Eat, drink and be merry — Tansyface

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    —— FLAXENGLARE ——

    Soon to be King

    The last time they had spoken Flaxenglare had said some pretty...pretty awful things. Uncalled for things even by Flax’s standard. Looking back on their talk lately, Flaxenglare couldn’t help but physically cringe. Even if he had been grieving, that was no excuse. She had done- or tried to do - what most wouldn’t have bothered. She’d tried. She tried to help him, show him the error of his ways before he ruined any more of his actually pretty good life. He probably would have, if Firedawn hadn’t been so stubborn. Still, Tansyface had tried when she didn’t need to, and the way he had treated her...well, he couldn’t just let that venom he’d spat linger and get worse any longer- even if it was just him feeling the burn.


    Flaxenglare spotted her as she was leaving the nursery. Good think about Tansyface being a queen— it made her easy to corner. Quickly, Flaxenglare grabbed a water vole from the pile, hoping it was something she might like, and made his way over to her. “Hey, Tansyface" he says, quick to call her attention before she leaves thinking he’s visiting Firedawn. By most accounts, apologizing was not something that came easy to Flaxenglare. Even when he was absolutely at fault, he’d rather dance around the words than lower himself to such a degree. But that was because he rarely felt like he should be apologizing. Now? Now he didn’t hesitate to say, “Id like to speak with you- preferably in private but I don’t mind" he says, thinking she wouldn’t ever want to be alone with the guy who’d spat on her dead mate’s grave when she’d raised a paw to help. Then again, he wasn’t that same guy anymore. The way his eyes glowed, the tone he spoke words instead of hiss and snarl them. His very aura...while not still without it’s lingering poisons, was cleaner. Much cleaner than it’s been in so very long.


    "Speech"








    ShadowClan senior warrior | black & ginger torbie | missing left eye | tags

    Tansyface was no stranger to apologies. One didn't have a personality as hers and not pass out a few in varying degrees of genuity just to make clan life functional. Everything about Flaxenglare, from the tone of his voice to the proverbial olive branch, the vole that Tansyface would accept not because it was something she was particularly fond of but because she could see the meaning behind it, rang true to Tansyface's past experiences. (a feather so white it seemed to glow in the dim light of the moon, a small mouse, scrawny and offered with a sneer,) But Tansyface was not one to be offered such tokens, such words.


    She was dumbstruck, eye flicking from the water vole to Flaxenglare's face, partly searching for any sign of him being disingenuous and partly at a loss for words. Tansyface thought of all the apologies she's given, all the ones she had waited to hear and never would until her mouth finally agreed with her head that she should at least say something, "I- leave it at the nursery. An apprentice had already brought something by but surely I will eat it later. We can walk somewhere if you want privacy." She sniffed the air, whiskers twitching with every inhale, and Tansyface imagined the places they could go, what she wanted to see, but ultimately decided to let Flaxenglare lead.

    —— FLAXENGLARE ——

    Soon to be King

    Yeah, a lot of people were dumstruck by Flaxenglare's seemingly 180 turn- but then they hadn't really been paying attention had they? For a moment, Flaxenglare narrows his eyes when she denies his vole, looking for all the world pissed but in all honesty more concerned that she assumed it was a bribe, or knew his intentions behind it, and was rejecting him before he could begin. But then she explains herself and he relaxes, especially when she accepts and offers for him to lead the way. He nods simply, picks up the vole, hands it to some nearby NPC, and then leads the way outside the camp.

    A lot had changed when he met Firedawn, but the ball really began rolling when she announced that they were expecting. Being a soon-to-be father...it put a lot of things in perspective and frankly? He didn't like who he was. He wasn't sure he had ever liked that person, but it wasn't until Firedawn showed him a future were...it was possible to be someone else...that he finally realized this didn't have to be how it was. He didn't have to be a rotten spoiled brat that screamed insults at a queen who tried to help him when the world turned it's back on him. Or when he ASSUMED the world turned on him.

    What a diluted little arse Flaxenpaw had been. "First things first - i'm sorry I called your story garbage" Flaxenglare says, once the two enter a clearing that's as secluded as it can be in an open marshland. He turns to face Tansyface, not an ounce of hesitation or reluctance on his face. He was never ashamed of apologizing, only when he was forced to do it. Here, he knew he was wrong, and worse than apologizing was living with that guilt. so he cut to the chace, "But obviously it's not just that I need to apologize for. I'm sorry Tansyface, for the way I treated you. Your story...i guess it struck all the wrong cords but in all the right places. I was too distracted seeing everyone else as that poisonous viper I couldn't imagine..." he rubs the back of his head - apologizing was easy, talking about feelings? that was hard. "I'm sorry for what I said especially. Bringing your mate and kits - your past - into my fox-dung was unacceptable" he looks up at Tansyface, meeting her amber gaze with his own yellow ones, "You tried to help me. It...Well, don't think it didn't mean anything" he concludes with a shrug. Because he knows that she tried...and in many cases, it really does mean a lot to the troubled boy.


    "Speech"


    "Speech"






    ShadowClan senior warrior | black & ginger torbie | missing left eye | tags

    She follows quietly, observes him through her peripheral vision as the two of them walk. She thought of how easy it was to forget that she didn't have the whole story, that she didn't see all the moving parts. That Tansyface didn't know what Flaxenglare's world looked like, couldn't quantify his experiences against her own. She thought of herself, thought of the times she felt rational all the while carrying the label crazy like an ugly scar. A time when she had been caught in a spiral of reacting to things as they came, a tailspin that felt endless and desolate at the time. All of the proverbial bridges that she had burned while she struggled to get a grip on her rapidly changing opinions of her clanmates.


    When Flaxenglare stops, Tansyface does so too, sits down lightly and tucks her tail against her forepaws, covering them. She tries to remain impassive as Flaxenglare speaks but has never been particularly stoic. Her face scrunches with anger, remembered clearly but not truly felt now as she is reminded of that conversation that fell rather quickly out of control. Tansyface lets him finish before she speaks, smothering her expression into something a little gentler, closer to what she truly felt. "I very well knew that you would insult me, my story, my choices," The admittance is soft, airy. "I just hadn't expected you to bring up..." Tansyface stops herself, unsure of what point she wants to make. Unsure if she actually forgives Flaxenglare just yet.


    Too sure that she relates to him more than she should. "I know what it is like to feel as though you are fighting against the entire clan. As if you will find yourself dead if you ever drop your snarl." It's a private, small thought, but one that grows bigger by the day. A thought that Tansyface doesn't know where she stands with her clan, that she doesn't know where she stands with the warrior code. A thought that took root back when Tansyface had felt so freshly betrayed, that sprouted the longer Tansyface buried that betrayal. She doesn't want that for Flaxenglare, wanted to pull him out of whatever string of reacting he had found himself in before he found himself ostracized.


    Tansyface wants to tell him another story.


    A story about herself, unyielding and aggressive and hurt. How it felt to want to drop that anger, be better, all for someone. To be someone they had deserved, someone that didn't posture like a cornered rat and someone who didn't feel like a cornered rat and who didn't have all of that hurt labeled as a nasty temper, nothing but. She doesn't have the words yet, they feel too big for her mouth, a story too heavy to carry. Tansyface feels too small to be the one to be burdened with it. Instead she runs her tongue over her broken teeth, stalls as she works her throat into something capable of producing sound. When she does speak, her voice feels far more weighted than it had before, too sincere, "I do, I do forgive you. And I am happy for you, Flaxenglare."