Weight of the Past

by **Banir Ironwood** on August 31st, 2013, 3:09 am

As Banir walked away he stopped as she spoke. A bit of rage boiling in him as he turned to her looking at her. Feeling his rage boil his fists balled up as he looked at her. Finally it had consumed him and now it over took him, though this was almost a new sensation that struck him. Instead of blind violent anger he walked over to Alea, tearing off his hood and scarf. Exposing his damaged face to her, his face twisted in true anger as he grabbed her. Lifting her off the ground by the gruff of his shirt he let years of pent up emotion loose upon her. Though unlike years past, he didn't harm a hair on her head. Beyond lifting her off the ground and having a gaze that could kill. There where no other aggressive actions towards her. That is until he began to speak. Banir, actually shouting through the pain in his throat as he shouted. "YOU THINK THAT'S BAD?! LOOK AT ME?! I HAVE NO PEOPLE!! WHAT FAMILY I HAVE?! I WANT TO KILL!! I DON'T HAVE A MOTHER AND MY FATHER!? JUST LOOK AT MY FACE!! LOOK AT THE ONLY THING HE GAVE ME!!! YOU HAVE A FAMILY, LOVED ONES, FRIENDS, A PEOPLE!! I HAVE NO HOME, I HAVE NO FAMILY, I HAVE NO PEOPLE, I HAVE NOTHING!!! ANYTHING I HAVE GAINED WAS ON MY OWN, WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS! " He took a momentary pause to catch his breath again. His eyes a flurry of shifting emotions. Grief, rage, desperation, greed, happiness, all flying through him as his eyes fought to keep pace.

"NO ONE HAS CARED ABOUT ME FOR THIRTY SIX YEARS! STRANGERS HAVE SHOWED ME THE GREATEST KINDNESS I'VE EVER KNOWN! YOU'RE SACRED OF KILLING PEOPLE? I'VE DONE IT ALERADY! I'M ALREADY LIVING WITH IT! I HAVE SO MUCH Anger In ME! I-I can't control it and when I lose it EVERYONE is in danger. I can't have a life, I can't be like those around me! I've forgotten how to live?! I never knew how to, never, not once since my birth." Slowly he lowered Alea down as the intense emotions left him. Feeling the intensity in him die down only to leave behind what felt like a greater weight. "I fear my own strength, my ability to hurt others. I can only seem to destroy and kill, nothing more. I try to live with it, leave it behind. But IT comes back. Always, I just. Can't, let it go, its all I have. This is all that keeps me going, keeps me, alive. What am I without, it?" His voice had grown horse as he had finally snap. Alea's outburst had finally triggered his own, after years of forcing everything down. It was just exploding out, right now on his birthday. Tears where forming in the corner of his eyes as he slowly began to slump to the ground.

He felt exhausted for some reason as more tears fell from his colour mixed eyes. With his hands darting to his head, palms hiding his face the world. A sort of frustration gripped him in the midst of his confusion. The metal claw on his hand digging into his skin enough to let blood run on the smooth metal. Banir's voice wavered, unsure of itself and weighted with more emotions than he knew. "What, is wrong with me?" He asked to no one but the air, his voice hardly a whisper as the immense pain caught up with him. Banir remained collapsed, on his knees, hunched over, recollecting all he had done. After all the time Alea had tried to wear him down he was done. He had at last had enough and broken down at the sight of one of his only friends rampant emotions. After saying, no. Shouting, all of that to his friend, a young girl. Banir began to feel that the jump over the nets. Perhaps was better than lingering any longer. He was after all just some broken thing that could only break in return. With nothing to give and only a means to take in this life. Did he really deserve to be alive?

by **Alea Davenport** on August 31st, 2013, 3:42 am

Alea was quiet for a long moment, letting Banir let out everything he'd been keeping inside him for so long. Finally, she said, in a quiet voice, "You have me." She walked right up to him and put her hand in his much larger one. She sat next to him and snuggled her small body against his side, a tiny but tangible gesture to show him that he was not alone. She did not immediately speak about the things he had revealed about his past. He was clearly too raw to be ready to discuss them in detail; it was enough that he'd told her about them at all. She didn't think to hard about what he'd said about having killed before. The things that had happened to him in the past were mere stories compared to the fact that, right at that moment, her friend needed her help.

