A thin sliver of light flickered into Victin's eyes as his eyelids fluttered open. He groaned, feeling the tender pound throughout his entire head. The bright white light creeping into his vision hurt. He screwed his eyes shut again as he fumbled on the ground around him, trying to feel where he was. Crumpled leaves and dry dirt greeted him. Victin clumsily got his arms behind him to right himself, his body weaving and wavering against his will at the act of sitting up.

…damnit, did I pass out at a bar again? Victin thought, slumping forward and rubbing his eyes. By the pounding in his head and the unrecognizable sound of running water nearby, the stoat bet he had. The stinking bouncer had probably thrown him out the door again after he passed out. It wouldn't be the first time.

Still, that had to have been some good rum if he was having trouble remembering things and felt like something had driven into his skull. Victin took a deep breath, groaning again as he pinched the bridge of his muzzle and massaged his face. He really, really hoped the wet feeling on his clothes wasn't vomit— his or somebeast else's. Or possibly something worse.

If he woke up with an internal organ missing or wearing a lacy skirt again, Victin thought, he was calling it quits.

The stoat opened his eyes, squinting at the light. A startled and cautious-looking hare sat a few feet away from him. It leaned back and flinched slightly as he sat up straighter and stared at it. The rush of memories hit Victin in the face like Tarquin had punched him again. The hare swallowed hard as the stoat dragged himself back a few inches with his paws, still staring.

Victin was almost tempted to shut his eyes again and go back to lying down and hoping he wasn't in the aftermath of some drunken crossdressing again. Almost.

He went with continuing to stare back at the hare across from him.

"Who're you?" Victin growled. He suddenly remembered meeting the other beast in the clearing, the not-so-graceful reveal later, and the fall and tumble down the hill, his limbs aching all at once. Victin looked down at his clothes. He still had the stretched jacket on, but the red scarf that had been wound around his belly and caused him so much misery was gone. Everything was still damp.

Seeing him staring down at his clothes, Tarquin gave an awkward cough as he cleared his throat. "I, er, had to drag you out of the stream, so some of your clothes might not be there. I'm bally sorry about… um… your f— your scarf," he hastily corrected.

One thing about disasters, both drunk and not, was that Victin Stubfang possessed the talent to always remember the worst event that occurred before blackout, whether it happened to be a one-eared rat bouncer kicking him out the door or Ripfang screaming that THE SANDBAG ROPE BROKE, BLOODY RUN! This was no exception.

"You punched me in the face," Victin said flatly.

Tarquin swallowed, giving a nervous laugh. "Yes. Yes, I did, wot, but I— it was necessary at the time, alright?" he burst out, wildly gesturing with his paws as it was his turn to recoil. "That bally roll down in the hill is what blinkin' dumped me in your lap; I didn't want to—"

"Wait, you were bloody where?" Victin said.

"It was an accident!" Tarquin yelped, getting on his feet and backing up defensively as Victin got to his, both of them equally terrified, confused, and on edge.

He's going to reach for a weapon, and he's going to stab me, Tarquin and Victin thought. Both of them made strangled sounds as their throats as they considered what had happened, a flood of unpleasant memories and various costume mishaps filling their heads. There was a pause as vermin and woodlander eyed each other and their sodden and beaten costumes.

Both of them burst out with explanations simultaneously.

"—and all I wanted to was to keep from bein' eaten by a Juska, honestly, I wasn't aimin' for anything else, and then I thought I was goin' to get bally gutted before my other tail fell off so please please don't blinkin' pull a Keelstrip and run me through—"

"—was just tryin' ta avoid a hare general, but I couldn't wash off my tattoos an' all the damn briars kept stickin' up my kilt so I just changed an' then the whole thing went downhill; it's not my bloody fault, I just wanted ta get drunk—"

"ENOUGH!" Victin yelled, cutting off the rush of gibberish from both of them. Both he and Tarquin immediately shut their mouths afterwards. They remained standing, still glaring at each other. Neither of them edged closer.

Underneath his rapidly beating heart, Tarquin was wishing that he'd at least changed out of costume and into something else before he had to confront the stoat he'd sucker-punched. He didn't wait to die looking like a hare vagrant who'd stolen someone's pants. Is dignity in death or at least a better pair of pants too much to ask for? Tarquin thought miserably, still tensed as he watched the vermin across from him.

