Leather-Winged Oddity

by Deyeaz

XII - Outcast's Outcry

Shadow: Note: I didn't put in as many lolz as before. Instead, I put in so many mothereffin' feels that it'll hurt. Enjoy to your heart's content.

Leather-Winged Oddity

XII - Outcast’s Outcry

What is it to dream?

Is it just to simply have your brain project a false image, rather like a movie clip, that you can watch and possibly alter at your leisure?

If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re only half-right.

Almost every person dreams, and almost everyone of those people have dreams that they cannot control, thus letting their brains do the visual orchestration for them.

However, a sparse few of them are what we would call lucid dreamers, capable of changing their dreams at will, turning their worst nightmares into impeccable visions.

However, there’s something about dreams that irks me constantly: that fact that once I wake up from them, I can never remember them. It’s not forgetfulness, no. I have reason to suspect that it might be because my brain not only likes to troll the living shit out of me in the morning, but also because the images my brain projects are simply... vague. Possibly even foreign and unknown to me.

Who knows? Perhaps I am forgetful, and I haven’t realized up until this point in time.

But all I know is... there won’t be any peaceful dreams tonight.

After several hours of traveling across Equestria’s vast plains on foot, me and Kaileena stop a few kilometers outside of Ponyville, the town resembling a mere blip in the distance. We set up camp and prepare to rest, what with the sun having gone down and the moon now in the sky. Every single diamond-like star is shining like lighthouses in a black ocean. As usual, it is inadvisable to continue traveling in the darkness, for the creatures that hide in shadows can ensnare you if you stray too far. Unfortunately, Nut never provided me with a tent. However, there’s still some magic juice in the gemstone of Ellipsis, and that’ll be enough for tonight.

“This is where we’ll stop for tonight,” Kaileena announces. “It’ll be too dangerous for us to travel at night.”

…That’s what I just said.

“Alrighty,” I say casually. I walk around in a large circle, casting magical protection spells: Protego (Protect), Silentio (Silence), Invisibilitatem (Invisibility); anything that will keep us safe once we crash inside the circle. Performing the spells has once again drained me of my energy, my brain now throbbing from the magical exertion. The gem has returned to being an opaque black. With some determination, I banish Ellipsis back into the Abyss again. I grab a blue potion from one of the bandolier pockets and pop it open before giving it a tentative sip.

The flavor of exotic fruits, mainly blueberries, is recognized by my tongue almost instantly, and the ache in my brain starts to dull with each chug. Once finished with the bottle, Kaileena reaches into the backpack I had tossed aside and pulls out the new rations that Akio had prepared for us. It mainly consists of bread, berries, and meat wrapped in large leaves to keep it preserved.

Once we chow down on the food, Kaileena almost immediately goes to sleep, curling up in a ball and yawning widely, a small smile spreading across her face once her mouth closes. HNNNNNNNG!!!!! SHE’S SO FLUFFY~!!!!

While the potion I drank removed my headache, there was only one drawback: my energy returns as well.

I somewhat regret drinking that potion, because I now have newfound energy coursing through me, like I have just downed a large can of Rockstar. I feel slightly jittery from the potion, despite that it tastes like a watered-down, sugar-free smoothie.

To kill time, I rummage through my backpack and pull out my iTouch, a small smirk on my face. I turn it on, and unlock the two locks that keep it from being accessed: the typical four-digit code, and the nine white spots where you drag your thumb across in the proper order.

The home screen appears, and I look at the corner of the screen, my jaw dropping at what I saw. Rather than having no signal in a world where Earth’s modern technology is nonexistent, the WiFi bars are full to the brim, and what made it weirder was that the bars were shimmering in rainbow colors, from red all the way to violet and back to red, like a fish’s iridescent scales in the sunlight. If I’m not getting WiFi via satellite, I’m probably getting it from the magic in this world.

What? It’s magic. I ain’t gotta explain shit.

I let out a low whistle and press the ‘Internet’ app. At the speed of lightning, the Google page appears. After derping around on both Tumblr and Equestria Daily for several minutes, I almost close both tabs and shut off the iTouch until I see a certain Tumblr post: it depicts a large plaque of names, dedicated to those who had lost their lives by their own hands due to excessive bullying, the poster commenting, “Why the hell can’t people just get along? It’s because of them that these poor sweet people are gone.”

I would’ve closed it... had it not been for that name that stuck out like a sore thumb near the end of the list.

‘Daniel O’Connor.’

Oh, no....

“No no no no NO!” I shout desperately, my voice cracking as tears begin to well up in my eyes. Kaileena jerks awake, rubbing her eyes groggily. When she sees me staring at the iTouch in both melancholy and disbelief, she snaps out of her sleepy hangover.

“Damien, what happened?” Kaileena asks in concern, rushing to my side. I shiver in emotional pain, refusing to believe what Fate had presented before me. She looks at my iTouch, and rather than question it and its abilities and technological advantages, she asks me, "What does it say?"

