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Bacchuspaw half-stood, half-sat at the entrance to the nursery, trying and failing to settle and herd a gaggle of fledglings back inside; they had all become convinced there was something marvellous in the hallway, and nothing — no amount of shouting or, when he was sure no one else was about, hitting — would assure them otherwise. "There is nothing," he repeated for the thousandth time, clawing a fledgling back as it forced itself between his legs and hared for a grip on the hallway carpet, "out in the HORRIBLE hallway." A few weeks ago, he had had parents; now, he was on his own. And that state of loss he couldn't reconcile in public, of grief that had to bottle itself up and turn itself into gratitude that such heretics had been taken from the Clan before their poison could spread, of being, for all intents and purposes, what amounted to a teenager suddenly cut adrift without moral guidance or protection or anyone to save him but himself — all of that had formed itself into a frustrated, explosive temper. He was a boarding school boy away from home for the first time, narcissistic and angry at the world and with too much money — too much privilege, in the form of Motherhood — suddenly dropped into his lap.
As he was struggling with the forsaken hellhounds who'd somehow beguiled their way into being called kits, Bacchuspaw looked up, still gripping a fledgling for dear life, and let out a panted laugh as he saw Orrerypaw walking past just in front of him. He grinned at the young Luminary; there was something about it that was made of fire — or, more unsettling, made of flint a second away from being lit. Always just on the verge of sparking into a wildfire. They'd never mingled much, not when they'd been on the path to becoming Shadowhunters; but now that they'd both been granted elite status in the new order, now that they were both young aristocrats near the top of the hierarchy, too young to be doing what they did, now that they had things expected of them, they moved in the same circles. Sat a few cats away from each other in the same rooms; saw each other over the tops of heads and ears. Not enough to be friends — not enough to even really speak — but enough to know they were both on a level playing field.
"I liked your speech," Bacchuspaw told him as the Luminary passed, head slowly following him. His voice sounded faintly mocking — but everything he said sounded like that. Like he was laughing at some lower-class slip of the tongue — so unrefined, so uneducated in the dos and don'ts of polite society. He'd sat near the back of the crowd at the last Vespers — being at the front wasn't cool, despite what open sycophants like Orrerypaw thought; Bacchuspaw was sycophantic in less clear ways, and outward devotion to Selene came second to being cool — and listened with what he'd told himself was admiration. It couldn't be anything else. Some of the others near the back had snickered into their paws at the suck-up Luminary parading himself for awe and approval, making himself unpopular with his peers by seeking popularity with their elders, and ordinarily he'd have joined in. Though he'd have balked to know it, Orrerypaw was a covert laughingstock for the way he held himself in such sincere, unself-conscious high regard, thinking himself so powerful and so mighty. It was embarrassing. But that night, Bacchuspaw had just sat and watched. Still. Entranced by something, as the others jostled his shoulders and rocked him from side to side. He didn't know why. "You sounded terribly adult. I hope Windsweptashes didn't mind being upstaged."
i did and i love it. also i am so sorry for the length but the music made me do it so it's your fault and that's my excuse
For Orrerypaw, the day had been typical, mundane. He had almost wished that something would happen, as much as another part of him was irrationally proud that things were, as always, working like clockwork in the estate. The sounds of public preaching echoed through the lower halls of the manor, mixed in as always with the sound of cats sharing their conversations, of prayers being said, of hymns being sung. These were the sounds of modern Moonclan since the culling, the sounds of a clan in the throws of fervent belief and spiritual revival; and though the Luminary accounted for so little of this change it was almost negligible, he had managed to fully convince himself he had an integral part to play in its current and continued existence in this state. And so under that pretence, under the impressions of both his real and illusionary power, he walked through the halls with his own crafted air of authority.
He had planned on passing by the nursery as he had everywhere else, perhaps breifly poking his head in to make sure his own adopted kits weren't making an embaressment of him and themselves and were, as he expected of them, being top of their class. He was instead slightly caught off-gaurd when he noticed Bacchuspaw at the entrance, he hesitated a bit even before the mother spoke, if only because even at sight alone he recognized the tom -- as he did, in truth, everyone in the upper circles of the clan to some extent. Of course they had never really spoken, the newness of it all, the chaos of Moonclan's shift, it had barely given the two the time to settle into their new roles. They had gone in what had seemed like an instant from forgettable faces going through the motions of Moonclan's shadowhunter training into the circles of the highest ranking cats in the clan to the backdrop of death, mourning, and religious revivalism. It would have be world changing for an adult, but for cats who were barely older than fledglings, it was reality breaking, personality forging. But Orrerypaw had still taken note of the other tom more than others who had ascended in status. He was convinved that perhaps they just shared the same spaces more often than others did, and it did well to explain why the other tom's face had solidly burned its place into his memory. Even still, he didn't necessarily expect to hear anything from the other tom, nor did he plan on interrupting him. There was very few things that Orrerypaw had a respect for higher than his own whims and wishes, but the work of those whose status was equal to his was one of those few. So it admittedly surprised the Luminary when Bacchuspaw spoke to him as he had began to pass by, and he felt himself stop dead in his tracks without even intending to.
His heart skipped a beat at the other tom's words, the compliment might as well have been a drug; there was nothing quite like the high of praise, of someone acknowledging him or his skills. He was not necessarily flustered; that would have required him to be less vain, to feel less entitled to such praise. But even still, it did hit him, make his heartbeat quicken; if surely only because it was a compliment from a cat of equal standing. Had the average cat of Moonclan complimented him it would have been understandable, that was their place, and within his right, to be lauded and given admiration. But of course a compliment from this other tom held weight, held meaning. They were equals, the two of them. That was of course why the compliment gave his heart a small rush, why he almost felt like pins had been pressed into his chest with how it burned and prickled with a strange excitement.
Still, arrogant as he was, young and foolishly narcissistic as he was, Orrerypaw wasn't actually a fool. At least, not a complete one. And he was, if nothing else, skilled at sucking up to authority, a true sevant at learning to be high and mighty, until it came time to know his place. And so too, had he learned, or perhaps, was in the midst of learning, how to feign graciousness and fake humility, he was slowly learning the art of putting on a mask. After all, his life was nothing if not ever revolving around how to be a better actor on the stage of Moonclan's elite circles, where one was constantly having to navigate the new and turbelant balance between social, religious, and political obligations, all tied together in their own different, precarious ways. And so, while inwardly he basked in the praise, outwardly he gave a small laugh and bowed his head, as if he was truly a bit embaressed to be given such high praise. "Ah, thank you. But certainly Windsweptashes' was better. I can only strive to one day compare." His response was like everything else about him; insincere and trying to sound bigger and more impressive than he actually was. But it did betray, if only slightly, his tacit thrill he had not yet fully gotten over from the other's compliment.