Victin, meanwhile, took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He was speaking to a hare who may or may not have been in a compromising position with him before socking him in the face after they both rolled down a hill. He was also wearing the stretched jacket that hung off him like an ugly second skin and (now that the buttons had accidentally been ripped off) revealed more fur than Oscela's barmaid costume.

The day just keeps on getting better and better, they thought.

"What is your name, an' what the Hellgates were you doin'?" Victin finally spoke up, getting his voice under control. Tarquin squirmed uncomfortably under his gaze, and Victin remained stiff and tensed. He wasn't planning on letting down his guard so soon; there were good actors out there other than in his troupe, and many beasts had found scumsucking creative places to stash daggers.

Finally Tarquin and Victin both sat down, deciding that standing up with both of them looking on the verge of bolting was not a good position to be in for a calm discussion. Tarquin squirmed in his seat as Victin continued to pointedly stare at him. The hare cleared his throat.

"I was tryin' to go home, an' I, ah, had some complications," Tarquin said, giving a cough and trying to look as discreet as possible. "Chiefly you— no offense, wot— an'… um…" The hare struggled to come up with an adequate statement that covered facing down a Juska and getting whipped more thoroughly than a meringue and coward pie, then admitting to it to another possibly dangerous vermin. He could come up with nothing.

Tarquin quickly sat up straighter and crossed his arms, leaning back in an imitation of indignation and hoping that all the briars and mud all over his face would hide the burn in his cheeks at the thought of (the one of many) the humiliating incidents. "Wait a blinkin' moment, why am I explainin' everything to you first?" He narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"Why should I have ta explain everythin' ta you first?" Victin said, struggling to not just reply with 'because I think you might be plotting to stab me between the ribs; plus, sonority.' "Do you think you're entitled ta that for bein' a hare? If anythin', you're the one who caused this by thinkin' you could waltz around the forest dressed a vermin when you're already a bloody woodlander; your very existence repels the majority of tripe you'd get tossed your way for bein' a vermin."

Tarquin gave a high pitched laugh that Keelstrip would've been proud of at the lack of sanity in (not necessarily proud of the pitch, no, but the lack of sanity.) "What, an' you don't think there's a few vermin out there who wouldn't want to skin my blinkin' pelt for existin'? You haven't met some of the other beasts walkin' around the road then, wot."

"I'll give you a 'want ta skin my blinkin' pelt'; where the hell have you been if you're runnin' inta that kind of lot around here?" Victin snapped. His and Tarquin's fur were bristling, and both of them were sitting stiffly in their seats. "Unless you've read too many of those bloated hero-ballad plays the woodlanders are always puttin' on an' addled your brains—"

"My brain wasn't bally addled when I nearly got speared by a Juska!" Tarquin yelled. He didn't bother with trying to clamp his mouth shut afterwards and pretend that his words just didn't burst out, though it was tempting.

The blooming adder was out of the bag now; might as well face the humiliating music, Tarquin thought.

Victin was ready to snap back another angry retort, one of his teeth corners beginning to show and ears tilting back, but he stopped dead at Tarquin's words. "Wait, nearly got speared by a what?"

"A Juska!" Tarquin said, waving his paws empathetically and bringing them down through the air with every word. The melodramatic side of him was winning out. "I almost got speared by a terrifyin', kilt-wearin', bone-jewelry covered bonafide JUSKA, and you can't tell me that is NOT a bally legitimate reason to be in disguise, wot!"

The look on Victin's face when he heard Tarquin mention a Juska was something else. The stoat just sat there, a blank look on his face, and Tarquin stared nervously back and fidgeted at the oddly emotionless stoat that was staring at him. Tarquin raised a tentative paw as he shrank back, like a dibbun gingerly poking a bizarre insect stuck to the wall.

"Um… sir… are you… alright?" Tarquin squeaked out. Victin still stared at him.

Oh bally Martin, he has PTSD, Tarquin thought. Ten to one it was from a horrible hare-related incident right out of Saber and Bloodwrath.

"So if you saw a Juska," Victin said slowly, speaking up and making Tarquin start with surprise, "you wouldn't be familiar be a hare general of any kind, would you?"

