Trash Panda

~Bonsoir~

That's good! And yeah, I've been meaning to change it for like two years and finally got around to doing it xD
I never really loved the first one, so I finally put in a request to have it changed this week, and a mod got it done today

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

I'd say about two years? xD I just put it off because it wasn't that big of a deal to me, but I got bored and decided I might as well change it.

It definitely did. Also, Iris could have heard him vomit or not. I don't really have a preference about whether she knows what happened when he was in the other room

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Making himself comfortable on the sofa, Cas breathed a little deeper than he had in the plaza. The scent of death had faded now that they were far from the worst of the massacre, but it wasn’t completely gone. He could still smell a fainter odor belonging to the bodies of the people who had been killed in the apartments nearby. As far as he could tell, this was the best option they were going to get for a hideout while Iris was ill, so he couldn’t complain though. He just hoped he would get used to the sickly scent as they spent more time in it.

“Let me take a look,” he volunteered, bending forward to dig through the backpack at her feet. Although her fever had set them back from getting to the capital that same day, it was a welcomed distraction to him at the moment. If he hadn’t seen her lean against the building in the plaza and had to find somewhere for her to rest, his thoughts still would have been on the corpses he’d seen outside. Not wanting to picture their lifeless faces anymore, he sifted enthusiastically through the bag’s contents, taking out the bandages and bottles of water to see if there was any medicine in the bottom. Unfortunately, it looked like Maisie hadn’t given them any.

“Hm,” he mused, sitting upright again and drumming his fingers against his knee. He didn’t like the idea of stealing from the owners of the house they had holed away in, but chances were, the owners were dead anyway. It was worth taking a look around to see if they had anything with acetaminophen in it. Having made up his mind, he got up from the sofa again and walked off to look through the medicine cabinets in the bathrooms. No luck there either. It seemed like she had been right about medicine begin hard to find, because he couldn’t see anything useful in the master bathroom or the guest.

As a last-ditch effort, he searched the kitchen cabinets, just in case there was a stash of medicine in a place he wouldn’t usually think to look for it. Discouragingly, there was no medicine anywhere, but he did find some canned food. Fruits and vegetables, specifically. He set the cans out on the counter along with a can opener, to remind himself to pick them up before they left, so they would have more food available if they needed it.

Plan A had turned out to be a bust, so he moved on to plan B, doubling back to the master bedroom to get a spare blanket from the closet. As he turned to head back to the living room, he faltered, noticing something in the corner of his eye. On the nightstand beside the bed, there was a framed photograph. Don’t look; don’t look, he repeated to himself silently, knowing he would regret it if he gave in to his curiosity. There was no good that could come from seeing the faces of people who were probably did. Yet he still found himself stepping over to the table to peer at the picture.

Almost immediately, he regretted doing so. “Oh my god…” his skin grew pale as he stared at the immortalized image of the mother and daughter he’d seen in the plaza. A father figure was there too, holding the little girl’s other hand while her parents swung her between them. All three wore bright smiles, blissfully unaware of the tragedy that would befall their family not long after the photo was taken.

He turned away from the picture, dropping his gaze to the floor with unfocused eyes. This had to be some sort of twisted joke. The only two people whose faces he had committed to memory in the plaza were the same people who had lived in the apartment he and Iris were burgling now. He had never known them personally, but the knowledge still cut through his heart like a knife.

Suddenly, the vision of their dead bodies made a reappearance in his mind, and he lost his composure. Dropping the blanket onto the floor, he made a break for the bathroom and fell to his knees over the toilet as he heaved up the contents of his stomach. For a minute, sat where he was without moving, trembling as his body recovered from the physical effort of retching. He’d almost made it through Bel Bicis without breaking down, but the trauma of seeing the aftermath of war firsthand had been too much after all.

He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth and rocked back on his heels, panting raggedly. The image of the corpses was still seared into his head, and he could feel his eyes watering, but he fought back against the tears. He still needed to bring Iris the blanket for her fever, and he didn’t want to leave her alone for too long while she was sick. So, he waited until he’d caught his breath and had pushed down on the emotions that threatened to boil over before he stood up again.

