[Insidious]

H O L L O W C R Y

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The tom with spite in his heart as murky as the colour of his fur, like a swamp sat inside of his chest and intended to drown every cat he could look to and give himself a good enough reason to dislike, was still at Blackwolf’s flank as he gruffly inquired about his recent outings with a certain stuttering she-cat. The voice in the back of his head pushed him to aggressively counter that he mind his own business, but the sensible half of him minded his place in Blackwolf’s posse, the place he had earned with conniving smiles and a tendency to boost the pompous tom’s ego, which is why Hollowcry settled with lifting his shoulders in a way that feigned carelessness, a tight sneer on the corner of his mouth, as he pushed aside whatever he felt for the oddball and filed through his book of insults for the best pick of the bunch: “You have to sacrifice a bit of your time every once in a while to get a good laugh. She’s a total freak.”

What Hollowcry had not noticed was that Echobreeze had been in hearing range, something that surely would have had him otherwise keeping his mouth shut. No matter what he told himself, no matter what he said to ease the look in Blackwolf’s eye, picking him apart piece by piece to see if someone in his posse had fallen for a complete weirdo, he had managed to go and fall for a complete weirdo. He had no idea how it had happened, no idea why it had happened, but it had happened just the same and, despite what he thought, saying those cruel words did not lessen the twist of guilt in his gut. It was unlike any sensation he had ever felt before. He lived for being that jerk. He liked the way it felt to kick somebody when they were down, but this was the first time he had went into that kick with slight hesitation, and actually felt like he was maybe doing something wrong.

He did not approve of it.

In fact, he rather hoped that it planned on stopping sometime soon. There was no way that he was going to let himself go completely soft. Echobreeze meant something to him, regardless of how much he wanted to deny it, pretend it did not exist, but he was not going to let the butterflies in his stomach - heck, he ripped the wings off of those butterflies for fun! - get in the way of him sitting back and laughing at the expense of somebody else. Even if somebody else happened to be Echobreeze, the one who was supposed to make him open his eyes and see the world in a new, brighter, more exciting way.

As if.

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Tags: BlooRey DVD
Word Count: 468.

[BlooRey DVD]

[smear:74ffd2]Echobreeze[/smear:ffffff]

~~~~~~~~~

She'd gone out 'hunting' earlier that morning. She'd spent a great deal of time out there, wandering the territory, doing her best to mind her pawsteps. She'd gotten herself into some fairly sticky situations before, and it had left her to be rescued by one particular tom more than once. ...If it could be called being rescued. She felt her fur heat up slightly, and she dropped her head rather embarrassingly. If anyone asked, she'd been hunting all morning. Really, she'd taken far too many of these 'breaks' to try to calm her heart, which seemed to speed up whenever she thought of the dark brown tom.

Small ears were flattened against her head as soft green eyes gazed rather distractedly at a nearby tree root. Her near-perfectly color bisected face wore a bizarre mix of embarrassment and.. Joy? It was such a strange way of feeling, as though her heart filled with nothing but air, like she herself might just suddenly pick up into the air and float away. Giving herself a very sudden shake to clear her mind, she forced herself to stand up. Her long tail twisted behind her, curling on itself as she sighed softly.

It was then that a surprisingly fat blackbird seems to just leap into her paws. With a squeal of alarm and a totally involuntary reaction, the she-cat swiped the bird to the ground. As it tried to scrabble back up in a mess of wings and feathers, she remembered to pounce on it and kill it. It took her a moment to figure out what to do next. She just... Stared at the bird. There was no way she'd be able to bring any more than this single bird back. It was nearly as big as she was!

Picking up the bird and rather awkwardly juggling it, she spent a good amount of time trying to sort herself out. Eventually? She ended up holding onto its wing, twisting about until it sat sprawled out on her back. Waddling somewhat ridiculously, she began her slow trek back to camp. Little ears were tipped back as she basically crawled through the camp, all the way to the fresh-kill pile. It would be a lie to say her disposal was anymore graceful than her pick up. The plump bird flopped down to the ground, taking down random pieces of the rest of the pile and nearly burying her in prey.

Leaping back and tripping over a mouse, the poor, pathetic thing crashed ungracefully to the ground. It was right about then that she registered the conversation that was happening just within her earshot. Blackwolf had questioned Hollowcry as to why he'd been near her at all. She'd just barely heard Blackwolf, but Hollowcry's response was loud and clear.

"She’s a total freak."

It felt as though a thorn had been thrust through her chest. There was the smallest flare of anger, but it was quickly extinguished as the broken little she-cat's mind quipped back. He... He's right. Her eyes stung with tears she fought to hold at bay. Before she could think up anything to do, she was running, leaving the pile in the disarray she'd created. The tiny tortoiseshell blur streaked by Blackwolf and his posse, straight out the camp entrance. She couldn't stop running. Didn't stop.

...At least not until she tripped, sending herself into a barrel roll comprised of flailing limbs and a pained squeal. When she stopped moving, she just let herself collapse in the shade of some tree, not even concerned at the wet mud that was seeping into her fur...

[Insidious]

H O L L O W C R Y

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He had not considered the fact that Echobreeze might have overheard him until she darted passed Blackwolf and him, a blur of tortoiseshell fur that was there and gone in an instant. He blinked, caught off guard by the suddenness of her departure, a clueless look on his face as he examined the disarray of the food pile that she had caused, the tiniest flare of guilt constricting his throat as he wondered whether or not this was a fixable situation. He looked to Blackwolf from the corner of his eye, the grim expression on the senior warrior’s face indication enough that he was unimpressed with having to suffer for Echobreeze’s clumsiness. It was up to him to reorganize the food pile if he wanted, or perhaps to assign another posse member to the task, because Hollowcry had vanished from his side with nothing more than a curt tip of his head before he followed Echobreeze’s messy trail into the forest.

It did not take him as long as he had anticipated to find her, facedown in the muddy shade of a tree, showing no inclination to right herself. He resisted the urge to scoff because, clearly, and as much as he hated to admit it, this was most likely his fault and he was in no position to question her motives. Up until now he had been assured that she did not have an angry bone in her body, but he was unsure about where this conversation would go, and whether or not he actually wanted to start it, because he was not necessarily in the mood to face the wrath of a she-cat. He reasoned with himself that the least he could do was help her out of the mud, awkwardly walking on the slimy ground to reach her side before giving her a gentle nudge with his shoulder, attempting to push her somewhere a little drier.

“You weren’t supposed to . . .” a pause, “I didn’t mean to . . .” a correction, “Okay look.” He never thought the day would come when he actually had to try and explain himself, and what he was feeling, but he was going to try and make an effort because, whether or not he liked it, he did not want to lose the relationship he had built with her just because he had said something stupid that he didn’t even mean. “Half of the time I don’t even mean what I say to him, all right? I don’t believe that you’re a freak. I like spending time with you, and I would like to continue spending time with you if you’ll let me after saying something like that.” It wasn’t an apology to remember, that’s for sure, but it was good enough for someone that never accepted the blame; someone that, until now, had never even tried to apologize.

He was a jerk, she would be blind if she didn’t see that - especially now - but there was sincerity in his light gold eyes when he claimed to have liked their time together. Maybe they didn’t have the kind of love story where the savage tom changed for the better, but he did like her, he realized that now, and if he was going to say something rude again to get Blackwolf off of his back, then he’d at least make sure she wasn’t around first.

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Tags: BlooRey DVD
Word Count: 560.