Guys, I have brilliant and exciting news!

I am turning this entire would-have-been polished-and-professional space into a giant playground. Complete with a ball pit and tire swing.

There’s a story here, of course. (There’s always a story. Stories are What I Do.)

See, once upon a time, I decided to forsake my nebulous ideal of perfection in lieu of being the best me I possibly could. I decided to embrace my quirks, weaknesses, and strengths – instead of denying or overriding them, to work with them and to make them work for me. I was really tired of trying to be something I wasn’t.

And this is the homecoming of that decision. I realized that my idea of a “good author” – or at least the public face of a good author – did not mesh with who and what I was, what I liked, what I wanted to and could do. So I’m tossing my not-me ideals out the window and refocusing on just being me.

I’m a writer. I don’t have to be not-me to be an author. That doesn’t make any sense.

I’m getting rid of all the stiff-and-forced professionalism. (Okay, not that there was that much of it anyways, but still.) I’m getting rid of a “posting schedule” and letting myself shrug off the pressure of deadlines. I’m getting rid of the feeling that this place is far too special to sully with my randomness and my less-than-bestness.

And now this is my playground. I get to do whatever I want here. I get to geek out and get excited about worldbuilding. I get to discover Important Life Things and share them. I get to inundate you all with my favorite fiction snips. I get to tell silly stories about my life, like the time my mom asked me if I was going to have a “wicker wedding” and my sister suggested I burn baskets at the four corners.

Ultimately, I get to be me. And that’s a lot of fun.

If any publishing agents or otherwise official people read this post, I may be doomed. But landing a publishing deal is not my goal. Telling stories is my goal. Living stories is my goal.

And I can do that just fine.

Image Credit: Crestock Creative Photos.

Between the worlds, there is blackness. Void. Nothingness. There are winds, currents – the tache used them to sail to us – but we cannot breathe them. There is no weight, no up or down. If the winds move you like they move the great ships, you don’t know it; you have no way to tell if you’re moving.

I learned to teleport in tiny steps. Inlanlu almost never have that ability, and no other tahori were friendly enough to help me learn, so I taught myself. I discovered my talent as a child, startled by my brother’s surprise pounce; I vanished and reappeared two feet over, wide-eyed and stiff-tailed. I explored it, learning to move one foot, five feet, fifteen feet. I learned how to pop back in a few inches above the ground and avoid getting my feet stuck in the dirt; I learned how to drop onto a sturdy tree branch twenty feet up, and only once did I miss it and fall all the way down. I learned how to move by inches only, enough to dodge a strike with hand or paw or stick.

In time, I learned how to go to places I couldn’t see from where I was. That was harder – I had to remember how everything looked and hold that in my head – so, instead, I started trying small distances again with my eyes closed. Once I got the hang of visual memory, I could do longer jumps easily. By then, I had met Tari, a fast-talking young man with a brilliant smile. He, too, could teleport, and if my packmates were uncertain to have me spending so much time with a non-inlanlu, they didn’t stop me from meeting with him. Together, we explored our abilities.

I was two years from adulthood when I first tried putting myself into the sky. It worked– I started falling, the ground an uneven patchwork of greens and browns below me. I didn’t have time to think: instinctively, reflexively, I teleported back to the safest place I could think off, three inches above the ground where I slept. It was still a hard landing, my momentum half-preserved. I was shaking.

Tari’s father took him to Nami Ka, enough times that he learned how to go on his own. That was exhausting, he told me, making a jump that far – but he got better, and without his father’s knowing, he took me. I met namiccians, heard their language, smelled their air, drank their water. I tried to remember what it looked like; after I went with him three times, I tried to go by myself.

I didn’t make it.

The distance was too great, and inlanlu don’t have the sheer amount of qki flowing through our bodies that Tari’s people do. I hadn’t known that I needed to develop such a flow, let alone how to do so. I hadn’t known how much was needed.

So I found myself in the void between worlds, bitterly cold, weightless, and unable to breathe. My lungs seized up, and my heart fluttered like a bird inside my ribs. I couldn’t feel my skin within moments, but my bones hurt from the deep chill. As before, I didn’t have time to think: my reflexes tried to take me back to my safe place, where I slept, where I could breathe.

