hunger.

[Arrakiss]

Winter 45th 511 AV

A shiver travelled the length of Arrakiss' spine as cold winter air brushed through her rather rough fur cloak against skin pale and bare beneath. Often she regretted not having a thicker set of clothes, or at least a real wool shirt, but she was content with the knowledge that she could always just find some way to warm herself, even so far south and in the Winter season.

The dhani lifted a leg to step over some unidentifiable snow-covered pile of refuse, avoiding the prospect of smearing some sort of filth on her boot. Her nose wrinkled as the taste of the garbage registered as an extremely foul scent and fought back a cough, tilting up her chin to look even prouder if possible. Men and women she passed shot sly glares at her and she refused to return them. She knew the games well enough in cities like this to identify a worthless pursuit when she saw one.

This was why she was seeking Stumble Alley, or one of those gangs that seemed to make their ways into the tongues of men and their wives in dark alleys. Arrakiss had to admit that the thought of encountering some devilish rouge that could kill her five times easier than claim her heart caused heat to course through her slender body. The thought of eliciting some sort of sound from such a man made her want to shiver. She saved her reactions for now, though. She knew she'd need them later perhaps.

A low growl sounded from the dhani's stomach, a sure sign that she was starting to grow eben hungrier than she had been when she left the dingy little inn she stayed in. The heady snarl remindinded her of her most pressing need and she forced all thoughts of an interesting encounter out of her mind.

She slowed her walk in the street and cast her emerald gaze about, slinking her eyes off of tiny humans, children, and wizened old men that were surprisingly old. She considered hunting them, but the chase wouldn't have been worthwhile. By the standards of this slum those men should be dead and she suspected that soon, Sunberth would ensure their lives were its.
Instead, the dhani ran her tongue along her lips in a human gesture meaning hunger, tasting the air on the tip of the red appendage. She took a few moments to assess the odours that had brushed her tongue and then, when she was sure she had found someone not too old and not too young, she set off to track the scent to its source, resolving to somehow find a map to navigate her way through Sunberth easier.

Currently she didn't know the appearance of her prey but she knew enough of identifying scents to realise she hunted a young male, by the standards of her race though, who may have been an adult by the standards of others. Arrakiss found it difficult to tell usually, but it didn't matter. It was the figurative gold at the end of the figurative rainbow that she sought, and who cared for how old it was.