"I noticed you in the back, you should have spoken some words yourself. I'm sure whatever you would have said would have been impressive as well." There was something truthful in that, oddly truthful. Especially for someone who normally would have burned with jealousy at getting upstaged or outshown. It wasn't something Orrerypaw even considered as he said it; the oddness of it. It would have required admitting his vices, it would have required introspection -- neither of these things the Luminary could be bothered with. All he knew was that for some reason, some part of him wanted to know what the other tom would have said.
NEVER APOLOGISE FOR LONG REPLIES, I LIVE FOR THEM <3
But certainly Windsweptashes' was better. "Shorter," Bacchuspaw replied around a grin, rearranging the fledgling in his grasp without looking down; it always looked slightly predatory, in the way that money was predatory. In the way that the same hundred surnames that dominated a society with such benign invisibility were predatory: if you didn't know they were there, you were too insignificant to. The first word had been mocking; the next two were a statement, gentle in their conviction, like they were a simple fact of law. "Not better."
As Orrerypaw continued, Bacchuspaw let out a doubtful, half-scornful laugh and looked away, using the time it took the Luminary to speak to finally succeed in ushering the fledglings back into the nursery. "I'm not much of an orator," he replied, still turned away, and though he had no reason to feel so, it sounded strangely bitter. The resentment of a rich boy, perhaps, who had found a failing, who had found a chip in the impenetrable armour of his education. Any self-consciousness didn't manifest as insecurity; it became anger. Because if he could have been better, clearly someone had failed him. Clearly someone had neglected their duty, and he was the hapless victim of their negligence. Might as well have been born on the streets. "The other Mothers do most of the teaching — I just sit there and make sure the fledglings know there's more immediate punishments than Selene's judgement." There was that angry-at-the-world fire, that low, simmering defiance — to tell a Luminary he inflicted corporal punishment on fledglings who forgot the words to a prayer, or who hesitated, or who just needed a little bit of encouragement, was a bold confession. Not defiance at MoonClan — defiance at being told what to do. He wasn't afraid for himself; if he was scolded, he would go right back to doing it the next evening.
His gold eyes flicked up to hold Orrerypaw's, and they were petty, waspish, daring. And then an easy grin spread across his face and he straightened, all velvet and brocade. "I'm surprised you noticed me, though. The great Orrerypaw. They say your eyes are raised so high you can't see anything at face level. To say nothing about your chin." His grin didn't falter; his eyes, far calmer now but sharp in their lazy interest, didn't shift from the Luminary's.
The way Bracchuspaw kept him in that middleground, somewhere in the delicate balance between outright mockery and outright complimenting him, on defying him and trying him; there were no words to properly express the way it played with the luminary's emotions.
He didn't flinch at the implication of punishment on the fledglings. That, in truth, to Orrerypaw, had always been fully situated in the mother's domain, it was their full right to care for the fledglings as they saw fit. Perhaps for one mild, uneasy second, he considered his own adopted kits, but his mind was quick to concede that they would not, could not possibly do anything worthy of being punished; they would know their rank, their station, they should know, would know better than to step out of line. No, instead all that really threatened him at his core, all that really made him truly hesitate and pause, was the defiance. He didn't know how to react to it. How did one react to it? Had it been someone below his rank, someone who was, in all relevant manner his inferior, the answer would have come easy. It would have been anything he liked; whether it been a blow or a sharp word, either would have been acceptable so long as he could justify his reaction as being -- in the same vein as Bacchuspaw's treatment of the fledglings under his care -- the swifter version of Selene's own punishments.
But here he was, challenged, even if ever so slightly, by a cat of equal standing. And then, Bracchuspaw pushed it further.
Before the words had been on the verge of both fully mocking him and on fully complimenting him, and he had been inclined, as he was always inclined, to take the compliment first and the insult as an after thought; because truly, how could anyone possibly not recognize how great he was? How could anyone really and truly not see how absolutely worthy of recognition and adulation he was, if even their Minister, their Commissioner, and a goddess herself seen how absolutely and immensely impressive he was so as to promote him as the first Luminary to ever grace modern Moonclan? And yet here he was, being clearly and overtly mocked, or at the very least, teased. And not by an inferior, not by the mundane, pathetic run of the mill workers and worshipers that had they stepped out of line he could have without remorse enacted whatever ruethless punishment he could imagine to knock them back into place. No; by a mother, an equal.
He could practically feel the defensiveness claw at him, and then the heat of embaressment. He could feel the growing knot of both anger and humilaition in his throat with every beat of his heart that was now roaring in his chest, as if he had been thrown into combat rather than just mildly teased. And maybe something else, something else that knawed at him -- but in the heat of the moment he couldn't be bothered to lay name to it, not that he would have normally bothered anyway. There was a moment's pause as Orrerypaw both felt and thought his next response; it was a war between what he was and what he wanted to be. If he had done what he had wanted to do in that moment he would have acted like a bratty child, which in truth was nothing more than he actually was. A child who had been given too much power, a child like the child lords of old who had been shoved onto a seat of authority and control after their fathers' untimely and gruesome deaths, with advisors under their name to actually rule. Like a child lord who had never had to learn temperance or respect because anyone who needed such things were dealt with by more wisened men. Only perhaps Orrerypaw was worse, because instead of having advisors he had a spineless Comissioner who was barely an adult himself and a Minister who hardly spoke to the public to advise him, who had let him loose on the public like a holy terror and had told him to do a godess's work with little more than a vague set of laws to guide him. And so his first impulse, his strongest immediate impulse, was to raise his voice and make a scene about such insolence, about how the other tom should learn to hold his tongue and learn his manners and- and-!...
But another half a second passed, and something slightly more rational won out. Because, although he was barely more than a child, a bratty, egostistical child, he was slowly but surely learning how to be a little bit more than that. How to appear cultured, how important it was to hold one's appearance, how to look like you were above the petty, trivial nonesense of the people below one's status and rank. And, perhaps more importantly to him than everything else; how to maintain one's pride and dignity. And to Orrerypaw there was nothing more shameful, more humiliating than the curtain being pulled back. To be left horribly revealed and bare that everything that he was was nothing more than a show and an act he was trying so desperately to properly create day by day; his mask he was so carefully painting, the script he was so carefully writing for himself, the facade he had been forced to so hastely put together and play into. To have it all torn down in the middle of crafting it would be almost too horrific to even consider. And so, although it took everything in him to keep his calm, to keep his airs, he bit his tongue and tried with everything he could muster to give the most put together response he could.
