STUCK IN YOUR WONDERLAND
Ramos let a small, dry chuckle escape his lips as it tumbled up from his barrel chest. Her reply wasn’t humorous, quite blunt actually, but he accepted it as a retort to his own near-dead sense of humor. Cracking jokes wasn’t his forte. In fact, he could even recall the Jesters in the Den as a pup. They were truly comedic, to young and old alike. He never found their brand of humor to his taste after he began training. Still, he would use the free time in his first and second years to cool off and enjoy a story or event hosted in the Den. He could respect the common form of comedy, yes. Could he ever hope to replicate it? That was another story entirely.
As long as the number of times he offended someone was kept reasonable, he would say he was doing fine.
However that feeling was quickly snatched away from him when he felt those mismatched eyes dance over his form. The conscious feeling of the stray blood and feather crept back up to the forefront of his mind. Ramos repeated over and over in his head that she would hardly notice it, that it was a few drops, a few stray down feathers that would all but blend into his pale chest. Anxiety bubbled up from the far reaches of his abdomen and crashed against his better judgement in cold, brutal waves. It threatened to eat away at his amicable and steady facade and show this stranger that his meticulously groomed coat was a well maintained mask. It was lucky for both of them when the tom that had caused the slight blemish to his otherwise near pristine appearance took her attention off of him.
Ramos would’ve let loose a sign of relief if he hadn’t already changed to subject. Still, the great cream brute couldn’t hold back the few obsessive licks given to the fur of his chest. He worked quickly with his ochre ears trained diligently on his company and swallowed what feathers he picked up from his fur to save himself from trying to pull them out of himself in polite company. He still was not fond of such a small she-wolf but she was a she-wolf none-the-less(quite a striking little thing at that) and deserving of his respect.
His question seemed to bring about more grief than he intended, though, and he instantly regretted it. When she shook her head the second time he couldn’t help but take another step closer, debating on whether or not to comfort her. She paused and he let the heavy air sit between them. Even the sharpness of a wintry night barely dulled the pain this stranger seemed to feel.
Her next statement came when she finally locked her gaze back onto his. Ramos took a few more steps to bring his body slightly more broadside to hers but still closing the distance and dropped his own head low. He avoided her gaze for a moment to nose at the torn open bird as it rapidly cooled against the snow, pondering his response. He didn’t have to reply as she shook her head again and instead turned the subject to his own history. His gaze snapped back up to hers but he didn’t move. He was as stuck as a fawn at a cougar’s paws.
The multi-colored male knew this question would come up sooner or later during his travels. He just hadn’t thought it would tonight and was entirely unprepared both to respond and for the cascade of emotions that came with said response. Words began to tumble uncharacteristically out of his black lips as he tried to form an answer to both her current inquiry and her previous, hypothetical one. "No one is perfect. Sometimes people make mistakes. But... but a family is supposed to forgive each other... maybe even despite the severity of said mistakes." His gaze dropped and he pushed against the turkey carcass again, thinking a few moments longer before growling his next words into the fresh snow. "You we’re abandoned. I left."
His last word was punctuated by a frustrated huff through his nostrils and he abruptly swung his massive skull back up. Yellow-green eyes ablaze with hatred, he spoke to no one in particular. "I made a mistake that should’ve cost me my life. I should be the one dead."
RAMOS :: BOUND TO NONE :: LONER