Not here.
Why? The male Wadi craned his neck around and looked to the circle of light at the tunnel’s entrance. The drippings from no less than three watering holes could be heard simultaneously, and the echoes of several deep interconnected passages swallowed his claw clicks with ease.
Is it not perfect? he scented.
The young Wadi flicked her scent tongue out. It reeks of death, she complained.
All these canyons reek of death.
But this is recent. Bad things happened here. I can almost see them.
The male Wadi tried his best to smell these things, but his mate-pair’s tongue must’ve been a thousand times keener than his own. He noted the tinge of spilled blood, but he felt certain he could tease that odor out of any of the rock they’d covered for the past hundreds of sleeps. It was everywhere, which surely made this warren as good as any.
At least for the night, he scented softly. Let’s drink and stay one night.
He meant to suggest other things as well, but it was hard to know if those yearnings drifted on the winds or stayed welled up inside him.
The one night, his mate-pair relented, and there was the smell of some exotic sweetness wrapped up in her thoughts that seemed to suggest other sorts of relenting. The male Wadi soaked his tongue in the hints, his body tingling with a love and joy made weary during their long jaunt to wider canyons. Made weary, but somehow made much deeper.
Rest here, he scented. I’ll get water for us both.
Water and a secret surprise, he added to himself.
He ran back through their new warren to the largest of the three shafts, the one that held a steady drip. In this place, cooler air rising up from the bowels of the earth collected as beads of water on the rock above. It ran down, chill and clear, rubbing indentions into the wall of the shaft. The Wadi stuck his snout below the lip and sniffed deep. The solid food-treats of rock sliders could be smelled below. The Wadi tested his claws on the edge of the watering shaft, found they bit deep enough, and so he scampered over the edge and down.
A cold upwell of air surrounded him, the moist walls reflecting the chill deep into his bones. The Wadi dove further, crossing another tunnel that smelled occupied, then another under dispute, and suddenly he was below the canyon floor, deep enough to escape the comforting warmth of the sunlit rock above.
He had only been down past the Wadi warrens once before, and quite by accident. The treats he had discovered and brought back had pleased his mate-pair to no end, but she had never let him risk a return trip. Now, though, with the potential of making her with eggs, he thought the gesture was worth the cold. Especially for the nourishment it might bring their brood.
The sudden slip of a claw returned the Wadi’s focus on the climb. He was far enough from the light for his eyes to be blinded, leaving just his wagging tongue to show him the way. The cold already made his joints stiff, his heart racing to keep his insides warm and moving. He knew from that long-ago day of giving the blue hunters chase—and also from his near-dying fall below the canyon floor—that the cold was a danger. The key was to move fast and full of purpose, to know one was going to survive the ordeal. He had never known that before and had gotten lucky. This time, he would be swift and knowing. He would just grab a few.
The shaft twisted near the bottom, curving flat before jogging to one side. The Wadi kept to the roof of the tunnel, keeping out of the flow of gathering water. He released a soft trail of scent behind to mark the way out.
The crackle of rock sliders could be heard ahead of him. He tasted the air, took a turn, then dove back down as the shaft deepened. There were more sliders further in the shaft, but he wouldn’t be greedy. He flexed his fingers, shaking the cold out of his joints. The numbness was already in the tip of his tail and growing toward his legs. He hoped his mate-pair wouldn’t worry—
There! Two sliders, maybe three, clacking back and forth.
The dead husks of the small, black creatures were often found in the lowest warrens. The male Wadi had sniffed from neighbors that they were known to clean the skeletons of dead Wadi. They had certainly seemed intent on doing something like that when he had fallen into their midst many sleeps ago. The eating, however, had eventually gone the other way around, as the rock sliders proved to be tasty morsels once their teeth had been removed from his hide.
The Wadi crept forward, balancing haste with the need to be silent. He clung to the ceiling and crawled out over the gathered bugs, homing in on their scents and persistent clicks. He readied himself with courage smells, ignoring the cold swelling in his bones. Before he could reconsider, he released his grip, spun in the air, and fell claws-down across the small creatures.
The rock sliders erupted in a mix of hiss and clack, their little teeth buzzing within their hard, shiny shells. Two of them bit into the Wadi’s belly and held tight. A third attempted to flee, but the Wadi slapped it with his hand and brought it close. He moved it near his soft belly until the rock slider’s teeth sank deep.
He had them. Or they had him. Either way, it didn’t matter—he knew from experience that the buggers wouldn’t let go. With claws he could barely feel and muscles stiff with chill, he turned and ran back through the deep tunnel, following his scent trail around and up, running and scampering until the smell of his mate-pair began to intermingle with his own harried scents.
Where did you go?
The young Wadi forced herself to scent the question calmly. Her mate-pair had dashed off amid a dizzying cloud of fondness and returned cold and trembling. He responded to her question by rolling to his back and reaching for the black critters—each one as big as his fist and attached to his belly.
Why? Whywhywhy?
She reached for one of the rock sliders and wrapped two sets of claws around it; her mate pair was leaking a bit of blood around the creature’s bite. With a loud crunch, she broke the shell of the thing, forcing it to let go. She reached for another while her mate-pair worked to extricate the third.
For you, he was scenting.
Silly, silly Wadi.
She couldn’t help but release the thought. The last two bugs came free with the pop of their shells. In the dim light of the tunnel entrance, she could see the rows of tiny holes in her mate-pair’s flesh, all leaking the barest amounts of blood. It was all too often that his behavior confused her, and just as often that she found herself drawn closer to something she couldn’t understand.
They’re for tonight, he scented. They’re for our eggs.
The young Wadi shivered as soon as the thoughts tickled her tongue. She forgot the dying rock sliders and pressed herself against her mate-pair. She forgot the scent of death hanging in their temporary home and rubbed her scales against his. She forgot the blood on him, the need for water, the need to remain aware, and just lost herself in the yielding. In the pleasure—