[lone]

Originally Posted by Ever

She almost felt as though he could read her mind, though she supposed he was right to be curious about Hannibal; plenty of syndicate cats were. He was illusive, he put on this feigned attitude of friendliness around others to lure them in. Not many knew what exactly he did when he killed the cats after he was bored of toying with them, though she was one of the few who did. Knowing what he was able to do, since he craved it so much was frightening. It was less that others were frightened of her, and more than she was frightened of bringing others into her hell. Hell was knowledge in the syndicate. If Arrow ever knew she was afraid of what Hannibal might do. Though maybe if she were just friends with him Hannibal would leave the tom alone, if he suspected no threat.

It made her want to leave the syndicate even more, to find happiness away from this place. She couldn't bring herself to do it though, at least she had something here, some sort of illusion of community. Albeit a murderous one.

She blinked as she looked over at Arrow, wondering what words would help in getting the point across. "It's not so much that they are frightened of me and my connections," she began slowly, pausing to roll her tongue nervously in her mouth, "it's more that I am afraid of dragging them into the family, closer to danger." She finished, her voice a whisper as if Hannibal could hear their conversation. The confession was brutally honest and she felt embarrassed to admit how afraid she was of her own kin, so she looked away from Arrow quickly to focus on the night and its soothing stillness. Though it didn't feel so soothing tonight, with the topic of their conversation. Every small firefly lighting its way through the night tricked her eyes into thinking they were the reflection of Hannibal's eyes in the dark. It put her on edge rather than calming her with their usual beauty and grace. She picked up her pace to an anxious trot, as though she could outrun their sight even though they flitted throughout the entire territory.

She was afraid? The thought that she might be afraid of bringing someone else into danger had never even crossed Arrow's mind. To him, she had seemed like a careful cat - a cautious cat - but not a fearful one. Closer to danger. Danger was a word that seemed to heighten all of the tabby's senses and especially in this moment, his eyes seemed to widen a little and he shifted his weight away from her. As it did for her, the fireflies seemed to become eyes glowing in the darkness, and even her own mixed eyes startled him whenever he glanced over in that direction. "So no one in your family wants you to be happy, then?" Was his sensitive statement. As far as he could tell, it seemed like what she was saying was that she wasn't able to have friends because she was afraid of what her family members would do. And if they wanted her to be happy - she shouldn't have fear.

"I can relate." The tabby added, more cautiously. Not too much information, right? She didn't know his siblings' names. He was trying to search for them in his memory as well, hoping that somewhere was some sort of memory with his family. Although they had always been broken and dysfunctional. No happy memory came to mind and the ones that did made his spine tingle and fur stand on end, claws unsheathing as he thought of the dark days when he had been a part of that family. The Syndicate tied him to these memories. It tied him to a lot of things. Sometimes the tom wondered what it would be like to just let go. Right now, he wasn't that afraid of Ebony. She suddenly seemed... almost approachable. Now that he knew she was scared of something. The tabby had wondered if the black cat was afraid of nothing like her brother... as far as he knew, Hannibal was afraid of nothing.

What would he have to be afraid of? It was almost like he ran the Syndicate from behind the scenes, as though Halite and Boreas had been nothing but his puppets and had done exactly as he asked. Though Arrow knew that probably wasn't the case... hopefully wasn't the case... maybe wasn't the case. He wanted to say something, although he had probably said plenty at this point. Arrow had never been the most sensitive cat, and speaking that way about Ebony's family had been out of line. Even though as far as he could tell... she didn't mind so far. There was still time, but the tabby was hoping he hadn't just messed their possible future friendship up.