"I think you're implying I try and be high and mighty. I don't, I'm just keeping an eye on everything. After all it's my job, same as yours is to watch the fledglings." It took everything for Orrerypaw to say those words, everything to swallow his own pride for a second time and painfully pretend -- this time sincerely having to pretend -- to be humble. It was debatable how well he was doing, his voice was one step away from shaking as he spoke with all the emotions that were flooding through him. He tried to let the silence sit after that, but even still the defensiveness, and even worse, the need to justify himself to the other cat in front of him still lingered over him. Some odd, distasteful need for approval, that even as he spoke he knew that in hindsight he would regret saying the words that were about to come out of his mouth; if only because they revealed how desperate he was to vindicate himself. "My job is to look after the students and hunters. Unfortunately that makes up everyone else in the camp, so I'm sorry if it looks that way." The bitterness that crept into his voice, the slight resentment. It was evident, though he tried so terribly, terribly hard to keep it hidden the entire time.
As the emotions — both too repressed to be a child's and with the irrational veracity that could only have belonged to one; a too-old burden that had been heaped on too-young shoulders, a thing of trauma, and a gleeful feast for burgeoning sadists, a thing of pride that would have been called such a terrible tragedy of youth by the old and the coolest thing in the world by someone their age, so twisted and so blameless in their atrocities while there was still kit-fluff behind their ears — played themselves across the subtle twitches of Orrerypaw's face, however hard he tried to hide them, Bacchuspaw felt perhaps the most unlikely feeling: affection. Not sweeping affection, not a fire of it — just pale. Quiet. Because he'd never seen the Luminary unstable before, never seen him as anything less than the obnoxious upstart he liked to watch at Vespers. No one had. He was of one face and one emotion: always those eager eyes that would have watched skin flayed from bone if it was educational, always that smile and that unflappable, breezy arrogance. And now here he was, with his voice on the verge of trembling, like he might have cried from frustration or from the reality of being overwhelmed. But Bacchuspaw didn't feel pity — there was no pity. That wasn't why he liked seeing this lapse.
It was the uniqueness of it. He got to see it. Him. That evening Orrerypaw would go out to prayer and he'd be perfect again. He'd be the thing others mocked. But Bacchuspaw had seen it. And for some strange reason, he liked that intimacy. When he replied, he was merciless, but that very fact would have been a comfort to anyone who knew him: he continued on, and that was the closest to reassurance as he could give. "I don't think anyone's implying you try anything," he replied, that crooked little grin still on his face. "I think they're saying you do it." He didn't mind Orrerypaw being high and mighty; really, for reasons he wouldn't delve into, he liked it. It was endearing, such a little thing with a taste for... well, domination wasn't the right word, was it? Even in his little controlled outburst, he'd proven himself worthy of his Waning alignment. Bacchuspaw was only dimly aware of anything scratching at the inside of his chest like a half-suffocated bird in a cage; without any thought, without any effort, without breaking eye contact, he suffocated it more fully like it had never dared to breathe air at all. It wasn't important. It wasn't fitting. Whatever it was, it was better dead, better stepped over like it wasn't there at all.
Unfortunately that makes up everyone else in the camp, so I'm sorry if it looks that way. It was a tragic statement — he was too young, and he was alone. But Bacchuspaw's lazy grin didn't falter. "You sound stressed, Orrerypaw!" he replied, more a half-amused statement than anything. "Doesn't the grand Luminary get to relax?"
It was like glass being stepped on, then jumped on; something was doomed to break. His facade, his illusions his ability to hold it all together, the more the mother continued on, the more cracked something felt. It was not one of the aforementioned things, it was the very thing that held them together, willed him to keep them together even now. And being as important of a thing as it was, the byproduct of it -- whatever it was -- being pushed was that, like all things in this world governed by basic principles of science, physics, and perhaps by the hand life itself, it pushed backed as well. Cold, bitterly, with some desperate resilience, it pushed back.
"I'm fine, thank you." The snap back was one note away from a growl, but he managed to hold it in some vain attempt at not letting more of his mask slip. He could still feel the knot in his throat, but it was turning into a different thing. What had been frustration and anger was now bitterness, and something else, that same feeling he couldn't name, all the more chocking after the first heat of the blow had died down.
Because now, already, the flare of emotion that had made him so quick to react, that had made his voice practically shake with trying to swallow down his outburst, had gone cold -- like a block of hail in the pit of his throat. If Bracchuspaw was a thing of fire, then perhaps Orrerypaw was a thing of ice. Not because he was cold or tempered; he was as emotional and as prone to outbursts as perhaps his alignment betrayed even before he did. But because if Bracchuspaw was angry, fiery, defiant, mad and bitter at the world and willing to strike out against it; Orrerypaw was an impossibly similar opposite. He was distant, above it all, and he stayed in line because the law was something of a sheild, because he cared little for anything but for what he could control and obdience, he had learned in his short life, gained him more of it. He was endlessly willing to appease the status quo because subconciously he was aware that was what he was, and when given a chance to be angry -- and he was angry -- after the first flury of emotions had left he simmered away to cold, chilling spite and defensiveness, because that was the way that he best knew to punch back against a situation without stirring and destroying everything else as he did it.
"I guess I can't help what other people say I do, only what I actually do. And as I said I do my job, and I'm proud of it." The last bit was a claw back at a bit of his pride, a reassurance not to the other apprentice or anyone else but himself. He was proud, he had a right to be. He couldn't help if Bracchuspaw, nevertheless anyone else, thought he was arrogant or high and mighty. Let them think that, if he was it wasn't because it was his fault. It was a fault in their perception of him, nothing more and nothing less. But that last thought, it sent another uncomfortable rise of emotions through him that try as he might he couldn't shake off. That others didn't percieve himself as he did, that this other mother didn't either. Something about that made chill in his throat more vicious, the cold only seeming to grow as it sent what was not quite a chill, perhaps more like a icy hesitance, through him. He could have taken the former, that was fine. If the masses wanted to think it, let them think it. And if they were stupid enough to express it they would quickly learn just how able he was to see those beneath him when they needed to be reminded that there place was under his feet. But the latter, for reasons he was convinced was a matter of pride, a matter of being respected among his peers, that he knew, even as he tried to convince himself otherwise, he couldn't stand. Had he known that beneath it all the other tom didn't care, that they actually liked that he was like he was, it would have been shocking how quickly that indignation would have turned to pride once again. Shocking how much more weight certain opinions held. Because they were peers of course, equals in some twisted way. Of course that was why, of course.
When Orrerypaw snapped at him, Bacchuspaw flinched slightly back like he'd lunged his jaws at him and grinned; it looked exhilarated, adoring, vindicated, like unravelling the Luminary's careful façade would become his favourite new past-time. I guess I can't help what other people say I do, only what I actually do. "Of course you can help it," he replied, like Orrerypaw had forgotten he had claws, like he, despite all his posturing, had forgotten his position. He never had any concern for being called a traitor, not when it was to other people who didn't matter — he'd be friends with someone for years, best of friends, and then he'd push them in front of a truck to satisfy some maudlin curiosity, or because it benefitted him. Survival had made an untrustworthy backstabber of him and robbed him utterly of remorse.
