Lion Head Mesa second

Come in.

It was not so long ago that Akhtar himself had been a youth like the boy. Stuck under a teacher.

The snake was silent. He both wanted and didn’t want it to be, but the god would not answer him, so he stalled.

Perhaps the student would pull him up again.

The man stood poised above a leafen bowl full of crushed berries, paw dripping red liquid as he considered the wall in front of him.