Totoka River keep cool but care

owlglass laughs. he smiles. he taps his head. each exaggerated motion grates more on yunxu’s already high-strung nerves – the first in what is to be a long line of foreigners, and on foreign soil, yunxu does not, cannot understand what he is even doing. the shark’s fin of his thoughts rises, already dangerously close to teeth.

“you should know.” yunxu’s voice comes tight and controlled; further words stick in his throat without the english to voice them. the dampened flag of his tail lifts, stuttering, from the wet curve of his hind leg. and owlglass just keeps nodding, smiling a cracked-glass smile, his paws tapping an erratic rhythm on the ground.

his response comes as a denial. so he’s not even useful for yunxu’s only question. a waste of time. politeness still demands a response – and then he grins, a wide cut of white teeth across his white muzzle.

yunxu, for all his drawn-tight (false) polite blankness, is not hard to break.

that placid, unreadable stare peels back. in its place, something feral behind the eyes. a low growl brews in the pit of his throat; the fur along his spine makes another valiant attempt to lift into needles, met with marginally more success.

“you ever stop smiling?” yunxu snaps. there is enough control left to him to hold his lips tight enough to veil his teeth, dangling by a razor’s edge.