where the road parts

[Hezekiah Finch]

GLEE.
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Save but one time, Hezekiah had not left the cover of Inferni in over a month. He had taken Anselm’s words to heart about staying out of the way of the other packs and devoted his time to exploring Inferni for what it was worth. Which all things considered, their board, crude-but-circular territory was very diverse from the rolling high hills of the north to the rocky, gritty, and sandy beaches of the west and the forests and ravines of the south — where he was for the time being. Even though he did not contribute much to the maintenance of the borders, Hezekiah did at times stop to adjust what skulls he could reach at the end of the pikes when they seemed to just dare to fall from their perch. If one pike leaned too far in any direction, he put it back in the ground as best as he could, straight as an arrow.

But for most of it, he stuck to what he knew: he stayed out of the way.

Even though he had only been there about a month, Hezekiah resembled less of the disoriented boy and more of a young man. Long gone where the bandages that had been fixed around his ribs and the traces of his cherub-esque youth were fading quickly for the sharpness of his pure-blooded coyote heritage. He was a seeming anomaly in Inferni, one of the few true coyotes it laid claim to, and he knew it. So to spy another coyote who stood out against the autumnal foliage—eyes focused on the same pikes that had set off instinctual fear in Hezekiah weeks before—was something surprising. Things had been rather quiet in Inferni.

So he left his cover from the pike-lined border, approaching his similar-specied brethren with a mixture of both caution and curiosity. The inclusion of clothing was nothing new to Hezekiah, who was not unfamiliar with it, but it had been a missing sight from Inferni. Compared to the woodsy coyotl, his sandy counterpart was much more of a traveller, more broad-shouldered than slight. They were opposites and yet, very much the same. And by now, it was too late for him to have second thoughts of fear of being rebuked. “At least you understand what they mean,” Hezekiah said, gesturing back at the row of pikes.

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