Twisted Slough i wish you'd die in the mire

It was inevitable, the slip from indulgent to impatient. The growl was enough to sap the angry fight out of his sails, leaving him a frantic, thrashing thing. His paws refused to ground under him and he wasn't given a chance to stand - the grit in the muck hurt, stinging as he was roughed over suspended leaf litter and gravel. The extra pressure in his scruff had fallen from uncomfortable to humiliating, but he was back on sturdier ground before he could try anything else.

Cormorant's face of fright met the other's glower, head half-turned away, his eyes but slivers of blue in the shadow and gloom. To Magpie's goad, he said nothing, breath heaving through his nose in shallow whispers. The sensation of a warm face alongside his tied his stomach into knots; every part of him wanting nothing more than to recoil. Words died in his mouth like flakes of ash and his teeth clicked together, a stray chatter from how his body trembled.

The reminder of his solitude. It was just enough to crack through his petrified bones.

You're the one hurting me. It was a thin, winded murmur before his paws pressed the ground beneath him, shoulders bunching painfully. Cormorant shoved up, head whipping aside to try and bite at the pale snout too near to his. He didn't know what he was doing but he needed Magpie away.