ORIGIN

Monoceros had gotten... quiet. Mags and the rhino were somewhere, surely, though it seemed Louie and his "prisoners" had left, permanent-like. As for Fang, well, she... Fleur didn't want to think about Fang. She really, really didn't. Every time it caused a her stomach to flip, bile creeping up to sit between gemstone-bound jaws, blistering her tongue with guilt. She wasn't doing enough, not even close. What had she done? Ineffectually "protected" Fang from across a goddamn room, from some sort of nonexistent threat?

Florence would be disappointed.

Fortunately, dead people couldn't be disappointed, and the skunk carried that thought with her like a tiny rock that crunched and shifted between her lungs, pointed and painful, grounding. It didn't matter what she did now, because the only person who would care was her, and the only person who mattered was Diamondfang.

Fleur wasn't into self-pity, or self-examination, or any of this wallowing bullshit, so she straightened up, carried her title as well as she could, snarling silently at every out of place echo. She just needed to be better. She didn't need her brother, or family, or friends, or any of that extraneous nonsense. She just needed to be stronger, smarter, faster, follow orders to a T, beg if she had to to be allowed to stay.

The Merrymen didn't care about feelings.

They wanted results.

Tunnel J had been weird, but better than home. Quieter. No wind, just silent dust and shadows, soothing her eyes and calming her nerves. She'd run through Orion, ears pitched back and terror gnawing at her ankles, spurring her on until she'd found a tunnel dark enough to swallow her whole. Too much light, so much of it that the ceiling lit up with fire, with no cover, nothing but rubble. The star-room was a no flight zone.

This tunnel was nice and damp, dark, silent and still, somewhere Fleur could sleep for once, relax. The muscles in her back ached from balancing on her back legs, practicing how to walk along the ledges of Monoceros, how to drop down into a roll from above, how to use her limited magic to fix the cuts and bruises before her queen saw them. Soldiers were invincible shields, and she needed to look that way. Always.

Diamondfang was the center of her world, her universe; everything led back to her. Not even Fleur's thoughts could stay away for long, always trailing back to the mongoose, and every glance made her face flame, her body tremble with fear and panic and poorly hidden affection. Florence would laugh.

Then again, Florence was probably laughing from wherever you went after you died, at this point. Fleur would be laughing at herself, if her jaw could open that wide.

Her stomach roiled again, and acid splashed across her tongue. The skunk stumbled to a wall of the tunnel, flopping down onto the floor, long white fur insulating her against the chill, the dark soothing her blood-red eyes. Another flip of her stomach before it settled, the buzz of sickness lying dormant.

Something made her startle awake with a harsh, strangled intake of breath, jolting in place, knocking the strained muscles in her back against the cold floor. Nausea lapped at her senses, making it hard to stand, but she did anyway. Warriors never showed weakness, never bowed, never gave in, even to exhaustion.

This did not mean, however, that they were above being very, very pissed off.

In an instant, the bright white ball of fluff had lurched off the ground and swung about to face the noise, baring pink gemstone teeth and lifting her tail to point up besides her snout in warning, snarling silently, all sound pinned between stomach acid and sealed-shut jaws. As soon as the noise-maker in question came into view, however, the hiss turned into a gape.

A lion. A giant fucking lion was singing. A happy lion was singing through her napping tunnel. Fleur sneezed, pinned her ears back, gaped some more, and finally began to stomp tiny, heavy paws on the stone ground clacking her teeth together wildly. What was surely supposed to be a vicious verbal beating was reduced to a harsh "Shhhhhhh!" and another round of frustrated stomping.

A wince, and Fleur stilled, raising a paw to rub at her jaw and slowly, snappishly growling out a few words. "Trying. To. Sleep." As her paw fell to the floor she stomped again, more out of childish aggravation rather than true anger. Then, she seemed to realize that she was antagonizing, as previously stated, a giant fucking singing lion, and froze, before wheeling around and darting into the shadows with a terrified squeak, hiding behind a chunk of wall with a gentle hiss.

The lion had teeth. Big teeth. But Fleur had three cycles of training and no true fear of death - only of pain. The disease in her gut squirmed again, and she retched, wetly, to one side, before lifting her head once more, red eyes glinting in the dim light.

Footsteps. Headed her way, oh no, big heavy lion footsteps; Fleur backed up until she felt the cold tunnel wall at her back, baring her teeth and chattering, anxiety rising with the leftover stomach acid in her trachea. The sound stopped when the other spoke, dying down to an uneasy rumble as the skunk listened, shivering, tiny, rounded ears strained forward to listen for the obvious anger that was to come.

Instead, all she heard was... well. The lion was being nice. Which made absolutely no sense at all, and she squinted, wearily, grimacing and hunching down a bit closer to the ground, confused and bone-tired. Her voice was soft and as rasping, as gruff and venomous as always, but filled with a sort of rare trepidation. "...sweetie? What. Sweetie?" Fleur hadn't ever heard of such a thing, and clacked her teeth together again, sharper, the sound crisp and ringing through the silent corridor.

At the offer to come out, the skunk's red eyes widened, and she rushed to shake her head, fur puffing up in fear. "No! Big!" The words shook, and Fleur with them, but the tiny warrior soon straightened up, as if offended by her own reactions.

"Not. A. Merryman!" Another stomp, and her tail twitched in warning, unable to see that anyone outside of her "family" - if it could be called that, considering she didn't even know kindness when she saw it - could be anything but a foe. Still, she had to check, if only to follow Diamondfang's code. "Finis. Originae. Pende!"