Depollute me, pretty baby

Redrum’s head tilted slightly at her words, the motion sharp, mechanical, as if the effort to process her words required a physical outlet. Her breath, her smile, her unflinching gaze—it all felt like a game he wasn’t entirely sure he knew the rules to. These… social interactions never boded well for him, but he was making an effort. His long ears flicked forward, catching the rise and fall of her tone, weighing her confidence against his instincts. Did she speak the truth? Her truth? Could he possibly refute it?

"Leora has—a unique way of—thinking." he muttered in a low, grinding tone; his gaze narrowing briefly as if scrutinizing her intent. Fear itself—that ever-present compass in his world—was suddenly being questioned, reshaped in her presence. Did he need it? Did she mean to unravel it from him like a loose thread? His jaw tensed, tongue sliding against the inside of his maw as he thought. He had lost the need for fear long ago, but it had kept him alive in the time before that.

Her calm explanations about fear, its uses and limits, left him unsettled—not because she was wrong but because she made it sound so… negotiable. He had thought his family was a different breed, comparatively to those he had met thus far. Outsiders. Fear was supposed to rule them. To fuel them. Yet here she was, tilting her head and smiling as if it were a matter of choice. And despite that… she didn’t seem much of a fighter to him, aside from the subtle ripple of muscle beneath her earthen coat. Where did she get that confidence from? "She picks—her fears," he said finally, the words laced with a rasp of understanding, his lips curling faintly as if trying to mirror her smile and failing, showing too much teeth. "Hm. Redrum—has never—heard that before."

When she moved closer, closing the already narrow space between them, his muscles stiffened, a brief shudder rolling through his frame. His golden eyes flicked down, watching her rise to meet him as much as her smaller frame allowed. The proximity stirred a foreign sensation—not dread, not alarm, but something quieter, deeper. "Pretty boy, again." he repeated, the nickname a guttural echo of her teasing tone. It lingered on his tongue like something uncomfortably sweet. "It... makes no sense. Lea has—a twisted sense of beauty." he muttered, half to himself, his expression tight with frustration as he struggled to piece her intentions together. She was too close. He was too conscious of it.

Her suggestion of a spar, coupled with her bold condition, drew a low, uneven sound from his throat—not quite a growl, not quite a chuckle. "Leora—wants... to taste her victory—another time," he said, his tone carrying a note of reluctant amusement. The idea of yielding time to her—allowing her control of the aftermath—should have grated against his nature. Instead, it lingered like a challenge, intriguing in its absurdity. What was he to make of this? "Redrum wonders—why not now? What is stopping—her?" His tail lashed behind him, uneven and violent, restless.

His muzzle dipped closer, the space between them nearly non-existent now. "Lea," he said softly, his voice a low rumble that seemed to scrape along the air. "should find out." His golden eyes burned into hers, steady, unrelenting. "If she would truly win." The words hung in the air, teetering between a warning and a promise.

Her final remark, her offer to be his outlet, his friend, struck a chord he hadn’t expected. Friends weren’t something he understood—not in any conventional sense. His friends had come and gone, and he was slowly losing interest in gaining any more in case they too, vanished. Yet, the way she stood there, ready to meet him, made it feel... possible. The thought made his brow furrow, his expression caught somewhere between curiosity and unease. “Does DayDreamer know,” he said slowly, as if testing the words. "A promise cuts—deep if broken," he repeated, the faintest flicker of a smirk ghosting across his features. “Like a shattered bone, sharp and—deadly.” He stares, waiting for her answer, golden eyes flicking from her eyes to the tense of her jaw.

"Murder"