Tarquin frowned. "What? No, I haven't been back at Salamandastron in yea—" Tarquin froze as something clicked in his head. He stared at Victin in numb silence. Both hare and stoat just blankly gazed at each other for several long moments. A short distance away, the stream continued to babble on cheerfully, as if nothing was different or wayward in the world.

"…no," Tarquin said, still just frozen in his spot, "no, no, no, no, NO."

Victin's eye twitched violently, the stoat looking like he was going to burst out and say something before he shut his mouth and reached up one of his paws, slowly dragging his claws down over the bridge of his nose and still staring at Tarquin. The hare didn't look quite so unfamiliar now.

"You're jokin'," he said. "You're bloody goddamn jokin'." It didn't sound like he was speaking to Tarquin.

Tarquin made several spluttering noises, trying to find the correct gestures to make, but the hare only ended up wind-milling his paws in the air, mouth gaping and opening and shutting like a dying fish. The younger actor eventually dropped his paws down and gave a hysterical giggle. "No! No, I'm not jokin'! We think everything is over, an' what do you know, wot, just when it all seems alright again, plot twist! How— this is worse than any drama I've ever bally read!" Tarquin giggled again before giving a halting laugh, his eyes far too wide for the action. All of the insane hassle and stress of the day were beginning to break him.

His emotion wasn't exclusive as Victin began to chuckle, his fur still on end and chest shaking slightly harder than it needed to be for the action. "You're— you're right. I mean, what are the bloody odds of this happenin'?" Victin began to chuckle harder, and Tarquin's giggling went up a pitch. "Two times in one day—"

"An' we run into each other dressed up in costume, not knowin' who was underneath—" Tarquin added, leaning closer and still giggling, it beginning to morph into a near hysterical laugh that would've landed him a madman part last audition.

"—an' didn't even know we were both harmless, so we were both terrified an' convinced we were goin' ta DIE all day!" Victin said, leaning forward in response so that hare and stoat were almost nose to nose, both of their eyes widened to the point where they almost bulging out of their faces, and the two smiles of woodlander and vermin stretched to their very limits with gritted teeth.

Victin and Tarquin paused in their narration, going completely silent for a moment. They stared at each other's too-wide eyes and forced and stretched grins that would've been off-putting to a pike. Something underneath Victin's eye twitched unpleasantly, and the nearly muted stirrings of a high-pitched giggle vibrated in Tarquin's throat.

Both stoat and hare burst out into howling, screaming laughter.

Victin and Tarquin's bodies dissolved into shaking, flopping messes with their bone marrow the consistency of putty, their screaming laughter sending all birds in a mile radius flying for cover and creating a speciest bias from robins towards hares and stoats which would last for the next three seasons. Victin and Tarquin were practically leaning on each other as they howled, arms drunkenly slung over each other's' shoulders as they veered back and forth, tears of hysteria building in their wide eyes as they pointed at each other's faces and laughed, their mirth far too enthusiastic. Both of them sounded like they were crying or flat out screaming at moments instead of laughing.

After a long minute, their laughter slowly fading away and their chests ceased their heaving, the forest around them faded into quietness. Tarquin sniffed and wiped one of his eyes as Victin cleared his throat, both of giving a few final titters and chuckles as they wound down. It was around then that they realized they were staring at each other's faces and in much closer proximity than before (arms hanging over their shoulders included) only second to when Tarquin had made his graceful landing into Victin's lap.

Tarquin and Victin immediately stiffened and released each other, pushing away and squirming back into their regular spots. There were several awkward coughs and stilted muttered apologies as they were unable to meet eyes. The day had already been bad enough, but then I practically had a hysterical laughter breakdown and threw myself on top of a random stranger in the process, they both thought. Wonderful.

This usually only happens when I'm drunk, Victin thought. Which he'd like to be; fighting an inebriated stranger over a shot glass or arguing with an equally sodden Ripfang about whether or not there truly was a pickled newt floating in the suspicious vodka bottle at the wildcat's bar would be a step up from this.

This would've already accidentally violated four Class 2 harassment laws at Salamandastron, Tarquin thought, rubbing the back of his head and coughing once more. And also possibly one about implied fraternization within inappropriate costume, but he didn't want to consider that.

"So," Victin said, voice gruff, clearing his throat one last time. He loosely crossed his arms.

