|
Post by Morgan on Dec 30, 2021 20:19:51 GMT -6
On a few words that start with N. ~ Mature for: Slight Reference to Substance (Cigarette, Alcohol) Use, Grievous Bodily Harm on a Critter (*might be edited with more in later) ~ Note: Everything referenced in this thread occurs in Morgan's past. Some of it will be clarifying or over-writing old plot points to improve them. |
~
Nostalgia was an intoxicating force, Morgan felt. As intoxicating as any substance really could be. It made sense for the force to feel that compelling. Humans had a tendency to look back at their past through lenses tinted with a polarizing view that selected for the positive times; and perhaps it was an even worse force on someone like Morgan; precocious individuals bereaved of all historical roots at an age young enough to have no recourse save for their own merits. There were times where they went weeks without thinking about anything other than what they had at the helm (for their own sake)- times where they lost theirself entirely beneath the yoke of work. Still, there were other (slower) times in which Morgan found theirself reminiscing (if one wanted to use a soft word for their hardly unique form of self-torture). Times like now, where the bespectacled human found theirself between projects on the job, sitting at the desk with fingers itching to pull out the file they kept in the back of the cabinet... The one with their father's disappearance case (so lovingly and perhaps obsessively compiled by theirself over the years of their elder teenagehood and young adulthood). They only managed not to pull it out and lose theirself in the pages of the folder yet again when Kaodie reached up with a soft bwark-whine and nosed Morgan's hand out of habit. They glance back at the cabinet, and sigh.
They really had come a long way. As time went on, they could barely recognize theirself in the mirror... Someday in the far future they would be the age that their father had been whenever he disappeared. ...They weren't really sure what they'd do when the time came.
[1]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Dec 31, 2021 13:41:15 GMT -6
Morgan could never remember their mother. She'd died a long time ago, their father had said to them the first time they'd asked. So long ago that Morgan could not have formulated any lasting memories of her face. They looked at theirself in the mirror as a kid quite often, and having memorized their father's face they tried to triangulate where the missing traits had come from. Morgan's face was ever so slightly rounder in the cheeks. Morgan's chin was dimpled like their dad's, but didn't have the box to the jaw that his did. Their forehead was ever so minutely less harsh than his, but only just. They didn't really inherit anything from their mother at all.
They'd sit down on their father's lap to read their own bedtime stories to him if he was home before bed-time. Sometimes they'd just talk instead. Sometimes he'd tell them stories about their mother; and they never quite sounded the same way twice. Whenever Kaodie entered the picture, he joined those little bed-time talks, sitting at Morgan's father's feet and wagging his curly tail while looking up at them.
[2]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Dec 31, 2021 13:50:31 GMT -6
The early days were the best ones. Morgan's earliest memories were the most closely guarded of the ones that they had. Their absolute earliest was sitting on the grass out in the yard in the sunlight. They must have been very young, because the dandelions might as well have been of a giant variety; going up to their waist. They reached out to grab one, fingers wrapping around the stem, and then whenever they blew air over the top of the little seeds they did not even alight. Morgan's father gently bent down out of no-where, and it felt like he blocked out the sunlight. He gently wrapped his great hand around their tiny ones and showed them how to set the seeds flying.
Morgan could clearly remember one of their father's earliest pets in that one; a very fluffy chiryma chick. They weren't allowed to touch it. "It's fragile." They remembered quite easily in their father's soft voice. "Be gentle."
Obviously he had over-done it with having Morgan's first pet be made so resilient. Kaodie could practically be stomped by a thundergug and pop right back up. Morgan had already long since learned to be gentle with creatures. They still had difficulty not touching something gently, even when needing to open jars or the like that would require a firm hand.
[3]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Dec 31, 2021 13:54:26 GMT -6
They didn't remember much about that chiryma. Apparently Morgan's father had kept it only for a short time (to help test them, he'd said). It had been of the pale and pink variety, and whenever it went to it's permanent owner Morgan was instead introduced to the malii that would be their father's closest companion. A small white and blue creature with bright eyes. Morgan had loved that malii, and it had tolerated them in a way that really gave them their love for animals- only just so did it tolerate them. They would be able to pet it for exactly two strokes on it's shoulder blades and no where else, and then it would stalk off with the nobility of a lion held within the body of a lithe fox (despite malii not quite being foxes in truth).
Morgan had coveted that creature's attention so much that they were not surprised when their father had come home with a hay-filled crate for their birthday. They knew enough about creatures to know that these were what customs were often shipped in. It was the perfect size for a malii- but they were surprised all the same whenever it was pried open and the exact likeness of a childhood drawing of theirs (of their imaginary friend) stumbled out with wide eyes.
