"Mm, did they," Bacchuspaw replied, looking away disinterestedly, the question so monotonous and impressed that it was far more a dismissive, final statement. Really, it made him think Orrerypaw was soft in a way he himself wasn't; even with the mandate of bringing in new blood by adulthood, if he had found a bundle of mewling kits in the woods, he would have stepped over them and been on his way, humming along the winding path as foxes sniffed them out in the distant background. But while that softness in any other Mother would have made his gut prickle with that irritation he could never put a name to, it didn't irritate him in Orrerypaw. It didn't give rise to anything at all, nothing but a certain... It may have stumbled closer to affection, but he diverted it before it got there, renaming it as the indulgent, humouring admiration of someone's soft heart when one knew they never would have done the same themselves. The sort of admiration prefaced by 'well, certainly I never would have done such a thing, but it's wonderfully nice that he did.' It was a foreign feeling, as was everything the Luminary made him feel — he'd only ever known arrogance, disdain, curled-lipped annoyance, and now here Orrerypaw was, doing all the things that ought to have irritated him and instead being met with an odd patience that felt like an inexplicable, patient glow in his chest. He wasn't anymore interested in analysing it than the Luminary was.

And one day I'll have kits of my own. Even Bacchuspaw, who always carried himself like he was older than he really was, laughed at that, a wry sort of snort — because it really was funny, them being so young and him sounding like no more than a teenager making vague plans he didn't really understand. That feeling of not understanding, of not fully comprehending the enormity of the future, bothered Bacchuspaw terribly; he liked to exist in this world where he knew the confines so he could break them, and that muddled adult world filled him with such strong uneasiness that it felt more like desperate anger. Or maybe that was what he felt for anything that unsettled him, preferring to toss contemptuous irritation around his throat like a scarf than face the unknown. "I don't think anyone will really ever be respectable enough for the great Luminary," he replied with that same lazy amusement.

Really, they could make a great pair with their stations, indescribably efficient if not precisely formidable — they could have a monopoly on every pairing in the Clan, like the perfect conveyer belt of a gritty Georgian factory going from one level to the next: Bacchuspaw to groom and pair the fledglings, Orrerypaw to take them from him and pick up where he left off. One fine, unending line of their own dogma and needs. Maybe that was his way of dealing with the feelings he couldn't find an outlet for in any other way — he couldn't slot the Luminary into the position he actually wanted him to be in, and so he thought up every other version of the world where Orrerypaw could be the second half of a pair; some avoidant displacement, some rationalisation of thoughts he couldn't otherwise place. Orrerypaw was good at what he did; he was good at what he did; they should have been a pair; his mind worked out ways they could be, without ever facing the obvious solution. That solution was in a shadowy doorway of the factory, and his mind's eye kept skipping over it. "I think, too," he spoke up again, and his voice was indolent with the mockery that so liked to aim itself at the Luminary, "there's supposed to be something else involved in pairings. There's supposed to be something... I can't think of the word. Can you, Orrerypaw?" He glanced sideways at him, then looked away again. "I think there's— oh, yes. There's meant to be love." He glanced at him again, this time with more of a grin. It was clear he didn't think much of love in pairings — he'd never had a reason to. Had never felt romantic love once in his life — and since he hadn't, he doubted it really existed very much at all for anyone else; they were just spinning fairytales for themselves to lend some magic to their sad, unfulfilling little lives. Love didn't exist; romance was just a story. Just a story to make kits feel better; well, they shouldn't feel better. Real life was bitter and bleak and empty, so hopelessly alone, and then you died. And he didn't feel sad about it; he didn't. He wasn't a kit. He'd grown up. He'd grown up long, long ago. "Really, you talk about it like it's some business deal." Like he didn't. With a burst of laughter and a flick of his tail-tip, he looked away again, still grinning faintly, seemingly on top of the world.

"Ah," he then said, slowing and coming to a stop at the edge of the territory. "Here we are." Beyond, it looked like a blackened apocalypse, the sweep of desolation stopping almost exactly at the border, like Selene herself had stopped it — and wasn't that a reaffirmation of faith. Everything was black, charred, smoking — and then there they were, with their trees and their wiry grass. The volcano in the distance was still spewing acrid smoke, the clouds above it grey and heavy. Bacchuspaw smiled and turned to Orrerypaw, staring him down. "Well, go on," he prompted amusedly, himself standing just this side of the border. "We can go find some heretics to convert — tell them off for being such naughty little heathens." His smile turned to a crooked grin, slightly predatory, his hooded eyes widening briefly on 'naughty'. Then, slowly scraping his gaze away, he turned and wandered over the border first, stopping a few paces away and turning back to the Luminary. His paws had left deep prints in the black ash. "See? The Sun God's smiting days are over — what could make Our Lady prouder than two of her disciples parading her superiority about over conquered lands? Look —" He turned towards the expanse of SunClan's ash-blanketed desert, drowned in a blinding silver glow. "All that moonlight. What greater sign of our win?" He turned back to Orrerypaw, smiling a different sort of smile, and his voice dropped lower as his head did. "Come on, little lord. Live dangerously."