[PRP] Once Bitter Twice Shy [BitterEnd/Twice/Sleepless/Gaze]

[Jun D]

“Excuse me? Did you say Bitter - oh, your name, I see. Bitter Gaze. Of course.”

And he took a step back, laughing sheepishly as relief flitted across his face.  

[Maxx D]

He tilted his head, surprised and curious. He'd never known anyone so easily unsettled by a name, much less his. "What's wrong with 'Bitter'?" He queried, straightening up.  

[Jun D]

”Oh - nothing, of course! I’m sorry if I did offend,” he offered a charming smile, ”it’s just that...I only recently lost the company of...an acquaintance, I suppose she would rather be called now, and I’m not altogether certain it would be prudent for me to cross her path anytime soon. Her name, too, begins with Bitter - in this case, Bitter End.

“...Which, I suppose, turned out to be rather apt, after all.”  

[Maxx D]

" - always having an eye on some other doe - or some buck even, and you know those are the absolute worst. Silver tongue, pretty face but oh so inevitably strays, but counts on his victims being too stupid to realise. Oh, he seems so clever and charming but he's just like any other buck. Or worse! Such little regard for those he woos..." she snarled, vehement, tossing her mane and pacing as she related the tale.  

[Jun D]

”Oh, really,” she drawled wearily, knowing that the sarcasm would be inevitably be lost on the doe - it’d been the last ten times, ”do tell.”

She was doomed to remain, as it were, the very literal definition of a captive audience.  

[Maxx D]

She paused mid-step, looked down dramatically and hissed in a loud whisper, "...and he had been so nice at the beginning too. But of course it would just have to go south..."  

[Jun D]

”It seems strange to say now,” he continued after further prompting, ”but it hadn’t always been like this. I had liked her as soon as I saw her - oh, yes, she was attractive, no question, but more than that, she had an indomitable fire...which I suppose I rather preferred before it was turned upon me. But she’d made a great first impression…”

Because when he had first come upon her, she had seemed like life itself: tossing her hair back in the wind, like a river of blushed flame. Impelled by feeling alone, without thought, he had moved closer to see her...  

[Maxx D]

"Oh!" It wasn't a lady-like 'oh' at all, but once she spun around to confront the intruder upon her personal space, she was swayed by his - decent, she reluctantly thought to herself - looks. "I didn't know anyone else was here." Her casual speech came out a bit funny as she frowned, but her voice had softened just slightly, more grudging than pleasant. "Who're you?"  

[Jun D]

That strong, then angry, then grudging tone only served to cement his impression of her strength. What a rare one she was! So...self-willed!

”I am sorry to intrude,” he bowed his head, ”I saw you there, and could not help - oh, where are my manners? My name is Twice. You Only Live Twice. I am but a humble minstrel.”  

[Maxx D]

Did kin really talk like that these days? End was baffled, intrigued and at once drawn to this rather straightforward chivalry. She did like his name though, she felt it ironic that the Motherfather would bring a creeper of a buck like this to her, and have his name mock her fear of existence - the fear of having been created to die. This time, she smiled, her eyes bright and glittering. "I am Bitter End. You have a good name," she mused, "it intrigues me." She decisively threw him into the deep end of talking to an angsty, existentialist doe. "Tell me then, Twice, do you feel like your life has meaning in the wide world that the Motherfather has put us in?"  

[Jun D]

And what philosophy.

”Now that I’ve met you,” he declared - and, being a spoony bard, at the moment of articulation, he wholeheartedly believed it, ”I do.”  

[Maxx D]

She stopped, eyes still wide, astounded by the sheer cheesiness of his reply. It took her a while as her face contorted from shock to incredulity, then finally twitched one last time and broke into laughter.

She liked him, he was simple.

"All right, sure." The sentence went by briskly, her voice sharp but amused. It was a terrible line, but a good start.  

[Jun D]

Even her laughter was strong. Bright. Full of life.

He’d smiled. He was in love. (Again.)

“...But, alas, that idyll did not last too long,” he concluded with a weighty sigh.  

[Maxx D]

She sounded a little....complicated, but not untoward. "So...what happened?" Gaze asked.  

[Jun D]

”I’m not exactly sure when it started going wrong,” he stared thoughtfully into the distance, ”although in retrospect, I should have seen the signs. I was enamoured of her every move...and, perhaps, that is why I did not. Even as her words got shorter, and shorter, her fits of rage firing ever more often…”