a teenager's conviction

The texture of the ground beneath his paws was the main focus at the moment, slick with runoff from the snow melting along the far banks. It was impossibly smooth, like a single flat expanse of stone that had been laboriously polished by careful artisans. He hadn't encountered anything like it before, and by the sounds of things, it was giving his companion just as much trouble as it was the Saxe boy. Sharp hooves weren't meant to cross this smooth, damp rock face. At least his pads weren't so callused that they slipped and slid on the rock. So he simply slowed his gait, lifted his paws a little less with each stride, and found himself making decent headway across the strange not-river.

Coming north in the transition between spring and summer had meant that the sun beating against his dark spine was a welcome comfort amidst the chilly breezes that lightly played over his thin-furred flanks. Butcher the shrike was keeping an eye on the boy's progress from the air, idly exploring in his own way. There wasn't much danger out here, or the little bird would be screaming its stupid little head off like that time he'd nearly bowled over a grizzly cub. Instead, the faint whistling of the wind across the shear faces of exposed stone all around created a strange symphony that he was desperate to recreate. Pausing in the middle of the wash, a bird-like tilt of his head lifted his oversized ears into just the right position to catch some more minute details of the natural song.

In the distance, there must have been some kind of cliff face or mountain. The sounds of the wind whipping around its massive form created a kind of "stacked" series of different tones in the whistling sounds, while the minute gusts across the wash itself were much louder and more consistent in their tune. Drawing in a breath, the boy pursed his lips and let out a single soft note. No, too deep. Tipping his chin up and slightly to the right, he tightened the muscles of his face and tried that note again. The pitch was a bit better this time! The slender musculature of his long neck tightened a little and he tried the whistling note again, louder this time. Oh! Fuck yes. That was it! He needed to really put his whole chest into it, the volume was just as important as the exact note to mimic the sound of the wind whistling across the wash. A harsh jerk of his skull tucked his chin towards his chest, and the sightless mismatched gaze pointed towards the ground. He let out another shrill whistle, this time sounding more like the distant warbling that came across one of the outcroppings on the cliffside.

Thin, wispy banner sweeping across his hocks with excitement, he let out a few more sharp bursts of trilling song as he tried to perfectly recreate the soundscape he'd found himself in this afternoon. Whether or not a stranger would recognize exactly what he was doing, well, that was another matter. One he didn't really give a shit about.

""