The desert is baking even with the perigees turning to Dim Season and the moons only waxing half overhead. You like it a lot, though, and you skip alongside your lusus enjoying the feel of the hot sand between your bare toes, appreciate that not all trolls get to feel so happy about heat. You're weird, and you're perfectly aware of that, and happy to be so!! Okapidad steps alongside you, his white coat nearly vanishing against the outcroppings of rock and dust. He's silent, as always - even being lusuii he's hard to find in a forest, just an ash-pale shadow, and here you think if it weren't for your brightly-coloured rolls of fabric bound to his back, advertising your wares, and the painted baskets that hold the silkgrubs, he'd be less than that. He pauses patiently as you investigate a new shrub which looks and feels something like the forest woolplant you grew up picking, and add some of the fibres the specimen collection in your fetch modus. You really wanna find somewhere near to camp so you can run some spinning and dyeing experiments all of a sudden, and you do a little excited jig-dance, planting your staffkind so you can leap right over dad's back. His ears flick, but he doesn't mind. Any other troll who tried such a thing would get headbutted and stamped on pretty quick, though. You have the best lusus, it is you! Once you've settled down enough to think clearly, you locate a big sandy cliff not too far from where you're standing. It's dotted with caves, but it's getting close enough to daylight that you think there's a very slim chance you'll have to deal with any inhabitants until next moonrise. You pick a good place in the lee of some rocks to cast extra shade, then get your lusus to stand on one corner of your enormous pattern-woven tent sheet while you secure it at the top. Okapidad, well practiced at this by now, steps back the moment you give him the okay signal and noses under the flapping fabric to settle down, folding long bony legs underneath his barrel-shaped body. You take the baskets from his back, and tuck the fabric underneath him. Then you come into the shade, pick through the cocoons for any dud grubs for your evening meal, then feed the remaining and your dad before slapping on a sopor patch and burrowing a little into the warm sand, so it covers you like a 'coon. You close your eyes and you're asleep before you can yawn.
You don your gear and suncloak, muttering a quiet goodbye to your lusus, who hoots back softly, before stepping out into the soft -but still potentially dangerous- predawn light. You like to get an early start so you can finish your training regime before noon, when it gets really hot. Today you're supposed to be scouting out new and interesting walkers for Raz, and the time you waste nosing around to find them will be more than made up for by the bursts of speed and agility you'll have to exhibit to lose the suckers. Finding zombies is great fun and running from them even greater practice for the races that you love to compete in- two chirpbeasts with one stone. You're about an hour into your expedition when you come across a really interesting looking walker shambling along with it's sizable horde. You sneak closer, close enough to snap a pic with your palmhusk for Raz, and as you do it raises what remains of it's head and turns towards you. When it turns, the entire horde turns with it. Fuck. Yes. You stuff your 'husk back into one of your many pockets and run for your grubdamned life, horde shambling behind, leading them on the chase of the fucking century. You lose them a bit before you hit the cave system and, during one last mad scramble, manage to snag and tear not only your suncloak but the sleeve underneath, exposing your skin to the harsh sunlight. It starts smarting immediately and you clap a hand over the gash, frantically digging through your modus for your spare cloak or a needle or something, and come up with a grand total of jack and shit that'd be in any way helpful to you. With an irritated sigh, you trudge towards the caves, hand still covering the rip, resigning yourself to a day spent skulking in some shitty hole waiting for moonrise. (Your hole, while nearly identical to the caves of this particular system, is obviously superior for reasons. Shut up. Shut up are the reasons.) When you get closer, however, you notice a brightly colored tent, because how the fuck could you not, and your gloomy demeanor brightens somewhat. Maybe they'll have something to patch your cloak with. (Or maybe they'll try to kill you for disturbing their sleep. People have died over less. But hey, you're still running on the adrenaline from fleeing the zombies and are feeling bold enough to go for a little recklessness.) You slowly approach the tent, yell out a greeting from a safe-ish dozen or so feet away.
You snap awake at the yell, and have a confused moment flailing in the sand before you can sit up properly. Dad usually wakes you if there's daywalkers about and you need to be aware, but for some reason he hasn't alerted you to any threat. He's awake, though - he gives you his mildest look and goes back to listening intently, ears wide and pricked. At least that sounded like a living troll. You really, really hate the walking dead - they freak you out on some deep, visceral level that you can't even begin to describe, and you thank the stars and both moons that they leave you alone if you just crouch really still and quiet under your tent cover until they're gone. You swallow back the sudden lump of fear in your throat, and equip your broad-brimmed sunhat and sun goggles so you can at least stick your head out of the tent and look. Oh hey, it's just some guy in a ripped suncloak. They probably need help. "Oh hey there!! Do you need a patch job? Come in so you don't fry, silly!!" You courteously remember that other trolls aren't as heatproof as you, and open your tent enough that they can peer in and see you're no threat. With the cloak on, you can't tell blood colour, but a highblood would probably just barge in and wake you to demand your help at best, so. You've still got your staffkind lying on the sand close to dad's legs, but you pointedly ignore it and go to check on the silkgrubs. They're getting pretty big, and most of them have coccoons now. You're gonna have to havest them at some point while you're here, if you can find time. Then you ruffle through your modus and come up with the right kind of needle and thread for fixing a thick cloak. You're not a seamtressor, that's not your strong point, but you don't work fabric without learning how to fix any flaws in your work.
