It was August, and the summer sun was making itself known. Panting heavily, the tawny boy flopped down at the top of a hill. Blackberries stretched away in the distance, and admittedly Kato might've eaten a few too many of them as he passed through. He'd been raised on less sugary foods, and their intoxicatingly sweet aroma was an invisible lasso tossed around his neck.
The fawn hued youth turned to snap irritably at a bug. Ever since he ran into an enormous clump of goldenrod a few hours ago they'd been all over him. Because of their bites, he had searched out water and taken a roll in some mud in an effort to keep them at bay. Even so, they had still been out to get him.
Thinking of the mud, which had mostly rubbed off by this time, Kato longed for a nearby stream in which he could wash up. He absolutely loathed being dirty, and though it was now hard to tell he had taken a mud bath that morning, the tawny boy was still annoyed by the idea of being dirty. A large, long yawn escaped him. He'd been walking around all day. The pads of his feet were sore, but luckily not scraped or cut.
Still panting, Kato allowed himself to shift into a position where he stayed stretched out flat on the ground. His tongue lolled out of his mouth, reaching for any small drops of moisture in the air. As the afternoon sun beat down on his fawn and silver form, it occurred to the boy how glad he was to be light colored.