[FIN] I thought I lost you....( Riot x Nikita x Bob )

[GunSniper]

"... what would be entertaining about that?" Nikita responded with a sigh.

Her limbs unlatched themselves before she allowed them to drape limply, as if she were a blood-tainted blanket. She drew in a deep breath and held it a moment before puffing it toward the back of his pink mowhawk.

"...Besides, I wanted to know what it felt like." She added after the breath.
The reference, of course, would only have been gotten had anyone known what she would have done with Riot's skin had she successfully killed him. Morbid, yes, but the words had simply come out as a vocalized thought.

With that thought in mind, her haze turned away from the back of Riot's head and to the dessert surrounding them. The vast sea of dunes seemed endless over the horizon, but Nikita could almost tell exactly where they were. Almost. Sands were ever changing after all. The real question would have been "where to?" Had she thought to ask. For now, Nikita was resolved to just go. There wasn't anywhere she had desired to go now. It would be a fool's mission to return to Morning Star to retrieve her 'things', though, she would have to eventually. When her strength was better and her body not so worn.  

[[ Radical Dreamer ]]

Riot settled a smile deeply released in thoughtful breath. He couldn't agrue with that.

"Fair enough." The walking mountain answered. Releasing a sigh, Riot's swishy thoughts tried to collect with what more fun things they could do together. Just as he suspected, and felt-though willing, by a lie-Nikita had been a captive still.

The only dread he held, was if she really wanted to by her own will to come along with him.

An ear turned to Nikita's words, pulling his thoughts-his wonder was put on hold.

It didn't make sense to him.
"Did you forget?" The adult asked, well-she didn't remeber him at first so....

"Hopefully not much has changed from when you use to do it..."
Riot commented lifting his head a little as if to try and see her, his eyes cetching the sight of her at the corner of his gaze.

Taking a slow breath, Riot just as quitely released it. His head turned to the sand and his paws. One step after another.

"Hey, Kita..." The Tahtil spoke after a moment.

"You want to come with me right?" He asked, finding the courage to ask before it slipped his febal thoughts once more.

"I-I don't want to force you," The leader added. "I can't really recall" his face scrunched, being completely honest. He recalled excitement, that she was comming...

But did he?

"...if I actually -asked- if you wanted to."  

[GunSniper]

Nikita remained deep in thought as she watched the sands pass by. At first it was deep enough to block out Riot's first comment, which was habitually meet with a deep breath. However, her ears flicked to the 'did you forget'. Her deep breath held in her chest as her heat begun to quicken. She had forgot? She did forget! Riot had called her out on it, she forgot and gave up. Her eyes widened to the sudden shock of being asked such a question. The idea weighed as a bolder on her head.

'Hey Nikita' Snapped her back into the moment.

"...y-yes?" She inquired, her voice slightly shaken from the previous moment's shock.

At first she remained silent from giving her answer. Did she? Part of her did not wish to. She was ashamed, wounded, her spirit was broken and torn. Looking at him was a reminder of her sins and half her life in hell. He had not stopped looking for her, she tried to kill him and take his pelt.

but...

She drew in a deep breath. There was something else that felt whole again. It may be a slow recovery, but they would get there, right?

"Ry...." NIkita started with a soft breath. She swallowed as she collected her thoughts. ".... I am having a hard time realizing what I want to do anymore... Where I was, I was told what I needed to do, how I needed to live. But... it was told in such a way I always thought it was on my will. I don't want to decide right now... "

She closed her eyes as if tht would help smooth over the truth of what she was doing.

"..Ry... I was trying to kill you so that I could present your pelt to my former 'master' as proof of my loyalty and gratitude for 'saving' my life. I am... unsure why you want me around after what I have done. And you do not know all the rest of my deeds...."

Nikita's frame begun to quiver as she admited to her true purpose. It took everything in her being not to start crying loudly. Tears begun to form in her eyes, yet she was too stubborn to allow them to flow freely.  

[[ Radical Dreamer ]]

As Nikita spoke, Riot took a glance at the path before them. Wise to listen, his ear twitched to the name she had for him. His paws softly landed on the land, as he kept his gaze focused on their goal.