The lazy fire of his grin hadn't faded; his eyes were fool's gold burnished to black as he looked down at him. "The little lord hasn't forgotten his place? The ones saying all those nasty things about you are apprentices —" Bacchuspaw's friends, and he was tempting the venomous little lion to bring them to heel, to seek petty revenge and throw his weight around, for no reason other than he liked to see power dominating lessers; and for such a little thing like Orrerypaw to inflict dominion... he'd like that especially, "a lord like you can't put them in their place? You're just happy to let them talk?" He laughed, and it was as scornful as it was careless. "Don't tell me you never give dissenters a little smack. A lovely tongue only goes so far — sooner or later, you need a little..." He searched around for the word, raising his eyes and swaying his head slightly from side to side; finally, he looked back down at Orrerypaw and that lazy grin spread across his face again, one forepaw raising to splay a set of slow, indolent claws, "je ne sais quoi." He laughed, a great sound that gaped the inside of his mouth and showed his teeth, and as he did his shoulders moved. All the kits under his care certainly knew that doctrine of his was true. "You're very dainty," he finished, settling down; his gaze was heavy and hooded and smiling, never leaving Orrerypaw's, "but I don't think that can be true."
There was a heartbeat silence as Orrerypaw found himself trying to read between the lines, as if Bacchuspaw's words were like laces around him, looping and weaving into a meaning he only half understood, and yet in some strange part, understood fully. It shifted a bit, that feeling of absolute chill and cold that had hardened him, if only because the other tom had peaked some desperate curiosity in him to articulate a knowing that only some deep, subteranean part of him knew.
His eyes that had been locked and narrowed with some mixture of bitterness and distaste up to that point seemed to losen a bit of their stress, his feature now still punctuated with reserve, but a gleam of curiosity melted through the icy distance behind them. Without noticing it, he found himself leaning forward a bit, in contrast to the sharp tilt back he had kept when in the throws of both his defensivness and his need to saving face before.
"I've certainly done what I need to keep cat in line, when it's necessary." Though there was resolutness, there was also a certain wariness to his voice, as if trying to unravel the other tom's intentions even as they spoke. But for once, as sure as they normally were, sure as they almost always were, they were completely in doubt of themselves as they considered this- well, not exactly an olive branch, but certainly a hint that this was supposed to be going somewhere -- hinting at something more than just a lambasting and a casual challenge of his ego. "So what? Are you implying that you overhear these things, that someone has been talking to you about me?" Or worse, that everyone had been talking about him. It was a thought that now twisted the sense of bitterness they had felt before, an easy manipulation really. Orrerypaw was still young and naive; as a child, even as he was now, he was rather oblivious. He was learning to not be, slowly but surely, but in moments like these the fact that he was being pointed in the direction of fresh blood like an attack dog at Bracchuspaw's own malicious amusement and pleasure was far from his mind. Though it would have been wrong to pity him too much for it, it wasn't like Orrerypaw would care too much afterwards really if in the end they felt like they had aptly laid down their version of the law and gained back some manner of reputation; whether it be admiration, fear, or respect in the wake.
Bacchuspaw didn't lean back as the Luminary leaned forward, looking down at him over the bridge of his nose. The smile didn't fade. "Orrerypaw," he replied, low, warm, pitying, like the other tom was a little slow, a little naïve. His voice was a close rumble. Almost a scolding. "Everyone talks about you." Now he shifted back, rearranging himself on the worn, thread-sparse rug. "You can't expect them not to — it's what you want, isn't it? There's half a dozen Mothers and one Luminary. Of course they're going to talk." He shrugged one shoulder, looking away. "When someone else gets promoted, the chatter will stop. They'll stop caring." His eyes wandered back; the rest of him didn't. "That's worse, though, isn't it?" It would be for him. He was content to be in the shadows, to be of the aristocracy but to not aim for any illustrious position — to not stand out. Half of that was just his natural disposition, preferring to laze and watch; half was survival. Let others test the waters first; let others raise their heads and get them lopped off. Then maybe he'd slip out when the coast was clear.
But he didn't feel like that about Orrerypaw. He wouldn't mind watching him ascend to higher and higher planes, wouldn't mind watching from the ground. Seeing him now, such a small thing, felt like being party to chapter one of a biography, a biography written about someone terrible, someone studied in class so the world might remember their cruelties and learn from them. It felt like bearing witnessed to a half-formed future. And he liked that feeling. It felt muted with such importance. He wanted to be there in the hot, heady, wine-dark shadows through it all.
Without a sound, his eyes flicked to the side, holding Orrerypaw's for a long moment, before he stood and led the way with slow, rolling steps back down the hallway. He didn't look back to the fledglings; one of the other Mothers would take over for him, no matter how annoyed they'd be at his neglect, at his upping and abandoning them to fear and loneliness, to hunger and thirst. But he cared as little as he cared about a dead bird on the flagstones in the courtyard below, past the windows and cobwebs; the close, quiet world was just slow dust motes in the air, book-thick air, Orrerypaw.
If there was one thing the apprentice absolutely hated, it was being treated like they were slower, like someone knew something they didn't. It was amazing really, how Bracchuspaw had managed to put a paw on every one of the things that could rile up the apprentice. His maw twitched with the immediate disgust at it, the overwhelming distaste. It hit harder than the words did, it made him feel small.
It didn't help that once again Bacchuspaw continue to speak in hints of things and touched on complex emotions and feelings Orrerypaw had spent most of his life completely unaware of, unconcerned about. He was wholly unintrospective; something that probably helped forge his ego and had kept any concept of empathy far from his mind. He was slow in that, really; a late bloomer in the art of true social and emotional awareness, in emotional nuiance, in the ability to pretend to care and know how others felt and to know how to use it to its fullest extent. It was what made his attempts at wielding his power and grabbing attention more brutish and embaressing than charming, though it wasn't hard to tell that it would be soon he would learn such things, and that would change everything. But Bracchuspaw forced him to confront these thing early, and though for any other cat he would have handwaved off any hint of an implication they knew anything that hedidn't, with Bracchuspaw they felt themselves slightly concede -- in spite of the bitterness, the resentment, and the distaste at his tone and words -- that the other apprentice knew something they didn't. In the brewing pool of Orrerypaw's emotions, intrigues swirled and rose higher, one that was, though he would be loathed to ever admit it, tinted with admiration.
There was a moment where Orrerypaw found themselves standing like a lone silhoutte by the nursery doorway, watching Bacchuspaw silently leave down the hall. They stood there a moment, frozen, still, only the flicker of their green eyes following the tom with a certain hesitance. But it was just a matter of time before the apprentice broke, before that same intrigue, the same want to know what Bracchuspaw knew, to go where he was going, won out. With a half-bound forward followed by swift footsteps that were done with such reserve it was clear it was in an attempt pretend there was no eagerness or interest, Orrerypaw closed enough distance to be a small ways away from Bacchuspaw's heels. His footsteps still maintained his prior hesitance though as he followed behind, a certain uneasy slowness that was more like the steps of a person wandering into the depths of a great abyss than just trailing behind another.
