Cedar Sweep ambience

The sounds of Meerkat striding along did not alert the tired boy, not until she tried to worry at a branch. The shifting and creaking of the wood was so drastically off-putting that it pierced through whatever stage of sleep Reki had fallen into, and he jolted awake.

His jaw was sore from hanging open around the bulbous end of the femur, and his tongue had mostly dried, so when he slapped his mouth shut in that instant he experienced textures rather than flavors; namely of his tongue, which he worked a few times to lubricate.

His drowsy eyes were unfocused at first. It took him a second to register that a pair of eyes stood adjacent to his sleeping spot, and watched him from behind a sagging branch.

Reki therefore reared back and up, partway, with his front half and let the femur roll off his forelegs, where it clattered to the dirt. The sound of that spooked him more, and with the expression of a fawn facing a wolf for the first time (wide eyed, tail up) he stumbled back and cowered.