As she spoke, Riot made a uncomforable swallow, as he found it harder to gather his thoughts as what to say. What was he suppose to say? Well, the truth, he had heard rumors and traveled so vary far to find her...

All that seemed less importent to tell her, right now.

How she had attacked him, Riot knew she had wanted his life-and he was willing to give it to her. For soul reason that he couldn't find it in himself to harm or attack her back. He was ripped up from her claws and teeth marks, and she only suffered what that monster had done to her. That reminder was enough to bristle his fur slightly.

"Well, that explains the claws and more then open paws." Riot made light in a tease. Perhaps it wasn't the best idea, but it was already on the table. Slowly he nodded.

"I know, I had heard rumors. I...guess I just expected something else." The adult add more seriously, his smile failing slightly. Releasing a breath, his head shook a little, which caused his sight to wince slightly. He had trusted that she would spare the final blow...

And he wasn't wrong.

"We both, grew differently." Riot stated, pausing his sight he looked up to the sky.

Weaver, help him with this.

Pausing in his tired but stead fast steps, Riot turned his head to look back at Nikita the best he could. Why would he want her? How could she not see it...?

"And Weaver knows, I would traded -anything- to spare you for such a thing." Riot told her, his front paws gripped at the earth.

"I maybe 'earth', and travelled it thoughtly for you-but I cant fix that." The Tahtil sighed, recalling every night how he wished to the maker that he would wake and she would be there...that everything had just been a bad dream. That they where Cubs again, only caring about their search for rocks.

He hadn't been strong enough to keep her from such a thing...

"Nikita, There is no one like you." The b'alam breathed. "You are priceless, I have searched the earth, for you and just as you promised. There is no one like you and you wouldnt find another one like me." The magus smiled.

"Besides..." Riot tilted his head. "We still have a lot of rocks to find..."

Riot didn't care what she had done, or who she thought she was but who he knew she was. He wanted her for her, she was his -best- friend.

"...But if you didn't want to come with me." Riot had to swallow the fact she may want to leave. "I'd let you leave-and it wouldn't be because I didn't want you."

He had wanted her by his side, so desperately-but not forcefully, she had to choose it.

"Because I would, again-search the world for you." The magus told her.

"And then when I found you-'cause I would, just So I could ask you, again. And if you still needed more time. I would give it to you." Riot finished, ready to resolve his whole life in chasing after her, if he had too.  

[GunSniper]

Nikita's ears flicked back to the deeply heart felt words of her friend. Each word he spoke was as a needle right to her own soul. It wasn't painful, but it was a heavy realization to hear such things from him. And not just hear, feel. Riot was not full of hot air as Morning Star was. His words were surely from a higher state of understanding.

Every word he spoke, Nikita listened to intently. By the end of his long string of words she could no longer hold back the streams of tears that had built up behind her eyes. He really meant all that? No matter what she chose, he would follow her and continue to wait until she was ready to be in his company.

Did she wish to be in his company?

Yes. She couldn't think of being away again. Where would she go? Where did she want to go? She would leave only to hide away and be a ghost to her own fears and shame. It wasn't even an exsistance she could bare, she would be better off going back to Morning Star to be killed.

Nikita took in a dep breath before pulling her limbs back up from Riot's side. Than, as gently as she could manage, she leapt from his back, oppositeside he was facing. As her paws meet once again with a soft 'thud', softer than normal, she turned her head just enough to watch Riot past her veil of long fur.

No. She would not leave. Not now, not with his words still resonating in her soul.

NIkita turned toward Riot. Carefully she ducked her head a bit just as she nudged his shoulder gently. The cool of her tears rolling down her cheek were ignored as she kindly rolled her head from side to side until her cheek made contact with his shoulder.

"... I do not want to be lost again." Nikita admitted quietly past the sobbing quiver in her tone.

She pressed a bit harder against his arm as she tried to search for the right words.

"... It was such a hollow exsistance. Nothing about it was fulfilling. I can't just make that void happen again... I won't... I don't want to give up on you Bob again." She choaked.

