"Let me put it like this then. You ever have one of those stories? Like, something you really wanted to get off your chest, and just tell someone about, even if it didn't make it all better? Even if it was just to make yourself fell better, to know 'Hey, someone else knows now too. I can talk about this to them'. That kind of deal... It's sort of like that, except now imagine you never tell anyone. Instead, you just quietly stew on it for half a decade, a silent secret just slowly corroding you from the inside out. Like a cancer, almost..." The European Fox stops to take a sip from his drink, a hearty pint of Guinness, still foaming just along the rim of his glass. You can tell it's probably his second drink tonight, judging by the empty glass immediately beside the one gripped in his russet paw.

"It's not healthy for a man to do that to himself. Best any of us could tell, he still won't talk about it, not even to us, and we were there with him when it all happened. I'm not sure if you'll have any better luck with it, but hell, you're welcome to try. Even if he just opens up a little about it, it'll be progress." The speaker nods, subtly gesturing with an 'over the shoulder' glance, and you peer across to the black furred, many tailed fox sitting over at the bar, quietly nursing his own pint, his eyes glued to the old telly set in the corner. The sound of the football match being played is hardly audible over the rest of the commotion in the pub. Arsenal is up by three; It's a good game so far for them, and the patron in question seems quite focused on the screen, off in his own little world.

"Aye, Isiat's a good guy, you... Just have to give him some time to come around to new folk, that's all. The world's changed for him. You teach a man to soldier for shy on twenty years and then just expect him to waltz on back to civilian life like he knows what he's doing, yeah, it's makes for some personality quirks. You make him a parent on top of that, and then he really has a reason to put on a brave face. Shit, we'd get shot at all day long by Terry if it meant you didn't put us on the spot in a social situation now. He won't hang around crowds long, always sits in a corner near an exit, won't remove those damned sunglasses of his for the world if you paid him or he trusts you. But I remember how he was. You know? Back before it all went to shit." The blue dragon sitting at the table with you and the others chimes in, taking a measure of his drink before raising it to his lips a moment before reconsidering and setting it back down with a heavy sigh.