The evening air was cool and quiet when Luciel and Mino returned to their small wooden hut at the edge of the camp. The faint light of the campfires shimmered between the cracks of the shacks nearby, dancing across the dirt ground in shifting patterns.
Inside, Mino squatted beside their fire pit, her silver hair catching the orange glow. She was grinning from ear to ear, carefully counting and arranging their spoils from the day.
"Look at this, Luciel! We caught so many today!" she said proudly, holding up a squirming little lizard by its tail.
They had truly done well. Between them and the tricolor lizard Luciel had tamed, they'd captured forty-five small lizards—twenty-three caught by the tricolor itself, the rest by the pair of them.
And that wasn't all. Mino had also managed to trap three fat mice, each no bigger than a hand but still precious in a place where hunger gnawed at everyone.