But I was exhausted. Going halfway and then back again was like going all the way, and I couldn’t do it. Panic rose in me as my eyes felt like ice; I couldn’t close them, even to blink. My mouth felt fused shut. I couldn’t feel my hands, my feet, my tail, my face– and, swiftly thereafter, my arms and legs.

At some point, only a few eternal seconds past the realization that I couldn’t teleport home, I realized what I was seeing. Our sun was a tiny ball of fire, making a triangle’s third point with my home and Nami Ka; I was on the invisible line that linked Nami Ka and my world. The worlds were discs, huge in comparison to the sun, facing its warmth; behind them, I could see the cloudy underside of a third world, Ayunra Ka. The sun must swing a circle around all three, once every day. That’s why our nights are longer than our days.

My back was to the sun, and I kept my eyes away from it but for the brief glance over my shoulder; but, even so quickly, the frigid chill lessened, and I could blink again.

I’m in the middle of the universe, I thought to myself, calming. I was surrounded by all we knew, ka, the sum of everything. It was not a bad place to die, even young, even alone.

But the word die scared me again, and reflexes kicked in, trying to take me home, to a safe place–

I woke up a week later, cradled by my brother in his black-furred sanero skin. My pack had gotten so scared when they found me comatose in my sleeping spot that they actually allowed Tari’s family to come onto our territory to look at me. Tari’s father told them that I had used up more qki than my body had in it, an impossible thing, a fatal thing. Having no qki means your body shuts off: heart stops, lungs stop, head stops. You die when you do what I did.

No one was sure how I survived. But, as the years wore on and I learned more, trained more, and did more, I could do it again and again – I could use more qki than my body had and still not die.

Five years after I saw the center of ka, I was the most powerful warrior in my pack.

So I revived it, both on Twitter with @15minfic and on my website with a forum, where you can login with a variety of pre-existing IDs, including Twitter, Google, and Facebook.

I’ll be posting a prompt just about every day, and folks are strongly encouraged to post their ficlets in response to the thread, for ease of sharing and enjoying. Feel free to wander on over and contribute, or just hang out! (There is a coffeeshop on the forum. )

A soft-metal noise echoed through the quiet–pause–rang out softly again. There.

The shadow-robed figure’s keen hearing didn’t pick up on the nearly inaudible touch of unshod pawpads on the thickrubber-lined walkway between individual docks until a tall, muscular form could barely be discerned against the greyish bulk of background shapes. By then, the midnight walker was nearly upon the hidden one, and the chance was nearly lost. But not quite.

The walking creature sprang backwards in lightning-quick reflex as a piece of the night’s darkness detached from its shadowy brethren and lunged at her. Thick, guttural laughter rolled out, rough against sensitive ears, and the walker landed in a defensive crouch, a silent snarl baring long, pearly fangs.

A small light–far dimmer than even a candle’s fickle flame–burst into existence with a sharp click, casting relatively stark shadows against the docks and temporarily blinding night-accustomed eyes.

A shot rang out, and more laughter came with it.

The assassin grinned mirthlessly at seeing the beautiful white body of a feline, so delicately striped in thin charcoal streaks, sprawled bonelessly on the walkway. In a second, he imagined, a pool of fresh, crimson blood would stain that lovely pelt and begin seeping towards his booted paws. “Not much of a warrior, after all,” he hissed under his breath, eyes devouring every inch of his kill hungrily. “Just a rogue who managed to fool everyone into thinking she was some sun-blessed–”

One full-body convulsion threw the feline into the air–she twisted–landed on all fours–shot forward like a bullet from a high-powered sniper rifle, like the bullet with which he had shot her–

Only there was no blood on that perfect fur, no gaping hole in her flesh–

“Gllgrrgh!” the assassin choked, finding his prized weapon knocked from shock-loosened fingers and one strong hand gripping his throat with the strength of a steel vice. A feline face stared into his, the faint, musical ringing of silvery earrings the only sound in a suddenly-silent night. The hand-held light rolled with precise slowness down the slight slope… the same way her blood should have trickled in a lush scarlet river…

The cat said nothing, clawtips pricking her enemy’s skin just hard enough to draw four tiny beads of blood, as golden eyes stared into stormcloud-grey ones with the ferocity of every feral beast to ever prowl a primeval jungle–

“Wrong.”

The assassin wanted desperately to swallow, but found that he couldn’t.

