Listen to them,

Kianzo leaned into her, and Kiada leaned back into him. Her attention drawn fully onto their father as he took Kianzo into his sights. Suddenly, a protective feeling overcame the child at Tembovu’s sharp words. While she couldn’t agree, there was an underlying frustration that he was talking to her brother like that. She could almost feel the anger waft from Kianzo and into herself, as their breaths were timed together and ears flicked back against their skulls at the same times. But soon, her ears returned tipped forward in full view of what her father might say – the spotted dappled hide of hers almost containing a pearlescent hue in the dimming lights. Khairi, perched contently along the filly’s withers watched the dorobian warrior with sharp raptor eyes as his attention returned to Kiada. The words reached Kiada’s ears, noting the word tai and Khairi, filing them away for later – the beginning and excitement for learning the language.

Khairi instantly approved of the name, as Kiada mulled it over in her mind. “Khairi” She reiterated, doing the best she could to include the dialect and tones of which her father used to speak his language. A soft sigh escaped her lips in excitement and exuberance as Khairi fluffed his feathers, spreading his massive wing span and puffing up his chest. There was a slight click from his beak in his approval of the name as if it were a vow to the Elephant King that he would be sure to care for his daughter. Kiada’s attention was immediately drawn to Kianzo, though, hoping that their father had already learned better than to give a sentimental name to the hyena cub. Thankfully, he had known and Kiada listened as their father dubbed the pup as ‘Keusi’. Easily, her oceanic gaze surveyed her brother’s, looking for the little nuances of whether or not he liked it. But when he whispered the name and the pup responded, she was pleasantly surprised at the result. A smile growing on her own pink splotched lips, she leaned into her brother.

Then, when she heard their mother ask their father to stay, Kiada escaped the side of her brother to make her way to her father – the King – and grinned, a beaming milk white smile toward him. “Please? What is father in your language?” She asked, tilting her head so she’d know exactly what to call him.

"Talk."

children of the night—

what music they make.

Kiada & Kianzo