There's some reassurance in knowing that the fighting hadn't made it to where she was, that it seemed like a foreign, horrifying concept, even if that made him feel a little bit more bitter about the fact that it had happened to his own home. The brush of that second feather, so kind and gentle and reassuring when he'd come to view his own feathers as something to be afraid of, a danger to those around him, made him smile softly, a sad sort of expression. But then the name of the city she'd mentioned registered in his head, breaking through the distraction and the novelty of it, and he froze.
There-...there are no Sisters in July. Or Independents. Not where I'm from. And it took everything in him not to let the memories of that city cloud his mind, the horror of it still too fresh after having them forced back into his head only a little over a year past. He didn't think he'd ever recover from that truth, knowing that all those people he'd cared about, all the people who had been kind and welcoming and loving towards him, were dead and that he had been the one directly responsible for their deaths. But it was still a hard memory to mask, it weighed so heavily on his soul that despite himself, there was a spike of self-loathing that curdled through his mind.
He watched her silently as he felt her reaching out, felt the call go out to the Sisters, but he was sobered, refusing to think about the implications of a July that is still standing when he's still connected to her, and it was taking quite a lot of his concentration. He had learned the hard way, with his other self days past, that he had to be extremely careful with the thoughts he let pass through his mind. He'd been so careless in the past, hadn't stopped to consider what he was capable of, and time and time again, that carelessness had been the source of so much pain and suffering.
When she expressed concern over the thought of teaching him how to use his powers as readily as she could, he shook his head again, glancing up at one of the small tufts of hair in front of his face again in silent acknowledgement. I've never wanted that power, anyway. It's dangerous for me to...be different, where I'm from. Humans are afraid of me when they see that part of me, and...I get people hurt. And he is so, so tired of making people hurt, watching people die, causing trauma and despair and violence everywhere he goes. He wouldn't take the offer even if it he hadn't been stretched thin enough that to do so would almost assuredly cause his death the first time he dared to try.
Even still, her answer confirmed what he'd been thinking, but her reassurances that he should leave it be for the time being so that they could try and fix whatever had been broken this way didn't seem to sooth him any. But what if people are dying? Seperated from their families, never get to go back to their homes? What if more of our Sisters than just you were brought here? What about their homes and the people who needed them? Your little Poppy Brother is, obviously, prone to worrying about every worst possible situation, Delphinium. He may not show it on the outside, most of the time, but his default state of being had long-since become a perpetual chorus of anxieties and worries and fears chanting all of the ways things could go horribly wrong at any given moment inside of his head.
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There-...there are no Sisters in July. Or Independents. Not where I'm from. And it took everything in him not to let the memories of that city cloud his mind, the horror of it still too fresh after having them forced back into his head only a little over a year past. He didn't think he'd ever recover from that truth, knowing that all those people he'd cared about, all the people who had been kind and welcoming and loving towards him, were dead and that he had been the one directly responsible for their deaths. But it was still a hard memory to mask, it weighed so heavily on his soul that despite himself, there was a spike of self-loathing that curdled through his mind.
He watched her silently as he felt her reaching out, felt the call go out to the Sisters, but he was sobered, refusing to think about the implications of a July that is still standing when he's still connected to her, and it was taking quite a lot of his concentration. He had learned the hard way, with his other self days past, that he had to be extremely careful with the thoughts he let pass through his mind. He'd been so careless in the past, hadn't stopped to consider what he was capable of, and time and time again, that carelessness had been the source of so much pain and suffering.
When she expressed concern over the thought of teaching him how to use his powers as readily as she could, he shook his head again, glancing up at one of the small tufts of hair in front of his face again in silent acknowledgement. I've never wanted that power, anyway. It's dangerous for me to...be different, where I'm from. Humans are afraid of me when they see that part of me, and...I get people hurt. And he is so, so tired of making people hurt, watching people die, causing trauma and despair and violence everywhere he goes. He wouldn't take the offer even if it he hadn't been stretched thin enough that to do so would almost assuredly cause his death the first time he dared to try.
Even still, her answer confirmed what he'd been thinking, but her reassurances that he should leave it be for the time being so that they could try and fix whatever had been broken this way didn't seem to sooth him any. But what if people are dying? Seperated from their families, never get to go back to their homes? What if more of our Sisters than just you were brought here? What about their homes and the people who needed them? Your little Poppy Brother is, obviously, prone to worrying about every worst possible situation, Delphinium. He may not show it on the outside, most of the time, but his default state of being had long-since become a perpetual chorus of anxieties and worries and fears chanting all of the ways things could go horribly wrong at any given moment inside of his head.