For the character study prompt thingy... Could you do either 🤫 or 👪? Your pick! (👀👀👀👀 Oooh, the amount of Pain™ stored in one muse.... )
Naught But Mist
Even in wander, his thoughts could only hope to stray so far.
Both of them preferred Playcare during it's false nighttime cycle for that reason. A horizon formed of concrete and stone felt so much more distant in the dark.
"... still awake?" Pawed the Great Critter curiously. "--I TOLD you to leave it." It wrung out, staring past him from where they'd briefly rested down upon a hill, upper half folded over sideward curve of a segmented frame in a lazy slouch hindered by pins and coils.
He faced away, eyelights flicking over grass in a recollection muddied by genuine momentary uncertainty. Have they already told him that earlier? ..."naps..?" probably, right, they have. He knew it couldn't sleep, of course! Then... what were they doing just now again..? "Naps. Answer me." A servo moved to rake bladed tips over matted fur atop his head, recognizing beginnings of a struggle in the subtlest twitches of his gaping face. "... I-I--! I'm... I was just..."
"-What are you thinking..?" Hushed voices then fully snapped him back to world of the wake, tense, yet not without air of amused proximity. He leant into its cold touch unthinkingly- forgetting he can trust the smoke alone to ensure no unwanted eyes may see anyway.
But that wasn't what had startled either. For he never was so bold to accept it before- and only too late did it hit him why once he averted his eyes.
"Do, you... ever, regret it?" Ears pulled down, echoes of muscles that might've wished they could at least drop that hollow smile instead. This... was precisely why they respected him so. How little he needed to say. "-NOT for a thousand summer suns."
Of course they said that... they always do. "You... never DID answer me that one question."
So... you CAN remember some things, can't you.
I knew it. He's acting dumb. Lying to me.
No, STOP that. It isn't his fault.
"... what thing?" Eventually they caved in and asked, realizing he wasn't letting up on the question as they hoped he would.
"When you first let me see your face. I know... you'd said, it was fine, but... but... it looked to me like I'd still done something wrong."
