at the edges of his mask. She made her command though, smooth as silk as she was born to give them. Memory flashes back to a time where the Red Queen had made her decision for her daughter and the son of the Harrier to sit together on the throne, yet the eyes of a slave burned with hatred for them both. That slave would eventually tear down the foundations of their reign, yet Kol Nidre shook his head, trying to focus. 

(You have to focus.)

It was hard, the poisons had worn away the capabilities of concentration. Golden gaze would watch the mushroom roll toward Sappara, his eyes tracing the outline of her feet before he followed the lines of her legs up to her neck and finally her spiraled tattoos. He expected her to take the cap into her mouth and swallow the sticky poison. 

She didn't want to find out what would happen if she did not. 

[Sappara]

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"Kill you? Why don't you find out?"

She lifted a paw, quivering ever so slightly, and hovered it above the mushroom. She made no further action, not until her question was answered, not until she knew that there were no more graves of her loved ones. Blurry visions of Khanda visiting her flash in her mind, but she didn't trust herself to know whether they were real anymore. If her former leaders had seen what she had seen, they'd understand her desperate need for clarification.

“No, Your children are alive.”

There was no sigh of relief. She remained silent as she slowly dragged the mushroom towards her, claws scraping along the ground, examining it for a few seconds. More memories flickered into her mind, of a blue girl's aspirations and dreams to become a herbalist someday. Was this ironic then, that if that little girl could follow her dreams, she'd know exactly what was going on here? Somewhere outside of this hole, there was a little blue girl with red hair searching through the flowers for something that can help. A group of blue and brown siblings who still held the hope that they could do something for their mother--

She ate the poison.

"They'll be upset," She said quietly after she swallowed the foul-tasting shroom. "But they're not...like me. They're not going to be like me." They may lose both of their parents quickly like she did, but she had to keep telling herself - this was not Saboro. This was not Saboro. They had each other, and they had other family here that they would learn about. Francisca could--

Francisca.

"This...sickness that I have. Wh-what did your people call it?..." She looked dazed as she tried to remember, her mind a whirlwind of colours and movement and voices that befuddled her. She remained quiet for a moment, scrunching her eyes shut and lifting a paw to her head like it stung. "Fury." What an appropriate name, a quiet voice muttered in the back of her tormented thoughts. "I thought this was my own struggle, a punishment for everything I had done but..." She moved her head up to look at them.

"Francisca has it, too." Did that mean that her daughter remembered what had happened too? She wished she could go out and find her, ask her, apologise- "I remember fighting with her."

She swallowed and it felt thick, like there was tar in her throat.

"If my children lash out when they find out what happened to me, they might have the Fury themselves. But they don't...they wouldn't know what they were doing."

THEY WON'T BE LIKE ME.