07-09-2018, 03:56 AM
There was a time when he had been just as innocently foolhardy as her. A single moment where he had won, silently crowing his final escape up to the blind heavens in early celebration. No one would ever touch him again, no one could ever hurt him again. He had been young, and still was. Young and dumb with a newfound confidence to his limp as he turned his back to danger and continued distancing himself from his unwavering pursuers. He realized they never abandoned their hunt the instant an arrow was sent through his back.
After an ambushed demise, the boy had never been so foolish again. Paranoia and suspicion burrowed deep into his pulseless hear; nasty vermin that, even with a clan of familiar faces under his amateur lead, refused to let go of their centuries-long grip. They drove him to obsessive extremes: setting and checking and resetting traps throughout their land, inducing a territorial frenzy at the sight of an enemy threat, and leading him to approach any foreign scent he caught whiff of at their border. Delilah was a new scent, with no other traces of known lands on her. The wary poltergeist almost relaxed a smidge, considering so many strangers had previously arrived on their boggy doorstep to join rather than attack. What if she's a spy? What if she's going to betray us? What if she --
Beck furiously shook his head, scattering flecks of toxic drool as he dismissed his insecurities. Stalking through a bundle of wilting cattails and pointedly avoiding a ditch filled with murky waters, he tilted his disfigured snout to the wind a second time, now recognizing Vigenere's sulfuric scent reaching her first. The grimy little feline phased through the foliage in time enough to catch her name -- Delilah was a fitting name, he supposed. Much more than Beck for him. Rolling bony shoulders and retracting pearly claws he hadn't realized were unsheathed, he stayed a safe gap away from the two to observe in eerie silence. His head swiveled to the side, nearsighted eyes struggling to catch a glimpse of Delilah's deadpan expression. She looked traumatized, but by what? Beginning to visibly gnaw on his pale tongue, the commander spoke up in a whistling rasp, "Where'd ya come from, Dee-li-lah?" Why were long names so hard for him to pronounce? Ignoring the obvious answer of his grotesque missing cheek, Beck wrinkled his freckled nose into an impatient scowl as he glared at the other feline.
[align=center]»――➤After an ambushed demise, the boy had never been so foolish again. Paranoia and suspicion burrowed deep into his pulseless hear; nasty vermin that, even with a clan of familiar faces under his amateur lead, refused to let go of their centuries-long grip. They drove him to obsessive extremes: setting and checking and resetting traps throughout their land, inducing a territorial frenzy at the sight of an enemy threat, and leading him to approach any foreign scent he caught whiff of at their border. Delilah was a new scent, with no other traces of known lands on her. The wary poltergeist almost relaxed a smidge, considering so many strangers had previously arrived on their boggy doorstep to join rather than attack. What if she's a spy? What if she's going to betray us? What if she --
Beck furiously shook his head, scattering flecks of toxic drool as he dismissed his insecurities. Stalking through a bundle of wilting cattails and pointedly avoiding a ditch filled with murky waters, he tilted his disfigured snout to the wind a second time, now recognizing Vigenere's sulfuric scent reaching her first. The grimy little feline phased through the foliage in time enough to catch her name -- Delilah was a fitting name, he supposed. Much more than Beck for him. Rolling bony shoulders and retracting pearly claws he hadn't realized were unsheathed, he stayed a safe gap away from the two to observe in eerie silence. His head swiveled to the side, nearsighted eyes struggling to catch a glimpse of Delilah's deadpan expression. She looked traumatized, but by what? Beginning to visibly gnaw on his pale tongue, the commander spoke up in a whistling rasp, "Where'd ya come from, Dee-li-lah?" Why were long names so hard for him to pronounce? Ignoring the obvious answer of his grotesque missing cheek, Beck wrinkled his freckled nose into an impatient scowl as he glared at the other feline.