Okay... I'm really bad at starting things off....

Tonight, the wind was heavy. It coursed through every street of the downtown, touching the glass and brick and concrete and wood. It lashed at the hair of late night city goers and ruffled the feathers of birds trying to rest before another day of feverishly searching for seeds and crumbs of bread. Its wailing voice kept hundreds of children and adults alike from making their journeys to whatever world they would otherwise visit in their dreams, whether it be a land from far beyond the fabrics of reality or a stroll through the paths they walked yesterday.

For some, however, the wind was a welcome wake up call. The coolness that came with the wind was an invitation to the world of the waking; an invitation that many seized.

Terra was one of the creatures that accepted the invitation with open arms. Or paws.

Roused from a deep sleep, Terra nearly smashed her head against the floorboards of the porch that she'd taken shelter under. The sensation of the wood brushing against her perked ears was the only thing that prevented the unpleasant circumstance. Carefully, she flattened her ears against her head and inched forward toward the faint light emanating from the rather conveniently placed hole in the wood that allowed her to creep under the porch in the first place, furry brown belly dragging against the musty soil the whole time. As she reached the opening, she took a deep whiff of the air around her. No humans seemed to be nearby, save for those stirring inside of the human nest. The scent of a tamed zolnixi also assailed her nostrils, but once again, the zolnixi was inside the nest. She would be safe here. After the scent check, Terra gathered her focus, tightened the muscles in her haunches, and vaulted herself out of the hole and into the pitifully small patch of grass surrounding the wooden nest. A brief glance around informed her to the location of a flowerbed, and she darted into one of the bushes for cover's sake. Swiveling her ears around, she heard no other humans or sylesti outside of their nests, and allowed herself to relax slightly, reviewing the itinerary for the night. Find a house with a low metal can, perform a scent check for nearby life, leap into the metal can, gorge herself on as much food as possible, get out of the can, find a hiding spot, and go back to sleep. All before sunrise.

With her nose and ears at the ready, she headed into the concrete labyrinth in search of a meal.

(>.< Man My's gonna look awful no matter what I do!)

Mako shivered in the cold a little. He was staying up wind of the human nest to avoid the tamed zolnixi he had seen earlier from smelling him. He saw a small streak of movement near the house. He know that it was a female zolnixi, had seen her before a few nights ago when he was looking for a sleeping spot. He watched her carefully as she left the nest behind. He decided to follow her, she seemed like she knew what she was doing and he honestly didn't have a clue how to find food in this new world. He stayed quiet woundering what she'd do first.

Making her way across yard after yard was rather like playing a game of hide and seek combined with tag, save for the fact that Terra was never allowed to be the seeker or "it." Every movement was carefully calculated and thought through beforehand, in order to make sure that whatever seeker lurked in the shadows wouldn't hear her. Every leap between flowerbeds was a mad dash to avoid whatever tamed Lupora with too much time on its hands might be "it." Most of the time, the seekers and "its" were the only creatures she'd had to watch out for, but sometimes the other hiders, the other predators and scavengers in the night, could be even more deadly than the seekers. They were the ones who Terra'd had the most unpleasant encounters with, and they were also the hardest to avoid.

The smell of spoiling meat snapped Terra out of her hyper-focused state. According to her nose, it could only be a few nests away. According to her eyes- she glanced from driveway to driveway- it was... There! Score! The only thing stopping Terra from diving headfirst into the metal barrel full of pure delight was the sudden uncanny sensation that she was being observed.

When a sniff of the air revealed nothing, Terra paused.

There's another hider nearby.

Mako saw her pause and he slumped down a bit more in his hiding place. He wondered if she had smelled him or saw him. He sniffed the air trying to see what else she might have smelled. The smell of the meat made him hungry. He looked following his nose to where the meat should be. He saw one of the strange shiny things the humans seemed to keep their food in to get collected by the big, noisy, smelly things. He almost walked out of his hiding spot to get the food. He looked around at the nest that the food was at. He saw something that he knew the other zolnixi couldn't see or smell from her spot. There was a large tamed lupora under the steps of the wooden nest. He decided it would be better to tell her then to have her be surprised by it. He crept out of his hiding spot and made his way across the street in the moonlight to where she was hiding.

The feeling of being watched was unpleasant for Terra, to say the least. It felt as if every muscle in her body was coiled; every hair was standing on end. Her ear twitched as she picked up the sound of a leaf being stepped on behind her. She instinctively twisted her head to face the noise, seeing an orange streak trotting toward her. Her eyes widened, and she did the one thing that any terrified Zolnixi would do when approached by a creature close to their own size: make the first move.

Creak!

The sound of a dozen branches scratching at her fur rang through the night as Terra leaped toward the approaching creature. She felt her claws prick at the orange Zolnixi's fur as his legs buckled under her weight.

Mako wasn't really surprised that she had tackled him. What else would one do if they saw a stranger approaching them? He waiting for them to stop being moving. He looked over at the nest with the large lupora. He didn't want to take the chance it would get up and attack while they were attaching each other. He pushed up on her and crawled out from under her. He quietly spoke to her. "Um. Hi I'm Mako." He sat down next to her and waited for her to respond.

"Hi, I'm Mako."

Not exactly what she was expecting from some lone wanderer in the dark, especially so close to the scent of food. Usually, this would just lead to a fight of who would get to eat first. Terra released her claws from the rust colored zolnixi's fur, (from Mako's fur, she corrected herself) and allowed him to squirm out from under her grip. She kept her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but curled one of her tails around her paws to show that she wouldn't lash out at Mako.

In a voice laced with distrust, she spoke: "Why are you stalking me?"

Mako also expected that. He looked up at the moon that was making them more noticeable. He looked back at her and realized for the first time that she had three tails. He hadn't ever met a zolnixi with three tails before and wasn't sure if he was supposed to do something special. "I'm not stalking you. I'm following to learn. You seemed to know what you're doing so I picked to follow you." He looked back up at the moon nervously then to the nest with the hidden lupora. "Do you think we could move? We could be seen easily." He said quietly moving back to where he had been hiding earlier.

While the newly dubbed Mako retreated to his previous bush, the smell of food still tantalized Terra. She made her way to her previous hiding place, not quite sure how she felt about being watched, but knew that she wanted to present herself in an all-knowing sort of manner to the other zolnixi. She allowed herself to chart the quickest path through several flowerbeds to the grub before bounding across the open landscape to a patch of yellow daffodils.

And she really bounded. She added a skip to each one of her steps, allowing all four feet to touch the ground at once and then push all four feet into the air at once. It looked overdramatic, but that was exactly what Terra was aiming for. Brshhhhhh... Into the daffodils she went. Fwoosh... Out again. She trotted up to the can, easily leapt in, and began to eat, looking over the side to the bush where the orange zolnixi was hiding. Impressed yet?

She only realized that she had forgotten to check for any suspicious scents as a forest green lupora popped its head out of a bush less than five feet away from her feast.