"Where are you going?" The question felt hollow, because Bracchuspaw's answer didn't matter. He would have probably followed anyways.
"Anywhere that isn't here," he replied, half-glancing back at him for only a second before he turned away again. The long, narrow red rug was worn and patchy under his paws, individual threads exposed and showing the dusty floorboards through them; the light from the row of windows beside them was pale and dreary, light that would turn to dismal rain — rain that wasn't passionate, that wasn't thunderous; rain that just existed. He had no destination in mind — he just walked, slowing his pace finally to fall in beside the Luminary.
"What, exactly, do you do for fun? If you say nothing, my heart will break. You're so achingly young — now's the time to live, if ever there was one. One day you'll be wrinkled, you'll be ugly, you'll be frail, everything will hurt — but now you're young." His eyes widened dangerously as he glanced at Orrerypaw, like more than any goddess, what he truly worshipped was youth. The damage of it. To die young — that was the most sensuous thing in his eyes. The tragedy of it; he had so much more to do, they would say. But did he? What else would he do? Grow old, grow boring, grow cruel, live long enough that living became a burden. No, to die when he was a waste of oxygen, when he was a rich boy throwing his life away, when he had achieved nothing and given nothing, when he had left the world with no memory of him and no stories that had anything in them but the most taboo of corruptions, the most useless of illicit pleasures... That was the finest thing. That was what life was for: to end it. To be forgotten; that was the greatest testament to a life lived terribly. "So, what do you do? One thing that isn't for Puzzlemaker or little prince Ashes — one thing that's for yourself. What?"
What? What a question. Because really, Orrerypaw had no answer. He worked, he did his job, and to him his job was a game. A pleasure really, because in some twisted way it had never been truly serious, not once. Of sure he took it very seriously, all the privledges and controls and powers and luxuries with came with, he took that awfully seriously. But it was the same seriousness children took all their games with; if you ever played with one, you'd know it. God forbid you play pretend with a child and you did something that didn't fit in with their little illusionary world, god forbid you stepped over some incredibly minor but unspoken rule, you'd see how very seriously it all really was.
There was an insatiable joy in it for him, the daily routine, the control, the unique unbridled cruelty he was allowed by being an lord in a room of peons. And youth mattered so little, perhaps because, in some ways, he had no clue he was very young. Not really. And if he did, he didn't want to be. He lived in a world of adults -- the pinnacle of success, of being big and scary and imposing -- was being all grown up. It was being large and terrifying and walking with authority now not because you had it, but because age gave it to you, or so it seemed. And the Luminary would never admit it, but if there was one thing he felt terribly insecure in -- and there were many -- it was that he didn't know if he seemed all very grown-up. He felt like he was faking it, pretending to be, but he wanted so desperately to be. The fact that Bacchuspaw said he was young, the way he talked about it like it was this big, tremendous, important thing, took him aback a bit. Because how could it be? They were all young. All but the people who were the most powerful, and didn't everyone want that? To be old, to command respect, to have the room bow down to their sagely wisdom? Wasn't that what everyone wanted?
It was ironic in some ways, because Orrerypaw had all the makings of the person who would look back and be bitter at those in the prime of their youth. Because it had opportunity, because it had advantages, because it had things that he wanted that he could no longer turn back the clock to get. Because he didn't know what he wanted; he wanted everything he couldn't have, and when he got the things he couldn't have before he would want the things he used to have. Such was short-sightedness, such was a complete lack of introspection, such was greed and narcissism and arrogance. Such was him.
But that was the future, this was now. And now, it seemed had everything they both hated and loath. Walking down the halls, side by side with Bacchuspaw, the Luminary tried to find an answer. There was an uncomfrotable silence, because though all the above said about him was true, he didn't know it was. He likely never would. "What else would I do? There's only so many hours in a day, and there's a lot of things to do, it's not like I have a lot of time to just dawdle about doing nothing. But it's not like it's bad, I like what I do." He said, trying to sound big, important, hardworking, but there was a note of confusion and a touch of insecurity there, as if he though Bacchuspaw knew something he didn't, as if there was a right answer that he couldn't possibly understand, because it was a right answer only to the mother, and he was so impossible to ever figure out. Unknowingly, his mouth turned into a small frown, so full of his own usureness and insecurity in his answer, it pressed him to continue on to try and lessen the feeling. "I don't know why you talk about it like it's so terrible. You have a bunch of fledgling under your care, when do you even get a break? What do you do for fun?"
"Yes," he agreed passionately, and now he came alive, "but isn't that precisely the point? There's only so many hours in a day! And once you're finished parading about and giving students the odd Orrerypaw scolding, aren't there so many finer things to be doing? 'Doing nothing' — the opposite of spending every second in devotion to Selene isn't doing nothing! It's living! You're a slave to work and you're barely older than a fledgling."
He suddenly broke off, the air humming with the desperate knowledge that he could have continued his tirade, the passion suddenly awoken in him enough to fill the room — but he didn't continue; instead, he stopped dead in the middle of the hallway and suddenly turned to Orrerypaw, and somehow, he looked pleading. Not begging, not a victim; there was no sort of sorrowful expression, no pinched frown. He was pleading with him to wake up, to give in to fervour, to open his eyes and live. "Of course you like what you do — you're excellent at it. You're top of the class. I'd rather displease Selene than displease Orrerypaw." An image erupted unbidden in his mind, the Luminary paying him a grim, chastising visit for some offence, the room so hot and shadowy, clicking the door shut— He pushed it away, giving no thought as to why it was there at all, just swatting it away with quick, absent-minded disinterest. "But there's room enough to be a fine Luminary and to to spend your youth as its meant to be spent — all credit, all debt, no return." His dark gold eyes were wide, wild, impassioned. He meant all the compliments he had given — Orrerypaw's commitment, his cruel brilliance, his arrogance; he loved it, it thrilled him, he didn't want any of it lessened.
I don't know why you talk about it like it's so terrible. You have a bunch of fledgling under your care, when do you even get a break? What do you do for fun? Bacchuspaw let out a breath, like the point had been completely missed, and spun around to face the window, taking a few frustrated steps away from the Luminary. "There are other Mothers there," he replied, slow and irritated, like he resented having to talk about his official job at a time like this, "when the fledglings wake up crying — it's good, anyway, to let them get used to not having someone there to comfort them. I try to tell the Mothers that but they're all weak, you know, they want to cuddle and kiss them every time they make a peep in the night." He suddenly brushed away the conversation like he realised what he was talking about, like it was irrelevant — he wasn't going to be sucked back into talking about Motherhood; he did that enough. Sitting down, he swept his tail around to cover his forepaws and glanced back at Orrerypaw disinterestedly. "What," he replied, priggish and disillusioned, faintly derisive, "I'm going to tell you so you can raid the fun like a very good boy and report back to the Minister? I'm sure turning in so many wayward souls would get you irresistible honours — and why wouldn't you turn that down? You're such an excellent pet to the powers that be."
