Windy. The thick gales wreathing off the surface of the ocean are particularly arduous today, thrashing the rocking niche leading to the mountain with whips of cold, sea breeze air. Stomaching the force, rigid as a board and at parade rest with a long lance in paw, Niveus remains withdrawn-- aloof even to the zephyrs. His eyes are fixed forward, however the hare is mentally askew, merely feigning vigilance as he is wracked with distracting thought. Mangy, damp, and horridly cold . . he's been here a while.

Over the wind, it's impossible to hear Darklett step outside the mountain. A cloak wrapped around him to cover him from the whipping gales, the hare lets his footpaws sink into the first bits of sand just outside Salamandastron, staring out to the sea. His head looks down to the sand briefly, then looks up again, his shoulders rising and chest sticking out, then sinking and deflating, respectively. Indecision has struck Darklett Fletchpaw again.

Niveus's sporting differences are all but apparent in the ever-slightly warming month of April, the hare's northern tendencies to claim a pelt of unusual pigment making him a vividly blatant image. Stone faced, indifferent, the soldier goes without recognition to the rear approach from the once revered--now flummoxed--officer.

Darklett sighs one more time, and he takes a few steps outward, closer to Niveus, and appearing next to him. "...I..." He looks to the face of his friend, and cringes away, shaking his head. "I think... I should leave." He looks again towards the fighter, almost immediately apologetic.

Inwardly, Niveus tenses with immediate recognition to the voice. Even before sparing a quick stray of an eye to take visual reassurance, the buck knew it all too well. His major, he surmised. /The/ major. With but a jagged swallow, an idle sniff, the soldier returns to staring into the misted expanse before him. For several moments; nothing, he gives nothing until finally breaking it with a soft: "Wot'da want me t'say?"

Darklett seems to wilt even more at the response he gets, and he just sighs. "...Nothin'." At that, he takes a few steps further away from the mountain, wrapping the cloak around himself a little more tightly. "M'sorry," he says, maybe audible, but maybe not over the wind. Soon enough, though, he stops, and slumps yet again, shoulders shaking as he does so.

Niveus is shaken, fighting to hold onto himself together with every mantle and fibre of energy he can muster. The facade of rigidness prevails for another lengthy period of time as Darklett advances away from the mountain--seconds, perhaps a minute in this instance. "Sah," he offers, a soft, intermittent sound at best. "I-- why? Wot .. er, now?"

Darklett slowly turns around to face Niveus, but still doesn't look at him. "I don't know... I don't know!" The buck yells at the ground, fists clenching as he turns back to the direction of Halyard, and starting to walk again, before shaking his head. "At least... At least -before- I saw things, I could blame... I could blame things on the things I saw, now... Now it's just... I don't know, I don't..." He falls to his knees, and brings both paws to his head, shaking it back and forth.

The young hare was hardly at the pinnacle of preservation, harboring emotions of mixed and various qualities-- rage, confusion, betrayal, disbelief, and even apathetic at times. Niveus abandons his post and long lance, pattering a step forward as the outcasted beast slumps, but fails to carry through any further than a foot or two. He pauses, casting a scolded look earthward with a stern shake of his head. Words fail as he's unable to compromise his own grasp on the situation.

No more words come from Darklett, just a prostrate form sobbing towards the sand. Paws lower to just dangle to the ground at either side, and his entire body seems to just stop supporting itself for a moment, the only movement from the hare stripped of his duty the occasional tremble in his shoulders.

Niveus promptly stifles any sounds with the balled presence of a fist, sucking in air through his nostrils. "Get up, sah." The soldier manages, shaking the loathe, the remorse, with a redoubled effort. "G-get up!" He /commands/, driven by a building sense of grief-filled rage. "Don't bloomin' do this. Bloody 'eck. . blast it all, sah. . please."

Darklett looks up, ears perked... for some reason, maybe Darklett doesn't even know, he gets up, and turns to face Niveus one more time. His gaze is questioning, a mouth open to speak, but staying open wordlessly, head slowly dropping down and to the side in shame.

Niveus averts his eyes, fixing their sapphire hues to the side as he passes a fluttering shake of his head. It was an erratic gesture, personifying his uncertainty. As quickly as he gives it, it is broken, attention turning forward to the downtrodden hare. "Everythin' was okay, we were finally gettin' back on track after wounds. I didn't want t'hear it. I didn't want to know-- I tried bloomin' hard to ignore the rumors, the bloody tales, sah. Right hard. . but now."

"...I don't know what to say, Niv." Darklett shakes his head as well, taking a step backward from the fighter. "I tried to hide things, and they finally caught up with me. I'm who I am, Niv... Sorry for lettin' you down." The major has to cut his words short, turning his head downwards again, half-turning away. "I don't know what else I can do."

