[Solo] Migratory Birds Prompts

[As if I even care]

Prompt plans
✓ 1. The hardest part of traveling is saying goodbye. (Setting Sun LRP 572wc)
2. A long, monotonous journey still leaves you room to think. Dunno.
3. Never leave home without... (Outlasts 250+wc)
4. Water tastes different in different places. (Bury the Sunlight LRP 500+wc)
5. But where is home? (Outlasts 250+wc)
6. Follow the birds. (Bury the Sunlight LRP 500+wc)
✓ 7. Are you running after, or are you running away? (Setting Sun LRP 510wc)
8. Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way. (Shadow of the Day LRP 500+wc) or (someone else 250+wc)
✓ 9. The road less travelled by. (Setting Sun LRP 527+wc)
10. The places you go become a part of you somehow. (Shadow of the Day LRP 500+wc) or (someone else 250+wc)

Disclaimer; these are only plans, completed prompts will be found below if any are completed at all, rl time permitting.  

[As if I even care]

The hardest part of traveling is saying goodbye.

Papa, don't you ever miss them?
Miss who? he responded to his daughter glancing over to see her ever curious wide eyes gazing at him as they walked.
Well.. you know, the kin you meet? We travel so much, we like, almost never stop. These people we meet, they don't come with us. We're lucky if we ever see some of them more than once, even. She kicked a pebble and watched it dance across numerous other stones before coming to a stop in mud.
What's to miss? Sweetheart, don't get close to people. They'll only disappoint you.
She stopped in her tracks causing him to stop with her. She stared not with curiosity anymore, but shame.
Are you disappointed in.. me?
No honey, I could nev-
But you said! You just said!
Look, that's not what I meant, you're not what I meant. You aren't people. You're my daughter.
So what about mom? Were you disappointed in her then?
We don't talk about your mother.
Why not? I deserve to know. You can't keep me in the dark forever.
He sighed and tilted his head back, closing his eyes. Sometimes. He paused feeling the gravity of what he was about to remember, his head coming down as if it were a palpable memory weighing his head down. He could hear the yelling again, the same yelling in his night terrors, the last thing he said to her and the silence thereafter. He had taken her from her mother out of spite and he felt guilty for that. He couldn't let her know, she'd never forgive him. Sometimes people grow apart. We didn't see eye to eye. That doesn't make her a bad person and - no - she didn't disappoint me. I disappointed her. I wanted to travel, she didn't.
Do you miss her?
Sometimes.
I know I've never really known her since you left when I was small, but I miss her.
You can't miss what you never knew. If you did know her you probably would have never wanted to leave. He seemed to snap at her now, clearly agitated. She didn't know how to respond. He took the silence as his cue to continue his journey, turned and started walking again. When she caught up to him he asked her quietly, Do you know the hardest part of traveling? She shook her head. Saying goodbye.
So don't say goodbye anymore, papa.
It isn't that simple. I can't go back now, not after.. He stopped himself before he let on about anything that actually transpired.
Not after.. what, papa?
His eyes glazed over momentarily. He shook his head. Not after we've traveled all this way.. I mean look at this view. He'd hoped she wouldn't notice how nervous he'd sounded when he said that.
She hadn't noticed as they were talking and walking that they had come to a decently sized body of water. She did, however, notice a frog and subsequently chased after it into the water. For a moment he saw her mother and her siblings in the ripples.
See ya later! She shook the water off of herself as she stepped out of the shallows.
Excuse me? He looked up at her only to be pelted by a plethora of water droplets and winced.
You can say that, so you don't have to say goodbye anymore. Problem solved. She stamped her foot triumphantly.
He smirked. No more goodbyes.  

[As if I even care]

The road less traveled by.

The path he walked was shoddy, half covered in regrowth, no prints left to speak of besides the ones he and his traveling companions would leave behind. The sign of no other prints indicated to him the safest way to go, nobody had been here, nobody should be there but the wildlife. He could hear his daughter, distantly nagging, asking why he wouldn't just take the path everyone else had. Yolk seemed to snort in agreement to her statement.

Many reasons, he thought without pause. Many good ones.

