Sleeping Dragon ad oblivione

cameo for now, will join unless tagged again ;w;

cleanly, close enough that his shadow stretched long across the cooled crust. he was always there, just beyond the edge of sight. moondancer had called him her shadow; for the boy, he became something quieter still: a presence, a guardline, a dark sentinel woven into the landscape.
the geyser field unsettled him. the earth here breathed like a wounded beast—hot, unpredictable, wrong beneath northern paws. he did not trust it. nor the strangers who moved through it. nor the way the boy’s hope wavered each time he chased a pale shape that was not his brother.
tsu’tseya stood on the safe side of a rift, the woman on the other. good. the boy was learning caution.
uktark’s gaze fixed on him first: the tension in his back, the fear under his ribs, the stubborn push forward anyway. he had spirit if he was anything like this one. stubborn spirit often survived.
the woman spoke. cool, controlled. no threat in her stance. still, uktark’s hackles stirred beneath his dense winter coat—protective instinct humming its low, familiar note.