Tarquin blinked before he realized the stoat was talking to him, hare sitting up a bit straighter and clasping his paws together in his lap as if all was well. This was practically the same thing he'd done when he'd been called into his commanding officer's office for a meeting after the whole puking-on-your-superior-and-disgracing-you-and-your-future-descendents-for-the-rest-of-your-existence incident.

"So," Tarquin said. Despite the wreck that had occurred with the finesse of a badger colliding with a boulder, he couldn't feel the same strain and pure nervousness from before. There was something to be said about a breakdown of frenetic laughter on a stranger for clearing away any fears. "I suppose so much for tryin' to save our own skins, seein' there was nothing out there after us in the first place, wot. What's your name? Mine's Tarquin Fleetfoot," Tarquin said, extending a paw out.

Victin looked at him cautiously, making sure he wasn't trying to pull anything, but the stoat responded in kind and shook paws with him. Both of them were crumpled and covered in splotches of dirt and not-quite-dried water, clothes soiled and fur drying in wayward peaks under the sun and their pawshake hardly friendly, but a peace offering was still a peace offering.

"Victin Stubfang," he said. He released Tarquin's paw as they moved back again, the stoat slouching forward and lying one of his elbows on a propped up knee. It felt good not to have to keep up that perpetual sucked in and rigid hunker that came with playing a hare or woodlander in costume. "Can't say I'm too pleased ta meet you under the circumstances, but you're a bloody better sight than anythin' else I could've ran inta."

"Same here, wot," Tarquin said. Though he was more relaxed than before, and not slouching as much as the vermin was, Tarquin was still a solid two or three paws shorter than Victin without counting his long ears. One of them twitched as a bug tried to light on it. "It was upliftin' to see you instead of a Juska! What were you doin' out here, anyway? I was tryin' to fin— return to my troupe, but there were a few, ah, difficulties." Tarquin gave a subtle cough.

The stoat across from him tensed slightly at his words, but he remained slouching and near casual with a composed face. After so many seasons on the road, instantaneous trust in others had a tendency to wither, particularly for those outside one's species niche— and for damn good reason, Victin thought. It didn't mean he had to act like a bilge-snorting tripeball to anybeast with a different pelt on their back, but neither did it mean he was letting any of his guard down.

"I was tendin' ta my own travelin' business," Victin said, flicking a claw over his knee and answering coolly as he pulled on what Tarquin had come to recognize as 'the stage face.' The stoat's guardedness was beyond evident in everything. "My troupe's elsewhere."

"Oh, come on," Tarquin snapped, his battered patience breaking. He waved his paws in exasperation. "I'm not goin' to pull a bally patrol out of my pocket to arrest you or anything, wot, an' it's not like I'm goin' to suddenly start wailin' about how you're a stoat an' start throwin' military medals at you. Why are we still keepin' this up? We're actors," Tarquin said. "We can be whatever beast or whoever we want, whenever we want. If there's any two beasts in Mossflower who should be able to talk without worryin' about species, it's us."

Tarquin hesitated at the end of his words before he gave a tilted grin, looking just a little bolder. "Well, we can try to be whatever beast we want. Four 'wots' in one line? Who have you been listenin' to? Nobeast has an accent like that."

"I've never played a hare afore, an' your accent is bloody irritatin'," Victin said defensively, scowling a margin. "I don't know you how your lot regulates what goes where."

"It's a natural thing, wot," Tarquin said, waving a paw and squinting for a moment as a ray of sun leaked through the treetops. "…and that one 'wot' does not count as underminin' my point."

Victin snorted, running his claws over his head and feeling some of the ache in his skull where Tarquin had socked him. That was going to need some stinking poultices on it later. "No, your terrible imitation of how vermin talk does." Victin raised an eyebrow, but he couldn't keep some of the smirk off his face at the hare's squirm. "'I'm a stinkin' set 'o teeth in the jaws of a gale'; really?"

"An' what's wrong with it?" Tarquin said. The younger hare was starting to feel more miffed by the minute, but that wasn't stopping the slight embarrassed flush underneath his cheeks' fur. He'd actually been proud of that line.

