Phantom Hollow The price you're paying for your silence.

He lifted his oversized head, blinking his bleary eyes as he shuffled to better explore his new surroundings. Venamis could see next to nothing but dark shapes, blurry and uninteresting, until something moved just beneath his snout. The cub's nostrils flared, inhaling the warm scents of the sibling closest to him, and he exhaled in a curious "rrooo?"

She would not hear him, of course, but Venamis was not to know. The adults tended to respond with gentle touches or kisses whenever he mewled out loud, so he felt it safe to assume that the other small bodies close to him might do likewise. When Zannah did not come toward him, the obsidian youngster opted to crawl in her direction.

He accidentally pressed his face to her dark cheek, but grasped the opportunity to better explore her features with his nose.