There was no longer an 'us'.
There was an 'I'. A 'me'. A singular most important individual, as oppose to a couple of them. He was the only one left. This wasn't unlike his travels before Meshindi.
But now that he walked alone long after him? Things were different.
And Gepeto's thoughts writhed at the realization. His heart could, and would, ache over this friendship lost. A brotherhood relinquished to the ether. His body felt hollow. Every step he took to distance himself from the Stormborn was more and more painful but he wouldn't stop. The hollowness prevailed over every degree of misery... In some moments, it brought out the devil in him. His lips would move incessantly with all the curses he had ever known. And other moments, he was stoic. As if lost in a thought. Step. After step. After step.
Going farther and farther away.
Leaving the past behind him.
Just him.
It came to point where he started questioning everything. Like what was the point? Or where would he even go? Why should he bother with this anymore? He had been given a purpose with Meshindi. With the Stormborn. And now he was stripped of it and feeling lost without it.
And then the questions would switch, on a dime, to shaming and berating. It was humiliating that he even entertained the ideas. Ending things? Really? Once upon a time he had been cast away from his family! His blood! And he stood proudly thereafter. He marched out and survived on his own. He didn't need anyone. He wanted for nothing but solitude. Even with no one present to witness him, he still felt the weight of shame.
As if... as Kondo were there. Speaking into his ear. Weak. Weak. Weak.
The solitude, having always been empty, was strangely unsettling now. The first night was easy. He walked until he couldn't anymore, at which point sleep took him like a drug. The second night was worse, he had slept most of the day away and had an entire evening of hauntings to go through. The third, and the fourth, progressively worse. The rage was building with no where to go.
The feeling of being so utterly lost was all-encompassing. Suffocating.
And he knew that, on some level, he was being utterly dramatic but he couldn't help himself. Maybe... maybe knowing was worse? If he had never known Meshindi, life would be easier. If he had never known the Stormborn, life would have been easier. If he had never had his children, life would have been easier.
Was life easier not knowing where they had all gone?
Suffocating. It was suffocating him.
---
"Hey?" The words were hazy, his consciousness fading in and out of clarity.
"Hey? Wake up!" There they were again... they weren't real. They couldn't be. He was alone.
"You're bleeding, wake up!" A hard knock on the head brought him from whatever void he floated right back into his limp body which, when his eyes finally opened, was lying prone in the dry heat of day.
His throat was raw, lips chapped as the entirety of his form felt heavy. Achy. Something shoved him, hard, but he couldn't see anyone. The voice, however, echoed again. This time it was a bit clearer. "Come with me, there's a pool you can cool off in near by. You can clean your wounds there."
Another voice, a softer, sweeter one, whispered. Not to him... but someone else. "Are you sure? He looks dangerous. I've heard about giant lions like him."
A third. "Shh! He can hear you!"
---
A groggy walk, just barely supported by three others, brought Gepeto to a lagoon in the middle of an oasis. It was very hot, he was very dehydrated, but when his toes brushed with the liquid surface a chill ran through him all the same, rattling his bones. He wavered, threatening to collapse and the three who had been aiding him simply stepped aside. Allowing his form to drop. And from there he lapped at the surface for a prolonged period of time.
One of the three voices, yet to be in full view, hesitated to say, "I-I would slow down. I don't know how long you've been out here and... you'll puk--"
As sudden as anything could happen, Gepeto vomited across his forepaws. "Uhhh..." He groaned, gritting his teeth afterwards.
There was a black lioness speckled in white who was the first to appear before him. Her eyes were a royal purple, staring at him, all over him, laced with concern. "Vitunguu. Are you sure?" One of the others spoke up, and it was the black lionesses lips that replied with a, "Hush. He's coming to."
His head was on a swivel then, as Gepeto's world spun around to settle upon another female. She was darker than the Vitunguu, all brown like well nourished soil except her eyes were similar. Sheer, in some ways. Their soft, lilac hue was brightly reflecting against the light of day and they made Gepeto wince.
"Harusi, fetch the leaves." Vitunguu's voice rang out again, commandingly. And the earth lioness turned to oblige. "Yes, of course. Right away." Bowing out of view.
"Nawaka, keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't go out again." The third and final creature who surrounded him was a pale lioness. Her lilac eyes mimicked that of Harusi's, and a thought flickered in and out quickly: were they sisters?
"I-I'm fine." Gepeto muttered, dipping his maw low into the water again. This time he was cautious, lapping slowly at it.
"Yeah, sure you are." Vitunguu chided. A chuckle spread out amongst the three of them, but it was soft, nonthreatening. "We'll leave you be as soon as we get this salve on the wound."
"Wound?" His dark brow furrowed and he shifted slightly in place. "What?"
Vitunguu, assisting the dark brown lioness, looked surprised for a moment. "Oh. You don't know?" Then the surprise faded into understand. "Right, makes sense. You fell pretty hard."
A hunting accident, Gepeto thought. But when... when had he gone hunting? The last he remembered he was...
"You tried to kill a leopard. In its tree." The matter-of-fact tone Vitunguu held was sharp, to the point. She wasn't ******** around here. And Gepeto was briefly taken aback. Then, a small smile pulled his lips to one side, and a crooked grin revealed his fangs. Vitunguu finished with, "You fell out of said tree, getting pretty scrapped up on the way down. But you're a hardy thing, aren't you? Despite being knocked out, the deepest wound was the one to your thigh." She gestured, but Gepeto wouldn't look. Not yet.
To this end however, all three females rolled their eyes and continued on with their work. Tending. Mending. Talking amongst themselves before, at last, their movement stopped. Gepeto had fallen still and quiet again, occasionally tending to his thirst by drinking from the pools.
"There. Don't touch it." Vitunguu looked proud. She nodded her head at both Nawaka and Harusi. "Great work ladies."
They said thank you in unison.
And he shifted, turning to assess the damage that had been dealt. A long gash ran across his flank, fairly deep but it was covered in a gray looking paste that smelled of herbs and roots. He attempted to move the limb, a stinging sensation being sent up through to the side of his temple... but it moved. And after a few test stretches, he was certain that the injury was already on its way to healing.
When his attention returned the females they were packing up shop. Piles of plants had been neatly place all around him, lying out on broad leaves and packed full of colorful items. Some were round, some were flowers, some he had never before seen. The females moved quickly, storing away each and every item until at last, in a bundle that Nawaka carried between her teeth, they were ready to depart.
Gepeto, still a bit dazed, tried to find his words but it was the black female who lifted a paw and shook her head.
"Don't worry. You're welcome." And she turned her back to him, followed by the twins with their lilac eyes. One of them, Harusi, peered over her shoulder one last time with a sweet smile across her lips before the trio disappeared into the foliage.
Leaving Gepeto behind.
(WC: 1407)