Aha! Footsteps! A twig snaps. This registers as a strange, somewhere deep in my mind (Ex is always so quiet) but everything is too scattered for me to react to this incident. I haven’t the talents of others – recognizing the approach of my favorites by footfall alone, for instance – so I just assume it’s him. He will have wondered where I am…he gets so lonely when I wander.
So I turn, and my bug eyes land on a stranger. A strange girl watching Roach! I stare at her mutely for a moment, as it takes some time for everything to register, and then smile vaguely in her direction. “I wonder…where she’s come from? Why she watches me?” I speak quietly, almost as if to myself, my voice a strange thing in the fragile dark. And honestly, I might wander away now, distracted by something or other, but for Ex’s angry voice crashing down on my ears.
“Oh…” I whisper, flattening my ears against my blocky skull. He is angry at Roach tonight. Roach has been gone too long. I visibly cower into the snow, blinking rapidly into the shadows around me, oblivious to Caligula’s discomfort or amusement at my reaction. Ex appears, fury darkening his face, and Roach is so sorry!
I wave my tail against the snow, wince as his voice rises toward me – but then he is done. It is over as quickly as it began, and he watches, now, the girl who watches me. I rise slowly from the ground, uncertain as to whether I am truly out of trouble. “Brother…” I coo hesitantly, “Roach is sorry…” I glance at Caligula – stealing Ex’s attention! Not polite.
r o a c h
flaming stealth banana |