He couldn’t breathe, a squishy, wet paw forced his mouth to part and then slid down his throat. He thrashed, his claws scratching at his gums and between his teeth. Grit and dirt scratched the roof of his mouth. His lungs roiled and he coughed, the sound dull and solid. Thick, grayish mud dribbled from his tongue and lips. His stomach heaved and globs of it dotted the ground. But no matter how much he spit out some still lodged in his throat. Staggering, fur hot from the effort, he fell onto his side and choked. Around the edges his vision darkened.

Mother, he wondered, where are you? I want you with me if I’m dying.

Is this really what is feels like to die?

I’m scared. Please, stars above, don’t let me drown!

Oh no, if I die in darkness will I go to the Catacombs instead of the Starlands?

But it was the middle of the day and now the viscous sludge was crawling up his sides and grabbing his paws. He was sinking. The cold, damp mud slurping his whiskers, drinking him like cracked earth during the first rain. It swallowed him, he felt its paws converging over his head, enveloping him in darkness, its embrace chilling and heavy.

He was gone, just like that. And no one was there to tell what had happened-

Clay awoke with a gasp, blinking in the blinding midday sun. He glanced about, panicked by his sightlessness, his tiger eyes wide as moons. A shadow fell over his face and his eyes struggled to adjust as the silhouette spoke. “Singing bird,” she murmured. “You were having a nightmare, I had to wake you.”

Now her familiar scent wreathed around him, and Clay went limp. “Oh.” He mumbled. “I was?” He only vaguely remembered the terror that had plagued him had to do with drowning.

Click nodded and rubbed her cheek to his, sharing scent. “You were screaming.”

Clay looked away from his mother’s concerned expression, his pelt burning. “Oh.” He peered over her shoulder at the rest of their family, The Powers, and saw that most were staring at them. Even Marsh and Ripper, the dominant female and male, were whispering and angling their snouts in his direction. He buried his nose in his paws and let out a miserable sigh.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, singing bird.” Click assured him, flopping down at his side, and combing her teeth through his shoulder fur. “Besides, Suri didn’t see.”

Clay lifted his head and sniffed. “She didn’t.”

“No. She went off with Quiet a little bit ago.”

“Click!” Clay jumped to his paws. “You told me you’d wake me when Suri got up!”

“I was relieved of sentry duty, and you looked peaceful, so I had a snooze myself.” His mother explained, sounding not at all concerned.

“Unbelievable!” The five-moon-old pup huffed. He stomped towards the rest of the group, who’d gone back to lounging now that there wasn’t a pup in a weird fit to stare at. The Powers always sought shade around high sun to sleep off the worst heat of the day. Clay had assumed that Suri would want to nap with the rest of them, but he supposed he was wrong.

That or Quiet had convinced her not too. Clay’s blood simmered as his thoughts rattled the older pup’s name. “Wait!” Click called, rushing to catch up with her son. “Where are you going?”

“To fetch Suri.” Clay grunted, his gaze scanning for signs of his friends among the slumped figures of the family.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Last time you confronted Quiet didn’t exactly go well…” Clay whirled on her, and she wilted even though he was only half her size. But she looked him in the eyes all the same. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.” She finished meekly.

Guilt soothed some of the flaming embarrassment burning under his fur. He pressed his nose into his mother’s shoulder, and she nuzzled him back. Shoving aside the memory of Quiet pushing him into a pit of his namesake when he was three-moons-old he said. “I know and I’ll be careful. I’ll bring Haywood with me.”

“I still don’t like it.” Click sighed.

“Marsh and Ripper chose me to be her mate. I don’t know why, but it’s my duty to protect her. I can’t let her down.” Clay insisted.

Clink gave his small, round ear a fond nibbled. “Fine. Make sure you’re back before your guardian misses you.”

Clay brightened. “Don’t worry.” The dominant male, Ripper, had agreed to be Clay’s guardian even though as a rule neither of the leaders could be chosen as a pup’s mentor because they had to focus on managing the family. Marsh and Ripper didn’t seem all that concerned about tradition or rules though. As long as everyone followed the Three Truths, they were laid back about everything.

