Returning from the raid: jack had been absent: it was an assumption to think that jack left to lick his wounds from such an ordeal: or simply left to gather himself. Jack had left the gathering of his crew as he wondered off further into the desert while the rest returned home. jack didn’t return with anything: it wasn’t a disappointment to the kodkod so much as it were an expectation dropped. His first raid and it felt hollow: the victory went to the pitt- but jack felt nothing but

Cold

His powers were strong; it was a gift given to him at birth: to never feel the hum of warmth the same as another. It gave him the ability to summon gales of snow, to create weapons of water in seconds; it made the kodkod blissfully cold and frigid. Alone he felt more at peace; the masks that partook to his day to day life fell and jack felt nothing but the cold, numbing cold.

But that wasn’t the case: since arriving here. In the presence of his clan, his own family- shattered and distant they may be he would always be warm, snarky; infighting. Jack was the playful cool brother; he was the threat to the rest of the clans; he was the snarky but jovial marauder; who switched on a dime when it pleased him. From joyous and kind to ruthless.

These masks sticking the longest to become known outwardly. To become recognized as one of them; to allow that same frigid chill to enter him when he battled, played; it was easy.

The end of the raid announced the start of the festival, and the few that brought back victorious bodies to add to the celebration; jack needed to go hunting for it. His weeklong stake in the desert during his rite would be revisited. Skeletons picked and buried under sand, pond now a crater of cracked dry sand. A low hum on the creature’s voice as he spotted someone on the horizon.

It was… a lizard: that he could tell but the rest was a blur from the distance. Jack moved to follow their approach closer towards the border, the stench of the swamp- tanglewood hit his nostrils and jack felt a smear along his jaw

He didn’t allow the other even the chance to speak. The water in his rucksack clean and fresh: formed a blade with an arc and hit the sands in the same lack of motionless command. A body now lay flat and still near enough the border. In the silence jack felt

Cold

he sighed, the monitor was grown: bigger than him at the very least and he set to dragging it slowly back towards the border: hopefully someone else would help him bring it back from there.