[nyme]

AND IT NEVER MADE ANY SENSE, ANYTHING

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ❀ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

MAGGOTPAW . 11 MOONS . IT/THEY . WINDCLAN
SILVER TONGUE T1

Maggotpaw pulls a look of unabashed exasperation. Manipulative?! But they're being good! They have half a mind to give up entirely and show Batglare just how bad they could be, instead, but there's fishing on the line and they just can't lose that. They...they must not have used the right words. Batglare must like hearing different ones. Or maybe they need to do something different with their face. Did they not look very sorry? That's always been an issue; Maggotpaw has such a hard time knowing what to do with their face and their ears when they're trying to be good. They've never seen the flat, shark-eyed stare they tend to have, but they've got an inkling that they might not do something right with their expressions.

The scrawny cat's mouth opens and closes a few times, soundless save for some awkward sputtering; aborted attempts at more do-overs. It doesn't know how to be good the way that Batglare wants, so instead it just listens in case there are clues. There have to be clues. The more Batglare speaks, the squirmier Maggotpaw feels. Like he's putting ants in their fur. It's hard to listen for clues like this, so they're not ready to say something by the time they finally open their mouth—they're just going.

"I didn't think I was hurting you. I wasn't thinking little of you, either. I actually didn't think about you at all." Maggotpaw admits this readily. "I didn't want to hurt you though. I want to fish."

So then Batglare must be right, that Maggotpaw only thought of him as a tool to get what it wants. Is that bad? They hadn't been trying to be bad. It was just another thing they hadn't been thinking about. It wonders if it's too late to just ask Batglare what he wants them to say and do instead. No, he didn't like it when I tried that. Called it 'empty placating'. Maybe it should ask what the difference is between that and being good for real before it ever tries that again.

"And...and then I'll be a very good fishing-cat, and you can have all the credit. That can make you look extra good and smart. You can get that out of it." It honestly hopes that an appeal to Batglare's ego will reassure him, though a rare shred of self-awareness has Maggotpaw immediately second guessing whether Batglare would really give a damn about getting that kind of validation from this. Really, it just feels the need to be able to offer something back, anything at all, because what Batglare had said is starting to seriously bother it. I don't get anything out of this except your joy.

Maggotpaw's reminded of how they felt when Whisperinghive said he'd find them if they got lost down a tunnel. Something about knowing that somebody would chase them underground just to find them, even though it was awful and even if they were being naughty, had felt very special. It's one thing to instruct other cats to like them. Telling someone that 'you like me and we're friends now' has had an outrageously high success rate—that is, nobody's swatted Maggotpaw or called them any names for having that sort of audacity, so basically it's a perfectly valid way to build relationships. Very rarely does anyone just say these sorts of things to it, though. Duckthroat and Leopardflight are the exceptions. Those two have never had to be coached. Batglare has said plenty of very nice things just now without any prompting at all (Protect and care? For Maggotpaw?? Bond??? With Maggotpaw??? If they'd known the commander was such a sentimental cat, they would have just kept their mouth shut and gotten spoiled rotten...) but he's also not happy with Maggotpaw, and there isn't anything that Maggotpaw knows how to do to fix it. That is what bothers it. Cats are supposed to either agree with what Maggotpaw tells them or be satisfied in the end when it makes an effort to be good for them.

Maybe there's just no fixing this at all. That bothers Maggotpaw, too.

"You are hard to talk to." Maggotpaw leans back onto its haunches to scrub its face with both paws. "I don't know how to do what you want me to if I didn't do it already. Do I need to do it for everyone else also? I could. Even at borders. They're not as hard as you. It's easy." It watches Batglare move to the water's edge and demonstrate how to sit so as not to startle the fish. Maggotpaw hesitates, wondering if it could salvage this by trying to be noble and rejecting the fishing lesson for now as a gesture of atonement, but...if that doesn't work, then it fears it won't get to learn how to fish ever after Batglare has it reassigned. And besides. What is it clinging so hard to? It'll get what it wants today. Batglare will get what he wants after. Still, as selfish a creature as Maggotpaw is dying to know: "Will my other mentor also want to make me happy and bond, do you know? So that I know. So that I remember to be extra good right away."

With that, Maggotpaw creeps over and sits, carefully copying what they've been shown. It resists the urge to swat the water just to see the ripples go.

"Why don't you like Twilight Falls? You said it makes you guilty."

@Moonraven ; BATGLARE