#goodt

TRIGGER WARNINGS IN TAGS

Chapter I: No Sweeter Taste Than That of Bitter Liberation

Grian had done it.

Escape.

Sure it was insane, and sure he hadn’t technically fully escaped, but damn, he was close.

And now he was being chased.

The moon hung high as storm clouds gathered. He could hear wingbeats behind him. The yells of guards shouting orders at each other, chasing him. The watcher felt his heart pumping, his white wings rapidly beating, adrenaline coursing through his veins.

He spotted the clearing, he was so close.

He dived quickly, as he had practiced for so long, and sharply veered left, carefully dodging shrubs and tree trunks, the foliage helping hide the bird.

Grian just had to fly. Just keep flying.

Thunder boomed overhead. Good, the guards can’t fly in the rain well. Nor see very well either. Once the storm started they’d have to return.

The watcher felt triumphant. He’d escaped. After so long he’d gotten out. It wasn’t without sacrifice, of course, but totally worth it. He could feel the discomfort in his leg from jumping from a ledge and landing wrong, and the hot stinging pain all across his body of sword slashes. It didn’t matter though, he was out.

It wasn’t the first escape attempt.

He couldn’t help but be reminded of last time.

This time was different.

He was out.

Free.

Grian couldn’t help but to smile. The joy didn’t last for long though.

Rain began to patter down, then with a flash of lightning it was pouring. His wings struggled to keep up in the wet. Sure the guards couldn’t fly in this downpour, but neither could he. The thunder and lightning intensified. Crackling and booming, vibrating the air.

Suddenly within a sharp change in gust, he was thrown off. The bird panicked, trying to realign his wings. The trees were rapidly approaching.

Crash!

It was too late.

-

Sunshine filtered through the leaves. Scar found it much better than the storms that racked the trail they had to travel the previous night. The air damp from morning dew, and birds chirped in the trees.

The vex looked at his companion. The companion who of which was also a vex, and that vex had been driving the wagon all night, and looked rather exhausted.

“The sun feels nice,” Cub commented, putting Scar’s thoughts into voice for him, “Trail’s all muddy ahead though. We’ll have to make camp.”

Scar chuckled, smiling to his large gray and white feline sleeping in the back of the covered wagon, “I’m sure Jellie would be pleased to be out of the wagon. Plus the horses would probably want to rest as well. You too.”

Cub rolled his eyes, smirking, “I’m fine, man. Think what you want.”

Scar and Cub had been traveling for a while now, visiting city after city, selling goods from their wagons.

The caravan consisted of three horses, used to be four but one was sold after running into trouble with a group in one of the cities, a covered wagon, which helped house most of living supplies and revenue gained from the endeavors, and a smaller wagon used to carry the products, which consisted of nothing consistent whatsoever, as they sold whatever they had and whatever makes money.

The business Convex was a great idea.

The two vexes, a mountain feline, and three horses. Yeah that’s a totally normal group.

As the wagon halted to a stop in a clearing close to the trail, Scar hopped out, stretching. His mechanical fitted legs whirring as he moved. It wasn’t an annoying sound, of course, but they for some reason needed to buzz every morning.

He hummed a playful tune as he set up the camp with Cub, helping assemble the tents, and grabbing dry sticks out of the wagon to start a fire for breakfast.

Scar admired the clearing, lined with beautiful pines, patches of lavender and poppies scattered throughout the edges. Songbirds tweeted and flew from branch to branch.It really was pretty, wasn’t it?

He stiffened at a crow's warning call. The sound of rustling came from within the woods. Of course peace was disrupted.

“Cub,” he shout-whispered, “there’s something in the trees.”

His friend stared at him, “I’ll grab your bow,” Cub murmured. The group had run into various thieves and creatures in their time of these journeys. Once they had a dragon who had ambushed their camp while they were unprepared, and burned and stole more than half of their stock, and left Scar with some nasty, well, scars.

Not that he didn't have a bunch already.

Thieves were also a big issue with the amount of attention Convex’s wagons receive, and not much guard the rich would have. Numerous times they’ve been raided. Luckily, over time they’ve gotten more skilled and ready for these raids.

