Sly Fox Sand Dunes wandering child of the earth

Kusuma left Meeerkat and Moonspear, her dark paws fleeing down the mountainside and her body feeling a pull to somewhere else. 

That somewhere... was a massive expanse of heat. 

However... It felt... natural. As if the ground and wind and sun swirled up her paws and dove into her blood. The dark coyjackal breathed wordlessly. Kusuma is... is- 

What was the word?

She decided it did not matter, and daintily made her way about to explore.

vague timeline. s'ari be teleportin' everywhere lolol.

S'ari made her way west from the ravine, the place she loved the most of all the places she had explored so far. Soon, she found herself back in the dunes. There was nothing out here most days, nothing but sand and sky and wind and a chance to play. But small dangers lurked even here, and just at the same time that she noticed a dark canid shape among the dunes, she smelled Snake.

There was the dark shape coming toward her (whether unknowingly or not she couldn't tell) but here was the danger. Somewhere. She stood still and waited and listened. And then came the tell-tale rattle. It was to her left, so she pranced far, far to the right, her head whipping around to keep the snake in her eyesight. To the canid, she released a short, sharp warning yip. Snake!

assumptive, lmk if not okay! <3

zoug followed the coyote woman.

it was his instinct. their kind did not travel alone.

if she warned him away he would go, but trail at a distance.

now she shouted about the scalemouth monster. there was a shadow slightly familiar nearby, another creature. zoug's hair stood up but he came closer, nostrils testing the stranger as well as the air for the fanged one.

There were two things the sand and the sun now told her, cradling her soul and pointing her muzzle toward a blood-curdling rattle. Kusuma stifled a surprised yip.

One, the snake was a threat. It made itself known as such rather quickly.

Two, she was bigger than the snake. Meaning one good bite to its neck - wherever... that... was... would make it stop. But nothing besides herself was being threatened, and at the sound of a Snake!, that yip surfaced and her paws moved, jumping backward just out of reach by the snake as it struck at the air, and fell hard at the paws of not one, but two canines. 

Her eyes had no time to travel up to meet theirs, the snake was not done with her, not yet. She met its scaled gaze and steadied herself, maw curling into a snarl. Kusuma says leave, scale-stick.

Zoug had followed her. Normally, she would be happy about this, but there was danger here and her heart twisted for both him, and the stranger. She could see now that the dark woman was Coyote like them. Her form spoke of some other canid, as well, but all in the Tribe were Coyote, even if they had no true coyote blood. There were now three Coyotes against one very angry snake, whose rattle continued even as it fell back to the sand from a failed attempt at biting the dark one.

Option one: kill the snake. This seemed unnecessary to S'ari. The snake was only trying to live in the desert the same way Coyote did.

Option two: leave the snake to its own devices. This made much more sense and would be much less dangerous.

Away, now! she ordered, taking charge for just a moment--a strange feeling-- and she backed far away from the snake. She came beside Zoug and attempted to nudge him back, and looked up at the dark woman. Come away from it. It only wishes to live; it will not follow. Away!

If S'ari had been alone, or with Tribe, she would not have been worried at all. She and her family had been dodging snakes for generations. But Zoug was strange to her even as she got to know him, and she did not know the dark woman at all. She worried that they might lunge for the rattler, which could spell death.

there were three. zoug too took heart in this. while he would have liked to try and kill the poisonhead, and eat it, he saw its danger and her wisdom

zoug growled and stepped back, from the range of striking. he looked anxiously at the strange creature, who was coyote and not. this difference set her apart from him, but as one they defended against the snake.

he would think on this later.

A pull to show the snake who was boss, but the wind whispered elsewhere, pulling her towards the two coyotes. She whispered a quick, Kusuma is sorry Kusuma startled scale-stick, and made way to follow the man and woman that had found her. Quickly. 

Her lithe legs stepped lightly away, before the scale-stick decided to go for a second strike. 

They didn't smell of wolf, and neither did she; the two smelt of da, of coyot, she smelt somewhere in-between da and mam. The dark woman decided to question after they were a safe distance from the snake. 

Kusuma's head tilted in question. Who you two?

S'ari breathed a sigh of relief as both of the others moved away from the snake without trying to attack it. This was good. This was safe. There were some in her Tribe who would laugh and lunge and tease the snake--and possibly die. She loved her Tribe but sometimes they were stupid.

When they were far away from the snake, who was now slithering away on the sand, S'ari turned to face the newcomer, who now questioned her. S'ari is S'ari, she replied, dipping her head in greeting. Coyote welcomes you. This one is Zoug, she added, gesturing at the large male beside her. We have been taking refuge at the ravine, east of here. This one is welcome to join us. She did not confer with Zoug about this, partly because they could not understand each other, and partly because, in her mind, there was nothing to confer about. Tribe was Tribe. That was all.

the scaled one was forgotten. zoug heard s'ari make his and her name-sounds. "zsuma?" he asked after a moment, eyeing the stranger. s'ari had already accepted her. their voices were similar in swiftness. 

the ravine! zoug did not like the idea of taking this one there yet. but with three of them, there was better hunting. and so the man grunted and began to root for grubs, licking them from the cooler sand beneath small rocks as he glanced up and waited for s'ari to lead them back.

Kusuma would like to join. The dark woman's heart felt compelled to stay in the land of sand and heat.

Her dark muzzle nodded, though her eyes still begged a question that she voiced. Saarye and Zung are... coyot? These two are like Kusuma-da. 

The manner in which she spoke was foreign, as common wasn't the language she had been taught at birth, but the patterning was similar to the other woman's, and Zoug's, too. They seemed to understand her much better than Meeerkat and the wolfs did.

S'ari had almost no trouble understanding Kusuma's words. Her own accent and speech patterns seemed strangely similar. That, and the fact that the Tribe often ran into foreign travelers trying to make it out of the desert, or those who had come there for trade. These foreigners sometimes spoke with their own strange accents or even different languages entirely, like Zoug.

The only word she didn't understand properly was "Kusuma-da," which she assumed was some kind of name-suffix, like an honorific. Yes, she said, with a grin, her tail wagging. Zoug and S'ari are like Kusuma. Coyotes must all stick together, yes? All are Tribe. Here she glanced at Zoug, to see what he had to say, which was dumb because Zoug didn't speak the same language as they did. She saw that he was digging in the sand. Zoug, she said, to get his attention. Time to go, yes? She turned back to Kusuma. You follow! Follow S'ari!

And off S'ari went, bounding happily away at top speed, unaware of how annoying she was possibly being by making the other two run to catch up. Only, she was happy to have more friends.

Last from me!

and for me! <3

kusuma and s'ari.

zoug felt something ease in his chest when the first coyote woman urged them all away. he ran with the undulation of their kind, eager to keep close as they sped through the fireland.

eventually he might shout a halt and gesture water, but for now he was content to follow. zoug had traveled a long time. he wished to stop for a time. but first in his mind they must find a cave.

Kusuma had said she'd follow, so... she would. They seemed a lot better than a wolf pack - they were like her, at least... far more like her than the coywolfs were. 

Her dark form contrasted with theirs so painfully, but it was perhaps that Kusuma-da and Kusuma-mam were the toys of the Furless instead of in their own desert. 

A Tribe, S'ari said. 

Was that the name for the coyotes? 

The coyjackal had many things to learn.