Including Clay’s training. Which meant that Ripper would not come looking for Clay for a long while, giving him time to search for Suri. He soon found his closest friend, Haywood, drooped over a tree root. His tawny pelt flashed between dark stripes. Clay tried not to step on any tails as he approached. “Haywood!” He yelled when his snout was right up against his friend’s ear.

Haywood flipped over and landed on his spine with an oof. His paws hung limply in the air, his head craned dramatically back. An alarm bark formed in his throat. “Attack! We’re under at-”

Clay threw himself onto Haywood’s face, slapping a paw over the six-moon-old pup’s mouth. A few of the meer nearest to the youngsters turned to look at them with wide eyes. Clay dipped his head in apology. “False alarm.” Grumbling, they lowered their heads.

Sharp teeth nipped his paw. Clay drew back, hissing, while Haywood pushed himself up. “You bit me!”

Haywood shrugged and groomed a tuft of coarse, sandy chest fur back into place. “You tackled me.”

“You are so dramatic.” Clay emphasized, shaking out his paw.

Haywood watched him with large orange, doleful eyes. The dappled shadows of the acacia tree making the dark rings about his eyes more pronounced. “Why’d you wake me, Clay?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” Clay muttered, bristling, and remembering when Quiet pushed him into a pit of clay. He’d almost drowned and even though he struggled to remember his nightmares he assumed that was the root of them.

“What else am I supposed to call you?” Haywood tipped his head.

“Nothing.” Clay ran his claws through the dirt.

“Nothing?” Haywood repeated. “Alright, Nothing, why’d you wake me?”

Growling, Clay stalked around his friend. “Come on, your brother has snuck off with Suri.”

Haywood padded after him. “Who?”

“Quiet!” Clay snapped.

“Hmm,” the older pup sounded puzzled. “Why are we going after them?”

“You know how Quiet is.” Clay groused as they left the shade of the tree. The acrid desert heat engulfed them without mercy, even in the beginning of the dry season the sun beat down on them with enough force to melt fur. Already Clay’s head was swimming. “He’s always out to cause trouble.”

“Can’t disagree with you there.” Haywood padded at his side, the skinnier pup not even panting. “But are you sure we’re not following them because you’re worried that Quiet will win her affections?”

“No!” He scoffed, keeping his gaze fixated on the distorted dune of pale sand looming ahead. “We’re barely half-grown. I’m not even thinking about having a mate.”

“But you know that you will someday.” Haywood pressed, his carob and tawny brindled pelt ruffling in the much too mild breeze. “Marsh and Ripper have made it pretty clear that you’re to be partners.”

Clay snuffled the ground and steered them away from the dune, picking up Suri’s scent trail mingled with Quiet’s harsh odor. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know about what?”

A memory flashed in his mind’s eye. He saw the worry in Marsh’s gaze dissolve to cold disappointment as Click, after hauling him out of the clay pit, began to frantically clean him. And Ripper’s expression being stony, his gaze shifting about with embarrassment. Eventually both had wandered off without asking if he was alright, murmuring in each other’s ears. Clay’s pelt blistered as he shook off the memory and the doubts it conjured. “They haven’t treated me the same since…” He allowed his voice to trail off and he glanced at his paws.

Haywood bumped Clay’s flank with his tail. “They’ll get over it just like everyone else has. It wasn’t your fault that Quiet was feeling particularly cruel that day. Just give it time.”

“It’s been two moons!” Clay burst, anger and shame making his paws tingle.

“I know.” Haywood murmured. They trotted up the broad slope of a low dune and stood at the top, surveying the territory. Beyond the dunes and flat sands was a pale path, almost white against the sand. It snaked around blurred grass in the distance before vanishing into the dark shadows of the jungle at the edge of Powers land. “Do you think that they followed the path?”

“The No-End Path?” Clay chortled. “No way. Not even Quiet is stupid enough to follow an old giant trail into the forest. That’s no place for a meer.”

“Where else would they have gone that’s so close to the path?” His friend wondered, his nose twitching to scent the breeze.

Clay leaned back on his haunches, his forepaws limp at chest-level, thinking. “If Quiet wanted to impress Suri, where would he take her…”

The two young meer looked at each other and uttered at the same time. “Dragon’s Lair!”

