PRIVATE, MIYU [✧] TIL OUR WIDE EYES BURN BLIND

[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]Nowadays, there wasn't much to do - of course there were things to do, all the generic things - like hunting and replenishing the food pile that had shrunk significantly upon their oust from the hospital and their freshkill pile that just never seemed to run out, plus there was touching up their temporary shelters (a job generally done nonchalantly but there was no denying that they would have to give it up, they couldn't keep living like hermits and expect everything to be normal--) and patrolling ...

But, honestly. They did that every day. Hunted, ate, drank, kept a ready nose out for any intruders or potential others waiting at the borders - the thing was that it had been so much easier to deal with before because ... there was always something there. Maybe a miscellaneous gym ball just waiting for their discovery or maybe they found an orange or something or maybe a clanmate found a room filled with Rubix cubes. The hospital, being so twoleg and foreign, had seemingly everything conceivable; the only thing everyone needed to do to interest themselves was walk around.

Now, though. Stranded outside, maybe some moments of trekking out to scout the general area before heading back, their days full of dull repetition with only the other antics of their clanmates to keep things alive -

It isn't much longer before Miyu goes flopping right down out of seemingly nowhere next to Romanpaw with his back to the grass a few later after the (hey, practise makes perfect) drawings have been made indistinguishable in the dirt, and the tabby greets casually brightly, 'Hey!'

Miyu rolls onto his stomach and rests his head curiously on his paws, blinking yellow eyes at the now unmarred earth. Hadn't the wolfdog been messing around with it? 'Didja find something?' he asks, puzzled, and squinting at the dirt. It doesn't look as if there's really anything of interest - maybe Miyu just has to (haha, dirt) dig deeper?

notes im sorry for the late reply!
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[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]Indeed, no threat but a winningly grinning Miyu belly-down in the dirt like a soldier wriggling over the terrain. Speaking of wriggling, his featherduster-esque tail is doing it, and the brown tabby can only tilt his head to the side with a huge entertained grin because he definitely did not miss that little jump. Gotcha!

'Heeey, anyone could smell me coming from a mile away!' Miyu laughs, flapping a paw dismissively through an incessant smile. He pauses, however, and amends, 'Uh, literally, okay? Not that I smell or anything!'

... Unless he does. The tomcat self-consciously dips his chest to whiff casually sneakily at his own chest. Hmm.

In any case, lifting his head again with a pointed clearing of the throat to change the subject - maybe it's not exactly beating them up, but Miyu was very persistent in terms of bugging people with positivity. Still is, even. Just the right amount of cheerily enthusiastic and protagonist-level determined that made any classic villain want to screech in annoyed fury, grab their hair and just point at their thieved item to shout, "TAKE IT. JUST. TAKE IT. AND GET OUT."

He tends to have that effect on people a lot, actually. It comes with trying to be everyone's friend!

'You sure?' Miyu presses, intrigued and his interest now fully piqued; he starts prodding the dirt with his paw. Surely there was something! 'Y'know, I bet if we dug really deep, we'd find, like ... a whole passageway or something!' Excluding the tunnel that they would've created through digging, of course. The tomcat nods matter-of-factly and, inspired, actually begins scraping with a little more pressure at the ground.

Miyu's basically that one child that wondered where they'd end up if they dug a really deep hole. This is exactly it.

notes i can really imagine romanpaw just sitting next to a hole, sighing loudly, and miyu's voice echoing out of it going "NOPE STILL NOTHING, IM GONNA DIG DEEPER!!"
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[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]Fortunately - or unfortunately, depending on who you asked, but at least there was still some balance of fortune tying in there - Miyu was quite accustomed to being pushed away. Generally emotionally, with cold shoulders and contemptuous glares and the like (though that had mostly been coming from one person and considering that one person wasn't exactly inside of this clan and instead someone glowering at him from the other side of another clan's territory boundary then at least he kept his friends close, right? Right?), and ... sometimes physically, envisioning a certain tiny rage dragon planting their palm straight on his muzzle and snapping, still frazzled from a certain orange juice experience, 'not now, Miyu ....'

But in any case, Miyu - even if he lacked subtlety in almost every way definable plus some others - is unphased in the face of Romanpaw's decided unimpressed...ness. It's okay, you didn't need force to become friends with Miyu. All you needed were a few extra years of growing Miyu-tolerance and plus a couple hundred casual conversations before eventually in the end after one aforementioned casual conversation you realised something along the lines of, 'wait, he called me his BFF.' And by then you would be in too deep. You can never escape the terrifyingly amiable claws of the wild Miyu.

'But what if!' the brown tabby insists resiliently, a spark of bright challenge almost flashing directly from yellow eyes - and so is the saga of Miyu burrowing even further into the dirt, honestly unsheathing his claws so he can make some efforts at raking the ground up as well. If the boot fit. 'I mean, there could be anything - like, a boot ... maybe a key ... maybe instead of just a boot there's a pair of, I dunno, bright yellow really big shoes or something that have those Velcro strips --'

The brown tabby abruptly bolts up straight, head swiveling over to Rome. DOGS DUG.

