(( This is being copied over from the old Grim site so that I can link it in my bio. Feel free to comment, but the story is long past. ))
Hidua sat under a tall pine tree, staring at his small, popping fire made with what twigs he could gather, and groaned. He rubbed his knees where they ached, which was everywhere. He hadn’t walked so far in as long as he could remember, which for a bull as old as he was a long time. The groan was more than pain, though. Panic and sadness tinged the edges as he looked at the stars and did not recognize much of their patterning. He was lost, and Yichimet was sick.
* * *
Yichimet is a star over the ground. A stag that dances with a doe. A broken twig beating on a skin pulled tight over an open tree trunk.
His skin bubbles and grows scales. His arms fall off, he regrows arms, he swings them around his head, laughing.
He walks into the Fire and continues through it.
* * *
The owl clasped onto Hidua’s forearm. Its talons dug deep into the leather guard, but the pain was small, and Hidua barely noticed as he tugged the rolled up letters from the owl’s legs.
“Yichimet’s friends have found him, I think, my friend,â€