-::Another Little Excerpt::-

-::Another Little Excerpt::-

“Falora, you need to get up.”

My eyes sparked open. Morning already? It felt only seconds ago I had rested my eyes. Just a moment, I had told my brother. Give only a minute and I’ll be ready to set out again. Guilt throbbed inside my breast as I pushed myself clumsily into a sitting position. There, I set forth to rubbing my eyes. The longer I averted his gaze, the better. I could already feel it penetrating through my hands as if they were nothing by a frail veil. I half wondered why he hadn’t just kicked me in the gut. He’d done it many a time before. Always so impatient.

But yet I never complained. It’s hard to have that right in circumstances such as mine. And so, even if he had, I would have sucked it up. If only to quell my quivering heart. Sometimes I would argue inside that next time would be different. I sure knew how to lie to myself.

Only after my eyes felt like they were going to swell did I raise my head. To my relief, he’d taken a second to look off in the distance. In search of patrols, most likely. They were always after us. But I wasn’t concerned with it at the moment. No, it was times like this when his face contorted into anxiety and urgency… That’s when he appeared most real. And that’s when I loved him most.

Something tugged my sleeve and I turned. My violet eyes exchanged a meek smile with the shining green ones of my younger brother. No-- He wasn’t really our kin. But I kept forgetting and so he came to be, regardless. My other sibling disagreed, but I couldn’t help it every time our eyes met as they did. I placed a hand on his cheek, rubbing it with a thumb a moment like a mother would a son. He cringed and reluctantly pulled away. My mind cleared instantly of its foggy waking state.

“Armada, you’re…”

I trailed off, touching the visible bruise I’d been coaxing just seconds before. He only smiled feebly in return. It was amazing how easy our roles could switch. He offered me a hand up and I took it gratefully. Unfortunately, my footing didn’t agree. I found myself backpedaling, his grip giving way from my weight.

A gruff shove came from behind and I toppled forward, finally settling my feet with ever lacking grace. Sometimes I wondered why they tacked something like that onto us felines. I’d yet to find someone to fit that stereotype. For all I knew, it was another myth. But then the world was full of them.
I regretted turning to my savior. His glare instantly bore guilt in the pit of my stomach. I downcast my eyes and rocked back. My feet scuffled the dry ground. The world around us had long since been deserted of any luscious foliage, swept instead in a cloak of sand.