The Stray

Scars, Pt. 2

And Meri just about burst out crying, throwing her arms around him. "I'm so sorry! This is all my fault! If I'da stayed out of the woods..." And, well, she was kinda right. If this day was like dominoes, then yeah, in a cosmic sense she had caused all this. And part of him did wanna blame her, make it all easy by hating someone within reach. But honestly... listening to her sobbing, and having spent the whole day with her...

Well, he just had to buck up and be an adult, no matter how much he wanted to go crawl in a hole. "We already had this talk." He returned her hug. "You weren't the one shooting lightning around during a drought, right?"

"N-no, but.."

"And I don't think you set off a flash grenade in the middle of the Deepshadow, either." He said it lightly, but it made him start to wonder if he was the one responsible for all this. The thought made his guts churn even more. Still, he'd done what he had to, and he also wasn't the one frying trees.

"But I started it all by flying a broom headfirst into the Deepshadow, like a, like a moron!"

"Sis..." Valencia scooped up Meri, hugging her close. "Come on, you're eleven. Makin' mistakes is part of the territory. Heck, I came home with a black eye every other week for a while." Timothy tried to imagine what could actually hurt the hulking dragoness, and drew a blank. "And th' shorty's right, it ain't like you knew this would happen."

Meri sniffled. "...I still feel awful, though."

"All you can do is learn from it and do better." Timothy said. A sentiment that was directed his way, too. "As long as you're still alive, you can keep fighting." He still felt miserable, though.

Merida sniffled, looking from her sister's faint smile to Timothy's clearly taped on one. And she whispered something in V's ear. The surprised dragoness let her sister down a moment later, and Meri hugged Timothy again.

"You probably need a hug, too."

It really hurt, with her scales poking his thin, raw skin. But the feeling of being held was the last push that sent him over the edge into tears of his own. Turned out he could toughen to lots of awful, but a hug would cut right through his armor. It had been a long time since he'd let himself cry, really cry. But now he couldn't stop, and it was ugly and inelegant and made him feel weaker than before. Meri seemed surprised at the sudden intensity of his tears, but set her jaw and held him all the tighter. There was something soothing about being held while he cried, even if it was a little kid he ought to be shielding from it. As for the other two, Mat and Valencia respectfully looked away. Valencia looked particularly awkward.

Timothy cried for a long while. But every creek dries eventually, and eventually the witch managed to quiet down, hiccuping and feeling like a very wrung and embarrassed sponge. "I'm s-sorry." Was the first coherent thing he managed. "You shouldn't h-have to see that. An' to cry on a kid's shoulder..."

"Yeah, it kinda kills the 'Lusundrite bad boy' thing you got going." V said.

"V!" Mat and Meri both scolded, with Meri sounding particularly angry. "He already told me he ain't with'em!"

"Hey, he has the brand." The older dragoness pointed out sullenly. "I covered for him to Locke, but that needs explaining." Meri still looked furious.

"It's okay, Meri." Timothy said softly.

"It's not!"

"Look... Valencia?" Timothy looked her straight in the eyes, and tried to will himself to stop sounding like he'd just cried. "Y-You ain't got a reason to trust me yet, really. But I want you t'know that I ain't like those wastelanders. I didn't get this brand by choice. I ain't ever even met another dragon, and it'd be a heckuva trick to be a kindre dragon supremacist."