'... Heeey, you'd be good at digging, right?'

And maybe wolfdogs could, too!
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[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]Miyu would surgically drag Rome kicking and snarling away from his blessed rage if it meant that Miyu would have yet another puppet friend to jabber happily meaninglessly onto about visiting different worlds and wanting to kayak to Antarctica to save his long lost friend who totally isn't Anna in a slightly exaggerated light - that is, he would, but as you can see Miyu is a cat and he cannot put gloves comfortably over his paws. Not ideally, at least. And gloves are very important in surgery.

So, no operational removal here. It seems that it'll have to be a natural gradual process.

Miyu eyes them with extreme criticalness in the sense that a judge would analyse a contestant; except maybe with a little too much idealistic excitement, judging from the gleam that's beginning to shine a little too dangerously happily in certain yellow slit irises.

'Better late than never!' he declares adamantly, ears now swiveled with great excitement to the front. 'Come on, what if there really is a passageway? And we found maybe a dungeon or something ... oh, man, that'd be really awesome!'

The tabby thus goes on, nodding meaningfully toward Rome then to the hole, 'Help me dig!'
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[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]Alas, to the kitty kayaking all the way to Antarctica sounds like just about the most fun thing you could ever do. Ever. And a third ever just for luck. There's no way you could ever go wrong with a little-lot of extreme physical activity; Miyu is so ready to paddle all the way there, even notwithstanding his lack of opposable thumbs and thus most probable difficulty with sufficiently wielding something like oars that undoubtedly needed something a little more along the lines of ... twoleg finesse ...

Ugh. Twolegs. Always having everything handed to them on a silver platter. They didn't even need to kayak all the way to Antarctica, they could probably just use their monsters to ... drive across the ocean or something. Miyu wouldn't put it past them!

In any case, the thought of Rome not actually wanting to assist him in digging is something that entirely bypasses the tomcat's mind - the idea now abruptly registered, Miyu's jaw drops slightly and he pins the wolfdog with a dumbfounded expression of 100% surprise. What? What if he doesn't want to ... dig a hole and possibly discover a passageway that's almost definitely not going to be there or else a dungeon that also is almost definitely not going to be there? What if he doesn't want to die by a potential beast lurking under the earth?

..... Nooo. SURELY HE JESTS.

'Hey, I'm totally ready to take on any monster!' the tabby asserts, nodding his head seriously and flashing a winning grin that comes out a little unbashedly goofy. 'I mean, what'd even be there? A sleeping dragon or something?' Gasp. 'Maybe it has treasure!'

However, then he frowns in thought. No, he guesses he doesn't care all that much about the treasure. It's more the novelty of being able to charge into something headfirst and just wildly going for it before escaping just an inch from death laughing like a hyena and boasting how he 'totally nailed it.'

Well, tomato, tomato.

'C'mon, dig with me!'
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[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]The moment that Rome utters that single word - merely one syllable and very commonly used but exactly the word that triggers all the alarm bells you could possibly ding in one breath - is the same moment that Miyu's ears swivel to flatten back against his head because what? Now Romanpaw doesn't want to traverse into a sleeping dragon's den and probably get eaten just because Miyu wanted a little adventure?

... Well, when you put it that way, everything seemed ridiculous and very hazardous.

Temporarily must Miyu lapse into silence to consider this very dire argument and rally his mental forces again to combat against the undiminishable formidable foe that is Romanpaw's sheer dubious reluctance to go dig a very deep hole with him. However, within seconds, the flashbulb generally lighting up metaphorically above the brown tomcat's head is restored with a pleased sort of inspiration.

'You won't get tired!' he assures him very certainly, tail happily curling behind him. 'After all, there's two of us, which makes ...' Maths maths maths. AHA. '... four paws! Even without our back ones! Except, well ... if there is a monster and you are too tired, then -' What can he do? If the wolfdog was tired, he couldn't run. But if they couldn't run, maybe Miyu could ... drag them? WAIT.

'I'll grab you, and then I'll fly us away!' Miyu finishes excitedly, all four wings stirring up the tiniest breeze for emphasis - seeming to forget that he couldn't carry a sack of potatoes. Still, though.
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[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]The tomcat's almost directly getting ready to stand up and try to carry Romanpaw somewhere with his wings because of how awesome that idea sounds - but Miyu wilts instead to lie back down on his stomach, lightly thumping his chin back on his paws and averting the wolfdog a plaintive look. 'You ... don't want to dig holes?' he repeats, slowly and more in a motion to comprehend it himself.

His copiously flapping feetwings cease within a moment and fold back into stasis with his dawning comprehension.

' ... But .... we'll find stuff?' Miyu continues in the same tone, invisible cat eyebrows scrunching with the effort of comprehending why someone would possibly not want to risk their lives and sacrifice their paws for a passageway that might not even be there. The tomcat blinks owlishly, tilting his head to the side. Then he brightens.

