Shy Deer Steppes i bleed sugar and gold

barren, bone-dry, and stretching long of cracked land and crumbling rock. here it bled life from clouds of gray, and sought death in a warm embrace. the viper held a breath, some semblance of home before her.

the sun baked the splintered earth as the woman slithered onward, the heavy silence felled only by the soft patter of footsteps. shadows cast from vultures overhead act as looming reapers ready to call home their next victim. it would not be her.

not today.

she sought comfort in a splash of faded green, shrubbery that prickled upon the touch but offered shade in a sea of sun. here she rested.

slowly, surely, brecheliant's healing gave him life again.

not to mention the company of his daughter. . .

soon, his festering wound was on the mend, and he was walking again. walking up and down the slope, and on longer journeys, with only his thoughts to keep him company.

the resting lithe woman ahead broke the monotony, and he gave her a brief trot, picking up the pace into something that wasn't quite a trot, but faster than the ambling limp he'd used recently.

they looked similar, except her figure thin and his old and bulky.

he lifted his chin, a faint smile upon his face as he approached.