grief was a fickle creature. it came in waves. black, grey, blue -- a thousand colors that varied each day. at times it was heavy and dark, storm clouds on a shadowed horizon; other times it lightened at the edges, promising an escape from the endless weight.

sometimes it was even set aside and forgotten, rare moments of vibrancy often tangled within the adventures in her home. minutes of play, hours of affectionate snuggles in a well loved den, murmured stories told to the next generation.

distractions helped, and asteria had plenty of those. not only in the twin forms of her mischievous daughters but in the work that went along with providing for them. hunting and tending to the little home they had carved out in the jungle.

as the sun sets she seeks such a distraction, crouched low to the ground, bright eyes riveted on aardvark that she had tracked here. he was just beyond the knoll, snuffling in the grass, seeking insects in the dying light of day. it was young and had only just woken from its sleep, small enough that she should be able to take it down herself if only she can avoid it's claws...

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They know my name, their teeth are waiting

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Water, it crushes him from every direction; hungry and consuming. Frigid needles of ice burrowing deep into his skin before the anchoring pull of Prometheus's teeth around his neck drag him up again to breathe - and then the wave hits. Sending them both tumbling and sinking into the depths again. He can feel the ocean clawing at him, coaxing before being smashed against the rocks.

It's been almost seven months since he fell, and oh was it a long fall. He'd now spent longer out in the world than in the jungle and everything had felt foreign and strange ever since. The memory sits perched like a demon on the boys shoulders as he moves quietly into the dusk. It whispers cruel things and Centurion can feel a certain amount of anxiety begin to churn through him. He's more than doubled in size and it's with a certain solace that the oncoming nightfall washes over him like a blanket; concealing the furrowed brow upon his dark features that seemed to permanently rest there now.

He ran dozens of pretend conversations and scenarios in his head on what to say, how to apologize and beg forgiveness since that day and the harm it caused his family - the absence of his father by his side as he was making his way east acting as a reminder. A glaring void that made his chest tighten as he trudged along. The scars etched along his face and shoulders a more evident tell tale sign on the surface of this.

Somehow he thought he had more time, he wasn't expecting to trek through the undergrowth then and there to come face to face with his mother; crouched low and spying on something. It's a tumultuous feeling, one after the other scrambling to rise to the surface. Elation. Relief. Shame. Sorrow. And like the oversized child that he really was, all the words he'd rehearsed in his head are gone, replaced only with the gruff tones of a young man that crack with a mixture of joy and grief into one.

"Hallo mutti"

@Asteria

---

They know my shame
but I'm not falling apart

code by scorpixia♡︎

startled she flinches and this small movement cracks a branch and sends the aardvark down a hole faster than she could think to give chance. frustrations swells, first, but then an exasperated smile cracks her face. there is no quick understanding of what has changed, thinking the interruption to belong to one of her daughters. della and daneri had provided a thousand such moments, pranking their mother when she was focused, and their needs were not dire enough that Asteria would meet them with anger.

instead she whirls with a playful frown set in place, ready to mockingly lay in to whoever had disturbed her prey. it is not either of her twin daughters, though, staring back at her. so jolting is this realization that she falters, stumbling over her own paws and scrambling to regain her footing. what follows this brief moment of clumsiness is a longer moment of wide-eyed staring as mother sets eyes on her now larger son, a boy nearly grown who had left her side as a small cub.

her heart snags in her throat and then hammers wildly in her chest, before she is suddenly lurching forward with his name on her lips — “Cent!” without any more preamble she is looking to envelop him in her arms (a much harder task given his size) and hold tight, barely able to believe that he is real.

