Silver Creek anyway

For the first time in a great while, Talis heard a voice.

He licked his lips and crouched, creeping toward the source of the sound. His pale eyes shifted back and forth, here and there, as he picked his way through the underbrush. This woodland was particularly lush and fragrant. Talis could just barely hear a babbling creek somewhere in the distance. It was an ideal place to pass the time.

The voice—it belonged to a woman—spoke again and the pale coyote froze to listen. He pinpointed the sound and turned his sharp, rust-dusted snout toward it as he continued slinking along the mossy forest floor. A mosquito whined in his ear, making it twitch, but Talis didn’t lose his focus.

The wind shifted and suddenly he could smell her—no, them. The coyote’s lissome body turned to stone. Was that a raccoon he smelled? It was certainly still alive too. Talis blinked, head tilting as he clambered as quietly as he could over some tree roots before peeking around the trunk of a cedar and finally catching sight of the unlikely pair.