private WE'RE OUT OF MONEY, AND YOU'VE SOLD THE BLING | foxglare

[SEDGEPOUNCE]

Usually, Foxglare finds every opportunity to take him off guard, but this time Sedgepounce is ready. It's another muggy, sun-blanched afternoon. He's just returned from patrol—the overhead heat wicking at his pelt from his impromptu retreat to the sunwarmed pool. As he does every few days, Foxglare approaches him out of nowhere, drops a rabbit at his feet, and disappears with some sort of grumbled "sorry, m'busy."

At the first whiff of moorgrass and oak, Sedgepounce whips around. He's nose to nose with Foxglare, rabbit still snared in his teeth, when he demands: "Hey! Eat with me."

He doesn't want to suffocate, but he won't take no for an answer. It feels like a moon since they've been able to sit down and have a conversation, or spar, or go on a walk. Ever since Cottonsprig...

"There's already a lotta patrols out," he offers, smiling thinly. "So you've got to have at least a little time for a breather, yeah?"

@FOXGLARE
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[FOXGLARE]

⁀➷ The "sorry"s of his not-quite daily ritual are as much of an offering to Sedgepounce as his catches are, words that seem minuscule cast out from his vast internal lake of Something-Like-Sorriness-But-More. Too little, the words are—hopefully the rabbits were substantial enough to make up for it.

He just hated having to be dishonest.

It was his own ignorance, or perhaps stupidity, Foxglare had not considered the weight of it all, the permanence of it. He'd yoked himself to this bleak unreality, where he had to pretend that Cottonsprig was gone, perhaps dead, for... he didn't know how long. Maybe forever? How long would he be able to stand it? Dwelling on it for longer than a breath dug claws into his chest.

Sedgepounce wasn't suffocating— just the opposite. The woody, windswept scent of him cleared the haze of his angsty-ness with a swiftness he'd be embarrassed to admit. It had just felt wrong—somehow—to allow himself to be comforted knowing he'd aided Cottonsprig in her self-exile into the wilderness.

Sedgepounce whips around to face him, voice assertive yet a bit too glib, and demands they eat together. Foxglare blinks, sheepish beneath Sedge's capturing stare.

As much as he held himself
to the standard of a blood-sworn knight, exercising self-discipline that bordered on piousness, his self-deprecating devotion to withholding comfort from himself yielded an unintended consequence. Something darkened the tabby's habitually jovial demeanor—something new, or at least something Foxglare had missed before.

He blinked once more, and dipped his head, accepting without another moment of hesitance. Something else twisted in his veins. It hadn't even been four seasons since he'd run out into the snow, begging cruel fate to let him see the other once more, and here he was, alongside Sedge day after day, unable to face him as a form of what? Self-punishment?

He leads them over to a cool(ish) spot to sit and places the rabbit at Sedgepounce's paws, sweeping his tail to nudge the other's to eat first. He looks over at him, studying his face, and supposes he should speak. "You-..." he begins, and then decides to try again, "Ah, how are ya..?"

The xanthic tailtip of his remains curled against the darkened stripes of Sedge's.

WE CAME FROM DIRT ⁀➷☾⁺₊ WE HAVE TO SWALLOW IT.

• OOC:
• 
• 
  
  — meztli . sun . fox . foxpaw . foxglare
  — he/him. 21mo moor-runner of windclan. Mentored by shalestripe. currently mentoring frightpaw. formerly mentored sunlitpaw.
  — a scarred, hulking white and golden tabby tom with gray eyes
  — taciturn, vigilant, reserved, self-righteous, restrained, independent, humanitarian, unyielding
  — “speech”, thoughts, attack
  — penned by eezy

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[SEDGEPOUNCE]

He half-expects failure—a typical Foxglare is willing to tolerate his antics, but he's been distant lately, and Sedgepounce fears that cloistered sadness will have him flaking away again. So his grin softens when Foxglare relents, bumping him good-naturedly at the shoulder as they retreat somewhere to eat.

He tucks in first and feigns nonchalance. "Pretty good," Sedge starts. His teeth tear past flesh and fur and cartilage in one neat bite. "Scorchstorm and I hauled in this huge meadowlark the other day. It's all been—y'know."

One scrutinizing glance juts sidelong to Foxglare. The golden hue of him is muted in the shade of the gorse wall, but the bruises under his eyes glare purple beneath his fur.

It isn't just that he's been distant. From the acres of space that's so often pushed between them, Sedgepounce analyzes his often stooped head and dragging feet. Something slowly eats away at him. Now, nearly flank to flank, a careful assessment scans Foxglare for anything immediately concerning. Hollow cheeks, tangled fur, rib-valleyed pelt. After a moment of staring, he decides that there's nothing that extreme so far. Just huge, guilty eyes in the place of cool impassivity.

At the next instance of eye contact, Sedgepounce sobers. "I know it's been...scary, with Cot gone," he starts tentatively. Halfway talking to a friend who carries his feelings deep in his chest, too-heavy and encumbering, and half to a wild animal that he fears will scamper away at its next chance. "But it's not—it's not anyone's fault, what happened..."

His eyes flit across Foxglare's face in search of some reaction. It's not fair, sometimes, that he should be so hard to read.

Ever since he came pressing into camp, the most distressed Sedgepounce's ever seen him, things have been...different. But Foxglare only found traces of Cottonsprig's apparent kidnapping. Some blood, some fur, some rogue-stench. It wasn't like he was there to do anything about it.

He's been mulling over what to say for days, yet he struggles now to find something that feels just right. Sedgepounce feels suddenly inadequate as he realizes that nothing will fully whisk away that heavy cloud over Foxglare's mind. Guilt is a problem not so easily solved.

"'M sorry you had to find that stuff at the border," he hedges, voice gentle. "But...it's not your fault either, Foxglare."
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