searching for a pulse

He had flinched as the mud spattered on his fur, mostly out of astonishment that Kai hadn’t stuck up his nose indignantly and walked away. He smiled at the man impishly and rose back onto his hind paws before coming down with a splash in the short distance between them, covering them both with the faintly glowing mud.

He posed in a playful bow as he landed, his tail waving behind him in an arch before he burst to his full height and tore across the mangrove. He may have been a fully grown adult, but even in his childhood he had hardly played with anyone. Nearly all his siblings, save Corentine had gone missing, and everyone else in Abaven was far too preoccupied with their own melodrama and their own prejudice of his family’s role in Bass’s disappearance.

He and Aranea had chased each other through the plains once, when they were both gangly juveniles; all disproportionately long legs and bodies that just weren’t quite large enough to be fully grown. The memory had stung, but he was determined to replace it with a new memory; one that would remain happy with the anonymity of being shared with a loner.

Speaking  Thinking You