Krakenvirtue never was one to lie when he was alive. He found it wrong. Immoral… So how did he end up telling so many? Well… He supposed he wasn’t really *lying*, per-se... Just not… Telling the truth. …That was the same thing, wasn’t it? Half-lies then. Things that were half truth, half lies. He never lied when Fire-Lilykit- er.. Fire-Lilypaw asked his name. Epi was his name… Or at least it was once. It just… Wasn’t his current. Still not a lie, right? And he never *lied* when Fire-Lilypaw started to ask questions. Asked who he was, where he came from, why he visited her every night. He just… Never confirmed nor denied any of it. Dodged the questions till she stopped asking them, and let her believe what she wanted to believe. After all.. This whole thing was never meant to be permanent. Krakenvirtue had planned to slowly wean himself away from the young mortal when she started her apprenticeship. When she was in a better place. When she didn’t *need* him anymore… Well, it didn’t take long to figure out that wasn’t going to be possible. It didn’t take long for Krakenvirtue to put together pieces from reading in-between the lines, catching her poorly veiled insults and remarks towards herself. Hearing snippets and details of her life… It didn’t take long for Kraken to realize that he alone was the only cat she was… Genuinely honest too. And even then, ‘honest’ was a generous word to describe Fire-Lilypaw’s… Behaviors. And it didn’t take long for him to realize that the *only* reason why she was open to him… It was because she didn’t think he was even real. She truly believed that he was just a figment of her dreams. Her imagination. Oh. Owch. But then again, Kraken never did anything to correct that. Another lie, perhaps. “-And then she made me go de-tick the elders! I had to root through mangy old pelts and pick out **BUGS**. **BUGS** Epi!” Fire-Lilypaw ranted next to the seacat, huffing and smoothing out her head fluff with a paw before turning to the tom in question, her eyes narrowing as she noticed the far-off look in his. “Oi, shores to Epi!” The apprentice waved a wing in front of Krakenvirtue’s face, snapping the cat out of his thoughts. “Were you even listening to me?” “O-Oh! Of course firelight, I was listening.” Firelight. A nickname of sorts that Kraken had taken a liking to. A term of endearment for this young mortal molly. The fondness he felt for her was.. Hard to explain, and Kraken simply summed it up to obligation. That he needed to stay, so therefore he’s allowed himself to grow attached. …And yet still, Fire-Lilypaw didn’t truly know who he was… “You were talking about your training, yes?” Krakenvirtue coughed awkwardly, flashing a smile to pretend that he hadn’t been spacing off and lost in his own musings tonight. “How else has that been going? Have you been learning how to fly yet?” As soon as the question left Krakenvirtue’s lips, Fire-Lilypaw went still, a sort of strange, flat look crossing her face, unreadable and so expressionless that it honestly startled the seacat, before a lopsided grin broke across the she-cat’s face, and she gave a chuckle. “Heh, nah. I’m not going to be learning that.” Kraken furrowed his brow at Flily’s words. “No? Whyever not?” Fire-Lilypaw rolled her eyes, as if obvious. “*Because* I’m a hybrid.” She answered, sternly and firmly. “And hybrids don’t fly.” Kraken’s mouth opened to protest, his gaze flicking to her wings. Kraken may be no falconcat, but he had seen plenty during his moons among the stars. Spoken to many from kits to elders, seen them both on the ground and in the air. Fire-Lilypaw's wings looked no different from theirs. But that look in Fire-Lily’s eyes made him shut his mouth. He knew that look, that stubborn, persistent look. Fire-Lilypaw was perhaps one of, if not the most stubborn cat Kraken had ever met. He learned as such when they played games together when she was still a kit. He knew that anything he said, it would just be a waste of breath. She was adamant. Foolishly so. “…Alright then.” Krakenvirtue nodded, letting the subject drop, but as Fire-Lily jumped off into another rant about her woes as an apprentice, Kraken found himself not quite listening. It was sad, seeing her refuse to even *try* to learn because she was so dead set in believing that she couldn’t. She’d never learn to fly like that, but unless- …That was it. Krakenvirtue shot a look to Fire-Lilypaw as she rambled, his eyes flicking to her wings. …Perhaps one more lie wouldn’t hurt.