Oh, cool. They're friendly. Also a light sleeper, but you suppose that you would be too if you lived in a tent in a place like this. No solid walls, eugh. You'd never be able to relax if your only protection from other trolls was a bit of brightly colored cloth. (You, of course, have...special considerations, when it comes to being secure from other trolls while at hive, but still.) They open up the flap to their tent and you crane your neck trying to see inside before approaching. Ahahaha wow that is a biggish lusus right there, bet you can't outrun that. Outmaneuver it, maybe, if it comes to that, but not outrun it. Not that you think it will come to that, but hey. Nothing wrong with backup plans. You duck inside the tent and take your frond off of the rip in your cloak, wincing internally. The exposed area's already flushing an angry olive, so your hemoanonymity's shot, and you'll need to pick some aloe or something on the way back, pretty sure you're plumb out back at hive. You watch them rustle through their 'dex silently, face blank. You should talk, probably, but what's there to say? Hi, I'm a moron who ripped her suncloak fucking around in the desert, what's the haps?
You find your leather needle and the right kind of thread (so thick and strong it's nearly cord) and hold them out to the - oh, they're an oliveblood, and they're hurt. "Here's the needle and thread, so you can see I'm not gonna like stab you or anything!! Is it okay if I sew it up? Oh also I have a some burn cream around here somewhere - it's for my lusus but it should work fine on trolls, too... do you live around here? I hope I'm not like intruding or anything!! Me and dad just got here and I was hoping to learn some more about the local plants and their properties and stuff... " You're prattling a little, but meet their eyes. Your own are only just starting to filter from grubling-grey to heliotropic flower yellow, and you give them a big hopeful smile! At least they're not a highblood - olive and teal are on the high end of what you'll tolerate, nowadays, but between the streaks of yellow pigment on your cheeks and your bright demeanour, hopefully they'll know that here is a goldblood proud of her hemocaste and unwilling to back down just for anyone.
It takes you a while to work up to actually speaking, and by the time you do it's already been a couple silent minutes. "Live maybe a dozen clicks from here? Went for a, ah. A run." A run. Yes, moron, let's just call it a run. That's going to sound fucking suicidal unless she's already acquainted with dayrunners, and even then. Fuck fuck you fucked up you haven't even thanked her yet what kind of troll did Owldad raise thank her thank her that's what you're supposed to do you're supposed to thank her now she's smiling fuck okay smiling you can do. You smile back tentatively and finally force your stupid facegash to make words. Shit like this is why you live in the desert where people don't fucking go. Zombies are company enough. (Zombies and Raz, who spends so much time around the things that they might as well be one.) "...Thanks."
"A run?" You go hootbeast-eyed at them, for a second too surprised to start on the repair job. The first thing out of your trap is, "B-but what about the daywalkers?" And then that's followed by a torrent of idiocy - "I mean obviously you're a daywalker but I mean as in you walk - run - in the day I mean like the undead don't they freak you out they really freak me out I guess that's the only reason I'm not out there myself is dad gets sunburnt easily and he doesn't like moving around when it's too hot he's a forest lusus really but we move around a lot so he's gotten used to lots of different enviroments I just-" You stop for breath, and manage to cram the rest of your ramble back down your protein chute. You give the oliveblood another smile, this one distinctly woolbeastish. "Um. I mean, that's pretty brave. I- I'm scared of them. The shambling ones. There's- I don't know, ever since I was a wriggler. I just freeze up."
You continue smiling at her, getting increasingly uncomfortable. When are you allowed to stop doing this thing with your face? When's socially appropriate? Demoness, you need to get out more. You can't wrap your pan around being scared enough to freeze up around the daywalkers, that's how you get eaten. She must not spend much time in the desert, if she's that silly about it and still upright and fungus-free. Speaking of daywalkers, you should probably warn her about the horde you'd rustled up not far from here. She's patching you up, warning her away from them's the least you can do. And it means you get to stop smiling. "They're the, um, the fun part." You point in the direction behind you with your uninjured frond, a quick jerk of your thumb. "Speaking of. There's a fuckton a few minute's run from here. Just so you know." Suddenly embarrassed, you avoid her oculars. "My fault. Too, too stupid to get up here, though."
