inspiration, my dear

[luryaa]

The slender white stoat wound himself around the base of the brittle old tree and dug his sharp milky white claws into the bark. The thick shell of the red bark was laden with cracks and separated into little segments with a thick bare lining around them, like chinks in armor. He curled his lip distastefully and the russet scar above his muzzle wrinkled. Darkeyes Basalt's black eyes twisted up into the uppermost branches of the foliage, beady and narrow. His small white ears flickered and his peachy nose twitched. He sank his claws deeper into the thick white pasty lining around the chinks in the bark and attached his back legs and claws to the tree. He unlinked his front claws from the bark and in the same instant freed himself from his grasp on the tree, leaping up onto the first branch. Darkeyes poised, crouching, on the branch, then twisted around in graceful arc and latched onto a branch a few feet above it. He stood there, reverberating slightly and then winding himself around the rapidly thinning trunk, reaching out and finally anchoring himself on a high, thin, slightly bent branch sparsely blanketed with leaves. Darkeyes slithered across the branch and perched on the end, opening his mouth and laughing a shrill hiss. His long sharp teeth were bared, his shortsword strapped to his back, bow and arrow slung over his shoulder.
Darkeyes Basalt was here.