Indeed, Suri and Quiet’s scent led them straight to a hollow tree stump just off the No-End Path. It was surrounded by a thick layer of brambles. Clay saw scuffs in the sand where the two pups had entered the thicket. He and Haywood held still, listening. Between tendrils a dusky red fragment shone against the sand. It was cracked and jagged around the rims. Haywood spotted it too. “Who do you think broke Dragon’s shell?” He whispered.

“I don’t know.” Clay whispered back with a shiver.

“You don’t think-?”

“No,” Clay huffed and ducked under the first branch, “I don’t think Quiet had anything to do with it. That shell is old, just look how dusty it is.”

“Oh, right.” Clay felt Haywood’s breath on his tail. They wriggled through the thicket as stealthily as possible. The nearer they got to the stump the stronger the repellant scent of ancient reptile grew.

“How old do you think Dragon is?” Haywood wondered aloud.

Clay’s whiskers twitched. “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” He shimmied around a huge thorn, the flat top of the stump materializing through the branches.

“My mother once told me that she thought Dragon was alive during Star’s time…” His friend’s tone was wistful.

Clay swallowed and hunched his shoulders. He stepped over a round tortoise print almost as big as a lion’s paw. A twig snapped off to the side. “Stop! I think I heard something!” He hissed and Haywood halted, panting, just behind him. Clay’s heart galloped. After several moments of silence, he moved forward again.

Wincing as he tugged his pelt off a spiney strand, he stepped out of the thicket. The hollow stump hovered before him, three times his height and four times his width, with a dark, splintering hole revealing shadows. Peeking from the darkness were glints of sallow shells. Broken eggshells littered the ground and the stale reek of embryo secretions made Clay gag. Haywood poked his snout into the stump. “I think it’s empty. Dragon must not be home.”

Clay’s whiskers sagged in relief. “Good. Now all we have to do is find Suri and Quiet before that overgrown turtle returns-”

“Aaarrgh!” Shouted a tan haze as it streaked around the side of the trunk, coming straight for Clay and Haywood. Clay jumped back, fur standing on end, while Haywood backed into him with a squeak, trembling. The two meer froze in fear.

Then the tan haze dropped to the ground in front of them, rolling onto his back, his body shaking with hacking laughter. An airy, pleasant chuckle joined in as a meer with a golden pelt and opaque stripes left the trunk to sit beside her companion. Neither wore a shell, had a beak-like mouth, or terrible beady black eyes. This wasn’t Dragon returning to her lair to attack them.

It was Quiet and Suri.

It took a moment for Clay to realize that someone was yowling shrilly and that the someone was him. He clamped his jaws shut, expression growing rigid. He took a pace towards Quiet.

Haywood’s double, except for his mean brown eyes, stood and shook sand from his fur, still laughing. “We got them so good, didn’t we Suri?”

“I suppose.” Suri giggled, which did nothing but enflame Clay’s embarrassment.

“Hey!” He growled in the taller pup’s face and Quiet squinted at him. “What is this all about? Why would you bring Suri somewhere so dangerous?”

“Dangerous? Please.” Quiet sat back on his haunches and waved a paw. “I wouldn’t call an old lizard dangerous.”

“Quiet was going to run it off our territory.” Suri added, her amber gaze glowing with what Clay interpreted as admiration. “I came to see if he could actually do it.”

“Well?” Clay demanded.

“Dragon wasn’t home when we got here.” Quiet admitted with a bored flick of his tail. “We were about to leave when we heard you two fringers stomping through the thicket, and thought we’d give you a good scare.” He smirked.

Haywood rolled his eyes. “We’re both the pups of an evicted female. If I’m a fringer than so are you.”

Quiet lifted his snout and guilt prickled Clay’s gut. His mother was also a subordinate female who’d broken the third Truth and bore a litter of her own, but she hadn’t been punished for it. In fact, Click had been celebrated, and all because Marsh had it in her head since the day of Clay’s birth that he was the right choice to rule at Suri side. Sniffle, Haywood and Quiet’s mother, hadn’t been afforded the same treatment. Neither of the brothers had seen her is two moons, not since her expulsion from the gang. Haywood never talked about it, but Clay knew he missed her. If Click were gone, Clay would be devastated. But beneath that guilt was a shameful feeling of gratitude. He was glad that it wasn’t his mother who’d been evicted, glad that for whatever reason he had been chosen, so that he didn’t have to go through loosing Click. The reminder made him sick.

