#Don't disturb the baby while he's SLEEPING by invading his space how RUDE

[awoohowls-ffxiv]

FFXIV WRITE 2022 // Prompt #10 Channel

The Shroud’s song in the early morning hummed his senses to awareness. Although he did not sleep as normal creatures or people did, there were still resting periods to recharge himself. His fur bristled, the glistening morning dew catching the dim lighting filtering in through the crosshatch of trees of tree roots at the mouth of his hollow above his head. The light also caught the various baubles and trophies hung from those selfsame roots, those splayed rays striking off and highlighting the sharp edges of metal sunk into the walls around him.

A catalog of his collection.

Sharp, glimmering gold eyes flecked in yellow snapped open to the message. Not an immediate danger, but caution. A warning. A whisper of greetings along his hide, petting up across his ears and soothingly under the long curve of his jaw. Paws shifted in the pace-packed dirt and ratted blankets piled on the floor beside one wall of the hollow. Shoulders rolled as he first drug his front end up in a stretch, backend raising slowly after.

His body shook, dislodging the dew from his pelt with soft sounds as the droplets hit the soil walls and his tattered blankets. Ears flapped against the white-bone horns with their numerous prongs protruding up and backwards from his skull with the full-body shake. A ripple of electric sparks trailing across his fur to dry the dampened ends with the sharp tang of ozone hitting his nostrils. His tails unfurled from their coiled rope form, stretching and recoiling together in a thick, fluff-packed braid looking not unlike a normal tail. Paws flexed and pushed at soil below him as drew his claws in the dirt, stretching with a rumbling grumble before straightening.

Both ears pricked up and forward as the song in his soul quickened. The warning was louder, then, than it had been. A growl started low in his broad chest, dark fur glinting with his gold undercoat puffing around his neck.

A stray beast from that wretched tower was in HIS home. HIS world. HIS territory.

HIS hunting ground.

He shifted positions, diving headlong into the soil that parted with a sigh and a murmur of song for him. Ambient aether pulled his form inside the soil to the position atop of his hollow, emerging spotless from the very ground he’d dove into previously.

That growl in his chest bubbled up his throat, hitting the back of his tongue and an eerie, bellowing howl erupted from his mouth. A long length of it whose song and warning bounced off the bark and swaying boughs. A second howl quickly followed the first, the bray of an angry, hungry, hound on the hunt.

The song in his veins straddled his back, leaning forward along his spine to whisper an urgency.

Sharp white teeth bared as the first gurgling snarl hit his ears and his hackles full raised in anticipation and glee. Ozone smells from the lightning glittered across horn and fur alike filled the tree-thick area with the smell as the gangling beast trampled quickly towards his direction.

The beast had heard him.

It was coming.

It was not prepared for the reckoning for disturbing HIS space.

Grom did not take anyone - let alone trespassers - LIGHTLY.

It would pay dearly for its disruption.