Word Count → 365
For Sunny and the wonderful Skye. Set in Luminescent Lagoon, at dusk.
With a small grunt and a hop, Micah latched onto a thin but lengthy limb still attached to a tree bordering the lagoon, and with little effort snapped it free of the trunk. Setting his satchel aside, the salt-and-pepper coyote reached and pulled his wild mess of tangles and curls into a tighter ponytail, though still the white-streaked locks dare break free and drift before his eyes. In a matter of minutes, they hung with the heaviness of sweat, whipping back and forth in the air as he swung the stick this way and that in a feeble attempt at dancing the way of the swordsman.
Micah, of course, was no swordsman in the least. He lacked any and all training — and if given a knife was more likely to drop it due to shaking hands and have it sink into his own foot than into any sort of opponent — but the boy so dearly wished himself to be capable and strong that perhaps it was only that self-motivation that made him try. He was no killer, that he knew, but the Immaginazione also knew he would one day have to be one. The day he found his father would be the day his father found his end.
That was, of course, if Micah could get that far, and so he swung a stick around like a child and pretended to be something he was not. Heaven forbid the idiot carry around an actual weapon; for all he knew, he'd end up rolling on top of it in his sleep and carving his initials in his own heart entirely by mistake. The glowing lagoon cast blue along his side as he danced about its shoreline in a clumsy and noisy display, and over the trees lay paintings of brilliant violets thanks to the setting sun outside the trees.
Storm Lily said nothing and wore nothing on her face; at times she swatted curious fireflies away, but as always her ghostly paws only sifted through their bodies. Could they see her? No, of course not. Maybe that's how we're alike, the coyote thought as he paused a moment to catch his breath. Only I'm still alive.
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