The heat bore down on Tua's hide, unyielding and endlessly. It seeped to his core, to which no amount of mouth panting could shed. He sought shade in what little brush overhung a near cliff, but it offered little relief. He was no stranger to the climate of the Expanse, yet on this day it was unbearable. It was as a strong, blinding light that blazed in a raw glare around him and upon him.

His thoughts were dull and turbulent, yet they strove to think of other things. He began reading back in his own life. He remembered his tribe, and Teya, and the stuff of village life. Sentimental feelings languidly churned forth, thinking of those days, and the innocence of it all. Even his exile he recalled fondly, though in a hedonistic way. Back then, the trails were worn, and his heart was full. He brought to mind how sacramental the hunt was, the cheers of his pack, the takoha rituals at sundown, it was all full of significance and spirit.

But now, it was nothing but savagery. For all his years he’d lived, it was purchased with blood. It was the distilled way of the Tsaagan kind, without embellishment. He had killed the ranman for its flesh. Devoured helpless hatchlings. Cracked the shells of lives not yet fully formed and fed on its yolk. He had to prove he was made of the stuff of survival to the world he was abandoned to. The way had led from savagery to deeper savagery.

It was all so tiresome to Tua. He cut a path of blood in his wake, and for as long as he lived he could not stop. His acts of killing appalled him as a disillusionment of the flesh, apathetic to it all. It was the cruellest of traps.

But, in this way, his mind wearied quickly, and he was content to lean back into the shadow of the cliff to doze in his listless melancholy.