“Whatever,” Quiet’s cool response brought him out of his thoughts. The older pup leveled his muzzle at Clay. “Come running after your mate, have you?”

Clay’s lips peeled back. “We’re not mates.”

“Yet,” Quiet mocked. “You sure seem to think differently. Always following her around like a vulture does with carrion.”

“It’s my duty to protect her!” Clay shoved his snout into Quiet’s face.

“Must be hard to do that when the whole family thinks you’re a clumsy coward,” Quiet snarked. “What kind of protection could you provide, Clay? You couldn’t scare a grasshopper!”

“Hey!” Suri barked. “Now that’s enough, I certianly don’t need protection from either of you.”

“Because you’re so brave. Just because your enemies are repelled by your ugly muzzle doesn’t mean you’re any scarier.” Clay snarled, nose to nose with Quiet. “It was very courageous of you to push a younger pup into a pit of clay when he wasn’t looking, huh? Think that’ll inspire fear in the hearts of lions?”

“Are you calling me a coward?” Quiet’s eyes narrowed and almost unconsciously the two began to circle each other in the tight space. Clay tread on a thorn and didn’t even notice, all his attention was focused on the meer who’d become his greatest rival.

“If the paw fits the print,” Clay responded, his ruff bristling.

With a growl Quiet lunged for Clay, and Clay went to meet him, teeth flaring-

Suri darted between them, pressing her shoulder to Quiet’s chest, thrusting him back. Haywood intersected Clay, barring his path, watching his best friend with desparate eyes. Clay’s pulse was racing, his paws tingling with the thrill of confronting Quiet. If only Haywood and Suri hadn’t gotten between them, he could finally make up for that day at the clay pit-

“That is enough!” Suri shouted. “Both of you stop acting like barely-weaned pups who can’t share a skink.”

Clay would’ve felt chastened and maybe a little regretful if Quiet wasn’t being his usual arrogant self. “I guess it’s nice of you to save him from making an embarrassment of himself, again.” He drawled and turned on his heel, padding towards the brambles with his head and tail high.

Clay ground his teeth, his mind churning. Haywood caught his gaze and must’ve seen something alarming in his expression. “Don’t,” he mouthed, eyes round and pleading.

But Clay was on a roll and his blood was surging. He knew exactly how to put Quiet in his place. “If you’re so brave.” Clay called, forcing his pelt to slick and a casual tone to his voice. “Why don’t you prove it?”

Quiet, Suri, and Haywood’s snouts swung in his direction. Suri snorted, “This is ridiculous. Quiet you don’t have to-”

“What did you have in mind?” The older pup grated.

Clay smirked, sitting, and wrapping his tail over his paws. “Follow the No-End Path until it stops.”

There was a heavy silence in which everyone stared at Quiet. Clay reveled in it, studying the stony lines of Quiet’s face. There was no way he’d do it. No meer had entered the jungle or found the path’s end and returned. It was a death mission. Quiet would have to refuse, in front of Suri, and the rest of the family would certainly hear about it and his reputation would be smudged for the foreseeable future. Clay struggled not to laugh with outright glee. He was finally winning a confrontation and it felt amazing. He hadn’t felt this confident since his near drowning in the clay pit. For a heartbeat his hatred for his name evaporated.

As the silence stretched Haywood fidgeted and Clay waited for Quiet to try and bluster his way out of this challenge. Good luck with that, fringer, Clay thought with pleasure.

Suri shattered the moment, speaking with an air of infinite authority. “That is the craziest thing that I have ever heard, you can’t honestly be considering-”

“Yes,” Quiet said, then barked louder, “Yes. I will do it.” He met Clay’s eyes and Clay just had time to blink in surprise. Then Quiet whipped about once again and disappeared into the brambles in the direction of the No-End Path.