Witch's Marsh We watched, the stars fell, and oh you know we let them

ooof this song has been killin me, now that it seems appropriate

After their argument, Fennec didn't stop until she was out of the Emberwood. She couldn't be there, heat or no heat, and she welcomed any man who dared to fuck with her right now.

The more she thought about the way their talk had gone, the angrier she got. All it had revealed to her was that she'd spent all this time thinking of nothing but him and his feelings, yet he hadn't bothered to spare her a single consideration. That he continued to see nothing but the worst in her, no matter how hard she tried to prove everything he continued to throw at her wrong. None of it had mattered to him.

He and Penn could share notes. Maybe start a fucking club where they talked about all of their baggage and how stupid she was, thinking they could ever trust her to understand. Why would she? It wasn't like she had feelings.

Fennec tore at the dirt beneath her claws, gouging furrows. He'd be long gone by the time she got back. She should have known it was a lie, that he never actually wanted to build this pack together. She should have gone with @Towhee instead. At least her mom didn't lie to her face.

A feeling of emptiness threatened to swallow her, thinking of Towhee, and suddenly Fennec would have given anything to have her mom there right now.

It didn't matter. Fennec didn't know where Towhee was anyway. At least she still had Fig. She couldn't believe she'd ever thought that he and Bronco were anything alike. With a growl she stood and began to stalk northward, recklessly pushing her pace beyond what she'd usually take. Anything to stop the words from repeating like a switchblade in her mind.

It wasn't easy; being back here in the Teekon. A lot of memories of places he'd rather forget, wolves he wished he'd never met. He was following a stupid hunch and honestly, the biggest reason he was here was because he'd run away from yet another place. Would he ever find peace?

Speaking of which, Charles was surprised when, in a marshy place he wasn't quite sure of how he had gotten there, he suddenly saw a familiar face. The woman who had told him that he would find peace as long as he pushed past wolves that were bad for him (which he had, in a way, or, well, the bear had done it for him; it was just so hard to not find new wolves that were at least equally bad for him). She looked to be in a hurry. Charles blinked, surprised to see her on this end of the Teekon, and then, before he knew it, he shouted as loud as he could: HEY, FUCKWIT! I WANT BACK PAYMENT ON MY SUCKY FORTUNE!

Oops.

When she heard the yell, she was so shocked that for a moment, her mind went blank. That shock was what saved Charles from being the focal point of her fury. When that happened, Fennec's mind clicked that this strange apparition from her past was the perfect distraction. Instead of rounding on him and going straight for the throat (metaphorically speaking? maybe?) she rounded on him and bellowed back.

DON'T EVEN FUCKING TRY IT, ASSBREATH!

Her voice was hoarse from crying earlier and raging after, but it felt amazing to just scream for a moment. Actually, hadn't that been the case last time? And that had been over Bronco too, hadn't it? Did she feel... friendly towards him? Fucking weird.

Despite that weird comradship, there wasn't much about her bearing that displayed it. The yell wasn't particularly mean, but there wasn't a lot of any kind of emotion about her currently. She didn't have the energy for it even if he had surprised her out of the majority of her funk.

When she shouted back to him, Charles was just happy enough that she recognised him, and didn't just presume he was some kind of psycho that needed to be either ignored or eliminated. His tail wagged a few cheerful beats (though he still didn't really realise that Fennec could in fact not see) as she shouted her somewhat hoarse-sounding scolding at him.

So rather than continuing an approach Charles stayed at somewhat of a distance and yelled: OH YEAH?! WHAT'CHA GONNA DO, ASSFACE, FORTUNETELL ME A BROKEN LEG?

The reply came and Fennec snorted, but she didn't yell back. She considered it, wondered if there was an insult worth delivering - but then all of the desire to continue withered within her. What was the point?

The shock had distracted her, but now that it was wearing off, the appeal was as well.

Maybe, for a moment, there was also temptation to use this as a weapon, but she dismissed it before it was even fully formed. Bronco wouldn't care; even more importantly, the thought of it made her jaw clench and a tension take her over. There were none she trusted, especially now.

She had slowed when she yelled the first time, but now came to a complete stop. Despite that, his question was met with only silence. She had no idea what she was going to do. Not a single fucking clue.

There was no reply. It made Charles stop in his tracks and when he looked over, he saw that she had, too. The coywolf just stood and stared at her from across the march, not sure what was going on. Was she unsure or simply distracted? She didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular, least of all him specifically. Just stared into the void, it seemed.