We start each martial arts class by saying shikin haramitsu daikomyo. My favorite translation of that is in every encounter lies the opportunity for enlightenment. There is a potential revelation in every moment, in every interaction, in every breath you take.

This March, I had the pleasure of attending the 2010 IBDA Tai Kai, a forty-person, three-day, intensive training camp for those teaching and studying Bujinkan ninjutsu, hosted by Shihan Van Donk in San Francisco. I hoped for the Tai Kai to hold a little bit of enlightenment for me, but I kept myself reasonable and didn’t let my wistful thinking get too far off the ground. However, as it turns out, it was exactly as inspiring and fueling as I had wanted it to be – far exceeding my realistic expectations.

One of the many lessons I took away from the Tai Kai was the concept of being at zero. Many of our instructors discussed this, but one approach in particular stood out to me.

A gentleman named Jim King asked us what defines a warrior. In my head, I answered control – control of oneself, control of the situation, control of others to prevent escalation and damage. His answer was similar in some ways and very different in others.

His understanding of a warrior is that of balance; only unbalanced people will start a fight (excluding soldiers executing orders). A warrior is an active participant in everything; a warrior chooses to act, to bring the attention and aggression upon himself, and in doing so, he protects those around him. Everything is a deliberate, conscious choice; a warrior takes responsibility for what he does and for what happens as a result.

In order to remain at zero, a warrior does not invest himself into the fight, or the technique, or the outcome; he acts and takes opportunities where they arise, as they arise, and abandons them the moment they cease to be useful. It is intuitive, immediate, flowing; there is no tension, no intention, no emotional attachment. Ultimately, this balance stems from love, compassion, and peace – not hatred, fear, or anger.

One who is balanced is never forced; instead, he only accepts an invitation to become involved as necessary. Being balanced is an inner quality, not an outward characteristic born of great skill or competency. A warrior chooses every single thing he does deliberately and consciously.

It hit home, solidly, intensely. I am still musing over the concept and how to further integrate it into all areas of my life, not just physical training. And it’s important enough to be the first martial arts concept I blog about.

How do you balance yourself and stay at zero?

It’s a high-altitude desert, with plenty of mountains. The Sierra Nevada Range, to be exact.

There are waterfalls hidden in the hills.

In some places, the sun shines golden emerald.

There are rocks to climb. (That’s my J.)

Trees still reach for you, even in the desert.

This is where I live. It’s pretty nice.

Tide sounds wrong.

Sunlight glittering along sleek cerulean scales, rear up, flaring wings for balance. Peer out with albino-pink eyes into the bright–bright hurts–blinkblink and then blink again. Shade eyes with one wing–lose balance and flop onto flank. Titter in annoyance, voice sprightly and bird-like, then simply slither right off the ledge.

Whoosh!–wings open and catch the newborn thermals that rise from the warming sands of the beach below. Whee! More pretty shiny–sun good on skin and wings–warm.

But then, sound of disruption in the waves again. Twist mid-air–change course. Swoop as though trying to dodge the unimpeded sunlight that comes over the ocean’s great, glittering expanse–bright!–dodge–warrrm…–dive towards the beach.

Backwing very quickly, very rapidly, then pool serpentine length onto the heated grains of sand. Rustle of sand against glistening hide–dirty bad–flutterflutter. More sand kicks up because of wing-wind. Sigh. Stop fluttering.

Then, fasten pink eyes onto the hills of white-topped waves come in. Tide still wrong. A greyish-brownish lump–larger by far than the flier–floating lifelessly in. Whassat? Pause. Carcass?

Rear up again–flutterflutter–somehow springboard long body into the air and flap furiously to get high enough to zip forward on a tiny current of air. Bright bad! Zoom over the ocean, into the sun, past the floating thing–then twist and come back. Bright behind–shadow on water–can see now.

Feathered-hunter-landwalker-critter! A Tyce. Floating. Not moving. Dead critter? Pause. Why in water?

Don’t bother to hesitate–zip down and buzz just a hair’s-breadth above the water-soaked, feathered beast. Lumpy. But keen hearing picks up the faint sound of a heartbeat. Critter not dead. Twist–bad bright!!–pass and turn–shadow on water again. Ahh–relieved sigh. Dive–smack the critter’s nose (barely above water) with tailtip. Critter half-dead–annoyance.

Waves carry the Tyce to the shore, slowly pushing at its toned, ocean-cleansed body, shoving it further towards the edge between dry and wet sand.

