Fog Figures • Private

[Asphyx]

blink and your dead

i'm quick, i'm cunning, and i never miss

Asphyx's frown wavered as he laughed, but she tried to maintain it. "I didn't mean to," she said, trying hard to keep her look, but it finally broke. She let out a small smile.

[Rot]

Feeling like he could trust Asphyx better, Rot finally meowed, "Rot."

[Asphyx]

blink and your dead

i'm quick, i'm cunning, and i never miss

Asphyx nearly tilted her head in confusion, but she refrained. However, her nonexistent eyebrows came together in a furrow, and she quickly throught through the things that that could mean. The first option that popped into her head was, 'did he just call me rot?' as a bad name, but then she thought about it more. Finally, her eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened. "Is that your name?"

[Rot]

"Yes," Rot replied, "Stinger is just a nickname." It was his mother who had to give him that name. One of her most famous ways to describe him was that he looked like a rotten fruit. Only worse.

[Asphyx]

blink and your dead

i'm quick, i'm cunning, and i never miss

Asphyx ended up smiling. "Who gave you the nickname?" she asked, narrowing her eyes a bit. Her smile grew, as she thought it would be someone he cared about but didn't want to talk about.

[Rot]

Does she know? Rot glared for real this time, "No one important." Actually, it was someone important. It was his crush who gave him his nickname. Recently, Rot had told her that he loved her, but she didn't know how to answer. Telling Rot that the next time they meet, she told him that she might have the answer. This only made Rot anxious.

[Asphyx]

blink and your dead

i'm quick, i'm cunning, and i never miss

Asphyx squished her lips together in a small smile, her eyes continually narrowed. She caught his glare, but it only made her smile grow. Finally, she raised her eyebrows and took a step back, swishing her long, fluffy tail. "Alright, I see it isn't someone you care about. I thought it would be. That makes me wonder why you chose to tell me your nickname. But oh well, it doesn't matter." She shrugged. "So... do you usually wake up this early?"

[Rot]

Relief poured into Rot's belly as Asphyx decided not to nag him, but it felt horrible hearing her say that he didn't care for Arabella. Giving his pelt a small shake, Rot replied to Asphyx's question, "Yeah, not so many cats are awake."

[Asphyx]

blink and your dead

i'm quick, i'm cunning, and i never miss

Asphyx smiled and shifted her paws. She flicked her tail over her front again. "Honestly, I'm only up this early on certain days. Sometimes I can't sleep at all, like last night."

[Rot]

"Why can't you sleep? Is it something from your past?" Rot asked, looking at Asphyx questionably. Also being tormented from his past, Rot sometimes had the same result.

[Asphyx]

blink and your dead

i'm quick, i'm cunning, and i never miss

Asphyx sighed and her eyes watched a piece of grass swaying gently in the warm breeze. "It is," she answered, and winced as images flashed in her mind. Rocks falling, screams from her friends, then finding their crushed bodies through the rubble. Wandering endlessly through the snowy mountains, nearly dying of cold and starvation, then finding signs of life to be told that they had won the war. She was haunted by it constantly.

[Rot]

"Please tell me about it." Rot meowed softly, his piercing blue eyes softening. "It might help..."

[Asphyx]

blink and your dead

i'm quick, i'm cunning, and i never miss

Asphyx sighed and flicked her tail over her paws once more. "Ever since I was a kit, I had been trained to fight in this great war my nation was in. Everyone fought in it, from apprenticeship until they could no longer fight, by death or some other serious injury. I had always excelled from the beginning, and I trained to be one of the best warriors alive. However, being brilliant comes at a cost, and my closest friends, along with being my only friends, and I were sent on a mission that would change the tides of war. The mission was a trap, set by the killer that murdered my sister. His name was Cricket, and he ended up murdering my friends, and tried to murder me. I made it out alive, but their screams, their crushed bodies, their terrified faces still haunt me to this day. My mission had been named a success, and therefore, we won the war, but I could never return. I could never go back and face what had happened to me. I wandered the mountain range for moons. I nearly died from the cold and starvation, but when I found this place, I called it quits. I might not always stay here, but for now, it seems like my best bet."

[Rot]

For a moment, Rot was speechless. After a small thought, he spoke. "I was just tormented by my mother. I never thought that someone would have to go though the war you did during kit-hood. After my father died in front of me, my mother took responsibility of me." Rot turned show a scar on his hind leg, "She nipped me whenever I was near her. I just wish my mother died instead of my father..."

[Asphyx]

blink and your dead

i'm quick, i'm cunning, and i never miss

Asphyx's eyes shot up and met Rot's. She shook her head with a worried expression. "Oh no, please don't think that. I sometimes wished my mother was dead, but when she really did die, I could barely live with the fact that I not once ever said I loved her. Deep down, your mother loves you, even if she definitely will not show it. One cannot have a kit without loving it in some way. She still cared for you, even though she could've easily left you. She might've not had the best way of teaching, but she was teaching you because she loved you. She didn't know how to be a good mother." When someone mentioned that they didn't like their parents, it always hit Asphyx in the heart, because she knew she felt the same way, all the way until she heard that her parents had been brutally murdered.