Jigano was not an early riser by nature. He preferred late nights to early mornings, but he could wake up with the dawn when the need arose. As his world had changed, he had found himself needing to do so more and more, either for his own projects, or to help Rory with the farm...
Or to maintain his disguises as he walked, padded, flew, or slithered through the Hollowed Grounds.
This morning he had gone out early from his den in the Glade on four feet, checking the scent trails for disturbances, and pondering something small and squeaky for breakfast. Isuma fluttered along behind him a ways, pouncing on bugs just out of sight through the rusty fall foliage.
A new scent had broken trail through the trees, he discovered. Not one of the guards he kept track of, nor one of his friends. Perhaps it was a Natural taking a different path than usual, a hunter seeking new territory... or perhaps it was something else. The darkish-grey fox (who had once been white, before necessity had led him to using dies and artifice to darken skin and hair, plumage and pelage) trailed the strange young man, watching him curiously. His clothing was strange, his manner seemed uncertain, and at the uncertain call of greeting into the forest at large, Jigano decided to take a chance. Fur shifted to feathers in the morning shadows, and he rose in a flapping of wings to perch in full sight on a nearby branch, about head height with the newcomer.
A raven, darkish-gray in a way that suggested either age or ill-health, tilted its head at Cera to capture him with a bright blue eye before it croaked a rattling: "Hello," back at the wanderer.
Or to maintain his disguises as he walked, padded, flew, or slithered through the Hollowed Grounds.
This morning he had gone out early from his den in the Glade on four feet, checking the scent trails for disturbances, and pondering something small and squeaky for breakfast. Isuma fluttered along behind him a ways, pouncing on bugs just out of sight through the rusty fall foliage.
A new scent had broken trail through the trees, he discovered. Not one of the guards he kept track of, nor one of his friends. Perhaps it was a Natural taking a different path than usual, a hunter seeking new territory... or perhaps it was something else. The darkish-grey fox (who had once been white, before necessity had led him to using dies and artifice to darken skin and hair, plumage and pelage) trailed the strange young man, watching him curiously. His clothing was strange, his manner seemed uncertain, and at the uncertain call of greeting into the forest at large, Jigano decided to take a chance. Fur shifted to feathers in the morning shadows, and he rose in a flapping of wings to perch in full sight on a nearby branch, about head height with the newcomer.
A raven, darkish-gray in a way that suggested either age or ill-health, tilted its head at Cera to capture him with a bright blue eye before it croaked a rattling: "Hello," back at the wanderer.
