Sequoia Coast To drag the past out

She did not answer, and when Charon saw the fear in her eyes, he felt betrayed. She sat down and looked away, and where Charon had expected her to return his interest, instead she rejected him. He should've been pissed off, should've been outraged, but somehow, all he could feel was the knife twisting painfully in his chest, his throat tightening. He didn't even want Osprey, he wanted Ame, but there was something about Osprey that did make him want to be close to her. It was weird and he couldn't explain. All he wanted to do now was fall into her arms and sob, because of how heartbroken he was at her inert rejection of his closeness, when he was not even doing anything (to his knowledge). It made him think back to Nishu Inte's broken body as blood flowed onto the ground, his body still warm, and the taste of his blood upon Charon's own tongue. He had felt like a monster, and as he looked at Osprey's expression, he felt like that same monster.

There was an expression of pain — for Charon had always worn his emotions on his sleeve — that betrayed how hurt he was. His eyes shimmered with the pain of her betrayal and the rejection of glueing whatever was broken between the two of them. There were too many tiny fractured pieces for Charon to pick up on his own, the task was impossible. He couldn't pick up all the pieces of both their broken hearts and the remnants of a tight-knit friendship that once was all by himself, not without her help.

For a long, drawn out moment he stared into Osprey's eyes (for as far as her looking away permitted it), his eyes shimmering with honest pain and heartbreak, his tail falling down to his hocks and his posture slackening to mirror his emotions. No longer was he the pompous Alpha who would woo the female because that was what his instinct told him to do. He was the little boy that wet himself when he was attacked by a monstrous dog. The little boy who used to be her friend. A high-pitched whine escaped Charon's lips as he looked at Osprey, just hoping that she would look back into his eyes and see what a mistake it was to definitively throw away everything that they'd had.

For just that moment, he was the boy again who would go treasure hunting or dragon searching with Osprey. Except this time, she didn't excitedly say 'yes, let's go, and I'll tell you about these special creatures I know lots about' when he asked her if they'd go on an adventure. She turned away from him this time, leaving him with nothing but squashed childhood dreams and blood still dripping from the gaping hole in his chest where his heart had once been.

After the moment, he turned his head away in much the same fashion as she, and while he felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes Charon turned away, making to depart and leave her be, as she wanted him to. He halted a moment, as though awaiting her permission for him to walk out of her life for good, as though hoping that she would tell him not to leave and hug him and make everything okay. His mind was a maze of lust and sadness and rage and many more emotions that he could not place because the pain of the dagger twisted into his heart overwhelmed all of the other feelings.