R U [ I ] N E D

Endless Roads to Rediscover

The heavily anticipated answer to what had been locked up inside Callan's mind, held hostage there as a threat to his own well-being: just the shapeshifter's true identity. His real family and over a dozen years of his youth. Most of his life, in fact, which devastated Brady even more. Only a handful of years were Cal's own memories, and even then, those memories were built upon the lies he'd been fed and the false childhood that the Grand Commander and his goons had concocted. There was so much wrong with what had been done to him as a boy, and it had the telepath starting to twitch with anger. He was in furious enough a state for the others to intervene, Brady opening his eyes to find Erzia staring right back at him as she shook his shoulders. "You didn't answer me," she said gruffly, jaw clenched as she tore her gaze away. "We thought we'd lost you in there or something."

Brady remained silent, realizing he wasn't touching Callan any longer, his hands having slipped away, now resting— quivering in his lap. Phoena looked pale as a ghost as she looked at the telepath, worry etching itself into her features— Sachi's too as he stood behind her. Even Soleil and her cousins had drawn near while Brady had been preoccupied with the mind walking.

"Is he—" Callan, Phoena meant, of course, but she didn't get the chance to finish the thought. Brady knew what she wanted to ask, if Cal was okay, but her answer came in a different form. A startling interruption that caught more than a few of them off guard. Brady's mind meddling was really taking effect now as Callan shot up straight, dazed but only for that brief moment before his whole world imploded. Hopefully not along with his mental stability, but the way he folded in on himself, his legs pulled up to his chest and his head cradled between his hands, was not reassuring. Phoena turned her attention to Callan instead, shifting her question, but she didn't get any further this time around either. "Callan, are you—"

It was a chain reaction, fourteen years of memories hidden from him flooding back all at once— truths that made his very being fraudulent even to himself. Their phony prince— and Brady had set it all in motion. He had to watch it unfold and know that he was the catalyst. He knocked over the first domino that sent the rest of them tumbling down. Along with everything that Callan had ever known to be true...

He'd said he wanted this— the truth— but Braedyn had to wonder if it might've been better left buried. He almost wished it had when Callan started to howl from the torment of reliving his lost past. Brady swallowed roughly, slowly reaching out for him, but Phoena beat him to it.

Was Callan okay? No, he absolutely was not. About the farthest from it that he could be, so she didn't ask again. Instead, she wrapped her arms over his shoulders, lacing them tightly around the front of him. She didn't know what was wrong or why he was reacting the way he was, but she just pulled him even closer as he whimpered and trembled like he was caught out in a violent storm with no escape. He just had to let this run its course; there wasn't any option to chose otherwise at this point.

"Just let him process," Erzia said quietly, having taken a solemn stance at the other telepath's side as they looked on.

"But I—" Brady started, but in the end, he couldn't quite find what he wanted to say. But he knew? But he felt guilty? There were countless things he could've said, but for the time being, he had to bottle them up. No one there was feeling worse than Callan was, and the shapeshifter more than deserved to let it all sink in without anyone else's emotions weighing him down. Brady would carry his own weight. Sachi was who he was most worried about Callan facing with this truth and how it might impact the both of them. It was an impossible situation they'd been put in— ironically both blessing and tribulation in what it did to them now.

Cal curled back against Phoena, seeming smaller that ever as the tears tumbled out. "It hurts. It hurts everywhere," he whispered, so softly... so tenderly... that it made the blonde flinch, resting her cheek on his shoulder as he pressed his hands firmly against his pounding head. "It's too much."