"An' I do?" Niveus pops back, words spliced by a choked sniff. The soldier abates a step to the rear, paw finding its way back into place to stifle emotion at the blunt of his muzzle. "I can't just say it's okay, sah.. it's bloody well not. No, sah, blinkin' in the rough. ." The hare stops, pausing to take another jerky swallow of his own saliva. "I can't forgive, or forget. . just flippin' accept wot's wot. Blast it sah. . pain is temporary, but honour is flippin' /eternal/."

Darklett sighs, shaking his head. "You're right, Niv. I... uh, I was wrong to expect to have anybeast left after this. I... I really should leave." Nonetheless, he doesn't go anywhere, just raising his paw to brush at his own face. "I've got nowhere that wants me, though. Niv, I'm completely finished. I'm nobeast anymore. I'm what I was before I joined the patrol. I've got... I've got -nothin'.-"

Niveus slips into a rough seat atop the flattened slate of a rock, resting against it with his footpaws digging into the sand. "Maybe," the buck admits, head sinking into the cradle of palms. "You're damned, sah. Flippin' damned. . but that don't mean no'un wants you. That's what bloomin' hurts, sah. I looked up t'you! I wanted t'be /you/!" He sulks, sitting up to allows his arms the liberty of slumping to their sides.

Each of Niveus's words seem to dig into Darklett like a dull blade, tearing away little by little at what confidence and self-worth he has left. "...Sorry," he repeats, quieter than before, his expression being tainted by a few tinges of shock and even more disappointment. "I deserve everything, he utters, taking a half-step backward. For some reason, he's still reluctant to turn and leave.

"I wish I could help you," Niveus starts, frazzled and frayed unlike any other--spare the grim events after the long past capture of Wimble. "I really wish I could save you-- take y'out o' this darkness. Save y'bloomin' honour, or wotever makes a beast." He presents a solemn shake of his head. Shifting, the soldier takes a stand once more, finding himself unable to devote a look to the other hare. "But I'm just me, an' I don't know wot t'do anymore." A disheartened shrug. "Serve the cause t'day, tomorrow y'may be dead. Same fer all o' us. . I just wish y'don't go out like this."

Darklett runs a paw through his headfur, his ears folding back as he does so. "...Hell, Niveus. I wish I wouldn't go out like this, either. It's my fault, though. I should have told somebeast before things got to this point. I shouldn't have gone on without letting -somebeast- know. But now that everybeast does, I... I don't even know how to feel! I want to feel like I've got this off my chest, but now I can't even tell you where my home is, I can't tell you who my friends are..." He almost breaks down again, stepping back towards the mountain with disgust on his face... Stopping next to the other hare. "Do you trust me, Niveus?" Darklett looks pointedly at the hare. "After everything, you said... You said you wanted to be like me... Now. Now, do you trust me? Knowing what I've done, knowing who I am, do you trust me?" He stares at Niveus, waiting, attentive as he'll ever be, for the response.

Shying from the look at first, Niveus makes it a point to find more interest in the rocks aside--the sand--anything other than the former officer's face. "It's not somethin' to just forgive," offers a low baritone of a voice. That silence, that agonizing, foreboding silence returns, holding true for an elongated moment. "Trust you?" the soldier begins, giving Darklett that wanted contact, eye to eye. "I-- well. I've bled with you, sah. Nearly died a few times too. You helped me get back the most precious thing in m'life. . it's complicated. I guess, yeah. I guess I trust you."

Darklett nods, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes as he hears Niveus's words, walking slowly, step by step forward, a paw going to the other hare's shoulder... and squeezing that shoulder once the fighter is finished. "Good... Good. The only thing I need is trust, Niv... You have to believe in me. You have to trust me... I'm not like that anymore." At that, the hare lets go, and embraces the fighter, a brief lock of arms around his back before he steps away. "Thank you... I'm sorry I let you down, and I know I let others down... I won't be able to deny anymore that I'm nothing but a murderer. But I can at least... try to make things right." Darklett... still looks downtrodden, though. He backs away from the hare, and gives him a salute. "I... might be back to the mountain," is all he says, before he turns and begins to walk away.

Niveus remains without any real reaction in the midst, merely accepting the words, adhering, and taking the embrace without skipping a beat. Trust, he considered, mulling the comment with an almost apathetic fugue residing as supreme. Apology and all, the buck just seems to have /lost/ something throughout the whole ordeal, presenting a sickeningly blank image on what is usually wreathed in a smile. "You do that, sah. . you do that. Repentin' might not very well be possible. . yeah, maybe not, probably not. But it's better t' die for somethin' good, than t' live in shame-- fer yourself." A salute is snapped right back before a sigh is huffed, and his disapproval to the situation is once again given light through a shake of his head. "Hopefully."