"Everythin'," Victin said. "There's not a single land-walkin' vermin who talks like that, an' I can guarantee you that corsairs only get that poetic when they're drunk. No exceptions. An' bloody Hellgates," Victin said, amused, "all I was tryin' ta do was ta tell you ta go another way. You'd think I was tryin' ta stage a revolution with that response. I'd hate ta see how you react ta some'un askin' ta do your laundry." Victin drew his lips back in a dramatic snarl and waved a fist at the air. "'Argh, you stinkin' mutineers, how dare ya try ta steal me undergarments—'"

"Oh, bally enough out of you," Tarquin said, his face burning. "You have no space ta be talkin', Basil IX."

Victin said nothing in reply, stoat uncoiling from his slouch to grab his nearby wilted bag he'd just noticed, but there was a bit of compressed rumble in his throat that sounded awfully like a laugh. Tarquin tried to ignore it with the margin of melted dignity and composure he had left and failed immediately. He ended up falling into the same casual slouch as his comrade, watching the stoat go through his bag and mutter a few curses about wet costumes and a ferret. Despite all the strangeness of the situation, much of tension had fizzled away with the last bit of banter, and the atmosphere around the two beasts was practically becoming conversational.

If his father could see him now, Tarquin thought as he shifted his against his own bag behind him, he'd blow out a vein.

"So, the Juska costume…" Tarquin said, watching Victin paw out a few of the wetter props and put them out to dry. Beyond gathering up his sodden supplies and stuffing them back in the other actor's bag, the young hare hadn't touched nor gone through any of his things. Costumes and painstakingly-made props among actors were private; one didn't touch them without any permission. "Tragedy or comedy?"

"Comedy," Victin said, giving a sour look at the remaining buttons on his jacket before he shrugged out of it and tossed it away onto the dirt. "Just finished comin' down the northern Moss river route with the troupe; they decided pullin' The Otterly Ridiculous Taggerung would be a good finale."

Tarquin gave a small frown as his brow wrinkled in concentration. "Huh… I don't remember that one. The last play I remember readin' about the Taggerung was Deyna, an' that was hardly a bag of laughs. Decapitation's not a cheerful matter."

"I'm not surprised," Victin said. Looking at all the jumbled soup of props and clothes in his bag, the stoat debated on whether it'd be easier to take all of Oscela's wrath for wet and wrinkled clothes, or all of Oscela's wrath for dried-out and wrinkled clothes. Choices, choices. "It's more of a species isolated play for vermin. I don't think woodlanders would enjoy watchin' a play about how Tagg was a bumblin' idiot an' Gruven was right."

Tarquin gave a huff of amusement, picking a loose grass blade off his paw. "I would be insulted by that, wot, but seein' we've put out Gingivere the Grandiose, I'll just consider it rightful payback."

"For that travesty— 'o anythin' written by Harkin the Poet Mole, for that matter— you're damn right you will," Victin said dryly. "An' you an' the hare general costume?"

"Tragedy," Tarquin said. "Our troupe's headin' along from east to west— you know how it goes, tryin' to make it to the west coast in time for autumn an' winter to hit— an' we've been doin' Saber and Bloodwrath for the past season or so. I've died at least seven times, though the last few have actually been painful, wot." Tarquin winced before he shrugged. "But when can you do when you've got an overenthusiastic otter for your vermin assassin? …every vermin assassin and executioner, for that matter."

"Find some'un less likely ta kill you ta fit the role, for starters," Victin said, grimacing at how he was reminded of Marvelo, "but if you've got limited troupe members, there's not really much of a choice. Our troupe's small enough ta have a Vulpez an' a Slagar in 'un, not to mention a Veil Sixclaws an' a barmaid."

Tarquin stared. "How— how does that even blinkin' work, wot? I know all about role flexibility, but…" There was a son of an infamous warlord renowned for bloodshed and a gruesome end and a giggling tavern maid with fluttering eyelashes played both by one beast. (Hint: one of those things was not like the other.)

"Better than you think it would," Victin said, trying to straighten out the floppy ear on his recovered disguise cap. Now it looked like the hare or rabbit ears had gone through severe head trauma. "Let's just say that Veil doesn't look half bad in a skirt offstage."

Victin made a mental note to skin himself alive before he even hinted to Oscela that he'd made that comment.

"I'll take your word for it," Tarquin said. "There's a fair amount of role sharin' in our troupe too, but—"

Tarquin abruptly stopped, staring at Victin like he was having a cosmic epiphany. Victin still continued to try and straighten out the false hare ear before he gave it up for loss and shoved it back into his bag, but when Tarquin still remained staring and silent, the stoat looked up and waved a paw at the hare's face.

