It does not take long for another to appear, to intrude on her solitude as they are so wont to do. She feels the disturbance in the gentle breeze, senses the weight of his eyes on her back; she smells that strange mix of desert and pine, that vagrant aroma which can be only him. Or so she opts to tell herself, though in truth it is the appearance of the young red fox which warns the girl of Sacre's approach. She watches him carefully, wondering what his endgame might be, and if he knows what he's getting into with his designs on Natraj's food. Probably not. She imagines the kitsune's reaction when he returns. Will he be benevolent, share the feast with his younger cohort? Most likely, she muses; her brother is kind. Maybe he will slice away the best parts, offer his friend the liver and heart, treat them as gifts to confirm his affection.

She wonders if she could regain Sacre's trust through a similar act, but somehow she doubts that the gift of a heavy, beating red heart would give her the key to returning to grace. She pictures it, though, and it forces a smile to slide sidelong, sardonic, onto her bright face.

She thinks about this, and a million other things. She thinks about anything, so long as the thing she thinks about isn't how she feels about him, how terrified she is of what he's bound to say. So she does not look at him, though she smells his power, the combination of flowers and equine musk riding on the fleeting wind: she watches Inari, thinking him a suitable surrogate, a part of the boy that doesn't look back with those searing blue eyes.

Carefree words are scarcely heard above the pounding in her ears. They catch her by surprise, the opposite of anything she could have expected: no accusation, no cruel intent; the rage is missing, and so is the guilt. He sounds, she thinks, as he always does, bright voiced and and loud with a boyish charm. "I've been flying," she replies, her voice a whisper of flame on the breeze, and for a moment - for that moment - all is well.

She knows it is a lie. Why they're lying she does not understand- all is not well, all has never been well, and she sees not the point in pretending it is. Unless, of course, it isn't pretend, unless this is how he feels, how he has always felt- unless she means so little to him that her sins do not matter, for there is no regard left she can possibly lose. This idea stings far more than the rest, because it means that she has been a fool, that her affection - her friendship - meant zilch to the boy.

You're stupid. Natraj eyes her critically from behind a face full of grub, shaking his head as he returns from the hunt. It's all the attention he pays to the girl; he's bored with her adolescent, puberty-induced sulk, angry with her drama and uninterested in her pain. Instead he digs into his decadent meal, eyeing Inari and silently daring the one-tail to try, just try steal some of the pile which now threatens to rival them both in sheer weight. It's an invitation, of course, a chance for the youngster to prove himself worthy of the magnificent feast, and a chance to escape the equines and their games.

And as for the girl, well, the words are enough to push her over the edge, the accusation of foolishness kindling those latent embers of wrath. She's stupid? She's stupid? No. The rest of the world is stupid, with their lies and their games, their betrayals and their laughs. It's the rest of the world which dissolves into chaos, and she's just entrapped, forced to try and make sense of a fucked, senseless life. "I'm sorry," she says, and her voice is blank, eyes trained on the sky just a footstep away. I'm sorry for everything. Just tell me I matter.

@[Sacre]

[soft nudge]