His fellow vex quickly made his way to the wagon, and tossed the bow to Scar. It was a nicely crafted thing, honestly. Built with walnut, and laced throughout with vex crystal. His hands naturally fell into place as he raised it. Ready for any beast or foe to exit the brush.

Suddenly, a ragged avian appeared, looking rather half dazed. His wings seemed to be one of a mockingbird. His dusty blonde hair and gray feathers caked with mud, and my gods, is that blood? Poor guy.

Scar lowered his bow. The avian stared up at him, looking honestly terrified, and tried to scrabble away, but his leg gave out from under him.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay,” Scar soothed, “I’m not gonna shoot you.”

Trembling, the bird eyed him with uncertainty. He looked so defeated.

Scar tossed his bow to the ground as a show of peace, and took a step away. He glanced back at Cub and gestured him forward. He needed to show that they didn’t intend to hurt him.

The vex lowered himself to a crouch, “Hello there. I’m Scar. We don’t want to hurt you, alright? No harm intended whatsoever. So, to start with, what’s your name?”

He noticed the scar that traveled up his face, slashing into his eye, which was foggy.

He’s half blind, Scar thought, no wonder he’s so wary. Plus, looks like he’s been through something rough.

The avian slightly relaxed, still tense though.

“I’m Grian,” he hesitated, “sorry for stumbling into your camp. I would leave but..” He gestured hopelessly to his leg, “can’t exactly do that right now.”

Scar looked at Cub, then looked back at Grian. An idea forming.

“We could help,” Scar offered, “Cub knows healing, and if you have nowhere to go, we’re heading toward somewhere you can stay. Right, Cub?”

Cub hesitantly nodded, giving Scar the eye. Which clearly indicated Scar would receive a firm talking to later, not that it mattered, he never listened.

Grian looked at the two, and seemed like he was considering it.

Eventually, he sighed, “I suppose. It’s not like I’ve got very good chances out in the wild like this anyways.”

Scar rushed forward to help the mockingbird up, but stopped when Grian flinched away.

“I’ve got it,” he muttered, attempting to get up, “I can- hrng- handle it”

His eyes were so very glazed with pure pain as he limped to cloth that was laid out to eat on earlier, now given a much more important purpose. He collapsed onto the fabric, clearly trying to stifle a groan of discomfort.

Now that Scar was able to fully observe the bird, his heart almost broke for how ragged he was. His hair knotted and unkempt, caked with mud. His face and skin dusty and dirty, oozing not quite dry scabs covering him. One wing twisted at a clearly uncomfortable angle, and it seemed to be broken. His feathers were all ruffled into different directions, several were damaged and broke off.

This man was truly the embodiment of disheveled.

Scar couldn’t help but wonder what happened to him.

-

Grian couldn’t believe what had happened.

How could he crash?

At least he hadn’t been captured but now he was surrounded by two complete strangers who were both readily able to attack him until they saw how pathetic he was.

Now it was around the height of the day, the dew had far lifted. He looked to the two vexes who had taken him in.

Scar, the one who was initially going to shoot him and then immediately offered sanctuary, was rather happy looking, and seemed to be getting scolded by Cub as of right now. The happy go lucky vex had dark brown hair, which at the moment was pulled back into a low bun, stunning green eyes, and everywhere where any skin showed, there were scars visible.

As for his friend, Cub wore a dark cloak, which had rather pretty pale blue-gray highlights, had black hair, and was currently glaring at Scar. Clearly he didn’t exactly agree with Scar’s idea to take in a complete and utter stranger. Grian didn’t blame him

Grian sat, absentmindedly picking at a scab that had formed on the back of his hand. He ultimately decided that he might as well travel with this bizarre band to their destination. If they let him stay, that is.

 He would fare better with companions rather than alone.

Cub had put ointments and bandages onto the worse wounds, and built a makeshift splint out of materials they had at hand.

Oh gods, his head hurted. The crash had been rough. Grian had been knocked unconscious for the night, covered him in even more scratches and bruises, and severely damaged his wing. His hollow bones were so fragile, so he wasn't completely shocked.