"My brother... he... he's dead... suicide," I croak.

She gasps in shock. "Oh gods... Damien, I'm so sorry...." She hugs me as tightly as she could, her head resting on my shoulder.

As I return her embrace, I feel something wet trickling down my face.

Was... was I crying?

No... a gentleman should never cry, especially in the presence of a woman as lovely as the Bast before me. Besides, I don’t even remember the last time I cried....

…

But maybe.... maybe just this once?

I let my emotional barriers break down like a sheet of ice under the sheer force of a wrecking ball. I return Kaileena’s hug, squeezing her tightly as I weep into her obsidian fur. I don’t know how I feel about this... I’m shocked, sad, numb, angry... I am everything negative.

I slowly remove myself from Kaileena and stand up, my scythe soon being picked up as I walk over to grab it. In melancholic fury, I chuck it to the sky, roaring angrily as I did so. Ellipsis swirls around lethally and clips the head off of a bird that passes by. The carcass of the avian plummets to the ground and lands in the grass with a very soft thud, and Ellipsis returns to me via recall. Once the scythe lands back into my hand, I glare at the gemstone at the top of the shaft. It is glowing slightly now, the opaque blackness barely fading away.

So that’s how I can make magic... through killing and claiming blood.

“Damien, what the hell is wrong with you?!” The Bast demands angrily.

I simply shake my head and sit back down on the grass, my head in my hands as I still weep. That little stunt I pulled did absolutely nothing to help me. “It’s just... why? Why did he have to do it?”

Kaileena remains silent, not wanting to say anything that she thought might anger me. Not that I’d even hear her: I’m lost in my own memories, trying to remember the last time I saw my sweet little brother’s face...

---

*KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK!*

“Yoohoo! Big brother, I’m here!”

A knock at the door, along with that all-too familiar voice, are what distract me from what I’m preparing in the kitchen of my apartment. I vacate the kitchen and make my way to the front door. I open it wide to reveal the culprit.

Five-foot-eleven seventeen-year-old, green long-sleeve shirt, tight denim jeans, IMPECCABLE shoes, Ray Ban glasses, and the dirty-blond hair and blue eyes he inherited from his father.

Yup. It’s--

“Daniel!” I give him a one-armed hug and give him a noogie, making his perfectly coiffed hair look like a bird’s nest.

“Damien!” My little brother says deliberately, fixing his hair back into its originally coiffed form. I chuckle and scratch the back of my head nervously.

“Heheh... sorry ‘bout that, laddy,” I apologize. “Well, don’t be a stranger! Come on in!” I step aside, giving my brother access into my apartment room on the third floor. He kicks off his shoes and puts them by the door with my shoes, and walks around the living room before crashing on the leather couch, his sleeping bag and knapsack full of necessities landing on the ground next to him. I go back into the kitchen and recommence preparing the food for tonight’s dinner, my brother sniffing the air and sighing in content.

“I take it ya like the apron, eh?” Daniel giggles when I look at the apron I was donning: it has stripes of both light pink and hot pink, with the words ‘Will cook for shoes. Lots and lots of shoes....’ written on it in girly cursive, with red high-heels dancing around the hem.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” I deadpan. And just to get him to laugh, I reenact the West Side Story song that Maria performed in that clothes shop. “I’m so pretty~, oh so pretty~...” I even prance around and hold the apron like a ballerina skirt.

Daniel laughs hard, clutching his sides in pure joy. I don’t care if I emasculated myself. As long as my brother is happy, I’m happy. And that’s all that matters.

I finally finish up with creating dinner: fettucini alfredo with shrimp and white wine cream sauce that was boiled to remove the alcohol. Once we get our grub on and wash it down with either water or juice, we laze back on the couch in front of the 36” flat-screen TV, our bellies content that they were filled with food. “Hey, man, wanna play some video games?” Daniel asks as he holds up a Nintendo Wiimote.

“No way, dude, ya always beat me,” I respond.

“Tell no one!!!” We crack up again at our inside joke. Regardless, I let Daniel play “The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess” on the Wii while I re-read “Homer’s Odyssey”. The time flies like a tumbleweed in a sandstorm, and when I look back at the clock, it reads eleven fifty-six at night.

“Alrighty, Danny, time for bed,” I say as I place a bookmark in my tome and close it.

“Damn it, I still haven’t beaten Morpheel yet!” He proclaims as I watch Link swim around in the Lakebed Temple, the giant sea creature boss Morpheel swimming around idiotically.

“Pfft. Move aside, noob,” I grunt. Daniel pauses, quickly hands me the Wiimote and Nunchuck, and I unpause. Within a matter of minutes, I defeat Morpheel via many an eye stabbing and collect both the final piece of Midna’s mask and the Heart Container that I need.