Maybe she'd just lost interest in him or didn't want to be reminded of ever having known such a loser. Charles didn't know what to do, so he just waited, silently, tensely, to be dismissed by her -- or for anything else to happen.

why do I insist on making myself sad, always, at like 3am?

She hadn't realized. The anger that had kept her running had also kept her fueled, indignant, and charging ahead. Now that she'd stopped, and that Charles had brought up a fortune, Fennec wondered if there was still a place for the witch of the wood. Witch. As she thought it, it rang with the derision of Bronco's final words. It rang with the pain of his departure.

She couldn't say it.

Turns out he'd taken that as well.

She couldn't even be upset about it. She only felt more numb because, in the scope of things, what was that to lose? Just another image. It was a lie anyway.

It's your lucky day, I guess. I don't do fortunes anymore. Not now.

Charles certainly didn't feel like it was his lucky day. Well, he had when he first saw Fennec, surprised to find a friendly face around here. But then she stopped suddenly, and now she was being cold on him and he didn't know why. It made Charles feel dumb that he had no clue what was going on here, and he hated feeling dumb.

And of course, there was only one way to deal with that. The fuck is wrong with you? Blaming someone else. Someone beat the sassy out of you? He tried to be a little bit funny about it in a attempt to keep the mood light — which was precisely what he liked so much about Fennec to start with — but he had a feeling that whatever the answers to his questions were, they weren't going to be very light-mooded.

Her lip curled at the implication that anyone could kick her into submission, though the truth of it stung almost more than the accusation. Fuck.

That spark of anger might not be the most productive thing, but at least it was something.

Where the fuck do you get off!? I don't even know you. I don't owe you a fucking thing. She bristled, reacting rather than acknowledging the truth behind his accusation. She wasn't about to spill her guts to some weirdo whose only purpose seemed to be screaming at random strangers.

Nevermind that she had started it. And enjoyed it only a moment ago.

Fuck off, flatnose. She didn't even know what that insult meant, honestly - she'd just heard it once and it popped out now. She was off her game and it made her even more surly, the sudden shift in her mood darkening her entire presence.

Charles was surprised when she got aggressive with him. He found his inner self desire to curl into a ball, hold his breath and wait for her to leave him alone. He was just trying to be nice and see a friend, and see where it got him.

I don't even know you.

The words stung more than any of the other things she said, because it meant that Charles had once more totally mistaken the situation. He thought they were friends. Her, Bronco, Luna, Whrist, whatever the names of the handful of other wolves were that he had met in his life where something just kinda clicked. Turned out that he was totally mistaken and she didn't feel the same way at all.

The insult was pretty dumb. Even Charles could identify that. He had the opposite of a flat nose — his nose was, in fact, very long and pointy. He couldn't find the words or courage to be sassy about it, though. He couldn't find the words or courage for anything.

For about twenty seconds, he was just silent. Then Charles said dejectedly, Fine, go fuck yourself and I do the same. The hurt was palpable in his voice. He felt self-hatred creep up on him and the familiar tension crawl through his skin that told him that he deserved to hurt.

Charles then started to trot away, in opposite direction of Fennec. She wanted him to fuck off? Fine, he'd fuck off.

She'd crossed a line. She didn't know which, but she could hear it in his voice. At any other time Fennec might have tried to gracelessly walk it back, but through the spike of guilt she also felt relief. Just leave her the fuck alone.

She didn't have anything for him. The last thing she needed was another "friend" who was going to treat her like shit. Better to have no friends at all.

The guilt at the tone of his voice, however, continued to sit with her. It sat alongside Bronco's accusations, a resounding chorus, filling her head until she couldn't do much but cry, quietly, alone. Fuck everything. She didn't care.

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: self-harm

Charles didn't understand what he had done wrong, but it was probably something. His experience in life was that he was always doing something wrong to someone. He hadn't quite figured out yet if that was their fault or his, but the truth was probably somewhere in the middle. He was a filthy scavenger and they were haughty assholes. He knew he was not good with social stuff, and the fact that she was being a haughty asshole didn't change anything about him being an antisocial rotten scavenger.

Without another word he skulked off. Once he was alone, Charles' face twisted in frustration and he threw his head at a tree trunk — again and again and again until the pain in his had overshadowed the emotional pain. Even then the hurt was still there. He knew it didn't help, but there was something compulsive about the way that he sought punishment. He deserved it, and he told himself he deserved it over and over again while tears started to spill across his cheeks.

He didn't deserve friends or love. He only deserved pain and loneliness.