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The other buck's shape is distorted thin and strange over the flatlands, to be sure--but the shadow rising next to him is still more so, impossibly slender, a daddy-longlegs shape with hair-fine limbs, the height of the creature approaching behind jutting upwards and outwards over the mud. If the shadow is such, the caster must be equally alien.

Slender, silent as he is, may very well have been trailing the buck for days. Then again, he may just as easily have been waiting in the last fringes of the swamp, invisible as a breeze, mistaken for a tangle of cypress trunks or the shadows of the mangrove roots. He makes no indication one way or another as he simply arrives mutely at the buck's side, a respectful distance away--or what would be a respectful distance away, if he weren't so eerie, so unsettling. Perhaps, with Slender, there is no such thing as a comfortable distance. His skin-shrouded eyes move visibly beneath their permanently-closed lids, a golden glow dimly visible and cast red by the vessels it passes through, discernible only because the light is at their back and plunges his face into shadow.

"There is much space before us." Perhaps it is a question, given the creature's obvious blindness. Perhaps it is an observation. It is delivered in a voice startlingly, eerily deep, with a strange buzz in the throat as though the buck is harboring a swarm of bees in his chest.

Dulse stood in the shadow of the swamp, overlooking the mudflats. It was a hot day, and the mud was probably very cool. But he had a feeling; it was a sense that something was wrong, or it was about to be wrong. He couldn't place a name to the thought; it was like trying to see a firefly when the sun had not yet fully set. And yet, he couldn't get over his anxiety over what had not yet come to pass - what might never come to pass.

He glanced down before him, to the shade of the trees over the mud. It remained a somewhat steady line until a rock outcropping jutted out over the landscape, and even the bugs were seeking the shelter of the shade.

The outcropping's shadow, however, is not smooth. Two kimeti-shaped shadows stretch out into the mud; one is much more distorted than the other. Maybe the heat is getting to him, or maybe he's just that lonely, but Dulse decided to find his way to those two kimeti.

He would, of course, slosh through the mud in hope of some relief from the heat.

Slender slowly, almost lazily turns his head in the same direction, his ears making an unhurried sweep to funnel the sound of the approach. In his usual fashion, grave but somehow awkward--a mannerism that might be endearing in someone less abjectly creepy--he lifts his voice as well. "We were observing the open," he solemnly says. Booms, really.

Mudsplatter picks his head up to regard the other kimeti -- one in the mud, making his way to the outcropping, and then approaching it more quickly. The heat is oppressive, and it makes Mudsplatter's words even more slow -- he takes his time choosing them, and eventually offers, "It never used to be this hot. Not in the marsh."

Looking from Slender to the other two kimeti (who haven't seemed all that intimidated by the tall kimeti -- did they not hear him speak?), he flips his tail lazily against his flanks. Even the mosquitos are being made lazy by the heat. "Suppose we go out there ... onto the plain. Do you think we could make it to the horizon?" It's conversational, because he isn't sure it'd actually happen. Everything seems so different, so up in the air. Possibility is a very real thing.

Any looking out on the plains right now would see a light blue and wheat gold figure approaching from that direction. A figure vaguely Kimeti in appearance, but with longer legs, and mane and tail that are still rather uncommon among those in the swamp.

Acorn had become separated from the male she'd been traveling with. "Or maybe he ditched me." She says to herself. Stopping, she looks around for higher ground, to better find him. Seeing the outcropping, she smiles and kicks off into a run. Runt though she is, Acorn has already proven she can run - or out run - any in her tribe. Too bad they won't acknowledge that fact. she thinks, turning to climb the out crop.

She slows to take the slope with less risk to limb. By the time she gets to the top she's panting for the extra upward effort. Instead of having a good vantage, Acorn finds herself near a group of.. Them?! the ones she's come to find. She grins, hoping her companion has no luck, it would teach him to ditch her.

Pulling her thoughts back to the here and now, Acorn clears her throat and speaks. "Have you seen a male, one like me?" She asks in her heavy accent, sounding of wide open spaces.

As he continues on his way, Moon Cloud looks up and noticing that the other one had made it. He scrambles up the slope, taking in the unsettling skin covered eyes on one buck and then notices the other two that arrived. He stares at the light blue female and then the other, shaking his head The MotherFather has some interesting plans it seems.
He moves to the slight shade the tallest buck is giving and sighs. His sides are sweaty, but the shade feels good, even if its from an strange feeling buck.

Slender is deprived, naturally, of the scene unfolding, but he is not without recourse. The air smells suddenly of dry grass and drier heat, and he lifts his nose with a suddenness that is unbecoming and strange to him. He says nothing, however; just stands, aware of some strange tension having been broken. The entire universe suddenly feels like an awkward pause in a conversation after an inappropriate joke is made. Like laughter in the midst of a deadly serious story being told.