Flushing the toilet on his way out—and also thanking god that the building’s water supply hadn’t been turned off—he gathered up the blanket he’d thrown on the floor and headed back out to rejoin Iris in the living room.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Short answer: Because I wanted to lmao
Honestly, I can't remember why I picked my first username to begin with, but it never felt very fitting, so I've wanted to change it for years. This week, I finally stopped putting it off and asked the mods to do it xD

Omg that thought crossed my mind too actually. I'm down for that. One of them could find a family photo somewhere, and he would recognize their faces

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Yeah, he's going to have to toughen up real quick
He's starting to get better at that though

Also, I got my username changed. Surprise xD

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Of course, Iris started protesting his decision to stop traveling immediately. As she tried to convince him that she was fine he just shook his head, unconvinced. He was learning that there was no point in arguing with her about it. For some reason, she was determined to get him back to the capital today come hell or high water, even though she was clearly running a high fever. He had no idea why she was trying so hard, but he did know that the strain couldn’t be good for whatever sickness had crept over her last night. He wasn’t going to be the reason why she became seriously ill as long as he had a say in it.

“It’s my other arm that’s injured,” he reminded her as she mentioned the wounded limb. “And besides, I know you’re just trying to come up with another excuse, Iris. It’s not going to work, so you should save your energy for walking instead of fighting me on this, okay?” As he spoke, he led her toward the buildings he’d seen. Like the rest of Bel Bicis, they were in pretty bad shape, but they were the only potential safe havens he could see nearby. Worried about Iris’s condition, he wasn’t about to wander around the district in a blind search for something better either. For her sake, this was the best they could do until she was well enough to move on.

“Why?” he asked when she continued to press that she needed to bring him back to the capital that day. “I want to get there even more than you do, but even I can tell that giving you a break is more important right now. You can barely even stand up without help.” Her stubbornness baffled him. He wondered why she was so insistent on making sure he got home that evening. It was dangerous for him to stay outside the capital when the rebels were looking for him, but aside from that, he couldn’t think of a reason why she would be so determined to keep moving.

Deciding not to get too hung up on it, he led her to the front of the closest building and pulled the door open with his left hand. The motion burned his arm, but he kept his discomfort to himself, so she wouldn’t have another reason to protest. “We’ll keep moving when you don’t look like you’re about to keel over at the slightest gust of wind,” he posed, implying that he wasn’t going to agree to her offer of stopping for only an hour unless it made sense to do so.

Making his way through the ground floor hallway, he felt her stumble against his side and tightened his grip on her waist to make sure she didn’t fall. Idly, he was glad that he’d had a couple full meals recently, so he had enough strength to half-carry her without collapsing any time she threw off his balance. Staying at Maisie’s place had been just what they’d needed, and now, he had to find another apartment—preferably an empty one—where they could hide out until her fever broke.

As they passed by each door, he tested the knobs. Quite a few were unlocked, but when he peeked inside, he found that most of them were decorated with more corpses. The sight of families killed inside their own homes made him want to lose his breakfast, and he turned away quickly from each brutal scene he came across until he finally found a room that was open, but no one was inside.

Carefully, he brought Iris into the living room and set her down on an old sofa. “Don’t move. I’m going to make sure no one else is here,” he informed her softly. He doubted there was anyone inside the apartment, but one could never be too careful. As quietly as he could, he left the living room to open each of the bedroom doors, checking inside closets and under beds until he felt sure they were alone. Whoever had owned this place was probably among the piles of corpses in the plaza.

He shivered at the thought and headed back out to where he’d left Iris. “All clear,” he sighed, sitting down heavily on the other side of the couch. The room was dark aside from the light that came in through one window across from them, but he didn’t dare turn on any lights, so they wouldn’t draw the attention of any passerbys outside.

“Did Maisie pack any medicine in your backpack?” he asked, turning to her with a frown. “It would probably be a good idea to try to get your fever down a little, so you don’t get too dehydrated.” He didn’t know much about flesh wounds, but because of his father’s poor health, he was sufficiently educated in dealing with illnesses.

