Twisted Slough i wish you'd die in the mire

It took everything not to snarl back a spiteful response; everything Magpie dared to taint his ears with was a violation of the truth, wild and stupid and self-serving. It brutalized all in its path with assumptions. It made his heart squeeze with anger, like the burgeoning tantrum of a child. He had almost hoped their lapse of silence would be enough to shake Magpie away, off into the dark without anyone 'fun' to torment. He was wrong time and time again, flinching roughly at the breath whisking past his face.

His tongue remained clasped tightly in his teeth, lip trembling with a flash of teeth so desperate to shine. He despised the reminder - that Cormorant had ever been naïve enough to let him in, to let a stranger with just the right pomp and praise slip into knowledge he was undeserving of. Cormorant had learned since then, but it was too little, too late. The viper was already in the den, and it refused to go.

Goading words sunk deep and he lurched, violently writhing and twisting as he tried to fight out from the other - snipping at Magpie's jaw and silken neck, anything to get him to flinch back, to let him up to his own paws. A dire and dying vigor spinning his head into a nauseous slideshow, eyes too blurry to understand anything he saw, save for the wailing white wraith before his nose. A slew of words tumbled from his mouth, swept in growls and distinctly a different language - none of them kind and few of them clear.