#tyrhzu my beloved

[overclockedroulette]

this one’s for you squirrel xoxo ty for the writer’s block cure

not sure if I’ve ever talked about Tyrhzu on this blog? oh well, have this anyway.

mykie your space-themed naming conventions for pets has ruined me. also hope you don’t mind me using clover and indoril I NEEDED PET OWNERS ANd they run an animal sanctuary so. best option.

unnamed aubilon worker my beloved

~~~

Ten minutes.  That’s all his incompetent coworker was supposed to take - and, since when was he assigned work with other people anyway?  If he didn’t know any better, he’d assume Kirren was trying to get the kid killed (but if that were the case, he would have just been asked, like every other time).  He sighed and checked his watch.  Thirty minutes.  Half a fucking hour he’d had to spend in the porch of this dumb animal shelter, waiting for this idiot to pick up… whatever they had been asked to pick up (honestly, he hadn’t been listening; he didn’t particularly care), and having to deal with this… dumb dog.  

He wasn’t quite sure what breed it was (again, he didn’t care), or even what it was for, but the owners - these two elven women with matching tattoos, one of them clearly far more confident than the other - had assured him that it wasn’t dangerous.  Which he had laughed about.  Because the thing didn’t look dangerous: it looked stupid.  It just kept… trying to be around him, no matter how much he shooed it away or ignored it, with a clear disregard for its personal safety.  He muttered a few curses and shoved it away again, letting out a short laugh as it slumped down, dejected, at his feet.

“Fuck off, mutt,” he hissed, laughing internally about the familiar terminology coming from his end, this time.  But the dog seemed to take this as an invitation rather than a curse, and perked up as if its name had been called, standing up and wagging its tail emphatically just in front of the bench he was sat on.  He considered kicking it.  

“Luna,” he murmured, grabbing the thing’s collar and reading the name aloud.  And he laughed - audibly - at the irony of the whole thing.  “Fucking Luna.”

The dog - Luna - perked up again, resting its head on his lap and staring up at him with wide, excited eyes while he considered the pros and cons of impromptu canicide.  

“Piss off.”

It whined, nuzzling its head into his thighs.  Avarice groaned.  

“Really.  Go do… whatever it is you do.  Somewhere else.”

It didn’t move.  Just kept staring at him.  

“You’re annoying.”

Nothing.

“Move.”

Still nothing.  Just a long, mute pause and heavy eye contact, until Avarice finally sighed and relented, irritably moving one hand to ruffle the fur on the top of its head - because maybe that’d make it go away - and pointedly avoiding eye contact when it got excited.  

“Now will you leave me al-” and the dog was already in his lap.  He gave up fairly easily after that.  

He laughed quietly when Luna curled up on top of him, letting him absentmindedly stroke her fur as he spoke, with a soft kind of intonation that anybody who knew him would bolt at the first sound of.

“Persistent little darling, aren’t you?” he chuckled.  “Well, I hope you’re happy.  If you were a person, you’d probably have lost a limb by now.”  He laughed again, and then paused.  “But then, I suppose no person would have the guts to get close enough.  I respect it.”

And he paused again, contemplating.  And he laughed.

“It’s funny, actually.  I could break your bones with my bare hands, if I tried hard enough.  I probably wouldn’t hesitate,” and his voice started to waver, “I could cut you open and watch everything that keeps you alive spill onto the floor.  There’s every chance I’ll murder at least one of your owners, in the future.  I’d watch you bleed out and feel nothing.”

He was raking his nails across the skin of his left arm, now, bleeding from the mistaken incisions.  His breath hitched.  “I’d watch anyone bleed out and feel nothing.  I have.  And I do feel nothing, because I’m not a coward, I’m useful, I’m better, I’m not-”

And he suddenly started to realise how much his arm stung, and felt the blood dripping onto the poor dog’s coat, as Luna nuzzled the offending hand away from his bleeding arm and firmly back into her fur.  He laughed.  “Ah- my apologies for stopping, darling,” and continued running his hands smoothly down her back, letting her settle down again.  He’d have to clean his arm later.  

It was silent for a few more minutes, Avarice absently petting the excited ball of fur in his lap and trying not to think about his wounded upper arm, before he spoke again, more wondering aloud than anything else, not even bothering to look at the thing.

“Why aren’t you scared of me?”

Silence.

“I suppose it’s just stupidity.  Although, animals are supposed to be able to sense danger, aren’t they?  There’s no reason for you to be this close.  Especially to… to someone like- ah-” he paused: took a deep breath.  “To someone like me.  Oh- don’t look at me like that, you know what I mean.  I’m not exactly a good person, am I?  Or… particularly safe.  But I’ve gotten better!” he insisted.  “In terms of being safe, I mean.  I’m better than I was, aren’t I?  I don’t- except, I never did, because I’m not- because I didn’t- because I’m not him, I’m not, I can’t be-”

His words were choked out of him in a strangled, dry sob.  And everything was quiet while Avarice gathered his thoughts.  Thoughts that were his.  That came from him, and nobody else.  Because he was himself.  And never anything else.  And he buried his head in that stupid dog’s fur and tried his hardest not to cry, because he refused to, because he didn’t need to, because-

Because the last time he cried, he wasn’t him.  And he wouldn’t go back.

“Fuck, I miss Tyrhzu,” he whispered, barely audible, still buried in Luna’s coat.  And it was the first time he’d said that name in well over eight years, and it felt unnatural, wholly wrong.  And everything came back.  The laughing, the fights, the chatter, the comfort; the screaming; the feeling of a blade deep, deep in flesh; the raw, unadulterated grief that had consumed him so wholly for years; the feeling of reaching in the dark, screaming until his throat was hoarse for someone (for him) and grasping only silent air.  And he was sobbing, now: weeping into this dog’s fur, who just curled up closer to him and let him cry - or, rather, everything but, because he yelled and sobbed and the stinging in his throat became unbearable, and nothing came out but noise.  He was screaming.  Screaming eight years of repressed grief into the fur of a creature that hadn’t been scared of him.  And when he got up, he breathed in deeper than he had in months.  And he muttered a “thank you” to the dog as he continued stroking its silver-speckled fur.

-

When his coworker returned, along with the two elven women, he didn’t mention it.  He just shooed the dog off his lap and claimed it had “insisted.”  Which was true.  And he had sorted the problem of his injured arm by simply glaring violently at anyone who looked like they were going to bring it up.  The taller, red-haired elf seemed concerned about the dog’s condition - which was fair - although the smaller didn’t look worried at all.  She just smiled, reached down to pet the dog’s neck, and looked up at Avarice.

“Say, did you know that dogs can tell when their owners are upset?”

“Excuse me?”

She laughed.  “I didn’t mean it to be an accusation!  Just a fact.  Luna here-” she reached down to ruffle her fur again, “-has always been good at that.  Very good with people, too.” 

“Can you tell she plays favourites?” the taller elf murmured, nudging Avarice with her elbow and laughing at her partner’s affronted expression.  He echoed that laughter.

“Quite.  I… daresay I’d do the same.”  And he reached down to stroke her again, leaving his coworker dumbstruck as they began to set up their belongings to leave.  “Oh, and by the way?” 

The coworker nodded tentatively in acknowledgement.

“You make me wait that long for anything, ever again, and you’re dead.”