Nine months.

Nine months had passed from the moment he inserted himself within Tanglewood’s reclusive society. Nine months. That amount of time brought its fair share of pleasure and strife. He put his life on the line in numerous occasions, for the sake of saving comrade’s skin. He was compelled to witness a good few deaths of those he lived among, a number of them good friends, introducing him to the abominable pain of loss. Nine months conveyed romance, fury, anguish, strain, adventure, passion, triumph, dejection, and fear.

The notion of it made Leroy feel old - which was not the case, despite Beck and Crow’s shared belief surrounding him being a grandpa. The guardsman’s membership proved lengthier than the rest of the swamp dwellers; spare the current captain of the guard. Eugh. That meant that the generation of Tanglers he derived from was inching towards extinction. If only the fallen could see what their home had become.

To be completely honest, though, out of the entirety of his nine month-long service, the community has never felt more stale than it did now. People just weren’t that keen on interaction anymore. Damn millennials.

His form trudged down the road, weakened paws of gray stumbling along without purpose. Today was going to be exactly like yesterday, it seemed. The library ceased to provide entertainment, as storybooks fucking suck. The town was relatively dead, too, thus he figured heading on home to be most appropriate.

Just down the road, Leroy spotted her. The one who left behind a trail of discarded cigarettes wherever she went. The certain individual that his haunted jukebox displeased. No, their introduction to each other may not have occurred in the merriest nature, but surely they could get along on a monotonous day like this. 

"Errr, hey?" the guardsman would call in a feeble attempt to nab Sam’s attention, tottery limbs switching from a saunter to a trot in speed as he approached. Hopefully, the doecat had yet to form any strong negative opinions about him; doing such was a common behaviour pattern in newer faces.

Leroy paced a few steps closer to the female, clearing his wet, phlegm-clogged gullet on his way. Once his legs came to a halt, the guardsman expired a jaded yawn, only to have it interrupted by a cough of a fierce nature. His health was not the absolute greatest of late, as the following peevish groan conveyed - with optimism, Samantha would not mind an ailing companion.

His serious gaze fixated on hers, locking onto her forest-toned headlights for a solid moment, before breaking into a smile.

"Nothing too much, I don’t think," he mouthed, his drooped tail of light gray gradually rising and coming to a slow beat while he spoke. ”Kinda bored, actually,” he casually continued, ”but great things have blossomed outta boredom in the past, haven’t they?”

The guardsman scanned her figure and facial expression, aiming to catch any behavioural patterns that indicated emotion, a tactic he had picked up a whiles back to use when engaging in discussion. Unluckily for him, she was remaining at a true neutral right now, making it much more difficult to exactly pinpoint her current feelings.

Seeing that he could not accomplish it on his own, Leroy then asked, ”Wha’about you? How’re you doing?”

The male nodded while the doecat made her initial reply. She had a point to what she said - some people never made anything out of their boredom, and became dull in the process.

Leroy was a many things, however, and one of those things was not dull.

When monotony presented itself to him, he’d do his damn best to change it.

His orange orbs caught the femme’s modest grin, birthing a smirk of his own in response. The simple pleasure of smalltalk was no longer a luxury that he experienced on the daily. Participating in a heedless conversation with another individual - it poured Leroy’s metaphorical mug to the top with liquid mirth.

At her closing question, the hound’s gray-tipped shoulders broke into a loose shrug. "Simply strolling along, myself." Just a walk. Nothing more, nothing less. Had it been any more interesting, he’d have said so. Not as fun as setting random shit aflame, no, but it did its job of quenching boredom.

”Just heading back home from the mess hall, actually,” he continued coolly, gesturing towards the town with a soft lurch of his neck, ”poor building don’t get used as much as it should. Played cards there once, and that’s about it.”

Once again, the mongrel shrugged, allowing his fatigued neck to stretch itself while doing so. He was optimistically looking forward to crash at his pad, fuck around for some amount of time, after which he’d snooze until morning. However, the deuce’s unforeseen interaction was a rather welcome surprise, and ending it so soon would be quite the bummer.

”Fuck, now I wanna do something,” Leroy exclaimed without warning, ”I dunno what, but something. You get that feeling, too?”