otherworldly & threatening

After their encounter in the middle of the night, Fuji had been running extra patrols, they all had, really. Sweeping out beyond the confines of the bamboo was becoming more commonplace. She wasn't about to let her siblings get snatched up like that again. She snorted her frustration through clenched teeth and the cat that was her eternal (if towering) shadow rumbled at her side. He could probably sling her over his back in a pinch.

She remembered a time when things were easier. When she had snuck out here with Rheum and dragged strange plants back to her mother's garden. Now Rheum was gone. So were Wari and Beru. Her younger siblings felt like strangers. Even her mother was growing distant. She felt adrift, her stomach twisting in knots, torn between heading back to the home she had always know and staying out here for the night.

A noise ahead caught her ear, paws dragging across the sand and she bristled. "Who's there?” Her bark came out more demanding than she had intended, but when you were so small, maybe it was better to have a big voice to scare off strangers in the dark?

“Speech”