Flutterflutter. These-type critters friends. Pause–flutter–shadow on wet sand as the wave rolls out again, oh-so-briefly. Friends. Dive–backwing–hover–then carefully land on the big quadruped’s heaving flank. It coughs violently–flutterflutterflutter!–and up into the air again. Yikes! Hover–sun on back–warm.

The half-drowned predator coughs, retches up saltwater, then blearily opens one amber-golden eye. The eye is glazed, but slowly rolls upwards and attempts to focus on the cerulean Budram, hovering above–damp from seaspray with curiosity shining in its serpentine face. No danger.

Friend-critter awake! Zip down, chirruping merrily, and pool length onto dry sand, just a little ways away from the greybrown beastie. Watch avidly with wide, unblinking eyes as the Tyce laboriously pulls itself upwards without fully rising, towards the little flier.

Awake! Awake!

The Tyce lets itself fall once the waves cease to pull at its hind limbs, lupine muzzle creating a little trough in the sand a mere inch from the Budram’s winged form. Not-awake. Sigh. Wait with friend-critter.

The tide begins to roll out.

Uhjayi is a conlang – a constructed language – spoken by the inlanlu tahori, a species of tribal shapeshifters on a world known as Alasa Ka. Their universe is half-science and half-fantasy: magic and natural selection shape evolution, and a person must use both logic and spirit to thrive. Uhjayi itself is designed to approximate the form of communication an alien culture might use, given that one of their skins is remarkably similar to the one we humans wear all our lives.

Uhjayi is not a simple cypher that switches one letter for another. Uhjayi actually has a root-based vocabulary, object-subject-verb structure, and syntax that, I’ve been told, resembles some Asian languages. (None of which I speak, for the record, nor am I familiar with their skeletons.) Uhjayi’s current syntax has come about from what I think makes the most sense; the script is phonetic, the pronunciation using the English alphabet is standard across all its words, and the structure is simple, yet flexible.

After working on Uhjayi for some while, the above-mentioned bloke recommended Pimsleur to me as a better language-learning method than Rosetta Stone. (In tandem with my martial arts, and mostly because of it, I wanted to learn Japanese.) Instead of computer software, it consists of thirty-minute audio lessons in three sets of thirty lessons – roughly equivalent to one lesson a day for three months. I started daydreaming about recording Uhjayi lessons.

On a lark, I wrote the tentative transcript for the first lesson, using Pimsleur’s standard conversation format, and shared it with some friends. They responded overwhelmingly favorably. I wrote more lessons, made a mini-site (well, sub-blog), compiled vocabulary, and even recorded five-minute audio lessons to showcase the correct pronunciation. Thirty-minute lessons are definitely coming, but I’m still working on learning – and finishing – my own language first.

If you’re curious, you can find everything housed in the Learn Uhjayi blogsitething: lessons one through five, a vocabulary list, and the of-questionable-quality recordings of me saying some very strange things.

So, tell me: have you ever dabbled in any kind of fictional language?

But this blog began as a writing blog. I am a writer, a creatrix– I like that it sounds like creature as much as creator– and I wanted to write about writing. I wanted to chronicle my walk down the path towards eventual publication, be it self-publishing or finding a brilliant agent willing to vouch for my work.

Yeah, that didn’t go so well. My jack-of-all-trades tendencies and spidermind (a kinder term for ADD) get in the way of any tunnel-vision I might try to obtain. I am not just a writer.

I’m also a martial artist. I’m a biker. I’m a geofictionist. I’m an artist. I’m a paid geek web professional who does design, SEO, and copywriting. I’m a nature enthusiast. I’m a science nut. I’m a musician. I’m a thoughtful spiritualist. I’m an animal-lover.

Above all, I’m a person, and restricting any home of mine, virtual or otherwise, to just one facet of myself is a sure recipe for stagnancy and decay. Which is pretty much what happened as winter turned to fall last year.

So, I’ve stopped trying to limit the topics of this blog. I can’t promise you I’ll never go quiet again, but I can promise to be more present and more responsive, for all our sakes. Getting my muse rolling again (she rides an old Honda that looks suspiciously like mine) may take a while, and there will surely be some shaky turns, but we’re on our way.

Come along for the ride, won’t you? If nothing else, it will be weird … interesting.