Orrerypaw had been called something of "pet" to authority his entire life. Even when he was tiny -- well, tinier than he was now -- he had been considered the obedient one, the suck-up, a true "teacher's pet". It was likely that flagrant reputation of being so pandering and appeasing to the power-that-be that had gotten him into being one himself. Either way, though the acknowledgement of him being the authority's little puppet, their dog-like little follower, was obviously pajorative, it had never once really bothered Orrerypaw. He always viewed it as jealousy, as a passive show that they too wished to be well liked by the adults and authority figures in their lives, but they just weren't. And he was content with that perception of the world, as he always was with things that reassured him that he was envied and superior to everyone else.
But when Bacchuspaw said it, when he treated like it was a bad thing, like he had secrets to be kept and something he shouldn't -- couldn't -- know about because of it, for the first time in his life he felt embaressment. A prickled of shame, as if somehow it was a very pathetic thing indeed, to be so under someone else's thumb, to have secrets kept from them because no one wanted to tell him for fear of it getting back to higher eyes and ears. It should have made him feel powerful; he normally did when people feared what he could do, and perhaps even more so when they feared what the people he could tell could do, but when the other tom said these things, made it seems like such a very humiliating and... Well, no, maybe it wasn't even quite embaressing, was it? Because even though the feeling felt like embaressment, it was even more knawing than that. Because it was a wanting to know, it was a longing to be aware of something he was refused being told. Like he was some horrible and miserable out-group. And though it felt like embaressment, it was really there to cover up the bitter need to informed, to be told what some group -- a group he wouldn't have even known or cared for bar from ruining their fun if he had heard about it from anyone else except Bacchuspaw -- was up to.
A Bacchuspaw continued on, a suspcious sort of curiosity found its way onto his features; one that made his frown grow even more, puckered a bit at the edges where he slightly bit the inside of his mouth, as if it would supply some relief from another newfound wave of bitterness and distaste over the conflicted feelings that now had begun to fester. Letting out a small, sharp little laugh that lacked any humor, it was both dry and idignant, his gaze narrowed a bit on Bacchuspaw. "What kind of things are you possibly doing that would need to get raided?" His tone feigned disbelief, but inside, Orrerypaw knew there were numerous things that the Mother could be doing, and he wanted to know all of them. He longed to know, in a way he wouldn't dare admit to anyone, nevertheless himself. But although the Luminary was still much too proud to ever beg to know, to ever say he wouldn't get Bacchuspaw and whoever else was doing it in trouble, there was a slight desperation that glinted in his eyes that seemed to tacitly say otherwise, a silent childish beg of, "Please. I want to know, I won't get you in trouble."
What kind of things are you possibly doing that would need to get raided? He turned his head to look over his shoulder, giving Orrerypaw crooked, pitying sort of grin. “If you need to ask that,” he replied lowly, “you truly do need to get out from under the Minister and join the fun.” Though Bacchuspaw ordinarily felt no great need to push the elastics of MoonClan’s isolationism, content to sink into apathy and the high of suffering done right, he never, on principle, said no to an invitation — even if that invitation was sure to end, on certain nights, in blood and nausea. Just recently, there had been a night which, though world-changing — reality-shaping, existence-crumbling — couldn’t have been called fun in any conceivable way. It had been a night of horror, a thing he hardly remembered — and that made it all the more horribly intoxicating. A night of like-minded, drug-addled youth from anywhere and everywhere, strangers and faces familiar through a haze; a night of worship to gods unknown to any of them; a night of crazed excess and hedonism in the burned, blackened wasteland of SunClan, of hazy touches from strangers he could hardly see in the dark, of violence, of waking up in the morning with blood on their paws and no memory of how it got there or whose it was.
That night had been the first time a tom had looked at him like one oughtn’t to, and the first time he’d looked back just the same; but it was confined to heady nights like that, nights where any illicit thing went, and that was precisely what he wrote it off as: a symptom of excess. It didn’t exist at any other time, not in him. He repressed it with such certain, world-weary determination that looking at Orrerypaw, he recognised nothing of what he’d felt when he’d looked at that nameless tom in the dark. Because he was in the Estate, and things like that didn’t exist here — and so, because he set it out for himself like that, so orderly, it didn’t. He could have looked at Orrerypaw for hours on end, with that unmoving smile, and felt nothing — and, beneath everything, there was a certain pride in that. He was so good at indulging that he was even better at denying himself.
He turned around fully to look at the Luminary. “Really, Orrery, you act like a kit afraid of being out past bedtime.” If one of his fledglings had the gall to try and sneak out, he’d turn a blind eye, mutter a cursing thanks to Selene under his breath — just because he’d be so satisfied that finally, someone in MoonClan was thinking for themselves. Finally, someone was corrupting their perfect image, their perfect teachings. But so far, none ever had. They were all just so content to follow along like Orrerypaw, padding along in the same upward trajectory until they grew brittle and died. And he wanted to raise his voice to the pitiless heavens and scream his throat hoarse. “Would you put a paw over MoonClan’s borders? If you went with me now, would you forget the Minister, forget the Commissioner, forget that you’re a Luminary, the only Luminary, and just step?” He took a few steps closer, close enough to feel the Luminary’s warm breath, his gold eyes widening again with passion. There was something of a smile on his face, wild and swept up in the moment, in the possibilities. “We know the dangers, we know the stories — heretics and cannibals and ghouls. But what if Our Lady turned her eyes away just this once? Just for a second? Would you step over into all the world beyond? It’s vaster than either of us can ever imagine.” He moved closer still. “Would you? Could the little lord disobey orders for three short, wonderful seconds? Could he live?”
There was something terrifying in every word Bacchuspaw said, every last one a threat, an inexpressably dangerous attack to his very existance. It was like slow poison, he was like slow poison, and that scared him. When he was a kit it had felt easy, so simple to just be the good kid. And that's what he knew himself to be, even now. Even under the guise of power, even under the pretence of complete and utter control, he was still the good one, the obedient one. The one who listened to orders and carried them out. In any regime of any merit there was a thousand like him; those willing to throw away their morals for the powers that be, ones who truly considered what they got from lawful obedience worth the terror they inflicted, worth the blood spilled, worth the bones broken and the trail of death and horror that lapped at their heels, and because it was at the behest of power they called it good, noble. Honorable. He only stood out because he was one of the first, because he had taken the title of the good little sychophant before anyone else could.