Once everything is taken care of, I save the game and turn off the console and TV. “Alrighty, now. Bedtime, man.”

Daniel gives a fake sigh of exasperation, a smirk on his face. He sets up his sleeping bag and grabs his pajamas and toothbrush, ready to turn in for the night.

After we finished brushing our teeth to remove any stray pieces of Italian food, we head for our resting spot, mine being the bedroom at the end of the short hallway, Daniel’s being on the wide couch, in his sleeping bag.

“Hey, Damien?”

“Yeah, laddie?” I get taken aback when Daniel gives me a massive hug.

“Love ya, big bro.”

I smile warmly and return his massive hug. “I love ya, too.”

---

I hold myself tightly, tears still leaking from my eyes like broken fire hydrants. I fall over, pounding the ground in irritation with my fist. I can’t believe it... Daniel... my little brother... gone forever.

Why?

I feel warm and comforting fur close in on me, and I look up through bloodshot eyes to see Kaileena holding me again. “Shh... It’s gonna be okay...” she whispers to me.

“B-bullshit,” I stutter melancholically. I remove myself from her again and roll so that I face away from her. “With my brother gone? No way in hell will it be okay....”

I stand up and grab my scythe, just to do something other than sit there. I walk over to a nearby pond and wash my face. Once the rippling is over. I look into it to see an two crossed scars in the center of my face and a vertical scar over my left eye, the latter unharmed from the gash. As I gaze deeper into the pond, I see that my facial features are like something pulled straight out of an anime show.

I sigh in frustration. So those Diamond Dogs had indeed gotten some hits on me, and not just on my body.

I walk back to where the protection spell is casted, which took a lot of time because Kaileena is still inside and I can neither see nor hear her.

I sit cross-legged once I do enter the protective circle. “Damien, what’s on your mind?” Kaileena asks me. She crawls over to me and puts her head in my lap. I don’t object, nor do I agree with the action itself.

I sigh once more. “My mind feels so empty,” I respond. I’m at a lack of words: if you had lost someone you loved more than anything in the world, how would you respond to a question like that?

I look at Ellipsis and its dimly-glowing gemstone. “But you wanna know what I do when I’m like this?” I say after a few moments.

“Hmm?” She turns her full attention to me now.

“This... Musica a Memoria.”

The glow of Ellipsis’s gemstone finally fades back to its original blackness at my spell. A sound of ambiance, followed by the strum of an acoustic guitar, begin to resonate around us.

“Oh yeah.... oh yeah....

Sometimes the edge serves as more than a friend than you thought it would be...

And the pages you write in your journal each night are your only release...

And the mask you put on, it’s like words in a song, but there’s more to be seen...

And the failures you see don’t seem failures to me here at all....

“Oh, I’m begging you: no...

There’s more life left to go...

Oh, I’m begging you: please...

‘Cause I... I don’t want you to leave....

“Alone as you walk through a crowd and it’s awkward like nobody sees...

And you can't help but wonder would anyone come after you if you’d leave...

So a pain grows inside and a fear comes alive like you’ll never be free...

But there’s no pain you feel that I know love can't heal here at all....

“Oh, I’m begging you: no...

There’s more life left to go...

Oh, I’m begging you: please...

‘Cause I... I don’t want you to leave me....

“To leave me here on my own;

There’s nothing to run from!

Oh, there’s nothing but fear inside you!

Oh, I just hope I can find you,

And tell you that I know you’ll smile again...

Oh, I’m begging you: no...

More life left to go...

Oh, I’m begging you: please...

‘Cause I don’t want you to leave....”

The song comes to an end, and fades into nothingness. I look down and see Kaileena’s eyes leaking tears at a ludicrous rate. She slowly raises herself, only for her to bury her face into my chest and weep heavily into it.

I look up into the night sky while cradling the sobbing Bast. I let out one last sigh before I lay down, hoping to fall into a sleep that I pray that I won’t wake up from.

“Good night, sweet prince....”

Comments

[High_Wind]

mememaker.net/static/images/memes/298145.jpg

[Tay the Chemist]

So, could Kaileena read the words on the iTouch? The words written in a language I don't think she's ever seen?
Sorry. This was a good chapter, very sad and emotional, but I don't remember Kaileena learning to read English.

[Deyeaz]

1090061
Damn. Good eye. I'll get to fixing it.

[Fireeaters]

I'm pretty sure in lotr it was goodNIGHT sweet prince instead of goodBYE

[RainingDash]

*6:30 A:M*

I should get to bed. . . .

Update?

Screw bed, read now.

Correct me if I am wrong, but did I spy a despicable me Reference?

[lolz anonymous]

and the ball keeps on rolling...

[Deyeaz]

1090264
Alrighty. Changed it.

[dragenfire68]

1090061 magic yo.

[Xinrick]

Dammit why must you do that 'sniff' you sir are a good writer but im trying not to cry 'silently sobs' 'sigh' keep up the good work