Totoka River keep cool but care

upon hearing the sound of approaching footsteps, owlglass flattened in a mechanical click-click-click process where his ears pinned back, his eyes closed, and he pressed himself against the ground as hard as he could, praying that this new stealth mode would work. it should've worked. it was so goddam good it could've been designed by one of those german enginee-

ah, the footsteps are getting louder.
ah, there it is, the greeting. not that he could understand it, but he knew what greetings felt like. they felt like a handshake with mutually sweaty hands, gritty with useless powder.

he opened one blue eye. his face twisted as his mouth migrated all the way to the other side to grit out this: what are you looking at me for.

owlglass had this fantastic talent of stitching together words to create frankenstein monstrosities that moved with all the grace you could expect out of drunk centipedes straight out of pulpy science fiction. it sounded more like whad-ar-yoo-lookint-mee-fer. this word centipede was a part of a common, if not thoroughly inebriated, species. 

what he wasn't so good at was evading the unbearable sear of eye contact; he focused on the stranger's dark chin until he saw spots. they tangoed badly across his vision.