(Sorry for the delay!!!) @
JackHunt_17
Potato Potato. You left. Shrewstep huffed, again, quite pleased that he had the advantage of knowing that he had left and also knowing that Fiercefire was unaware. Otherwise he'd NEVER get away with such cheek. It was relatively likely that the other tom, if he bothered to ask around, would be able to ascertain that he too had been missing in the past six moons and come back to mock him, but for now Shrewstep would enjoy the 'moral high ground'. Though perhaps this much fabrication and lying wasn't exactly moral. Oh well. Such was the way of the world.
It felt wrong, though, to poke fun at Lynxpaw's disappearance. Stars knew he hadn't been the best.....improvised father figure to Blackhaze's kits, and his own had been gone so quickly that he had barely had a chance. He didn't think any of them had even made it to apprenticehood. Rookscreech had been his biggest failure. Venompaw had been able to speak to Blackhaze, had spoken to him. Had been his own flesh and blood. But Rookscreech had been something else. He didn't quite know how to deal with her. She had been something of a kindred spirit, adopted into the family and trying to find her way in the world and in it, but always with that slight feeling of being an outsider. They had dealt with it differently, but their conversations had always made him feel raw. Younger, still scratching and clawing around before he knew where he stood in the world.
That was what he was enjoying, perversely, about this entire conversation. The order that he had known was restored in some small degree. Though, not to the degree Fiercefire apparently thought it was. Shrewstep had no kin left.
No, I haven't got any kin left. he mewed more softly, breaking his somewhat lengthy pause which had allowed the other warrior to soliloquize.
Never had as much kin as you did to begin with, so the odds of them sticking around were a lot lower. This was turning into a pity party. He was not enjoying this. He was here to HARASS, not feel SAD and MISS cats. Shrewstep had been doing a good job of moving on by his own standards, relegating things to a 'this happened and no longer affects me, just lives in my mind for a time when I'll actually think about them being fully gone which is never' place that he had just about everything else.
There's something to be said for a fresh start, though I suppose you plan on ruining that as soon as you get the chance. That was better. More aggressive, and also not sad and mopey. Though if Fiercefire wanted to take things back into reminiscing, Shrewstep wouldn't exactly be able to stop him.