"You still there?"

"I— yes." Tarquin laughed, and he was relieved to hear none of the previous hysteria in it. "I was just thinkin' of how ridiculous this is," Tarquin said, chuckling. "If I tried tellin' my troupe about how I bluffed off a Juska before I ran away screamin', an' then jolly well ran into him in disguise again before we sat down an' had a talk, they'd think I was lyin' about everything."

"Almost everythin'," Victin said, a stealthy grin slipping on his face. "I think they'd believe 'un part of that story." Tarquin gave him a small withering look and crossed his arms.

"You're a blinkin' terrible bein'," he said. Tarquin paused. "…not that you're wrong," he muttered.

Unfortunately, the stoat had a point. The troupe would easily believe in his screaming retreat, but they'd more than likely consider molespeak a graceful form of art before they ever considered Tarquin facing down a Juska, actor or not. (Seeing he blanched at the slightest violence-caused nosebleed and had begun gagging over one of Kenna's antique vase props when Yosef had gotten punched in the face by an angry shrew and sprayed blood all over his muzzle like a busted inkwell, Tarquin had to admit their suspicions were well verified.)

Victin waved a paw in dismissal. "It's not like my own troupe would believe me any different. Hellgates, they'd probably think I had one too many rum shots an' ended up hallucinatin' in a back alley somewhere." There was also the possibility of them believing that the shifty wildcat bartender had slipped him some of that pickled newt vodka, Victin thought, but that was going to remain unmentioned. Stinking suspicious cat.

Tarquin gave a half-shrug with one shoulder, a tilted smile on his face. "So much for tellin' this story later an' gettin' taken seriously— or at least believed. But I suppose it isn't a total loss. This could make one jolly good comedy, wot, presumin' the audience could swallow their disbelief."

The hare blinked when he saw Victin pause momentarily before digging through his bag again. When he found what he wanted, he untangled it from the rest of the costume mess, briefly wiping it on his paw. Tarquin heard another murmured swear about a ferret.

"Alright, hare, my costume manager Oscela is goin' ta kill me for this, but as far as I'm concerned, she bloody didn't go through this mess," Victin said. He reached out an open paw as Tarquin craned his head up in curiosity. The hare's eyes widened at the sight of the bone hoop earring resting in Victin's palm, and the stoat stifled the urge to roll his eyes. Trust woodlanders to not even have bird-bone props.

"Is it—" Tarquin said, voice and reaching paw hesitant like the earring was going to bite his fingers off. Victin popped open the metal clip at the back and demonstratively clicked it onto the base of his ear.

"It's only a snap-on; no drillin' holes necessary," he said, tilting his head so the hare could see the flat clamp. "An' no, it's just bird bone, same as the fang extensions. I didn't slit somebeast's throat in their sleep ta get prop material, if that's what you were thinkin'."

The younger actor gave him a curious look Victin could practically see the genuineness leaking out of. "I didn't think you did."

Victin unclipped the earring. "Good for you, because it's yours. Might as well have something to remember this disaster by an' shove it in your troupe's face." Victin reached out the earring again. This time, eyes still a bit wide, Tarquin took it from him. The stoat thought he saw the hare swallow slightly as he rolled it over in his paw, feeling all the smooth bone joints polished and strung together.

"Thank you," Tarquin said. He rolled the earring in his paw one more time, tentative to put it up in his bag, but the hare finally turned to tuck it away. Victin was caught off guard when the woodlander suddenly straightened up after he'd put it up, long ears and all, an idea sparking through his face.

"I'm such a bally idiot," Tarquin said, turning to dig through his bag. He almost flung out the piece of sodden blueberry tart (which was unfortunately ruined; the inner hare in Tarquin wept) but Tarquin decided that tossing out a piece of wet pastry in the face of somebeast who'd given him a gift wouldn't be the optimal idea. "Now, where is that blinkin' coat—"

Victin watched as Tarquin dug out a still-wet coat from his bag, shaking it out to unfold it. There was a clattering as all the metals on it shook and the built-in shoulder pads bounced up and down like awkward wings. The hare looked significantly smaller and slimmer without the padding and monocle to give him width— hardly like a general.

