I FOUND ROSES SET ON FIRE — open, grieving

why did nobody else care?

why did nobody care that nayru was gone?

malphas remembered the first time he visited her. he had gotten terribly sick from eating rotten meat, and nayru politely informed him he probably had parasites. the memory was stupid, and when he thought of it he usually grinned, laughing at himself for being so dumb and nayru for being so smart. this time, though, when he thought of it an emptiness spread through him like a malignant tumor. she was gone.

she had inspired him to be a medic, of course. she was always wise, but malphas knew there was something troubling her constantly. he hadn't seen her smile in a while, and he could never tell her to cheer up now. she was gone. malphas didn't want to deal with his thoughts and he went to the junkyard, back to that glittering shard of glass and held it up. it was so sharp- if he slit his neck, he could join her. he could stop living, finally. the burden of being alive was too much and he pressed the glass into his trembling throat, but nothing happened.

he was scared to die.

he dropped the glass and begun to cry. he was pitifully alone, without his mentor and savior. nayru believed in him. nayru was there for him. malphas was sobbing now, digging the glass into his paw, making blood spill from in between his cracked paw pads. it hurt, and he didn't know why he was doing it. if nayru were here, she'd stop him and comfort him, and tell him what he needed to hear.

now she was gone. malphas could never tell her that he loved her. 

Morgan tailed Malphas to the junkyard, having sensed a strong change in his presence ever since he collapsed at the meeting. He became more and more worried as they neared the location where they had recently picked up trash; the feline clearly wasn't in the mood for more cleaning, so his motive was all the more unclear. The samoyed kept silent, hiding behind a stack of broken CRT televisions to watch the lonely scene unfold.

The dog gasped as Malphas finally began to hurt himself; with wide eyes, he sprinted toward the cat and pulled a stream of water from one of his bracers. He threw the water forward, trying to displace the shard of glass and throw it out of Malphas' trembling paws. To try to distract him, Morgan shouted, "Malphas!"

the shard of glass went flying as morgan's attack hit, and he whipped around, confused and horrified. "fuck off!" he yelled, clearly agitated, and was about to say more as he choked on his own words. the blood slowly dripped out of his injured paw and he shuttered, wanting to feel nothing but pain. he didn't want to feel this regret, or even this anger at his clanmates for simply helping him.

"god damn it, vigenere, i want to fucking die!" he responded, going to look for the shard again. he would slit his throat in front of their fucking faces, he decided. he'd make morgan and vigenere watch him die. malice and hatred burned in him. both of them had powers and high positions and he was a fucking nurse with no powers.

he couldn't find the shard and relaxed somewhat, then broke down crying. he couldn't even die. how pathetic was that, he thought?

[abbr=info]★[/abbr] [color=black]"This is about Nayru, isn't it?" Arrow had never met Nayru, but she'd heard the name in the last meeting, and it whispered ever so often from various rogues. She was a nurse or something, right? Yeah. Her announced disappearance had caused Malphas to faint, something she still had in the back of her mind. Judging by the reaction, Malphas must have been close to her.

She glanced at the shards of glass, feeling a little concerned but not frightened enough to start yelling like Vigenere and Morgan. Maybe it was that she wasn't as close, not at all, to Malphas, or maybe she was just a heartless bitch. Either way, she didn't think causing more of a scene would help him at all. [color=black]"She was a nurse, right?" Asking about her was a hit or miss she'd say, it could either wind him down or cause more trouble. Either way, she felt in the dark about something that caused Malphas so much pain.

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i o t a

[b]☾ IOTA [abbr="speech; self-reference; thoughts"]x[/abbr] info [abbr="attacks"]x[/abbr] MEDIC ☾

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Iota cared. She cared immensely that the one person to inspire who she became had suddenly disappeared without a trace, without a care in the world, without so much as alerting the other Tanglers of their disappearance. They had been left with nobody to train them, and they had to fend for themselves in the rush to become the clan's new sawbones. The disappearance of the medic was a huge blow to the girl's morale -- how could someone she cared about so deeply, and one who returned that same amount of care, just disappear like that?

She tried making excuses for herself -- "Heal your friends. Make new ones. Find someone else to love and care for." That's what she would have wanted, right? And that's exactly what she did -- she found someone else to love and protect. Maybe that is what Nayru would've wanted.

It didn't stop the void in Iota's heart from growing with each passing thought. How could she have done that to them, to the ones who cared about her so much? She somehow couldn't forgive the sawbone despite the amount of tenderness shared between the two. The girl approached Malphas, nudging him slightly so as to comfort the boy. She truly felt pity for the boy. Nayru was really the only person who Malphas admired indiscriminately, despite the cherry-pelted feline's many efforts to make friends with him. She laid next to him, leaning into him so as to comfort him. "It'll be alright, Malphas ... I'm sure she's happy wherever she is now ... But you have all of us, too, you know." She looked down at the soil beneath her. "We all care about you, and we all care about Nayru, too. We hope you know that. You're not alone here in your mourning."