[4]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Dec 31, 2021 13:58:32 GMT -6
Morgan had been SO upset whenever they'd noticed that the drawing had disappeared from the freezer in their main kitchen. They'd had it loosely put up with magnets, and their father had told them that it was good. As an adult, they knew that the drawing was absolutely horrid; but they appreciated the sentimental way in that their father showed his paternal affection to them. Kaodie was perfect. The mansion grounds seemed so colossal back then! They were grand now, of course, but as a child- Morgan sometimes had dreams about spaces that never existed, all because it was so big that they didn't feel like they'd ever get to explore every inch of it. In between tutoring lessons and their father's lessons, Morgan would take Kaodie out to the yard and explore the grounds. They got into all sorts of trouble back then- and goodness had the creature went through so many names! He'd had a tremendous amount of names over those early years. Morgan could not have hoped to pick just one if they tried- they were just too imaginative (according to their father).
[5]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 2, 2022 22:57:16 GMT -6
Morgan still remembered that first morning in flash-bulb-like memories, because it wasn't too long before their father had disappeared after it... Morgan pinches the bridge of their nose as they remember. As per usual when it came to the time period, their memories were not completely linear. They remembered things in bits and pieces. They steeple their hands on their desk before anxiously putting their hands to their sides, and then finally leaning on the desk and drumming one set of them on the desk. They focused on the sensation of the lacquer beneath their finger pads to center theirself. Where to begin. They were going to think about this in a constructive way, or they weren't going to think about it at all (they've gotten quite good at not thinking about it over the last few years- a curse or a boon they did not know).
They glance down at Kaodie and pet him on the head between his ears. His blank eyes belie nothing, but he's a grounding enough force that they feel still inside... Even if it is for just a moment.
[6]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 2, 2022 23:17:43 GMT -6
They practice breathing in and out, and then they go through another stack of paperwork (they'd already signed this stack) and separate it out into piles depending on the different departments in which they would need to be distributed to. In and Out. This one goes in this stack. This one here needs to be copied- it goes to two departments. They had it copied using the machine, and found theirself standing with their hand on the warm machine before they grabbed the freshly copied set and placed the first in one pile, and the other in the other pile complete with a new wet signature. After working through the small pile, they finally stand up and go for the file. As soon as they have it in their hand, Kaodie makes a very soft but very obviously concerned noise from beneath their desk in his pet bed.
"It's okay, Kaodie. J-just going to... Just going to go over it in order, okay?"
It is sad when someone's pet has gotten so used to a person being distraught or acting weird that they'd associate it with a specific object like that.
[7]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 2, 2022 23:31:03 GMT -6
Morgan's face was carefully metered. They were alone (well, with Kaodie) in their office, and it was over the weekend and at night of all things. That still didn't mean that someone from one of the teams working on the newest project on the night shift wouldn't come in to retrieve paperwork or turn it in; and it most certainly didn't mean that Dis or someone else wouldn't come in and be worried about them (though Morgan was sure that even Dis had went home on time that night). Sure, they could lock up their office, but they had a literal 'open door' policy for a good reason. So instead Morgan holds onto that file like it was something far more sinister than a simple file with the scant information dug up on a young person's missing father authored by that same young person.
They'd run out of leads before they'd even started WELP, but they still had hope. Hope that is, that had long since morphed from a shaky lifeline to a torturer's rope.
[8]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 3, 2022 0:14:47 GMT -6
Their hands are shaking as they hold the pristine folder between their fingers. Their old folder had been coffee ( and alcohol) stained and had been worn down to practical thread-bare conditions in places from wear, and by the time that Morgan had gotten around to getting a simple plain folder to replace the old thick and dark-leather one; they really didn't have anything else to put into the folder. They thumbed through it every now and again, in moments of immense weakness. Weakness that struck them at the most inopportune times. Morgan sits back down, pats Kaodie on the head again, and then sits the file on the desk before flipping it open. As they thumbed through the pages in one hand, they rub their cigarette callous (a small and slightly yellowed bump on the inside of their right ring finger at the first knuckle) with the thumb of that same hand while (very pointedly) not thinking. [9]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 3, 2022 0:21:55 GMT -6
The next thirty minutes were not at all productive, but they still managed to work on the case a little (and by that, one in this case would mean reordering the file slightly and staring at pages as if more information could be gleaned from them simply by wishing it to be so). He'd disappeared at the age of 37, a number that felt so large whenever Morgan had been twelve (they had been that age the year that he'd disappeared) but now seemed so short. He'd never even gotten his first grey hair, to Morgan's knowledge. One day, he'd come home from work and they'd fed his pets together and eaten dinner and Morgan had declined a bedtime story because they were 'too old for it now'. Kaodie had fallen asleep on their ankles, and the mansion staff had woken them up the next morning for their lessons.
After a day of lessons, Morgan awaited their father to return. And Awaited. And Awaited.
And they waited.
In some ways, perhaps it would have been a less horrible fate for that bright-eyed frail child if they'd found his body, instead of holding onto the hope that he'd simply abandoned them.