A low, hooting cry stirred Mechebe from his fretful nap, bringing his half-conscious mind to full awareness in a heartbeat. His eyes flared open as his tufted ears lifted vertical, swiveling to pinpoint the direction of the summoning warble. Sleep had given him no peace of mind, and now waking brought the pivotal announcement into unavoidable proximity. He took a deep breath, released it, and lifted his long, bearded muzzle from his crossed forepaws. His toes were tangled, claws placing sharp curve against sharp curve; the massive talons dangling from his dewtoes were the only ones exempt from his unconscious expression of anxiety.

He looked up, seeking a glimpse of the sky past the evergreen canopy. The shade of blue suggested afternoon, but the bloody tinge to the wispy clouds belied that and told him it was evening already. The sun was fleeing the sky in hopes of rest, much the same way Mechebe had fled the center of the territory in hopes of serenity. He wished the sun better luck than he had found.

“Ready?” came a sharp, light voice behind him. Mechebe didn’t look, pulling his paws apart gently before pushing himself up from his bed of mulch and moss to stand on four strong legs. His luxuriously long tar-black fur kept a few dried leaves as prisoners; he shook off when he heard the tell-tale crinkle-crackle from beneath him.

“I am restless from waiting,” he answered after another deliberate breath failed to bring calm, stretching his legs and flexing his ankles. His tail, long and thick and smooth, hung in a low curve behind his haunches, kept as still as he could manage; the barbed tip alone twitched, made of age-fused spines that grew like a lizard’s rattle-tail.

“You’re worried,” remarked the voice, accompanied by the sound of sniffing. One of Mechebe’s packmates stepped up to his flank, looking up at the larger man with a mixture of disapproval and amusement. “You think Neserre will send them away.”

“I fear he will,” Mechebe corrected. “I do not know his mind.” He touched damp noses with Zojeki, a spry man with mist-grey fur that darkened in an intricate mottled pattern on his angular face. Mechebe was easily twice the grey’s weight and width, for all that he was only two feet taller at the withers. Where Mechebe was muscular, Zojeki was lean; where Mechebe was dense, Zojeki was compact; where Mechebe was strong, Zojeki was amazingly swift.

They made a decidedly odd pair.

“Ssst.” Zojeki tossed his narrow muzzle dismissively as another series of hoots echoed through the tall-treed forest. “We are called – stop worrying and start walking.”

Mechebe flicked an ear in slight annoyance, but he began pacing away from his dozing nest, a few stubborn leaf-bits drifting down from his belly. “You think he will welcome them?” he asked his friend, ears falling to an uncertain angle.

Zojeki made a noncommittal noise, then nosed a stray twig from the black’s long beard. They walked with barely an inch between their shoulders and hips. “Don’t know. Can’t know, either. Quit trying to predict.”

Mechebe felt his head sink lower, the arch of his long neck becoming more pronounced. “Neserre is wise,” he murmured in his deep, growling voice. “If he sends them away, it is because they are dangerous. I will have been wrong about them.”

The grey snorted, keeping pace with the longer-legged man easily. “You have been bare-chested to the strangers for a score of days now. You haven’t had an escort for two scores. How dangerous can they be, if they didn’t take such an opportunity to kill you?”
Mechebe’s ears fell to his head, softer than the snow that would soon arrive. “They can be very dangerous,” he answered quietly. “They choose not to be. They can call fire–”

“Mechebe!” hailed a third voice, and both men glanced over to see another packmate winding a path between the straight, rough-barked trunks that stretched so far skyward. “Is time! Hope for good news!” The black-furred woman gave them a kind smile, fangs hidden and eyes half-lidded.

“Hoping,” Mechebe replied, voice betraying his uncertainty. He could hear other people walking now, fallen leaves breaking to tree-dust beneath so many paws; the pack congregated on Neserre’s summons to hear what the verdict on these strangers would be. Mechebe and Zojeki were silent as they entered the clearing around the shattered rocky outcropping that served as a speaking place. Around them, their packmates gathered and sat, tails curling around haunches, ears at various angles of anticipation and alertness, eyes brilliant in the fading light of late afternoon. Some fifty men, women, and children formed an attentive crescent, all facing the speaking rock, all waiting.

