Verdigris Ravine snout

lizards were a source of many important things for the tribe. caught in mouthfuls and dried, their meat provided good traveling food. the skins could be removed carefully and stretched as pouches for edible seeds or bones that needed to be carried.

today he set out a half-dozen lizards upon a flat stone which baked beneath the eye of the sun. when they were arranged to his satisfaction, zoug grunted and retreated to the shade for a small time of dozing.

He had watched his father prepare skins for many suns, and he himself had tried to replicate the careful techniques. But while his paws grew adept at painting the caves, this at required skills quite beyond the Cavetreader's reach. His attempts lay buried unseen from judging eyes, unlike his father's, laying in the daylight for all kin to admire.

Brac slunk between the shadows leading from his caves to rocks near his napping father. The skins formed a leathery tapestry upon the flat stone and he peered closer before slithering to the tribe kin he sought.

This one knows things coyote does not, the growing boy nibbled at the space behind his father's ear, this one will teach coyote how to dry as well as coyote paints, yes?

brac intrigued zoug. cave-child, he took to the deep recesses. even now his paws were stained with the earthen paints he had mixed.

i teach. zoug roused himself and returned to the pool of sunlight in which the lizards silently lay. i cut them with bottom teeth, up the belly. take out the entrails. eat them. he shrugged with a rare, faint smile. on their back, face up to the sun. they will dry and become smaller. easier to carry many.

and what did brac know? what had he learned in the silent places of the cave?

perhaps it was time for the root ceremony once more.

Zoug's silent speech was as loud as words to Brac. He followed, he watched, he leaned in a his father cut the belly with surgical precision. It was here Brac found his own teeth shaky. Though he'd fine tuned his paws to paint the walls, he struggled to execute the same control over his incisors -

Not with top teeth but with bottom... he mused aloud, this one has taught Coyote hidden things. Now, Coyote tries!

Knowing he needed no practice catching lizards (for every Tribekin learned this before all prey), he glanced around for any Zoug had missed. But of course, his father had worked before pleasure and had prepared each one before closing his eyes to rest.

Hmm. Coyote must catch one first.

And he turned owlish eyes out to scan the shadows of the sundried rocks.

He would lie if he said he was not nervous. Though Brac slunk with the confidence of any headstrong teen, his father's gaze often pressed against him and filled his mind with thoughts as many as the desert sand. He was not Gaara, who bested him at every fight and spoke as Zoug spoke. How did his father think of him? The Cavetreader had not missed the small smile that passed along his father's lips. Perhaps that was telling enough -

- and perhaps not. A tail flickered from the shadows of the rock they stood on, and Brac descended with an an unbroken swoop.