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They know my name, their teeth are waiting

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Although he may have been embarrassingly tall compared to his mother, the yearling still felt as small as months ago and like a gentle giant his body hunkers lower to the earth - pushing into Asteria's embrace; despite the storm of emotions rolling about within he nearly laughs at what he suspected would look awkward to any onlookers in that moment. If he could bottle that feeling of being safe and home, one would find Centurion to clutch it desperately to his chest if he could. The world feels a little less strange when the boy is beside his mother, less dark. He doesn't want to speak on what was, not yet. Give me a minute longer. "Mutter you'll break me holding so tight," He almost whines jokingly, fighting back the staggering breath that threatened to give way and snap his composure in two. Men don't cry to their mothers dammit! Hold it together Cent. Still he does not pull away, instead like a child the brute tucks his head under her own and sighs. "Dani and Della?" She'd obviously turned expecting to find someone else, it made sense that her face would light up at the sight of his sisters, but he had to ask all the same. He had to know if they, Beetle, Spider and the others were okay too....

@Asteria

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They know my shame
but I'm not falling apart

code by scorpixia♡︎

nothing in that moment would have convinced her to let him go. asteria clung to him, and she did not loosen her hold at his protests. if anything her embrace tightened in defiance, until she was satisfied that he was real and present and not going to disappear.

only then did she pull back ever so slightly, bright eyes roving across his face and chest and down the length of him, seeking any ailment or injury that might need a mothers administrations. there are new scars — and she untangles a forepaw to gentle trace over them — but he otherwise seems well. as this realization dawns she wants to pepper him with questions, a thousand of them, and seems almost confused at first when he asks one instead. “well,” she answers, distractedly, with a wave of that same paw, “at home.”

gods and she can’t help but ask him one question in return, escaping trembling lips before she can think to stop it — “r-rome?” steeling herself for the grief that would try to pull her under if he were to confirm her worst fear.

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They know my name, their teeth are waiting

---

It's an odd sense of relief that casts over him like a blanket when his mother confirms the rest of his siblings and well and at home. That there still was a home to come back to was comforting, although Centurion didn't know he deserved it - not when he knew the question that was coming. Even as her paw traces a few of the lingering scars now etched into his night stained hide, he wishes he could stop @Asteria from saying it at all. Knowing how his mother had probably assumed the worse all these months... it makes what he says that much harder.

Deliberately Centurion closes his mouth at first, as if struggling to say it. Instead shaking his head from side to side - No. Dear gods he hoped his mother could forgive him this lie. But if she knew, what then? Prometheus as he left him was not the same man that had plunged into danger to save his sons life. Wasn't it a mercy to save her the pain of possibly losing him all over again? Deep down the Frei didn't really believe that, no the shame weighed in his chest like a great stone. "After..." we fell- "I came to, half drowned on some shore I didn't know where. A girl and her family had found me. Could barely move, couldn't even see the first few weeks out of one of my eyes until he swelling went down." Found us. It wasn't a complete lie - Prometheus however had been in far worse shape than the boy, being larger at the time - the waves and rocks spared him no mercy; unlike Centurion who was smaller and missed many of the stones. "Mutti... I'm sorry. Es tut mir so leid. (I'm so so sorry.) And then the boy cracks in his resolve, shoulders slumping as his face contorts into a look of pain as all the past memories come surfacing again. "It's mein fault Mutti, I shouldn' have been playing on those rocks..." How could she stand to look at him?

---

They know my shame
but I'm not falling apart

code by scorpixia♡︎

stupid. stupidstupidstupidstupid.

don't ask questions you don't want the answer to, isn't that what they always say? asteria didn't want to know that rome was dead, she didn't want to let go of the glimmer of hope she had held on to all this time. she wanted to believe that if @Centurion could come home to her then so, too, could rome.

the second he shakes his head she feels the pain anew. a wave of grief so intense she almost crumbles -- sheer will alone keeps her upright. maybe she leans a little heavier on him, for a second, but otherwise there is only a brief moment where she closes her eyes and looses a shaky exhale.

the second her poor, sweet boy crumples she is back in mother mode, slinging an arm around him and tugging him back in to a tight embrace. "hush," she murmured, quietly, "hush my love." gentle murmurs that speak of their loss but also of the unbelievable joy she felt at having him home. "it's nothing you did. it was an accident, cent," and though he was bigger than her she made every attempt at pulling him to her chest, as if he were no more than her small baby boy.

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