[ti]Private[/ti]A Long Day

[Fireflake]

The sun slowly drifted downward as Scorpio trailed through the Twolegplace. His ginger and white pelt, with the odd fur that always stood on end, was torn with new scratches. Those on each side could be mistaken as marks of a difficult fight, buried among scars and healing wounds, but the V shape that ran between his eyes was so obviously deliberate. Scorpio paid little attention to his injuries. He was too busy thinking about how the day had dragged on. They seemed to do that more now than before he was on the council, and he couldn't put his paw on whether it was a matter of perception or a quirk of the sun.

The sky offered no answers, so his gaze moved slowly back to the street he was on. Keeping to the sidewalk, he began to stroll along and inspect everything from streetlights to soft scents. One such scent called him to a potted plant left on top of a brick wall. The tom leapt up, wincing as he remembered his wounds, and reached out a paw toward the stony container. He touched the side and toyed briefly with the idea of knocking it off, but decided against it. For a while after this, he dodged down seemingly random connections of side alleys, popping out to cross a popular street every so often before vanishing back into obscurity.

His steps were noticeably slow, but indicated leisure more than uncertainty. Navigating so close to home was no problem for Scorpio. He could walk these streets and their hidden paths backwards, with his eyes closed. But, of course, only at a time like this, when others were not likely to be watching.
Not likely to be. He paused and subtle changes rippled across his body. His eyes narrowed. His ears pricked. Any remaining movements, like the flicking of his tail over his back, had slowed. An unfamiliar scent had caught on the wind. It was only his light green gaze that continued to sweep across the area.

[kitsune13]

Shoo padded through the less congested part of the main twoleg area. This is where twolegs spent most their time, emerging from the bellies of monsters to enter the odd caverns, coming out with colorful bags of whatever.
Shoo came here often, he liked watching the twolegs from afar, but there were none for now.
Shoo hopped from shadow to shadow, his tail low to avoid attention.
He sniffed, opening his mouth to drink in the air.
Now, Shoo knew most of the cats that wandered around this area, and they knew him.
But the scent that drifted towards him was unfamiliar.
And tinged with blood.
Whomever they were, they were either hurt, or had hurt someone else.
Shoo padded out nervously, his head and tail up as he looked around.
"Hello?" 

[Fireflake]

Scorpio's searching stare finally caught onto the black-and-white stranger as he emerged from the shadows. The rogue couldn't help but notice that the nervous face staring back at him lacked the hostility he'd become accustomed to. He stared for a moment longer, then broke his gaze to nod a greeting. The effect rippled through him in a series of subtle but significant changes, which were the reversal of his initial reaction.

The ginger tabby was left standing in a cautious, half-casual stance, his legs planted firmly apart from each other while his tail ceased its stiff flicking. The same tone carried through to his voice. He offered a simple, mild, "Hello."
On closer inspection, the foreign scent that had hit him wasn't so different from the city around it. Scorpio's own scent was probably more mixed, tainted by the places he explored. He shifted.

Scorpio's eyes ran quickly up and down this other cat to find something more telling than the obvious 'black-and-white pelt, green eyes'. He quickly caught sight of the small marks on and around the other tom's face, and had just spotted part of a scar on his shoulder when Scorpio remembered the various voices that had echoed through his younger moons warning him that it was rude to stare. Quickly returning his light green eyes to the other's, Scorpio asked, "Who are you?"