#{;prose}

            Sweet, and bitter, the taste of nicotine and recycled air. The dark was split with the burst of flame, brief and bright, outlining the brim of worn sunglasses, and fur bisected by a scar which branched beneath the rim of those dark glasses.

The taste was a relief, and it came with profound guilt.

@acewing

“If happy thoughts make you bleed slower, then it’s as bad as you damn well want it to be.”

James had a whole arm that couldn’t feel pain or bleed, so, of course, it wasn’t the one he’d gone and got pulverized; he was wide open from the elbow down, and now Falco had to familiarize himself with parts of his first-aid kit he hadn’t so much as glanced at since he first got it. The bits that stopped things from stinging so much were all he’d cared to memorize, quick and easy; throw it on and get back to business.

Quick and easy didn’t leak this much.

Hell knew what else he’d hurt.

He couldn’t go down just a little closer to an outpost, either – had to be miles out from the nearest radio tower under a rocky outcropping stretching back to hell knew where. Falco didn’t need his dashboard to know the hottest part of the day was coming up quick; the air rippling like water off the dunes said more than he cared to know.

“You wanna try flyin’ like you ain’t already dead some time soon, asshole?” Falco said irritably, shoving aside a wipe that’d gone dry awhile ago. That was probably his fault, too. “The hell do you think you’re doin’, huh?”

         Odd that, of all times, NOW James found his mind back on that rock he’d left behind decades prior. Perhaps it was the smell of blood, the bite of frustration and the sting of the encroaching high-noon, or perhaps the desert that swallowed the horizon in stoops of sand moved only by the wayward howls of dry wind. It hurt, but it was far from the worst pain he’d ever experienced, and why (or so it seemed) Falco would regard the laceration with the critical eye it probably deserved. James smiled, and something of a laugh bubbled--it was funny, in a way. It had to be. They were fucked, at least for the time being.

Why not laugh?

“Y’aint goin’ soft on me, are you?” It was a joke. Mostly. He grit his teeth and removed his sunglasses with his undamaged hand for a moment, hissing as a fresh stripe of pain rushed up his affected arm. Somehow the idea of wiping the blood from his face seemed less important--that was, until he took hold of the dried sanitary wipes Falco had discarded. Better than nothing. 

It was deep. This complicated things.

So what Falco crowed in his frustration truly hung like a meaty vestige of shade over them both, it was fair enough question: what WAS he doing?

“Not dead, just half.” He remarked shortly before ripping what bandage they could find free of its confines. Better not to think of how the mesh material offered no sensation, nothing but the hollow echo of what once was, and how that steel forced the ache into his bones. No telling what else he’d damaged on his way down, and it wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. Not now.

“If you know what I’m gonna say, why say it?”

It’s a song and dance routine well practiced by now, so much so both parties had already mastered their answers. That only means they’ve found new ways not to answer.

Any moment of respite or silence away from the rest of the team, it’d soon be time play that tune again.

“Dad, y'just said it: it’s done.” He kicks the cargo space of his Arwing shut when he rises to look up at him. Fox isn’t just gonna play along this time, he’s going to bend the rules.

“So instead, please– how about you go ahead and just tell me what you’d prefer me to say.”

           “It begs repeating. Yet here we are--” He bit back his remark, swallowed the bile. Enough of that, he knew better. He knew better than to chew at that bit more than was needed, but the urge to draw the argument out lingered like a bad smell. Neither wanted to fight, neither of them wanted to do a great many things that would urge them into speaking at length about where this fracas would take them in the end.

James had known it since he returned to Corneria. Fox knew it, and there was the unspoken heaviness of what Venom entailed for them all--an end.

THE end. He sighed.

“What i’d prefer? I’d prefer if y’didn’t play stupid,                  and roll this off your back like it’s nothing. You’re callin’ the shots, but that doesn’t mean you have to court death

        SOFT music can be heard playing from a cockpit radio. It’s pilot appears to be asleep in his seat, his canopy popped, though his dark glasses give nothing away.

      “ ♪ Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face                Stars fill my dream                 I'm a traveler of both time and space . . .

[J U D A S]

        In an ideal world there would have been no war, no need for the men that War bred, or the carnage that would often follow. In an ideal world, Star Fox would have ended its tenure with the generation that formed it, James McCloud would have survived, and his surviving friends would have grown old--happy, thoughts of the war a distant memory to all that had endured it. 

There was a distinct, though detached, directionless thought born of the emptiness that crowded Pigma now, even as he writhed in his torment, whispering whether it had all been worth it in the end? The thought wrought something more, of course, a force which had lingered for longer--much longer, still. Waiting for something to end so that there might be some modicum of peace to be found. Maybe.

Pigma might have known it once, he might have known a smile, a warm laugh, the sad glimpses masked by bad jokes told over drinks. The force drew closer, and its presence was naught the warm thing that guided Fox from the depths of Andross’ collapsing keep on Venom--nothing so whole, or so full of love, or hope--it was something else. A ruined reflection--damaged, staring beyond the veil of mirrored sunglasses long damaged, cracked, bloodied, barely masking a emptied socket.

It was once a friend. Once.

@acewing            The universe had a sense of humor sometimes, whether it was born from a place of cruelty or not was anyone’s guess. So he’d come to know this in his time amidst the stars he’d once yearned to know, and found that (as in most things) history tended to reflect the past. It rhymed with the passing years, and twined its fingers in with the gnarled sense of cosmic glee that nothing more could be done but press on. Ceaselessly. Perhaps why he watched on now, set against an opposing wall of tempered steel, and awash in quiet as the new soul his son had chosen for his team entered into the main hull of Great Fox.

A young, confident avian with all the skill he boasted and more, with none of the discipline one twice his age might have maintained. Steady, steady, he smiled in habit, willing the thought back as the very clear reminder that he and his own had once been so brash.

Once.

Mercenary work did require a certain type of individual to thrive.

The reverie was bitter. Not now.

        “ You must be the Ace Fox mentioned.”

His voice clung to the halls, echoing as the Vulpine removed himself from his chosen spot and advanced just enough to close the rude distance the ship had set between them.

              “ ‘Falco’, right?”

                          Werewolves, yeah. Okay--whatever THAT is. Probably something weird. His life had become a slew of weird happenings since he’d come across THIS one in particular. So, why not--sure. He’d bite.