[Shrike]

If there was a polar opposite of Saboro, she thought, it must be Gemini. Even the fresh breeze upon her back was completely unlike the sweltering humidity of the rain forest. This land in its’ wide open glory sought to liberate and heal, where Saboro sought to suffocate and destroy. 

It was an odd thought in her own head. Cancerous. Treasonous.

Turning, swiftly, as though to dispel the thought, she faced her children. Four of five. “Don’t wander far,” she warned them. “And don’t trust. We aren’t here to make friends, we’re here to heal.” Gemini was just a pit stop; it wasn’t a home-- not theirs, anyway. 

“Speak nothing of Saboro.” The burning red markings upon her body said all; but there was still a finely weaved paranoia in the firebird’s mind. Even if they knew from whence she came, they deserved to know nothing more. And that fear and uncertainty squeezed at her heart and screamed not to let them close. They couldn’t be trusted. None of them.

“And please...” the voice of a tired mother. “Be careful.” 

[Avery!]

They said that nobody ever really chose evil for its own sake; this sad old world was full of lost souls who mistook it for the good they sought like children rooting for milk. Tell that to Avery and she’d roll her eyes, maybe that’s why all the redtats are turning this place into a god damn retirement home, thieves and murderers and torturers apparently struck with the urge usually after A Certain Age to wipe all the blood off their paws and settle down somewhere... mostly safe.

She didn’t like it. She knew she was a hypocrite for not liking it. That didn’t seem to stop her from avoiding her strange bedfellows, her fellow damned wherever she could, and growing tense whenever their paths inevitably crossed. Red marks, red strings, they both connected her to a past she’d yet to leave behind.

Avery was tired, craving peaceful self-isolation, but the restless buzzing energy in her blood drew her to walk the borders, looking for... well. A distraction. Something to do that wasn’t chasing the tail of her own racing thoughts. Boy, did she get one. She picked up the scent, wrestling with some hot burst of emotion in her chest, that brief whirl of alarm and dread and anger and fear and maybe within it all a thread of longing... and begin to trail. It took her but a handful of hours.

“Shrike,” the firebird named her estranged daughter. Her voice was quiet but her eyes burned unblinking into the crafty blue — who had she inherited that from? Avery would never know for sure.

Why are you here? she almost demanded. You closed this door, she didn’t quite manage to say. There’s no place for you here, nightwalker, keeper of secrets. But Avery was looking at the children flanking Shrike, studying them as they moved and breathed and regarded her back.

“Who are they?”

Am I... a grandmother? Fuck, she was getting old.

---

@Kiri

[Kite]

Saboro was merely a disregarded memory — he hadn't known it, not as his mother had. It was a jungle. It was dark. It was hot and humid and his mother didn't like the place, so neither did Kite. There was no turmoil in the boy as they walked further and further from all he had ever known, he merely walked dutifully by his mother's side.

Don’t wander far, she instructs them, and Kite scoffs lightly at the warning, pale sky blue eyes glaring up at his firebird mother. "I'm not leaving you." He grumbles, as though insulted that she'd think he'd ever wander off. The others could go get lost if they wanted — he preferred to be by Mother's side. The rest of her words fade to the back of his mind, a pair of scuffling lizards catching the boy's attention instead. It wasn't as though any of her warnings applied to him much anyways, he never made any trouble. As she speaks, the chubby boy toward the lizards, leaping forward to catch one of the distracted creatures beneath his heavy paws. Good, a snack. Noisily, the boy snatches the creature up and crunches away at it.

He'd have been happy to sit by his mother and chomp away at his snack, perhaps take a nap afterwards, but the sudden appearance of a stranger tosses that pleasant thought out the window. The red woman (she looks like Mother — but her eyes are wrong) calls his mother's name, and instantly the boy's hackles begin to raise. Jaws crush and swallow his mouthful of lizard, its decapitated head falling to the ground along with bits of drool.

Who are they?

"Who are you?" Kite demands, kicking the saliva coated lizard head toward the red woman as he moved to stand protectively by his mother.

[Cobra]

#d12106

The outside world meant freedom, that's what mother mumbled sometimes, though Cobra didn't understand at all what she meant. Just like she didn't understand much of what was happening, following the fiery woman and siblings, but asking tons of questions a long the way. They too meant nothing, lacking understanding and depth. Cobra was always known to babble, much to the dismay of her poor, tired mother and siblings.

But here now they stopped, and had stopped for a while now, the children getting antsy and wanting to explore, and Shrike's overbearing paranoia nearly suffocating them all. Cobra's ears perked up and her large body turned then (far larger than what a child should normally be at her age). "Mawmaw, I want to make-" Came Cobra's deep voiced protests, but Shrike cut her off, not having any of it. Heal? Heal what? Gold eyes checked herself over, reflexively, no boo boos here.

Gaze would settle back on her mother for a moment, that is until Kite charged forward, Cobra blinked at her brother and watched as he chased after lizards. Cobra on the other hand, stayed glued to her mother's side. Her mouth opening to ask another question when told to be careful, but the words never formed, instead she'd nod her head. The telltale sign that 1 she didn't understand what her mother just said, and 2 she was just agreeing to agree.

Kite came back, chunky body pushing past her and she gave him a puzzled look, she turned then to find a stranger, red and black, eyeing them cautiously. She called out to her mother and Cobra blinked as the other's amber vision rested now upon the children. Kite was the first to react, hovering by Shrike and making demands of this larger woman. Cobra's eyes bounced everywhere and then to the ground as she stood up and blurted out, loudly and deeply. "I'M COBRA! HI!!"

The girl's tongue sliding out of her mouth and eyes bright and wide as her tail wagged furiously behind her.