Many times growing up he was injured, considering he had often played too rough, or would fall from trees, or would get distracted and miss the landing. But this one was a tad bit more rough than the childhood injuries.

Grian attempted to stretch his wings out, to test how much it would agonize him. He immediately felt a spasm of pain flow throughout his wings and body. Yeah, can't do that.

He grunted with pain as he brought them back in, bits of dirt and dried mud falling off of his feathers. Grian glanced back at them. Gods, they were so filthy. It’d take ages to preen, though he couldn’t do that right now.

“Too sore,” he muttered to himself. He pricked out a broken feather to admire his new plumage. Admittedly, he was shocked he had been able to shift so quickly. Grian seemed to have changed into a mockingbird.

Huh.

Grian was pulled from his thoughts as he noticed a rather large feline eyeballing him from behind the wagon. It’s tail twitching back and forth.

He felt panic rise. He wouldn’t be able to run or fly, and cats seemed to think birds were a great snack.

“Hey guys- come help,” he squawked panickedly, frozen in place, “I seem to have an issue!”

The two companions hurried over, both wielding weapons, ready for attack. But both immediately became just unconcerned.

Cub huffed and rolled his eyes, “That’s just Jellie.”

Scar was giggling, petting the feline, “Why hello Jellie! You’re scaring our new friend!”

She rolled onto her back, purring loudly. Grian stared incredulously at the vex who was now rubbing the giant cat's belly and making baby noises.

Scar turned his head towards Grian, still chuckling.

“She’s friendly!”

Grian had a hard time believing that.

Cub cleared his throat, gesturing towards the camp, “So, Grian. I understand you’ll be traveling with us, correct?”

The avian nodded, and Cub continued, “Luckily, we are only a few days' journey away from our destination. We should be able to make ground again in the morning.”

Scar looked up from petting Jellie as she got up and prowled away. He was grinning.

“So you’re joining us?”

Grian sighed, “I suppose so.”

Scar’s green eyes shone, his grin widening.

if you suspect asthma, i'd highly recommend looking into it. if it's not treated it can cause your lungs to degenerate over time.

Shit, I know I wrote a post about this exact topic a couple weeks ago, and I hope I can find it for you, but long story short, you’re right.

It completely erases the fact that “white” is not actually a static, contained category, but is instead an ever shifting laundry list of who is Acceptable and who is Other.

There’s a reason why, even in the US, people still refer to “WASPs” as being Truly White, and all those dirty looking Eastern Europeans and weird gross Catholics as being inferior and other (not nearly on the level of racism or antisemitism or anything, but rest assured). 

The definition of white in the united states has expanded to included mediterraneans as long as they’re Pale Enough (I mean look at Milo Yia-nope-olis; you can’t be the head figure of a white supremacist movement without having achieved whiteness), but that doesn’t mean that italians, greeks, spaniards etc are classed as white in other places. 

And it also doesn’t even fucking touch on the fact that the mediterranean peoples are not in any way limited to europe I don’t know how people managed to forget this but the mediterranean sea and her people’s extend well into the arab peninsula and fucking africa like holy shit.

Last I checked we were all more or less in agreement that MENA peoples aren’t classed as white, so like.

But yeah, anyway, white is a completely made up category and mediterranean people aren’t included in it in lots of places. Like, for example, white Australia treats greeks and other mediterranean people (lebanese especially, apparently) as Horrible Filthy Racially Inferior Invaders.

That said, I do want to emphasize that certain mediterranean peoples (namely, the european ones) have achieved a reasonable level of Whiteness in the US so don’t let people use global racial identity issues to “excuse” them being racist sacks of shit in the US under the guise of “I’m ~*~mediterranean~*~ we’re a people of color we can’t be racist.”

My heart goes out to you with all you are dealing with. I’m so sorry your mom forced you to come out -- that should have been something you could do on your own time. And I hope all goes as well as possible as you get to the hospital and get those tests done. I’ll be praying hard for you, that you’ll have the strength and support you need to get through all that life is dealing you right now.