But now, more so than ever as always came with blooming into young-adulthood, the desire to follow the rules and be liked by the adults around him warred with that same youthful desire to be liked, to be respected by his peers. Or perhaps not really that, because Orrerypaw had never really cared about being like by his peers before, not now or ever. His arrogance would never let him admit it, but he had been the loner child, the one left alone talking to the queens and eldery amongst the clan because no one else had wanted to talk with him; and he had been content in that, because it had made him feel very mature and bigger than all the kits around him. The same was true now as an apprentice aged cat, he was content to stick with the adults that now made up the authority and head of the clan. But with Bacchuspaw, with him there, it made Orrerypaw for the first time want to be liked; if only by the other tom. He wanted to know what he knew, he wanted to understand whatever he understood and know the secrets only he knew. There was intimacy in that, in knowing something that the other did, and it was baiting, teasing.
But it didn't make the fear disapear, it didn't chase away the reluctance. It didn't disipate the undercurrent of knowledge that no matter what, if they were found out it would be humiliating, cause for who knew what punishment. And who would be the one to even inflict it? If it was Windsweptashes they figured they could bear it, but what if it were the Inquisitors, the Minister, sent to dole it out? Though he tried so hard to hide it, there was a war with himself that flashed in their light green eyes and betrayed itself in the stiffening of their lower lip.
"What do you even have me be doing? Where would we even be going off to?" The sound was hushed, like this was a horrible plot, some awful disasterous thing that would get them both killed. There was clear frustration and annoyance in his tone, but it balanced, or rather, the scales were dipped, by an even more notable sound of desperation that tinged his voice.
Bacchuspaw rolled his eyes. “Honestly, your lordship,” he muttered, padding around Orrerypaw and then shoving him ahead, further down the hall, “your foundling kits are braver than you are. You squeal like a rabbit.” He padded along after the Luminary, steps heavy and languid as they always were, like even pleasure was an inconvenience to him, something he greeted with an ’oh, must we?’ “We’re just going to the border,” he added, like explaining was something he never did, like it was so far beneath him. They descended the steps, and again Bacchuspaw gave Orrerypaw a little shove in the side, gentler this time as he walked along at his side. “Don’t look like you’re being marched off to prison,” he scolded him, keeping his voice low, “then everyone will look. Honestly…” He looked away, clicking his tongue slightly, and rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how you can have gotten to your age and not have snuck out at least once. Hasn’t there ever been a girl you wanted to see?”
He led the way out of the Estate, giving irritated, unenthusiastic nods to anyone who happened to greet him. He disliked them all. Moving into the sparse trees, he edged them in the direction of the SunClan border, taking a different, more subtle route than the path they would tread days later on the patrol. The trail dipped and they dipped with it, moving down the steep hillside upon which the Estate perched. “Do you need me to hold your paw, too?” Bacchuspaw asked, waiting at the bottom of a particularly steep, boulder-and-root-edged section and looking back up at Orrerypaw with hooded, unimpressed eyes. They were mocking, but they were as patient as he could ever look. “Or can you manage this very frightening escapade out of camp by yourself?”
He was a coward. Perhaps that was genuinely unsurprising, most people who were willing to sell their soul to authority often were spineless, and Orrerypaw was no different. He was obedient in part because it granted him success, attention, his every want and whim, but he was terrified to step out of line all the same. In some sense of course it very rational; one didn't get to the top without seeing what those at the top did to those lower than them that stepped out of line -- goodness knows that Orrerypaw got a front row seat to it, with a visual remind of that violence being no farther away than the tip of his own claws. But that didn't make it feel any less pathetic when Bacchuspaw derided him, make it feel any less shameful that he truly did cower like some cornered prey at the very idea of being caught disobeying orders or breaking a few codes, and he felt himself grow hot under his fur.
He was about to say something, some scathing rebuttle to Bacchuspaw's words, but before he knew it he was being shoved out into the Estate grounds where all the eyes of the entire clan could see them and so, because he couldn't possibly say anything without drawing attention, he just stewed in his own on fit of cold, bitter frustration and still lingering fear. Because, in truth, while what he felt was shame, it didn't manifest that way for long; to be ashamed or self-loathing was so entirely antithetical to his arrogance and sense of hightened importance that it couldn't last for long, and so it just chilled down to ire and distaste that mixed in with the looming, impending sense of his own damnation. It was a cold burn cocktail of emotions, and it once again stifled him. Although he tried his best to walk through the estate with the same confidence and control that he always moved with, there was an obvious sulk to his step, his movement more like a low-lying prowl, almost menacing in how obviously out of character it was.
Following the mother farther and farther away from the main area of the estate, the Luminary felt themselves having to practically bit their tongue; there was an uneasy, bitter silence that Orrerypaw let stretch, as if they were just waiting, just prepping, for Bacchuspaw to make another comment. And of course he did, and Orrerypaw was quick to latch on to the small satisfaction that they held the high ground, able to look down at the other tom with a slight lear, leaning over the edge with an air nearing authority, though it wasn't quite that. It was too pitiful, too defensive, too illuisionary to be that, but Orrerypaw was nothing if not good at being lost in their own illusions. "I'm not frightened, I'm just wary. Would you rather us get caught and find out what would happen to both of us?" He hissed down, but even then he nearly chocked on the words as he considered the truth in what he was saying. Gods, what would happen? Bacchuspaw had just said the border, but they hardly believed that was all. There was something, and it was going to end some type of way, and they were immensely uneasy about what was about to happen and how they were both -- he was certain -- about to ruin their live. And for what? All for what? If there was an answer to that question, the luminary swallowed it down, glaring off the edge of the bolder a moment more before giving a small half-growl of annoyance and hopping off, landing nearby the other tom with all the grace he could manage to maintain.
“Yes,” Bacchuspaw replied simply, looking up at Orrerypaw. He looked — sounded — utterly earnest. Like a child. And then the dark, dry distance swallowed him up again. He looked away, waving his paw dismissively. “Oh, what’s the worst that would happen? Puzzlemaker would give you a smack on the wrist for being a very naughty little lord, I’d have to confess to the great misdeed of leading you astray and listen to everyone squawk ‘atone, atone’ for a little bit — there are worse things,” he looked back at him, “Orrerypaw, than getting in trouble. And if the day does come where penance comes knocking, then I’ll make a very fine looking corpse.” At his lear, the Mother just smiled back up at him, purposefully unbearable. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he cooed. “You make me feel all tingly.” When the Luminary jumped down beside him, Bacchuspaw followed him down with his eyes and greeted his grumpiness with a smile. “Truth be told, though, you don’t need very much leading.” He flashed him a hooded-eyed little grin and headed off again.