Everyone would expect you to take the path most traveled, the shortest and of least resistant to their destination. It simply wasn't safe. Anything could be lurking at the end of that path and he wasn't willing to find out what that might be first hand. He wasn't one for putting himself on the front lines anyways, unless he must for his loved ones.
Besides his, more or less, cautious ideals, it was also the most beautiful way to go. Places seemingly untouched by other kin kind, as if it were all your own. As if you resided inside of someone's naming dream, expecting the ground to crumble beneath you at any given moment. An oasis, a paradise unlike any other. Where vines hang low, building curtains of green, sheathing what's within from the horror outside. It would almost seem like it were real if his worried mind wouldn't remind him otherwise.

That wasn't to imply it was safe. Beauty was a cover for danger, it's favorite alibi for it's favorite pastime. Sharp teeth waiting right beneath the glistening waters edge for you to quench your thirst, snapping your neck the moment you even think you'll get away with it. Creeping claws in the thick foliage, reaching to grab hold of you and pull you into impending carnage. Something, somewhere, the moment you avert your eyes. You'd be none the wiser to the life that lives on the road less traveled by.

Yet still, for a kin so fearful, why would this be the safest course? He had an answer for that, too. While the unkempt swamp was dangerous, kin were unpredictable. At least he knew what he was looking for here, where things would hide, how they'd act. The intelligent life that was the kimeti was what he feared for. The kin that would hide in plain sight, offer their assistance and gain your trust only to strike you when the timing was just right. The kind of creatures who could do almost anything they set their minds to, but still would kill just for the fun of it. Here, the creatures always act the same way, do the same things that they always would do everywhere else. You'd think as simple as their ambitions are that you could read minds. If only that were the case, he might be able to trust more people when he could literally know their intentions.

The unpredictable is worse than the unknown he would reply to his companions that were now farther ahead of him in the thick of the unknown territory, after what seemed like an eternity spent in thought.  

[As if I even care]

Are you running after, or are you running away?

Settling down for the night, he rests upon a patch of rough vegetation, watching the remnants of sunlight disappear through the branches, over the hill, whilst trying to get comfortable on what he could only determine might be briers underneath him. The colors in the sky seeming to reflect that of his own. They'd traveled many a mile and he still felt like he hadn't gone very far. From what, though. To what? He'd never really thought about a destination, it wasn't in his plans to end up any particular place, with any particular people other than maybe Yolk and his daughter.

Why am I running away or what am I running after? What could it possibly be? What is it that I want that I don't have.. or didn't already have.. Of course, he knew. A sour taste developed in his mouth. He felt as though he was going to be sick, although that could have been the result of whatever he was currently being pricked by as well.

Maybe it was her, maybe he'd have to let her go for things to change. She was so much like her mother now that she's grown, it was like having her around still. He couldn't even entertain the possibility of leaving her suddenly. What would she do, where would she go? Would she survive without him? Surely she would, she's got her mothers tenacity and she ought to be on her own at this point in her life, but still. Just the thought left him feeling empty. She was all he had left, the only part of her mother he could hang onto. He'd feel guilty for leaving her, but was hanging on worth his sanity, though?

Besides, she'd probably look for him, and he'd hear her and it'd pain him enough to make him turn back. Maybe if he left Yolk with her too..
..No. I have to make amends. I won't lose her like I lost you, I won't. I refuse. He was so deep in thought at this point that he hadn't realized he was talking aloud to himself at this point, to some non existent imagery of her mother no less.

It's darker now, the colors reflecting more that of his daughter than his own. He felt almost defeated, looking over to her sleeping silhouette, her head propped on a snoring Yolk.
He whispered now, For better or worse, I am here. I'll always be there. Even if I'm not here. One day you'll know the grief I've caused us and maybe you won't understand, but you will. In time. You have to understand. You're a part of her, but you're also a part of me. That has to mean something. If I'm to run away from my blights, you're sure to follow. Even if I wouldn't have you do so. You're stubborn like that, like your mother.

But you aren't your mother, are you?
He waited as though he had expected a response and answered as though he had received one.
No.. no you're not.