The paw, miraculously still clutching the baseball sized ruby, wrapped arond his forearm as she pulled herself close, or tried to as her head was already pressed firmly against his arm.

"...I'm sorry I gave up on you. I'm sorry I lost my way.... I'm sorry..." She continued to shake. "I don't want to give up anymore... I don't want to do things so void of meaning, I don't want to be empty anymore..."  

[[ Radical Dreamer ]]

As Riot finished his words, he felt his breath halt as he waited for a responce from Nikita. His left paw gripped at the sand under him, he couldn't recall a time he had felt so nervous. He had never said so much in one speech before.

Regardless he ment every word.

Feeling her shift from him, Riot suppressed a grunt as she shifted. Seeing her dismont and not face him, his heart stopped and a unheard breath was taken in.

She was going to leave?

Before he had a chance to turn himself, he halted as he saw Nikita's tears past the vale of hair. The water under her eyes, glistened off her fur from the desert sun. Only to have them wiped free by his arm, letting her have his paw. His head turned. A relived purr, started to motor from the once again beating chest.

He couldn't help but feel 'whole' with her there by his side.

Dark ears, lowered to the repeating of her apology. Riot didn't feel she owed it to him, (aside from the almost killing him part.) but he did feel, that it was most for her sake, to let it out.

Feeling her shake, his own free paw moved rightly around her. His head turned to 'hold' her just as firmly. His tail flicked.

"Nikita...." Left Riot softly, not knowing what to say...

Except.


"I wanna fill that void..." Riot told her sincereLy, his heavy eyes closing peacefully, however they where tight with passion.

He was going to be there to make sure she wouldn't get lost and he wasn't going to leave her.  

[GunSniper]

Nikita was once again tonguie tied. A massive lump seemed to form in her throat whenever she tried to speak up. She felty as if the world had been on her shoulders, that she needed to apologize for everything, and Riot did not seem to think so. He saw no wrong. How could he not? Well, trying to kill him aside. Did he even see that as wrong? He didn't seem surprised. She almost did. If he had not lulled her to sleep when he had, she would have done so. Even if he was not fighting back at full effort, she would have for his skin.

She would have worn his...pelt... like... a blanket...

The thought caused her to tense further. She would have walked around wearing her friend's dead fur on her back. What if she had realized all too late who this was?

Nikita's frame begun to quiver again. At this rate they really would be going no where. But she couldn't seem to move her limbs, or even speak up at all.

So, how to respond? He wanted to 'fill' the void. There was no way to respond past a slight nod, tight hold and a slow nuzzle at the moment.  

[[ Radical Dreamer ]]

Leaning against her, but at the same time being that rock for her, Riot as much as a alien cat could, held her.

"Hey, just as you said-you didn't know you where doing was 'wrong'." The adult told her in a soft Coe. Having a feeling that, she was still hung up on what her life had been.

"You didn't have Bob or I to help you." He reminded her, recalling the few rumors of Cubs being taken from an Windkin-that was strangly hanging around the dark tribe. Riot had gone their first looking for her, as he knew cain was of such a clan.

This moment right now, proved that she hadn't reconized him as well as when she was stuffed into their cub cave: 'Rikita'.
"You where -taken-, you didn't living willingly. You and I were just Cubs." The Tahtil purred, rubbing her head slowly back with his own bruised face.

"What we have is -now-, and tell you what: could you carry on if I told you 'I forgive' all the 'wrong' you could have done? If you start anew, right here and with me?" Riot was wise to ask, after all he had made his choices and done things that might have been 'frowned' upon.  

[GunSniper]

Nikita's ears perked forward as she listened to what she could through her own mind's sobbing chaost. Her Entire frame continued to tremble while she tried to surpress from crying out any louder than her sharp breaths every inhale.

Slowly her head begun to sway from side to side. Though now she realized she had been lied to and taken, when it happened it was more than willing. She was told a story and she lived by it. Even if it was false, she chose to live by it.

Carefully, and reluctantly, she begun to try and pull away from Riot. Her glossy cromson eyes looking upward toward his azure gaze.