“So.” He walked in a wide circle to once again fall in beside Orrerypaw, padding along at his side. The air had started to smell like volcanic ash; the trees were still choked with it, piled high with black and turned to living silhouettes by it. The ground grew more and more covered with it, until their paws were leaving imprints behind them. “Why did you adopt?” It was a very blunt question, but Bacchuspaw was a very blunt tom. “Why did you adopt and not have your own? Because it can’t be about too much responsibility, or about being too young, or about not being ready — because you clearly decided you were when you brought the little,” he stopped himself, and then slowly tilted his head, giving a sickly sweet smile, “darlings home. And don’t say something about how Selene must have willed it because you found them, or about how you don’t have to take a partner as someone of our status — you don’t need one to have kits, god knows.” He looked away briefly, like a rant about how he wished everyone would just stop breeding was one he had often. He looked back. “And for someone so obsessed with image, I would have thought you’d want your own,” he wrinkled his nose slightly, like the idea wasn’t appealing to him, “bloodline running strong. Instead you just have someone else’s. Why?”
With every word Bacchuspaw said, Orrerypaw felt his throat was tying in knots at the absolute horror of what the tom was saying. It was all well and good for Bacchuspaw to be bold and flippant about it, it was all well and good that Bacchuspaw should feel completely unconcerned with the fact that he might get in trouble, or be humiliated, or die, but it was certainly was not well and good for him. Truth be told the death part shook Orrerypaw the least. He was young, too young to really understand death despite the fact he was surrounded by it, too young to fully understand the gravity and consequences of his action ending in such aggregious ramifications though he himself preached it. He understood it only in a hazy way, the distant, imaginary way that one might imagine a place you'd never been based on only description, or an item based only on its purpose. Death to him was certainly real, but it didn't feel present. Confession, however, along with public punishment and humiliation; all that was very real and very present, so much so in fact that even as Bacchuspaw spoke Orrerypaw could pratically feel the consequences of their action lapping at his heels, so near and all consuming and only looming closer with every moment he didn't turn back.
On the outside, Orrerypaw merely rolled his eyes at Bacchuspaw's words, as if they were all purely ridiculous, as if once more he was above humoring such ludicrous, truly heathenous comments with a response. But it was a front, a fake, dismissive act that covered the paranoid thoughts that started to slowly creep up on him, the kind that wondered if even right now, somehow Puzzlemaker could know what they were doing, that perhaps Selene could see what he was up to even as they moved down the steep slope of hillside and towards the volcanic waste of Sunclan's territory. It was hard to know how much Orrerypaw actually believed in the goddess he preached of so fervently — even he wasn't sure how much she believed in her. Sometimes he barely thought of her even while he said her name in a prayer, more concentrated on the show of it all and how he appeared — and yet other times he would do something small, somethat that normally he wouldn't have even considered wrong, and he would lie uneasy in his nest for hours wondering if even in the pale glow of dawn light the moon goddess could see right through him. Right now, he wouldn't have dared to look up to the sky, the moon felt too much like a scrutinizing eye staring down on them, wide and unblinking, and it was uneasing, unsettling to his very core.
“So.” His eyes flickered up, realizing without even intending it he had been staring at the ground, and he met Bacchuspaw's gaze with abject confusion as the tom continued. The words that were coming out of the tom's mouth were so out of left field, and really, were so far removed from anything that Orrerypaw had ever bothered to consider, that for a moment they seemed like utter nonsense. Had there ever been a moment when Orrerypaw had considered adopting those kits beyond a mere act of bolstering his own image, if there had ever been other reasons at play by which he chose to adopt rather than having his own based more than on matter of convenience, he hadn't been cognicent of it. It was very likely there were reasons, but Orrerypaw was so absolutely un-inclined to question why he felt the way he did or why he did anything that, had they been there, they had never been questioned. In his mind were a thousand feelings and thoughts that were based solely on answering the mother's questions, but all seemed to fall flat on one simple answer, "Why wouldn't I have?"
It was really not in his nature to answer anything beyond that, but even as that answer was the only conprehensible one he could easily manage, he knew it fell short of what he wanted to express, and even more short of his own feelings. In his head, in some inarticulated — perhaps forever inarticulated — swarm of feelings, there was an utter distaste towards the idea of settling down with a she cat, of just having kits with someone, and perhaps, in spite of what Bacchuspaw persumed, a sense of overwhelming anxiety at the idea because he did feel too young, and because the idea of just adopting kits to his name was just so much easier. Because it had been simple, a perfect opportunity. Because it wasn't messy like relationships, or even one night flings were; even though ironically his entire job was dealing with relationships, with who ended up with whom and when someone needed to have or bring in kits. It was too true that he fawned in his free hours over a number of pairings he could make, all sprawled out in his nest with a smile of giddy, sadistic glee over being able to play dollhouse with the lives of the entire clan,of plotting who should end up with who because he either liked the idea that they should end up together, or because he absolutely hated someone and wanted to shove them in a room together with someone else they would absolutely despise all while practically purring out the words, "Well you really have to start thinking about settling down, you'll be expected to provide kits soon!" To him the entire process was glorious, thrilling, the best high from absolute power that one could have, having so much control over the lives of every waxing and waning student in the clan. But the very idea of himself being paired down, even of himself choosing that right pairing for himself, made him more uncomfortable than he would ever admit. It wasn't like he hadn't looking at other waxing she cats before, he of all cats was keen on the fact that if he paired down with someone it would look very good for his reputation, very respectable, but he could never consider it too long before the very though of settling down in a life with even the most promising and respectable of waxing she cats in the clan felt too... Too wrong, too uncomfortable, to continue on thinking about. Not that he analyzed those feelings either; it was always that he was too busy, or that whoever he was considering wasn't promising enough, wasn't good enough to settle down with him. And even now — when that same sense of disquiet and distinct uncomfortableness rose at the question of why he just hadn't had kits of his own yet, why even if he hadn't settled down he hadn't just had his own kits — he couldn't be bothered to recognize it as being so similar in feeling that it was almost deja vu. It just was, and it made him feel gross just answering it, and the most he could conclude was because it was such a weird and out of the blue question that it had disrupted his sense of balance a bit. So his just sighed, as if it was such a waste of time that he was answering it, as if it was so odd and inane; but there was an unease to it too, as if Bacchuspaw had found something he had though was hollow was instead stirring under the surface with something he hadn't even realized he had tried to cover up.
"Well someone had to take them in." He said matter-of-factly, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Of course it wasn't exactly true, he didn't have to claim them as his own, didn't have to have done anything beyond just shove them to the mothers like the dirty little orphans they were and say, "Here, I found this, take them!" and wash his paws knowing he had done his "good deed" for the day. "And one day I'll have kits of my own, but I'm busy; I have to make sure everyone else is bringing in kits first, that's first and foremost. Besides, if I'm going to have kits I'm going to have them with someone respectable. What's the good in having kits who half their bloodline is respectable and the other half is some no-body waxing who can barely do their job?" The contempt, less towards anyone and more towards the very idea, was palpable, but even underneath it all was some thinly veiled hint of his words wavering, not quite as resolute as he wished they were.
