[table][tr][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][td][/td][/tr][/table]

Was Arrow okay? Absolutely not. Maybe she knocked a screw or two loose in her brain when she got rattled good by the gator, it did crack one against her skull after all, earning her three new scars to carry with her as both a trophy and reason why hunting alligators wasn't fun and games. She knew that too, deep down, but back to back situations left her in a bad state. A state of mind that she’d opened the doors of maybe...twice? Twice in her lifetime? Not that it mattered, the problem lied in what happened, not when it happened. Admittedly, that sounded bad, like she would up and hurt someone. She wouldn’t, Arrow didn’t do that. She’d never hurt another soul in Tanglewood, not now and not ever. No matter how crazy shit got upstairs. Nah, what often happened was a string of strange behaviors with no explanation from the woman herself as to why she did them, if she even remembered doing them to begin with. Anything from sudden bouts of drunken stupidity to the time she was caught trying to rake the fuck out of her face and then didn’t remember doing it after being wrestled out of it by Leroy. Metaphorically, she thought, maybe he really did grab her. That was a while ago, and she didn’t remember much from the past.

What is it today, Arrow? The cheetah paced in a circle in one of the swamp’s many clearings, gnashing her teeth together in agitation at the negativity that stirred in her entire being. She felt uncomfortable all the time, like the fur along her spine would start to stand up at any given moment, every individual hair of the mane that ran down her back. Part of that idea had manifested itself anyway, heavily due in part to making eye contact with the empty holes of the mask that was currently hanging silently on the tree before her. It looked crazy, she looked crazy, pacing around and asking for advice from an unworn mask, but out of anyone she could have groveled to for any advice on how to save her soul, no one had anything left to cry to except Vigenere. Yes, yes, yes, she knew it was stupid and ridiculous and if he was truly dead, dead, then she should leave the dead to rest in peace. Disturbing them like a blubbering idiot was certainly not a habit she’d continue with nor one she would ever claim to have. She was very big on giving the dead their space, both because she was surrounded by death and the memories of the dead and because she was dead, at one point, and definitely would have been appreciative of not being disturbed.

”I’m losing my fucking mind, you knew who I was, you know what I don’t anymore. Where do you even go when you die?” Arrow rambled, chewing on the inside of her cheek until the flesh tasted like iron, accidentally cutting the top layer of skin with her teeth. The mask obviously said nothing, and she wasn’t expecting any response, that would have been terrifying. She just needed to scream at something. ”There is a part of you buried under a fucking statue and your sister is here and almost fucking died and you’re like….you’re totally silent. You suck, you ffffUCKing suck, Vig! Be fuckin’ polite and say hi to your fuckin’ sibling ya yellow cunt-” Thunk, thunk, thunk. The sound of her tiny paw lightly beating against the mask would have been funny if she wasn’t legitimately in a whole lot of distress. Arrow truly had no secure feeling in who she was anymore, it was like she was just observing. Like she refused to change and work with the changes that had taken place before and after her return from the dead. Was she cursed?

She rubbed her face violently with her paws, groaning and sniffing when she thought she would cry. She wouldn’t, she didn’t want to, she didn’t cry. She just needed someone who could make her feel like she used to, before it all went downhill. Golden hairs drifted into the mud as she picked at her fur, near hyperventilating from her stress. It felt like the bugs were crawling in her skin, or that the mosquitoes were returning to suck the blood from her body, and all those gross things. Her tail twitched, a cold chill running up her spine. Everything was bad. ”I can’t do this, Vigenere. I can’t do this. I can’t protect anyone, they’re all gonna die. They’re all gonna die under my watch.”

She looked down, the rippling water at the muddy edge catching her attention. Something was different, usually the flaxen color could be seen out of the corner of her eye, it didn’t really blend in with the surrounding green waters. When she didn’t immediately see it, she thought she might’ve just missed it or looked it over. So Arrow stared directly into the water. Still no gold just….brown. A familiar shade of brown that is.

The woman shrieked, crawling back away from the water and landing on her back. The multiple little scratches she’d accidentally created from fucking with her pelt dotted themselves with little round beads of blood, lost against their new background. Her scars still remained, which wasn’t too bad because she thought they elevated her from a 8 and a half to a solid 10. Still though, it freaked her the fuck out to look into a face she hadn’t seen in ages, the last time she’d reflected the darker coloration was when she was a ghost, and that was, yknow…muted. It was like whatever god was up there was taunting her.

tl;dr just in case: arrow’s goin bonkers and her fur just shed and mutated away very uncomfortably to brown while venting to vig’s mask just vibin there