"Everything I did, I did willingly... even if the reason was a lie, I did it willingly."
She admitted with a shaken voice,

She clutched the ruby tighter in her paw.

"...Part of me enjoyed what I was doing, even if it was hollow, it covered the other pain of that void... It was a replacement that had to be done over and over just to continue to cover the void. And every time that void grew bigger and bigger and more had to be done to cover it..." She continued, having to pause to regain controll of her shaking voide.

He probably didn't think she needed an appology, that she had done no wrong. That was hard to accept. She had done very wrong things.

Was it so simple to start anew right now? In this moment? Nikita was unsure. She didn't know if she could simply start something new when the weight of everything else was atop her. Riot had apologized, but did he truely understand why? Did that even matter?

"... I don't want you to just tell me because it's what I want to hear... " Nikita shook her head before looking completely away from Riot. So much for that goofy attitude. "...I -have- done wrong. Lied to or not (and she knew she was), I have done it..."  

[[ Radical Dreamer ]]

Riot's gripped tightened, as he felt Nikita start to pull away from. His paw flex, and then loosened, as did his hold on her reluctantly. Though however, his head lifted a little, his strong paw and arm remained around her.

Blue partly opened eyes looked back at Nikita's gray and red ones. He listened, but was unmoved, both physically and metaphorically. Taking a slow deep breath, it softly passed through his nostrils.

She was bent to fight with him on this, but this time he was going to fight back. He had heard something said about that by that same WindKin, the one with a hook for a paw.

'You don't deserve what you're not willing to fight for, mate.' Something alongs the lines of that.

Leaning his head closer to her own, he wanted to gently nudge her head, wipe some of her tears away, only have her pull it away fully and not look at him.

"I can't read your mind, Kita." Riot stated, as she spokethay he was just saying what she wanted to hear.

He was pretty amazing, but he couldn't do that...

His large tail flicked, and he released a break.

"Yes, you did." Riot sighed, more so to the fact that his fogged mind found the answer so simply.

"And you have a new choice now." His head raised and he looked back down at her. The hight difference suddenly becoming really obvious to him now...

Had...he gotten bigger?

"Everything you did, or even happened is now in the past." The friend spoke, having this conversation with Bob meany times, with his own short comings. However, Bob seemed more gentle about it. He was a little sad she looked away from him....

"Leave it there, and forge a -new- path. A better path, Nikita." His tail flicked.
"And if you need help, I am right here, and while I breath I always will." He spoke his paw shifted from around her to her maw, gently cosking it towards him.

" I swear to you, I will pick you back up every -single- time and cheer for you when you are able to get up and 'run' on your own."  

[GunSniper]

Even as bold as Riot was being, as sincere as he was, Nikita was having a hard time simply letting go of everything. It just seemed too simple. But pehaps that's all it was? A simple thing.

Before Nikita could think much more into the subject she felt her chin being englufled by a paw and being gently pulled to look back into Riot's azure eyes. Crimson set against black sclera was slightly obscured by the tears that had still formed in their eyes.

She didn't resist the pull, rather went with it (And not out of fear her neck would snap if she hadn't).

Even while looking into his eyes she felt deflated and colorless. Deep down, part of her that she would rather noty have said anything, recalled that they both had said they would never leave each other. Yet, she broke that promise. In a sense? She stopped looking for him. He kept looking for her.

It wasn't a complicated puzzle. Nikita just could not let the past go so easily. It's weight was great. But she, as she said before, did not want to leave him again and feel that void return. She did not want to give up on him and Bob again.

"......" Nikita tried to say something to his words, to have parhaps just as simple of a reply as his. However, the words would not come past the lump in her throat. Instead she continued to look back up at him and just revel in his words. Thank fully she was too distracted by such a thing to realize how messed her had become, especially on her face. Her fur was damp with tears, some of which had clung to desert sands that had lept to the sudden winds. Perhaps it was a proper reflection to how she felt within,,,  

[[ Radical Dreamer ]]

As Nikita let him turn her head to him and she didn't struggle away from it. He gently did as she had done with his face and carefully groomed her own. Wiping the tears and clearing the dirt away. His paw carefully still held her maw, because he wanted to, and well-so she couldn't pull away too much.

