curbside confessions

He is not difficult to find, and she discovers him outside of a den where he poses in the royal fashion of a king, and there she pauses, arches her narrow muzzle and studies him for a long moment, half stunned into silence by his words but she can expect little else (even so, stranger?). She sighs, remains silent for a time and purses her lips, her claws curling uncomfortably into the earthen floor below and she glances around, eyeing the towering trees skeptically, seeming to want to look anywhere but at him, though eventually there is nothing else to stare at and her eyes shyly return to her (ex?) mate, her muscles as taut as his jawline. "I've dealt with worse things than cats," she ventures carefully, and of course he knows this better than any other, knows her better and understands each inch of her more than anyone else in this world -- but now, looking at those cool eyes, she knows that things are different. "What is this place?" And why does it stink so thoroughly of you? She avoids the things she needs to talk about, avoids her wrongs and abandonment of him, skirting around the difficult topics with an awkwardness she has not presented since she was a mere child.