Duskfire Glacier uglustrákur

The trees around him shuddered beneath a westerly wind, one which dragged itself heartily through the scruff of his neck, and then reversed so as to buffer his cheeks. When it finally died down the boy was pressed against the dirt with his paws over his nose.

The rest of him was puffed up while his skin quaked. When Arius lifted his head again it was in the manner of a sailor periscoping from a submarine - ready to duck at the first tremble. The wind eddied further afield and he took the time to shake leaves off of his head and shoulders, then continued on his way.

In that time someone had come across his scent and even gleaned his location through the gaps in the pinewood. Arius was aloof; he did not notice Imaq at all and set about exploring while he was unhindered by the scrutiny or rules of the adults.

It was the smell of something meaty that gathered his interest the most. Having long ago given up his mother's milk in lieu of more substantial filler for his ever expanding gut, Arius reacted in a characteristic Pavlovian manner to the smell: his mouth filled with saliva, his fear of the wind and the cold dropped away, and he began to track the delicious tendrils of it through the trees, as a hungry boy might seek a fresh baked pie from a windowsill.

He was not as stealthy as he thought himself to be, either. Imaq would hear him coming, or see him more easily, as he romped across her path, wove through passages of gargantuan ferns, swerved or doubled back a few times to confirm what he was following, all the while childlishly ignorant of what he was truly pursuing.