"Oh Nikita." Riot sighed, and vary carefully touched his sore head to her own. His eyes closed and ears lowered.

She didn't need to say anything, but he did want to help her in anyway shape or form.

The forest had started to show its self on the horizon, they where almost to where they were as Cubs. He didn't trust to stay in the same exact spot, because no doubt that monster would still be seeking them.  

[GunSniper]

Nikita didn't move as Riot groomed her tears away than rest his forehead against her own. She didn't move nor say a word. All she could do was think and wonder why he was so kind, why didn't he see any wrong she had done? She remembered Riot was always a kind soul, but this was not cub's play anymore.

For now, they would just have to revel in the moment. There was nothing she could do more, nothing more that could be said. Despite all of that, the weight was still heavy upon her shoulders.

As they continued on their path back to the forest where she had first grown up (to adolescence) with Riot and Bob, Nikita walked along with her head slightly slumped down. All the color from her spirit was drained. That goofy attitude Riot had infected her with earlier had long since word away and left behind a husk of what was once joy. Nikita's tail was lowered enough to nearly drag along the sand, but not quite, while her ears were lowered behind her skull.

The walk seemed to have taken twice as long as it should have. Nikita was unsure of what to do. She didn't want to go back, but she felt as if she could not go forward either. Each step painful in that it stirred up emotions within her heart that stabbed at the inner walls, and choked the outside.

How does one be free of such a weight?  

[[ Radical Dreamer ]]

Riot's steps were slow as he seemed to walk with the same 'weight' however, his was more centered around how fatigued he was. He felt it would be so nice to just flop down and rest, as it was easy enough to almost fall asleep with each step.

However.

Blue eyes looked over to Nikita as his own head hung, he wished there was more he could do. But anything he did recently wasn't helping. Perhaps his mind wasn't thinking clearly-maybe Bob would know something to say to her.

For now, he just focused one step after another, he didn't help the mood as he couldn't think of anything to say to her that he didn't already say. The choice was now in her paws.

She was comming with him, that was a good step, he could help the rest.

On paw at a time.

Reaching the clearing and water, Riot released a sigh. His paws quaked under him faintly. With out stoping to ask if Nikita would join him, He just kept walking. Reaching the water, sandy paws waked into the liquid. The raw and open wounds ached, at first splash, and stung, but soon the relaxing waters started to clam the lasherations as he submerged himself more. His eyes closed as his head raised to be above the water.

Okay. That part was done, and it felt better.

Shifting to lay, Riot carefully bed down in the waters. He knew he wouldn't be able to play or even go in vary deep, but he knew the water would help his wounds.

Hopefully, it would be refreshing for Nikita too.

They didn't need to stay long, he just wanted to clean himself and tended to what he needed to. He could rest once they found Bob.  

[GunSniper]

Nikita stopped completely as Riot made it to the waters and proceeded without thought. For a moment she simply watched. Her eyes couldn't help but trail to watch as the water engulfed all the wounds she had inflicted upon him. Those were her gashes, her teeth gouches... she could still taste in in her mouth.

She looked away. It was hard watching him wince to the moment of pain as the waters washed over him.

They needed to soak for a bit, just to clean it out. If ever there was a time to have a dark tribe member around. Their saliva was good for open wounds. However, Nikita would surely tear Cain apart if he showed again. For now, the water would have to do its work.

As silently as she had been following Riot, she entered the water keeping the splash to the bare minimum. She congtinued past the shallow of th lake and quietly sumberged herself into the deeper part of the water. The pain of her own wounds went ignored. She had had worse before...

Her eyes opened to the view the clear tranquility of the water's blue. The rocks reflected the surface above in such a strange patter. But it was peacful just to watch them. She could see further down the lake, where the blue darkened and the bed of the lake seemed to drop pff into an abyss. She wouldn't go that far, but it caught eye to look, as if she could relate to the mere sight of the inkish-blue.

Despite being of the Fire, she found water to be a tranquil place. She lad long gotten over her instinctual fear of it... it was there at times in the back of the mind. But her desire for the moment of peace was far greater.