But he had the medals of one, Tarquin thought, even though they were only imitations. The hare stretched the coat out in front of him and looked through the medals pinned on it. He should've listened to Kenna better. All the stripes, ribbons, and round pins looked near identical to him, and the last thing he wanted to do was give the stoat a medal for taking out a platoon of vermin or cleaning up the mess hall (or one for dying in line of duty.) After browsing through the pins, Tarquin finally picked off a cross-shaped medal with a purple ribbon hanging underneath. He handed it to a puzzled Victin.

"It's not the real thing," Tarquin said, watching Victin stroke a claw over the ribbon as he looked at it, "but it's close enough." Tarquin sheepishly reached a paw up and rubbed the back of his head. "I, um, never did well with identifyin' medals— or gettin' them, for that matter— but I think I can at least remember that one. Purple cross; awarded for showin' great bravery in the face of the enemy. Not sure if it's too fittin' for here, but… well. Kenna won't notice me missin' a medal or two anyway, wot. Generals have far too blinkin' many."

Victin rolled the medal over to see its silver sides and the short pin underneath. The silky ribbon ran through his fingers. Prop or not, it was well made. Tarquin was trying to inconspicuously stuff his general coat away as Victin flipped the medal again and closed his paw around it.

"Thank you… Tarquin."

For Victin, a woodlander's name was a weird sound to hear coming out of his mouth, but it wasn't necessarily bad, for a hare name. Better than Basil P. Fastfoot IX.

Tarquin looked briefly startled before he glanced down at something in his paw and closed up his bag.

"You're welcome… Victin."

Tarquin felt odd to be saying a vermin's name, but not in an unpleasant way. It was a nice name for a stoat. Better than Bloodclaw McFangface.

Despite all the ridiculous, painful, and confusing events that had occurred throughout the day, it was the first time the stoat or hare had said each other's names.

Tarquin glanced down at his paw. He'd fished the Juska earring out while he was putting his coat away. It didn't seem right to leave it in the dark. Sensing the time that was gone due to their detour, Victin Stubfang began to rise to his feet, closing up his satchel and slinging it over his shoulder. He bent his head and pinned the medal to his satchel strap as Tarquin stood, taking his bag with him. The hare neatly clipped the hoop earring to the base of one of his long ears.

Victin was surprised he was putting the earring on, since what he knew of the military Long Patrol showed that they didn't approve of wearing them— especially not on one ear like a skid-row vermin delinquent— but he'd never worn a medal of honor either, Victin thought, looking down at it. Or bluffed off a hare in Juska costume before being dragged down in a hill in hare costume before crashing into a river and being socked in the face. Maybe there was a first time for everything.

"It's been nice meetin' you," Tarquin said, reaching out a paw. "Well, the parts not involvin' mass confusion an' rollin' down a hill, anyway, wot, but that's not important. I am sorry for punchin' you, you know."

"Apology accepted," Victin said, shaking his paw. "An' despite your entire bloody absurd accent imitation an' whatnot, you're not that bad. For a younger actor. You know," Victin said casually, "if you dropped by our troupe sometime, you might actually learn how ta speak vermin properly. The Travelin' Fang Thespians always follow the river trails."

"I'll keep that in mind," Tarquin said releasing his paw as the beasts stepped aside from each other, hare giving him a brief actor's salute. "Dark Forest Gates, the earring's solid proof, but you're probably goin' to have to pay a visit to really convince my troupe this happened, wot. You know how flighty an' undignified some of the other actors get," Tarquin said, keeping a straight face as he apologized. Victin was just as stoic, neither of them dropping their poker faces. "Especially the costume designers… We're the Wanderin' Woodlander Players, if you ever hear the name an' decide to drop by. Just in case, wot."

"I'll make sure ta remember that," Victin said. "…just in case."

The two actors separated, both heading down different trails in sunny Mossflower with (most) of their directional senses cleared up, and Tarquin Fleetfoot and Victin Stubfang managed one last distant wave to each other before the hanging brambles and spread branches swallowed up hare and stoat alike. Most of the birds had resumed their singing again, fluttering from tree to tree— except for a few sour robins, who were still cursing— and inside the woods, there was no Juska warrior nor Long Patrol general lurking in hiding or walking along.

Just a perfectly average and disheveled-looking hare with a bone hoop earring hanging from one ear and an equally average and disheveled-looking stoat with a medal of bravery pinned to his chest.