Neserre sat crouched upon the rock’s craggy crown, a scarred man with glossy rust-red fur and a sleek body that bore his age well. Unlike most of the pack, he was in his terokka skin, the body-shape that allowed him to walk on two legs instead of four and use his forepaws as hands; unlike none of the others, he was dressed in hardened leather armor whose decorative feathers and claws had mostly fallen off, severed tails and ears worn nearly furless from age and use. The crude stone-tipped spear in his grasp was still stained ruddy from yesterday’s kill; Neserre was no indolent king.

Once silence fell and bodies stilled, Neserre pushed himself to stand, leaning just slightly on his spear. “I have spoken to all of you,” he said slowly, voice cracking with weather and experience. “I have heard your thoughts, and weighed them with my own. I have especially listened to Mechebe, who learned the strangers’ language to understand their intents – who, among all of us, became the very closest to these creatures from the sky.” He met Mechebe’s gaze for a moment, a compassionate look in his eyes, though no smile softened his countenance.

The red-furred man continued, voice strengthening. “I have considered for hours on end what this thing might mean for our pack, and the packs and clans who are our neighbors.” He swept his eyes across his packmates, hunters of each of four ethnicities, of every age. His people. He took a breath. “And I have decided to send the strangers away.”

A heartbeat of surprised silence was shattered by a rush of conversation, voices speaking over each other – some in protest, some in approval, but most in confusion. Many had guessed what Neserre would choose, and almost as many had guessed wrongly. Neserre stamped the butt of his spear on the rock, and the noise quieted obligingly. “I know! I know,” he said again, more softly. “I know. I am surrendering a great opportunity.” His face hardened, ears stiffening. “But I am charged with protecting this pack as much as guiding it, and I see more danger than benefit to come from these creatures and their sky-beast. I–”

“They’re no danger to us!” a sharp voice cried, cutting him off. Zojeki sprang to his paws and slid from corata skin to terokka, four legs to two, and stood with his spine nearly vertical. His tail lashed as growls for his rudeness rumbled from his packmates. “They are harmless, Neserre. No fur, no claws, no fangs–”

“They have weapons!” shouted a far deeper voice, a brown-furred youth who stood defiantly, as tall as Zojeki and twice as broad. “They have tools, better than ours, even better than the tools of our neighbors who shape metal. We cannot cut those metal skins they wear–”

“And their bright magic– I have seen them start fires from air, without tree-flesh to burn,” added another packmate loudly, sitting up. “They could light fires to us.”

Mechebe made a low whine in his throat, ears pressed to his head in unhappiness; he stood, hesitant, and was as tall as Zojeki for all that he was in four legs and the grey on two. “They are peaceful,” he exclaimed after a split second, his voice projecting well over the rising snarl of overlapping conversation. “They heal with their magic. They–”

“ENOUGH!” roared Neserre, a screaming edge to his voice instantly silencing the pack. His tail lashed behind his knees, and he held himself rigidly tall until everyone had sat again; he stared those few who remained in terokka skin down until they slipped back into corata skin. Zojeki was the last to settle to all fours, his hackles half-bristling but his ears splayed deferentially.

Neserre looked last of all to Mechebe, face softening slightly. “I understand how this hurts you, my friend,” he said, “but you must abide by this decision. I need you to return to the strangers and tell them that we wish them no ill, that we wish them to leave, that we wish them to never return. Will you do this for us?”

The black shrank from the piercing gaze, spine curling tightly. “Yes,” he exhaled, head falling in defeat. He would not, could not, go against a direct request from Neserre. Next to him, Zojeki rasped a growl in his throat, only quieting when Mechebe nudged the grey’s ribs with the back of his forepaw.

“Thank you.” Neserre lifted his gaze to the rest of the pack and lifted his voice again. “Do not let this be a divisor among us. Go and be well today. The strangers will be gone from our lands soon.”

Had Neserre not bid them be peaceful with each other, some of the pack would have confronted Zojeki about his interruption; as it was, several sent him pale-toothed looks as the gathered men and women began dispersing into the forest again. Zojeki returned the hostile grimaces one for one, ears flared vertical again and tail writhing behind him. Mechebe put a hind paw on it so that only the tip could twitch; he didn’t move until almost everyone had gone.

Neserre gripped his spear in his long jaws and sank into his corata skin, the better to leap down from the three-man-high speaking rock; he landed with creditable grace for his age and gave Mechebe a solemn look. The black dropped his head but didn’t break his gaze, so the red huffed approvingly and padded off smoothly, muscles rippling beneath his sleek pelt.

