Shuule was up bright and early the next morning, not typical for her as she rarely had a reason to bother. She laid in the coils of Set for a while, waiting patiently for him to wake up, but the snake was dead to the world. Patience wasn't her strong suit, and she finally started to shake him, even poking him in his eyelids until he shuddered awake with a hiss. He should have waited until today to tell her his plans for dinner, he thought with a groan."Wake up or I'll find another spouse" Shuule chirped, starting to crack open a few large nuts she had stored, to eat before her adventure."Good," Set yawned, turning into his half-beast as he couldn't help responding to her threat. Shuule shot him a death glare, but kept busying herself with her breakfast."Where are you going to get salt?" She asked, picking up her conversation virtually from where they left it when she fell into sleep the night before. Set gave her a sideways glance, and then shrugged. She waited, ears pricked, for a

It was only a few minuets walk to where Shuule wanted to perch and wait for something to shoot at, even in human form. Grabbing an apple-like fruit off a branch, she crunched into it, not considering that such a fruit was only starting to ripen at the end of the dry season. Soon it would be the rainy season, when the world would cool down and be replenished, but the sky would remain dark and deary, before the cold season set in. The clearing was on the edge of "their territory," as Set saw it, but still within it, and not a place she was unfamiliar with when she would hunt as her fox. Finding a tree with enough low branches that she could climb it as a human, she settled in, sitting motionless and listening to the birds around her.Shuule also started to think about how she would be going into heat in the rainy season, rolling her eyes at the thought. Female beastmen went into season annually, usually around the colder months. Fertility was not a strong suit of the species as a whole,

As Iro sprinted towards the field clearings, his mind raced nearly as fast as he was running. It made sense that this could be a descendant, but he also assumed the day would never come that one would bother coming to the city. And, what the hell could be happening that none of the eagles could talk the damn snake down? It was probably because they were incompetent, he concluded. It never made sense to him to just have birds scouting the perimeter. They escalated tempers faster than the lions. It was one of many things he would change if he managed to become King, over his spouses' father.  He had superb far vision, and as the scene before him came into focus, Iro had to hold himself back from trying to run faster and overheating himself. It was, in fact, chaos. In front of him, there was a swarm of eagles, diving and screeching at a gigantic black and red snake, who had turned himself into a tornado of scales, circling and snapping at the birds. As

Set found himself in the center of the city, beastmen and women leaping back from his path as he followed behind Iro. This was not how he had planned to enter civilization for the first time. He had never discussed it with Shuule, as she was so against it, but he had been preparing. They would come with their belongings, with him in formal dress, with his legs, and of course, most importantly, they would have been mated.  Instead, as if holding up the age old tradition, he was simply a feral among men, everyone fearful that he would launch himself at them, and they weren't sure if they should attack him first. He was barely holding it together, and when they got to the doorway where he could smell Shuule and he wasn't allowed to enter, all he wanted to do was smash the building to the ground. He knew it, his instincts flared. They were stealing her. They would steal her and kill him. They would take her and cast him off. Better they all be dead, Shu

It was far past dark now, the only light in the doctor's home coming from two large column candles, as Set used a flat piece of bark to swat at flies that dared to come near Shuule's arm. Previously too wary to even turn his back on the snake, when Harvey noted that there was a three striped guard outside, he had slept for a few hours.  When he awoke in the dead of night, his eyes focused in the dark first on the refracting light off the snake's neon eyes. Set had not moved from his post. A pang rang out in the doctors heart; this man really was loyal to the girl. He knew there were doubts rolling through the city that perhaps the snake had injured her himself, but Harvey couldn't see how.  Quietly, the leopard male got to his feet, to stand next to the kneeling Set, arms folded.  "Is she from the Fox Village two days past the river?" he asked softly.