Starglow Basin Asla Babana Dönüşme.

@Soto as requested

Often he found himself reflecting on the stories of his home. They were idle thoughts that came about during idle activities. He supposed they had become ingrained in his mind after the hundreds of times over his mother and father and told them to him or a sibling.

Details had been forgotten over the years, unimportant anecdotes mattered very little to him, but one had remained vivid for as long as he could remember. His father had told it with pure pride, his mother with what could only be love reflected in her eyes. Many pups heard the story of their parents romance, and Arslan found most to be boring. But that of his own parents was bloody, aggressive, it held his interest.

Before him and his siblings, his mother had a different husband and a different litter. Arslan could not imagine that she cared much for them, for when his father had come along and she pulled his attention, he slaughtered them without her batting an eye. His mother did not hesitate to leave them behind and go with him. Not out of fear she would tell him, but because he had proven his worth to her.

The story was short and barely romantic, but laid on the floor of his den chewing on the bones of a previous meal it ran through his mind. He wondered if rather than a story told to keep him and his brothers still and silent like the other's, it had been a lesson.

Destroy what is in the path of your desires.

he's mid-argument with the two squabbling idiots in his head when he sees the burnished copper of arslan's pelt.

both idiots shut up.

he'd been satisfied with how things had been left off with arslan. as far as he was concerned, the man understood the hierarchy - and he'd fulfilled the small task asked of him.

soto's left eye gleams. venga conmigo.

An all too welcome voice cuts through his thoughts of reflection. He can't help but smile, an interesting coincidence. He thinks so, at least. Arslan understands little of what he says, he does not care to know. It is not Soto's words that have pulled him in.

Licking his lips clean as he stared up, he soon stands. His assumption is that Soto wishes to go somewhere, for there is little reason for the other man to wish to stay in his den. Disappointing, but the truth often is.

soto spins on his heels. behind him the slow prowl of the lion. 

he heads west towards the steppes that slouch into a landscape without visible end. the sky endless and filled a dusty shade of pale blue. 

he’s silent. eventually they come to a stony outcrop where the bajada fanned out in glittering waves as if not so long ago water had been held in this landscape and the landscape had bled it dry. here soto stopped and motioned towards the shimmering in the distance; though it looked like water he was certain it was a salina; a long dry lake bed evaporated into sects of risen salt and silica.

His assumption had been correct, the muscular man leading him across the basin in a silence that makes Arslan's skin itch. He is never one to remain quiet for long.

Following the motion of the other he was quick to see the shining bed in the distance. But what was he to think of it? Arslan looked to the other, as if to ask this question.

He could only hope that this would not lead to another tedious task, however if it were what Soto wished of him, what was he to do but comply?

silence wells around them. the desert is good at that.

soto turns from arslan back to the shimmering section just beyond the bajada. it could be water. it could be nothing. measuring the horizon by bringing his paw to his good eye, soto decides the distance is a good day's worth.

he moves on with a flick of his tail, the tip of it just brushing along arslan's brilliant copper coat. soto ignored the cat-spark. 

where water thrived, the green could grow.

The slight touch alone was enough to convince Arslan to stay. Turning on his heels, he intended to follow.

There was little he truly understood of Verapaz, and yet it had held his interest. Captivated him. He had not been bred for a life of rough labor, but if it was only for a short time he supposed it to be alright. Though of course, a part of him wondered what else the desert had to offer.

Such a thought was soon pushed aside, for there was no sense in abandoning the companionship he now had.

tension in the dry desert air. it seeps into the coldness, residual and impalpable.

he moves past the lion and down into the blue stretch of shadow cast by the sloping mesa. the ground is cold and interrupted by volcanic rubble.

there in the distance the open plains shudder. a scent of water faint at first. soto breaks into a lope, favoring his limb but determined to discover whether it was god forsaken salina or god given oasis tucked there in the heart of a thorny and unforgiving landscape.

He looks upon the other with a wave in his tail. He has found him intriguing since his arrival in Verapaz for one reason or another, end even now his interest did not fade. Never before has his gaze been held for one wolf without wavering - he thought it strange.

Maybe the appeal was that they could not communicate - not verbally at least. Something about being forced to rely on pure physicality made things exciting for the lion.

But now is not the time for pondering. There is something to be done here, and he aims to please.

soto would share that pleasure; there was something more fierce and more intensive about silence-based partnerships. it was as if a new language was forged from those molten depths, layered by physical touch and dark stares. 

the flat basin stretched before them, the glittering in the distance gradually coming to a close. 

it was an ice bed; a thin accumulation of snowpack hardened over. sniffing the edges, soto realized it was temporal - likely some hidden spring underwater whisked this away as the weather warmed. 

disappointed, soto scanned their surroundings and it was then he saw the tracks of a lone sheep leading away.