Rook {B.B} (3)

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It was also covered in dust and critters, coating every single speck of space in the day, just by looking at the air Tyra could see the dust particles floating around, and with each heavy step, a cloud coated their feet.

But everything else was just like Tyra remembered it, how she left it behind. The put out fire in the middle of the kitchen, the litter of jars hanging across the wall, nearly falling to their demise. Their dust covered makeshift beds, the long putrid stew over the ashen logs...

"Wha... what is this?" Tyra turned on her dust filled heel, watching how Loukas practically stood head-to-head with a hanging glittering under the sunlight sword, its hilt covered in a variety of charms, both glued and hanging.

"Mother hung it after father's death, to honour him." Those we're the words that broke Loukas.

He tried shutting his cry, swallowing the noise as his knees grew weak and gave out on him, his eyes still glued on the sword above his head. But Tyra could tell he was sobbing in silence, only knowing by the heaving of his chest and shoulders.

But Loukas was doing what he had been taught by their father. Never allow anyone to see you cry.

Nevertheless, just the mental image of her brother breaking down behind her was enough for Tyra herself to cry, sliding down the dust filled wall while she pressed her fist into her mouth to stifle her own cries of anguish while her tears wet her hand and face.

If she closed her eyes for just enough, she could hear her mother soothing her and Loukas in the other room, her gentle lullabies lulling Tyra into a false sense of security.

Only no one was in that house but them, and the other inhabitants would never return again.

~•~

That night, Loukas lit the fire in the kitchen to cook the last remaining food they had while Tyra dusted the mats as best she could so for the first time in a over a decade, someone would sleep inside.

The rabbit was as good as Loukas' cooking skills allowed it to be, which granted was quite a flavourful and tender rabbit's meat. All those years of clinging on to their mother for dear life paid some fruit for Loukas.

"You should visit pretty face tomorrow." Loukas tossed a fully cleaned rabbit bone into the fire, watching as it charred with the heat into a dark ashen colour.

"Bellamy will live, I'm not leaving you alone with a house that needs fixing and is being haunted by our family." Tyra tossed a bone of her own, the last one she had remaining, while she licked her spice covered fingers, Loukas replicating her actions on the other side of the crackling fire.

"I'll just hunt tomorrow, we ran out of food. Go be with your man for a while."

Tyra didn't reply to him yet, only curling on her mat while she faced the wall, her back turned to their source of heat as she tried to sleep.

She truly did want to be with Bellamy, she didn't know how much longer she'd be able to spend with him without having to return to her duties in Polis. But she also wanted to help Loukas, after all, he was dealing with a similar type of pain she was.

But the prospect of spending a day in Bellamy's arms after such a long and emotionally exhausting day, especially with the added sprinkle of constantly waking up every few minutes by some ghost whisper, was enough for Tyra to make up her mind.

Only before the sun rose, Tyra had woken up by yet another nightmare, or what she thought had been a nightmare. In reality, the almost demonic voices sounding in her head had been Loukas speaking in some odd language she barely recognized in her half-asleep brain.