[10]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 5, 2022 20:02:54 GMT -6
It isn't uncommon for children to feel as if they were the cause of a disappearance or death in the family- especially to their caretakers. Morgan knew that, now that they were an adult. At that time though, Morgan had went through a few short and difficult months where they assumed that he'd left them because they'd done something wrong. All of his pets were missing (of course, save for Morgan's constant companion in Kaodie- in which they weren't sure they would have dealt with the situation as well as they even did without) as well, and other than that it was nearly as if he'd never existed. Morgan didn't remember the names of any of his co-workers.
All they had known was that he had worked at the Labs. They had no leads, but they knew enough not to draw attention to their plight. After a month of fear and desperation, they had tried to find him. As a young individual, they felt as if the entire world had been set against them in an instant. They couldn't find any leads, and their dad never came back home.
Morgan did have several sets of something that most bereaved orphans did not; money, the raising of a rich heir, and their own precocious nature. They caught their bearings somewhat quickly, only going through a month of true trouble before they began training creatures for extra money. Just as they'd caught their bearings and began managing their own finances to meet their basic needs, they'd found it.
Their father's holdings account, and those payments.
[11]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 5, 2022 20:14:10 GMT -6
Those payments could easily have been personified as Morgan's worst enemy and best friend in the end. From the day that their father had went missing, they'd began accruing payments into that account (which had apparently been willed to Morgan without any issue as their father's only kin) on regular intervals- big payments. They were even warned not to look into it- in their father's own hand writing at that. For a while, they'd fallen into frustration (assuming once more that he had abandoned them purposefully) but the longer that time went on and the more they looked into it, the more they had been convinced that at the very least- there was a reason that he had 'went into hiding'.
Morgan had began having more free time again, and they used it to walk the streets to search for any sort of clues that they could find about the situation. During all of this, Kaodie would come with them on their walks. They slowly grew less and less impressed with life the more they saw- until they were best described as cynical.
[12]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 5, 2022 20:18:57 GMT -6
Morgan gently pulls the sheet up paper up to look at the information they'd been able to glean about the payments. Always the same amount, always on the same schedule. They'd started on the day that their father had disappeared pretty well immediately. They hadn't been able to figure out where they had come from, though at first they'd assumed that it was 'hush money'. They did keep their head down, and that had wound up being a life-saving measure they were certain- but the more they found out about them (looking the gift horse in the mouth) the more they'd had to come to terms with a solid fact about this; their father was most likely dead. Perhaps that was a kinder fate to Morgan, considering all of the hurt and stress it had laid on their shoulder in searching for him... But they were certain that he'd set up a device to start the payments up once he was gone. He'd been saving for this eventuality; then. Morgan had decided upon that before they'd even become an adult. Which meant that someone had done this to him for some reason. That was what drove them absolutely out of their skull. No amount of 'walks with their malii' could help them figure out who, and what, and when, and where, or even why? But they still used them for cover to follow around what little leads they could scratch up. [13]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 5, 2022 20:41:00 GMT -6
It was on one of those 'walks' that they had met the Jackalope- and it was perhaps that fateful day that had caused Morgan's life trajectory to change for the better. They'd been walking down the sidewalk, following a scientist at a distance on their way to work (one that they'd heard might have known their father, but they wanted to see what they were like from a distance before confronting them- just in case someone would notice that they were interested in finding their father) when they had lost the individual entirely. Morgan had tried to follow them down an alleyway, but when they had come out the other side onto a parallel street; they couldn't find the scientist in the crowd anywhere at all.
They'd been so distracted looking for any glimpse of that white coat that they turned entirely too late whenever they hard a HUGE animal come barreling their direction- claws snicking against the concrete of the sidewalk and vicious growling. They'd turned almost directly into someone's -huge- cave vulticus that had gotten away (well, huge to a 12 year old kid) and to make it worse- the monster had flickers of flame dripping from its jaws.
Morgan probably would have been barreled into had Kaodie not jumped up and into the Vulticus, wrapping his tongue around it's leg and clamping it as hard as he could between his jaws.
[14]
|
|
|
Post by Morgan on Jan 5, 2022 21:12:19 GMT -6
Everything at that point had happened so quickly that Morgan couldn't have hoped to have reacted any more quickly than they did in that circumstance. Just as they'd went to back up two steps and holler, a few things happened in rapid succession. The first was that the cave vulticus (with the lead still around his neck) whipped around and snapped at Kaodie's hind leg, so hard that the small critter whimpered but still managed to have the determination to hold onto the cave vulticus' front leg with his mouth as tightly as he could (and it was still rather ineffectual) despite being very injured, and another person had run up and out of the crowd to grab the lead of the great beast.
Morgan had pulled Kaodie free of the vulticus' leg and then got a good look at the strange individual that had reclaimed the giant dark colored vulticus (a custom, from the looks of it). They were easily six foot tall and intimidating in and of theirself, with great antlers that looked like spines or thorns. When Morgan had looked at Kaodie finally, they noticed something horrid- his right hind paw was... Missing entirely.
[15]
|
|