Naaghai Lowlands Slang

In Eset’s ears Tuna’s greeting is not a yip, but a song. She offers the same tune in turn, like it is an old hymn they both had memorized. She likes the shape of it on her lips and the way the notes float up in the still air.

She draws along the coyote’s side, stirring golden hackles with a fond sweep of chin as they stare out over the plains together. Tuna is like a great creature of the desert, as spirited and strong as the red rocks themselves. There is a ripple to the muscles in her legs and her snout narrows into a slender point. Her beauty is functional and she cannot look away. Had she failed to notice all this before, at the mesa?

“It is. But it is beautiful. You fit a place like this,” she compliments.

Somewhere out there, in the sprawling stretches of sand, the desert held secrets waiting to be unearthed. Her tail flicks.

“Where was home before Akashingo, Tuna?”