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Nah, just heated up some frozen food. We did order pizza and hot wings for dinner though cx

I had fun writing that post, haha. Something like that could only happen to Cas

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Cas heard Iris whispering something to herself, but he didn’t quite catch what she said. He was more concerned with making sure they kept moving. For one thing, standing around so many dead bodies was making him incredibly anxious. For another, they had no way of knowing if there were any other people around who were still alive. If any members of the Scourge were nearby, even just to pass through the district, there was a chance that they might recognize him. By now, it was also possible that word had gotten around that Iris had helped him escape, so she might be in danger too. They couldn’t afford to freeze up in Bel Bicis just because they had stumbled upon the aftermath of a battle. They had to keep moving to avoid getting caught.

When Iris came to, Cas was relieved but only for a second. “You can’t be serious,” he said, balking at the thought of walking any closer to the carnage than they already were. Unfortunately, if that was their only path back to the capital, he was going to have to do it. So, after taking a moment to steel himself, he reluctantly followed after her into the plaza. He wasn’t as good at keeping his eyes off the corpses as she was though. To him, the destruction was like a bad car accident; it was awful, but he couldn’t look away. As they walked, his dark eyes roved over the bodies of the deceased that laid all around them, some strewn about the cobblestone ground where they had died and some shoved off to the side in gruesome piles to make room for a useable path through the area.

The sight made his stomach churn. All the victims around them had been sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, siblings, friends, and coworkers to other people. He could practically feel the weight of the grief that hung in the air, and he mourned that they hadn’t been properly buried or even cremated after they had been killed. Especially when his gaze landed on the bodies of a mother and daughter laying side-by side. As he looked at the pair, a part of him wanted to shed tears—he felt like their lost lives deserved to be wept over—but he was too shocked by the whole of the bloodbath to properly process everything that he was feeling. Instead, he stared at them numbly until he felt his shoe collide with something on the ground in front of him.

Looking down, he practically felt his soul leave his body as he saw that he’d walked into the outstretched arm of one of the corpses. The dead man’s eyes were open and seemed to be staring back at him, and his jaw was slack in a soundless scream. The prince staggered, fighting the urge to pass out with the sudden, dizzying drop in his blood pressure that accompanied the shock of nearly stepping on a body. It took him a few seconds to recover before he followed Iris again.

It’s official. I’m scarred for life, he thought with a grimace, carefully stepping around the limp arm in his path and jogging to catch up to her. From that point on, he kept his eyes glued to the path in front of his feet rather than on the bloody scene, horrified by the thought of running into another corpse. However, in doing so, he almost didn’t see that Iris had stopped ahead of him to rest her hand against one of the buildings. He glanced up at her with a concerned expression. At first, he wondered if there was something in the air that was causing her to lose her energy and if they were breathing odorless gas. That explanation didn’t make sense though, because he would have been feeling it too if there was something toxic around them. It had to be something else.

“Iris, what’s wrong?” he asked, reaching out to rest a hand on her shoulder. It was then that he noticed that her temperature was still elevated, and he remembered the bullshit excuse she had given him earlier. “You feel like a furnace,” he observed worriedly, stepping in front of her to see her face. Her eyes looked out of focus to him. Despite her assurance that she could handle the trip back to the capital, he could tell that she was pushing herself too hard.

“Alright, I’m calling it,” he decided firmly, hiding his disappointment about not getting to the capital that night with the authority in his voice. Her wellbeing was more important than his impatience to get home anyway. “We’re not going any further until you rest. This is obviously too much for you right now.” Without waiting for her response, he positioned himself next to her and pulled her against his side with his good arm, draping her arm up and over his shoulders with the other. If he could, he would have carried her, but he knew his wounded arm couldn’t handle that strain at the moment.

“Come on, you stubborn thing. Let’s find someplace for you to lay down that isn’t filled with dead bodies,” he said, taking one step forward to check his balance before he started walking toward the housing complex he could see up ahead.

New World Contention [AnnaWinters & Summer]

I could see it going one of two ways. Either she would show him the code to the door before she goes to bed, or he would leave during the night and prop it open to get back inside. Since she would be asleep, she wouldn’t know he was going out in the first place, so she would wake up (maybe he leaves the door propped open because he forgets to close it) and have a reason to show him the code then?

Amnesia [Suki & Summer]

Yep! I finally got a post up after I ate lunch too ^^