It took more minutes before the clearing was empty but for the grey and the black. Zojeki kicked Mechebe’s calming paw from his tail, stood, and shook off, sneezing thrice. “Are you really going to tell the strangers to go away?” he asked in a hushed, scornful voice, pale eyes flicking to his friend.

Mechebe was the very picture of despondence, curled into himself with low ears and wide eyes. Zojeki nearly recoiled. “I can’t not,” the bigger man murmured, staring at a point on the still-grassy earth near his paws.

“I hate your sad eyes,” the grey snapped. He studied the motionless black for a moment, then stuffed his snout into the soft undercurve between Mechebe’s jaws and throat, breathing in all the delicate scents that comprise person and man and packmate and unhappy. He drew back with a snort. “Let’s go for a walk before I say something else you’ll regret.”

Mechebe unfurled and stood, the blossoming of an impossibly shaggy shadow, but his head and tail stayed almost painfully low. “Be at peace,” he murmured, tone belying his words. “You’ll do no good.”

Zojeki chattered his teeth together in amusement. “I never do any good,” he retorted. The stillness of the evening was invasive, reaching cool fingers into the atmosphere of disappointment and frustration that surrounded the pair. He hissed at the darkening sky, then began walking. Mechebe kept pace without thinking, taking two steps for every three of Zojeki’s.

They walked in silence, no longer separated by any space, Mechebe’s long fur brushing against Zojeki’s flank with each stride. Like all men and women who escaped the agonizing uncertainty of adolescence, they communicated by scent more than sight, and sight more than words, but by touch most of all – and the texture of hide against hide was a comfort, a balm to Zojeki’s temper and a reassurance to Mechebe’s distress.

By the time they neared the edge of the wide territory that Neserre’s people called home, Mechebe had marshalled his thoughts and logicked his emotions into neater boxes. “Where are we going?” he asked Zojeki, though he knew every step of the path they walked – he had come this way scores of times in the past eight seasons.

“We’re going to talk to your strangers,” the little grey answered, “and tell them that we need more time to convince Neserre and the pack to let them st–”

“No,” Mechebe snapped, drawing a startled look from his friend. “I will not go against Neserre in this. If the strangers stay, he may take it as a move of aggression. He may attack.”

“Neserre is not so hasty,” Zojeki said dismissively. “He would send you to them more times to see why they were slow. You could bring back messages of earnest peace, cooperation, all that.”

Mechebe bared his teeth, his muzzle loose, an expression of disapproval but not overt hostility. “No, Zojeki. I tried, and I failed. Let it go.”

“Sad eyes again. You didn’t fail! No one failed,” the grey added more softly, green eyes somber for a moment. “Neserre is doing what he thinks best. He is… a good leader. But he doesn’t understand the strangers like you do. If you can get more time, talk more–”

“Scratch it, Zo!” The brief outburst sent a handful of nearby lizards scurrying into holes in tree trunks. Mechebe stared his friend down, ears lifting briefly. “I told him everything I know, everything I think I know, everything I hope. He listened. He decided. End of hunt! Let it go.”

Zojeki placed himself in opposition to the bigger man, face to face and no longer flanking, and stared up the two-foot height difference. His thin fur rose in bristles along his sharply-defined shoulders and hips and his tail lashed behind him, the barbed tip making a practiced arc in the air behind his haunches. “Why don’t you ever fight for what matters most to you?” he demanded with a snarl.

Mechebe drew breath to respond heatedly, then deflated himself with a long sigh. “Because,” he murmured, “I wouldn’t win. Neserre is thrice my age and ten times as wise. If he says the strangers are dangerous… maybe he sees something I missed.”

Zojeki stared the black down for a long moment, then spun on a paw and lunged into a headlong sprint down the unseen trail, the fleetest man in the pack even in tangled woodlands. He vanished between the tall trees in two heartbeats, the sound of his paws on the crackling earth silence within four.

“–Zo!” Mechebe bellowed after him, the leaves trembling with his volume. When no response came and the grey did not return, the shaggy black pushed himself into a gallop, ducking low branches and leaping arching roots. He knew where Zojeki was going, and he could only hope his friend wouldn’t do something foolhardy before he, too, reached the strangers’ den.

Image Credit: The New Cafe (Racer) Society.