12-05-2018, 11:10 PM
[align=center][div style="width: 45%; text-align: justify; font-size: 12pt; letter-spacing: -1px; font-family: times new roman;"]Atticus had been one of the first talking animals he'd ever met upon his arrival in Ascendants. At some point over the last week or so, he'd stopped thinking of the man as an animal. They hadn't talked much but Atticus reminded him of some of the men back on the Queen Charlotte, which he found as a sort of comfort. He seemed level headed enough. Perhaps if Clarence was more sociable, he would've thought to actually reach out to the other male in search of a possible friendship. But, unfortunately, Clarence wasn't that sociable, and instead he'd dealt with the strange circumstances by shutting himself away and forcing himself to fall back into old habits as though the situation was completely normal and as though he wasn't in a completely unfamiliar area with unfamiliar beings, who just happened to be talking animals, and that he himself had been turned into a sort of talking panther. It was a lot to take in. It was only now he was even willing to go outside and see what there was to explore in this new place. For as many questions as Atticus had about him, Clarence had never ending questions about this place and what it was and how all these animals knew how to talk. He didn't even know if he was in the same world he'd been in when he'd... well, whatever happened when he fell off the Queen Charlotte.
When he saw the man step out from among the trees, he visibly relaxed and a small smile even came to his maw. "You're right. They taught me how to be more alert before I left, but I guess being on a ship for so long weakened that a bit," he admitted. He remembered the first few nights he slept on the ship, unable to sleep. He'd stared at the ceiling for hours because he was terrified someone would burst into the room at any moment to accuse the surgeon of witchcraft. An innocent man shouldn't have felt so guilty. There was a part of him that wondered if there'd been a reason for that but he pushed it away. Eventually, he learned that the rest of the crew either didn't care about the rumors against his family or, more likely, didn't know about them. He knew Finnis had to be aware, although the man never brought it up to him.
At Atticus' second question, the man hesitated. How much was he supposed to tell him? If this was all a hallucination, then it wouldn't matter what he said at all. But if it wasn't... how couldn't it be? How could any of this be possible? But it felt real. It felt real enough that he wouldn't say the complete truth, but that didn't mean he'd deny the man of an answer. "I'm well. Better than I was when I arrived, I think. Things here are still... odd, but I'm glad to have some kind of routine here. It makes it easier."
When he saw the man step out from among the trees, he visibly relaxed and a small smile even came to his maw. "You're right. They taught me how to be more alert before I left, but I guess being on a ship for so long weakened that a bit," he admitted. He remembered the first few nights he slept on the ship, unable to sleep. He'd stared at the ceiling for hours because he was terrified someone would burst into the room at any moment to accuse the surgeon of witchcraft. An innocent man shouldn't have felt so guilty. There was a part of him that wondered if there'd been a reason for that but he pushed it away. Eventually, he learned that the rest of the crew either didn't care about the rumors against his family or, more likely, didn't know about them. He knew Finnis had to be aware, although the man never brought it up to him.
At Atticus' second question, the man hesitated. How much was he supposed to tell him? If this was all a hallucination, then it wouldn't matter what he said at all. But if it wasn't... how couldn't it be? How could any of this be possible? But it felt real. It felt real enough that he wouldn't say the complete truth, but that didn't mean he'd deny the man of an answer. "I'm well. Better than I was when I arrived, I think. Things here are still... odd, but I'm glad to have some kind of routine here. It makes it easier."