[closed] Blessings, Curses

Rest hadn't come easy but that was one of the few certainties in his life. With enough exhaustion, the sleep would always come, be it tormenting or not. After sometime, sparse rays of light touched his eyelids and he blinked a few times. Patrick's sight came into focus, fixating on a fuzzy orange figure. As the form of a cat came to shape, the bicolored tom immediately leaped to his feet and backed into the wall of the den with sides heaving. It was then he remembered that this was his companion from the night before. They shared several words before drifting into separate, uneasy unconsciousness. It took a couple of deep breaths before he could finally looked over the cat who had once been called Amberdawn with something other than a drowsy fear. When he did, he saw the prey she had brought along too. With a shaky twist of his head, the tom thanked her before tucking into the turtle doves. He hadn't eaten this well in a long time. The forest seemed to hold a lot of wealth here. Perhaps that was why there were so many cats. After a few moments of savoring each chew, his thoughts drifted, "So... what now?"

Amberdawn's stomach knotted slightly when she noticed Patrick - or, rather, he noticed her, and what followed was an absolute panic. She had never known someone to wake in such a way except for perhaps after a nightmare. He had been resting a moment earlier, but suddenly he was scrambling to his paws, eyes wide and wild as he backpedaled away from her with a look of bewildered fear. The golden tabby immediately flinched, taking several steps away from him and flattening her ears and squeaking a hasty, soft, "I-I'm sorry, it's j-just me..." She didn't know if it helped him or not; he lingered against the wall of the nest for a moment, breathing hard, but then after a short time a light of recognition flickered into his face.

Patrick's personality shift was again swift and sudden, just as it was the day before. Perhaps he had woken from a dream, and he was simply in a fog when he had noticed her, but his stand-offish greeting yesterday seemed indicative of a certain mistrust for the company of other cats. Certainly what he'd suffered was unknowable by Amberdawn; his unwillingness to travel with or be comfortable with others might well be perfectly justified by his past experiences. 

For Amberdawn, though, the wretchedly bitter feeling of unwarranted distrust and paranoia was too familiar. It was just swell that Patrick was able to relax again, perfectly content to take the prey that the stranger brought for him, but Amberdawn's feeling of detachment and weariness only grew.

They began to eat in silence, the small she-cat having retreated to the opposite side of the makeshift den to give Patrick the space he must so badly need. She wondered sadly if he regretted helping her find shelter, since it had forced him to share it with her. After a few moments of their quiet eating, the loner finally asked a question - spoke to her as if he hadn't just looked at her like she was a badger. Amberdawn swallowed her mouthful of pigeon and looked up at him, her expression slightly veiled. The weariness, however, was clear on her face. "Now... I don't know. I suppose you'll want to be on your way," Amberdawn said in a dull tone. "I'm too tired. I'm not going anywhere else this morning."

"Yeah, I, uh, hardly stay anywhere for long." He managed a soft, rather weak smile in response to the she-cat. Constant travel was an exhausting thing, especially on his aging bones. Arc felt a pang of guilt as she retreated to the other side of their temporary shelter. Although, he thought little more of it at the moment. Being around other cats so little meant he had lost some of his ability to read or understand others. The path he ran was a lonely one. A spark of companionship, no matter how temporary, meant more than she could understand. There were few cats he had managed to engage with, especially for this one. And losing his companion had driven him further from other living creatures. His gaze flickered to the floor for a moment and he swallowed some cotton that had become stuck in his throat. The older tom caught her dull tone and the weary glint of her gaze and he felt that guilt once again. He cursed himself internally before managing to speak up once again, "It's not you. I, ah, I'm sorry. I'm just not used to other cats. Far too many things after me for as long as I can remember. I've been running most of my life now and yet I can't seem to outrun the past at my heels. But, uh, yeah, rest is good. You deserve it." He coughed once, more out of discomfort than anything. His head dipped to pull away another strip of prey. It would be time to leave soon, but racing out instantly didn't sit right with him.

Amberdawn nodded once to Patrick's quiet reply, having expected the answer but still feeling mildly disappointed at how quickly he got to it. I expected to have no companion when I left, she thought to herself. I should be grateful for the help he provided and not be selfish and bitter that he can't stay for longer. It was the reasonable thing, but she had just abandoned her Clan, hadn't she? Perhaps she wasn't feeling all that reasonable anyways. Besides, Patrick clearly didn't want to be there with her for long, and who was she to try to force someone into an unhappy situation after everything she'd given up to escape an unhappy situation of her own? In some ways she was a hypocrite, certainly, but not in this one.

Another silence stretched during which Amberdawn continued to eat her bird. After some time the loner spoke again, apologizing. The she-cat felt nervous about his sudden apology, her tail twitching slightly as she poked at her prey and hoped she was being subtle in avoiding his gaze. She'd gotten all kinds of apologies from Tinystar about his paranoia. When the loner finished speaking he coughed uncomfortably; Amberdawn couldn't think of what to say, and so she simply said what she always did. "It's alright. I understand." But she didn't understand; she never understood the need to lash out rather than reach out, or to close down rather than open up.