Didn't need friends? Kerberos ears twitched, and he shook his heads back and forth once, then twice. "You're strong too," he insisted right back, a soft, toothless smile stretching across all three muzzles. "And even if you don't need a friend..." Hah, Kerberos has found the loophole, right there! "It won't hurt, right?"

It still filled him with a longing; a vast, empty sadness that crept around in his heart. He wanted to take his big old paws and scoop them around Alpha, grab the spiky brute by the scruff, and drag it home to mom and let it enjoy a day in the Bonebound. Maybe if it got a taste of friendship, it'd grow to like it. Unfortunately, you couldn't make a kaiju drink, or so the saying went.

Kerberos sniffed at the air, and ignored the fact that all of his efforts simply rebounded with little to no effect. "Anyway, it's okay if you need space. I'll be around if you want to wrestle again, or anything else." It was an open offer, one that hopefully would encourage a good relationship. The last time Kerberos had a "big friend" to "play with"-- aka, the creature he had been born along side of-- things had soured between them slowly over time, and eventually, Kerberos stopped running into the noodle dragon all together.

... it was weird to miss someone that he never really had any proper conversations with. Someone that stood only as a rival, who pushed him away constantly.

Maybe Orthoclase-Alpha would be the same, but Kerberos was more mature now (and perhaps, more naive in other ways) and if he tried hard enough, surely he could create something more... Stable, more supportive. Something that would potentially catch the kaiju if it started to descend down a dark, terrible path. If only Kerberos knew that Orthoclase-Alpha's whole life was wrapped up in something completely beyond Kerberos's simple, optimistic scope.

But there, he planted the promise, the only thing he could truly offer. "I'm not going anywhere." Warm, kind, and available for whatever would come.

... oh. Oh... okay. Three heads raised, and watched as Orthoclase-Alpha stalked off, warning not to follow. Kerberos leaned forward on to his front paws, haunches rising for a second, and then the command seemed to click into his mind. Thump, his hips settling in the dust again, tail slapping down on the earth, limp with rejection.

He did not follow. He watched, though, swallowing down individual whines as they came up in the back of his throats. Maybe they just needed time to... Digest, and consider everything he had said. Maybe they would come around.

If not... He had done what he could. He reached down to grab the peaceful bone between his teeth, and set off in the opposite direction once the kaiju was out of sight, trotting along to bring the bone somewhere for safekeeping.