DUST BOWL DANCE | p, for now

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: arial; font-size: 9.5pt; line-height: 1.4;letter-spacing:.1px"]Well it was kinda hard to give a name when everyone was telling him to leave and throwing fireballs, yeah? Or maybe that was just some weird custom he could blame on The Typhoon. Maybe everyone had to go through some test and he'd just failed it. But if that's the sort of game they want to play, he wasn't a willing participant. He's sick of people toying with each other, he's sick of people finding enjoyment in fucking with one another. That's not the only reason he would have been such an awful dictator here — his morals weren't that bad. The worst he's done is steal a drink for Butch every now and then. His teeth are already gritting by the time that Feliks snorts at him and stands. The griffon may have wanted to talk, but he's standing here looking for a way to get out of this conversation. A conversation with him is the last thing he wants on his plate.

Nobody was his enemy solely because of their alliances, maybe that's where he'd tripped up, but boy oh boy this guy's starting to make the list. The young canine takes a step back as the gryphon lands, body lowering slightly towards the ground to better balance his weight. His position is more wary than aggressive, though his eyes are still narrowed right up until the moment that they roll flippantly at everything he says. Cur. Other slavers. That one has him growling, the noise low. But it stops suddenly when he registers the rest of it. Val's expression changes in a blink, truly fearful for the first time that he had been confronted with the strange creature. Anger quickly bubbles up again, but can't fully chase away the way that his heart starts to race.

"So much for you having the moral high ground," he snaps with venom in every word, teeth bared. "All your talk about me, and you're willing to risk a slave's life because your ego got bruised." Typically, he's got no issue throwing the first punch in a fight. As everyone who spit out all kinds of insults when he was a kid and expected him to take it. But this time, all he wants is for these words to sink in and sting a bit more, throw salt on a wound. He doesn't back down when Feliks starts advancing, which was probably stupid, but — he's not afraid. "Get bent, asshole," he spits.