A stop before entrance, AW

Malik Maayan Maji · 06-08-2012, 10:00 AM

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water is the driving force of all nature.

I've been wantin to test my character out too. x3

429 words

Summer had come to the northwest continent, and Malik was grateful that warmth lingered even after the sun had begun to set. His skin still remembered desert nights, how far down the temperature could drop given the season, even as nocturnal foxes with their plush tan coats made use of the cool to hunt hopping rodents. He had learned to exist in these tween times—dawn and twilight, enough light to see by, a balance of warm and cold—and make do with what meager coverings he had.

The grass under his paws was dry and brittle, poking his callused pads as he moved slowly through the hills. Night drew out different beasts here, and he’d learned that not all of them were as friendly as desert foxes. The tan dog frowned, pausing and listening to the crackle of grass behind him as his young charge followed.

“I’m hungry,” the blue-eyed hyena cub complained, snorting at a shrub as they passed it. Disappointed to find no interesting scents, Hapi marched on again.

Malik glanced over his shoulder then stopped. “If you must, child,” he replied patiently, “you may drink again. I want to find shelter before all we are left with is stars.” Dark eyes lifted to the heavens above, the constellations he could not recognize. “I’ll hunt or steal a meal then.”

The little hyena scowled but began to walk again, shaking his head as the man grabbed for the canteen of water. “I don’t want to eat someone else’s carcass,” he was muttering as he stomped over the green-brown grass. “I want to bite a rabbit and shake it till it’s dead, and then I’ll eat all its bones.”

The dog grinned wickedly. “You’d be the first hyena I knew who turned his nose up at free food,” he teased quietly, and managed to get a hoot form his companion before they paused, finding a figure at the crest of a hill. The lone wolf would not be a threat to them if they continued to pass idly by, but Malik knew that a charitable stranger to share their burden with would get them through the night more soundly than them on their own. It might also spare some food for them, depending on its mood.

Telling the child to be silent, the skinny luperci strode up the hill, the clicking of the gold hoops in his dangling ear muffled by the cloth wrapped loosely around his head. He paused a safe distance from the dark luperci and called, no louder than he needed to: “Hail, stranger.”

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