'Well, alright! But hey, what if we got on a raft instead and looked for, you know, another world or something??'
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[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]At this, Miyu's extreme excitement is not sated or even settled in the least, even though Romanpaw has basically given him the go-ahead and everything for pulling them into his many nefarious schemes of all sorts and so he can rest easy - not even though aforementioned Romanpaw looked very woebegone at this sorry conclusion and not at all excited about it. Let alone enthusiastic in general. Or ... about anything, really.

But if Miyu allowed himself to be pulled down by gravity, then he wasn't a tomcat!

... And he was. You can check his birth certificate. Bouncing off the walls brown tabby kitty born and raised.

'Alright!' he exclaims enthusiastically with an according brightening of, impressively, his entire expression - in an action that he seems very well-versed in, considering how he appears to just keep getting happier and happier in every single thread ahem wait, is that too meta - inordinately pumped up. 'I mean, you know, because you can get everywhere on a raft! And they're really easy to make, too. After all all you need is wood and strong and ... sticks, and ....' Fish. Did you need fish to build a raft?

Miyu pauses at that, chewing it over, and not only that but soon his mind wanders to gathering all the material, chopping down trees and getting something to split them into small flat chunks, and then fumbling with rope to tie it all together ... Aww. Well.

'Ah, except ... well, the ocean's always gonna be there, right?' He grins sheepishly. 'So ... maybe later!'

So there goes Miyu, rolling over onto his bank and staring blankly up at the sky for a good peaceful few moments. Quiet, because of them Rome was far less inclined to start a conversation. Watching the clouds brings back a flash of a certain memory in this exact position that came with an extremely awkward conversation followed by a hug, but the extremely liquidtimedly accurate because technically it hasn't happened yet thought of what might happen if he hugged Rome and, for some reason, the conjured images of the wolfdog flailing and screeching in response, sends a shiver walking down his spine. Where did that image come from?

Man, his thoughts have seriously been going haywire.

Miyu twists idly to get more comfortable.

... He can't take this silence. Seriously.

' ...... Heeeey, Romanpaw.'
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[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]Miyu is here to make everyone feel like they need a dozen aspirins - but it's only like pulling teeth if you're resistant, of course. Which Romanpaw rather is. Maybe you couldn't really blame him, though. After all, they seemed like the type to relate with dragging themselves up in the morning, glancing blearily at the clock, then allowing themselves to slump back into the sheets again.

That was everyone whenever that certain mood hit, but it seemed as if Romanpaw felt like that ... a lot of the time.

And that was fine, but the thing is how it's so ... upsettingly contagious. Miyu was already lazy enough despite as enthusiastically ambitious as you could get, but hanging out with Romanpaw allowed the extra bit of tired to sneak through until all he wanted to do with climb up a tree, make himself comfortable on a branch, then sleep forever.

And probably jar himself back into consciousness like ten times with aborted yells of stunned surprise for no reason.

The brown tabby rolls back onto his stomach to send Romanpaw a covert glance, grinning before he can help it. So maybe it's very one-sided. There's just a quality about chatting to the wolfdog that's ... fun. 'Can wolfdogs see colour?' he asks, intrigued. 'I mean, cats can. Kinda. It's not really important, though, and not all that clear. I was just wondering.' Pause. 'What's your favourite colour?'
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[fancypost borderwidth=0px][justify][size=7pt]Among jumpy animals, there were of course rabbits, as well as deer and ... mostly herbivores, really. Those scared plant eaters with hardly any protection to name other than maybe parts of their natural biology, like horns and quick feet, and even then again carnivores could be very persistent to bypass those defenses. Poor herbivores. Cats were pretty jumpy, as well, both ways - on one hand, you dangle a piece of yarn or flash a red light on the floor and they'd go pouncing feverishly after it like it was their singular mission on Earth.

And on the other hand, you approach them too quickly or even just cough unexpectedly, their eyes dilated until you could barely see anything but pure black in their eyes and that was in the split second they were even still there, either next instant scrambling under the couch or up a curtain. You couldn't really understand a cat if you weren't a cat. You could definitely notate some of their behaviours, but you just wouldn't get why.

A lot of that was also due to maybe the little fact that Miyu had no idea why he did those things, either.

He just ... feels these urges, you know?

'Same!' Miyu bursts out with very much unneeded enthusiasm, albeit he's already pretty much said that - he kneads at the dirt with unsheathed claws, parting it in rows with his teeny makeshift rakes. Look, Rome, he's a farmer. 'That's what I always thought! I mean, and there are so many people that go around nowadays with ... necklaces and bracelets and twoleg clothes and things ... and it's always just something like ...'

The tomcat tilts his head idly to the side, eyes drawn to his patterns and grinning down at them. 'I don't know. Why? We don't really need them for warmth or anything. But so many people do it anyway. Some do it to look good, I guess? Pfft, it's weird. Not exactly bad or anything, but wearing things is so .... heavy.' Miyu draws his paw closer to himself to lick at the pad, smile downturning into a slight frown. Blahh, dirt.

Truly, intelligent conversations with Miyu.

notes i need to catch up with all my threads. rest in peace
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