The servant boy was no more than a shadow as he danced from one tent to the next. Here and there, the clumsy actions and breathing of a human were audible and he would change his course, always remaining out of sight.

It was a primitive village, little more than a conglomeration of tenting fabric, dogs, and the overwhelming reek of humanity. It was lucky that he was accustomed to the smell, however so that when he passed by a small entrance, the lighter, spiced scent of his own kind flitted to his senses. Nostrils flared, he cocked a head and animal like, he turned his head to listen.

Silence. Nothing. Acknowledging a moment after that the scent was old by an hour at least he continued. He was close, so very…

And then he had it. Paused, the small boy held a slim hand to the entrance flap and listened to the grunting annoyance of the human within. Mixed with the anger in the air was an undertone of pain and sorrow, but an absence of fear. That, of course, didn’t make the boy feel any better. Alarin was always best at containing emotion.

Blank faced, the slim creature shivered like a dog out of water. Only instead of sloughing off water, the servant sloughed off his form. In his place stood a dark silver form, long legged with a ruff of almost black about his pointed face. Had there been wolves this far south, they still would not have looked like this creature, modeled after the winter barricaded predators more near the servant’s ancestral home.

Ears pricked, the beast listened to the silence which was not silence within the tenting. There was a stirring, though far too delicate to be human. Al-kin had scented the change. The beast grinned, baring teeth long enough in a jaw strong enough to crush a man’s forearm. Sure that Al-kin was aware and now stood between the door and the offensive human, the animal used a large wet nose to press the flap back.

__________________

‘What will my death be like?’ he thought- and knew at once
with abrupt certainty, that it would be just like his life:
... the same balance of bearables.
~Amis