The Nosy Explorer

His mother had kept him and his siblings under the tractor during their first few weeks, but the shade of the range was much too restricting and the bright sun often disturbed the child's much-needed sleep before he was ready to wake up. Without a proper den, it didn't take long for the little shadow to find his own way to somewhere dark and cozy.

The barn smelled awful, it wasn't a secret but after his first few nights taking up residence in it, the small titan had become used to the scent and embraced it as one that could mask his own.

He was usually alone for the most part these days, except for when his siblings came to explore the place or harass him if they wanted to. When the barn door creaked loudly and woke him up out of a dead slumber, he fully expected to open his eyes and find one of them there at the door.

His eyes fixated on the quite obviously unknown male for some time before he ever made a sound, remaining quiet and observant from the coverage of the darkness. He had curled up on the first floor, in the close quarters of what had been once a horse's stall. Something about the closer four walls around him made him feel safe. The door had long been fallen off of its hinges, the wooden planks that once made it up half crumbled and broken away from one another. He looked through the decaying bottom half, where a massive hole the size of him had been left.

He had never met anyone other than his uncle, mother and his three siblings before. He never knew fear, only a longing for the comfort of his mother that she so quite adamantly denied him, the resentment of his sister towards their play, and then the playfulness of his own brother. He was curious how this brute would treat him. Would he have food, like his uncle often did?

A small yawn escaped the little shadow's youthful muzzle, his purple and black tongue curling as he sucked in the air and stretched out his front two limbs. His paws would start to go through the motions of a walk before he was even ready, inching forward like a kneading cat until they had no more room to do so. He lifted his round belly finally and shook the sleepiness from his head, and the hay from his growing pelt.

He rushed out of the wooden door in excitement, brushing against the decaying door and making a few more inches of wood crumble away from where he hit it. He headed straight for Branch with a grin on his face, showing off his pearly whites to contrast his wholly black being.

"Who are you?" A boy's voice asked curiously, not stopping to give the man any personal space. He barreled straight for him, his nose lowering in an attempt to smell his paws. Where did he come from? His nose lifted, clumsily bumping all over the man's legs as he tried to smell for any evidence of fresh food.