"I can't do anything to change your past. But I will help you find a different path to the future. You don't have to face everything alone anymore." She tilted her head up and looked directly into his eyes, still shifting wildly to reflect the turmoil inside him. "You are my friend. You...you're the only friend I have left. I...I need you." She hesitated speaking the truth she would never have admitted at any other time. But what she and Banir had just shared (with every Jamoura in earshot, she tried not to think about too hard), had brought them too close to let obfuscation and half-truths stand between them.

The mood was getting a touch too serious for Alea's taste however, so she gave a quiet giggle and said, "I have to confess something. I...I've been sort of provoking you on purpose, almost since we met. I thought it wasn't good for you to keep all your rage bottled up all the time. I thought if you could let it out once in a while, it wouldn't get so bad that you had to hurt people." Then she turned to face Banir completely (thought still not letting go of his hand), and gave him an impish smile. "But it worked, didn't it? You just lost it and didn't even damage the furniture!"

by **Banir Ironwood** on September 7th, 2013, 11:54 pm

Banir sat hunched over still. The weight of what he had said and who he had said it too crashed into him. And hard at that. He felt more tears streaming to his eyes as he realized how weak he was. Holding it all in and hanging on to it all. For what reason!? No matter what he thought he only found more disappointment in himself. A part of him wanted to grow past this yet something within him stubbornly clung to it. Like something deep within him knew he couldn't live without this weight. Banir didn't want to think anymore, not about this at least. He just wanted his mind to go blank, to stop feeling like this. His life was already a living hell and he didn't need this. And he especially didn't need Alea to see this weak and pathetic side of him. Why? WHY? WHY!? He was so frustrated and sad right now his eyes still a swirl of battling emotion. Tears leaking down his damaged face. Right now a part of him knew he should be raging like mad, pounding his fists into anything that moved. His face was revealed, the world could see him for what he was. A scared and disgraced man, not worthy of walking among others. And yet he felt no anger now. At least there was some sort of small upside to this moment.

And then he heard words, words of comfort and caring. Then something in his hand, then something warm press against him. He was unused to this heat and if almost felt uncomfortable. Looking to his side slightly he saw Alea there, sitting by him. Her hand in his and her body against his. Normally he'd be blushing right now but his cheeks where already flushed from his emotional breakdown. And when she spoke he did feel his heart rise a little from its slumped feeling. It was strange and almost unnatural to hear her say these things, it was Alea after all. Regardless it was still just, nice. Nice to hear them, to have them said, to know someone actually gave a damn about him. In all this wide world he never expected to hear Alea say these things. He knew that she was a, well a friend, mostly. But to actually hear her say it was a whole other story. He had no idea that she actually cared this much about him. Enough to even try to change his future. Honestly he was touched and deeply honored to hear this from her. It could have brought more tears to his eyes.

Until she spoke again and he felt the smallest touch of anger in him but from what he had just done. He was too emotionally drained to act on it instead he chose to keep it simple. Unable to muster the strength to grip her hand tight he instead said in a choked voice. "I don't, think, now, is, the, right, time. To, tell, me, that." It was painfully clear that it hurt even to utter such a simple sentence for him right now. He was still in deep pain from the shouting he had done before hand. The fact he had cried a bunch wasn't helping either.

by **Alea Davenport** on September 10th, 2013, 12:21 am

Alea could almost feel Banir calm down, as his muscles relaxed (as much as they ever did). She blushed in embarrassment when he commented on her horrible sense of timing. She had been trying to lighten the mood, but maybe it wasn't time for the mood to be light yet. Still, she couldn't resist one last commentary. With a cheeky grin she said, "Fine, I'll tell it to you another time."

Displaying rare patience, she did not speak another word after that. She squeezed Banir's hand and leaned her head on his shoulder, letting them sit in companionable silence for as long as he needed. He had opened up to her today more than he'd ever opened up to anyone, from the sound of it. They were closer friends now than she had ever been with anyone else, and she knew that now that she'd made it this far, it would be much...safer...to ask him anything else in the future.

by **Lullaby** on November 1st, 2013, 6:06 pm

Banir Ironwood :

Alea Davenport :

A quiet song to soothe the heart

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