curbside confessions

"Perhaps I should meet the cat someday," she muses, surprising herself at how neutral she is managing to make her voice seem despite how much she wants to break, beg for forgiveness, do anything but behave as stiffly as she is. She doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what to tell him or ask him other than stick to safe topics -- the weather, airplane food. She coughs, flicks her tail slowly against her ankles and watches him through wary eyes, noting the wounds upon his chest but dares not comment on them (for she recalls a time when such injuries had been self-inflicted because she had been gone from his side). "I always thought leadership would suit you. You wear it well," she comments, pointedly evading his comment about his children that are not also hers. They are the reason she had fled, after all, but she is the reason they have been allowed to exist, and she does not know who to hate for that. Still she skirts the thorns, her muzzle arching as she peers upwards, a low hum in her throat as a rather dumb, pointless comment escapes her, "the trees are very tall."