i'll never see any side of heaven

Man, it seemed like ages until he found this place.

And honestly he could have stopped the moment that he had finally stepped away from the frozen winter hellscape he had been venturing around in but… Lakhos had never really been one to just stop for anything. He had enough of being ragged on and bullied—most of which had honestly been his own fault but who was counting—and stopping for even a moment seemed like a great way to invite trouble.

Besides, there was plenty to do and see, if he had been there for sightseeing. Truthfully, he was busy filling his belly with all manner of things that should have been categorized as Probably Should Not Eat. Like lizards, one of which was hastily scooped up from the shade and crunched between his jaws without another thought. It tasted like shit, but hey, food was food.
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It was a strange otherness, this place.
 He woke with a face full of dust. Time seemed to stop. The sun had risen to an impossible point, blazing overhead. Somehow, his stomach was full, though he couldn't recall when or what he had eaten last.
 When he rose onto all fours, his elbows quaked under his weight as if he hadn't stood up for years. Sam blinked, reaching one of his feet out and splaying his toes, checking to see that they were, in fact, his own toes. When he was satisfied that they were, he could do nothing but walk on, confused.

For a long time he walked aimlessly through rocky, dust-covered terrain that he had no memory of. A vague cloudiness had infiltrated his mind. Had he hit his head? Had someone put him here? Perhaps his pack was nearby, but he couldn't recall their faces nor their names. He could scarcely remember his own. Sam... Was it short for Samuel?
 It was a coyote, or some form of something that looked coyote, that interrupted this aimless pattern. Sam stepped closer to it, ever good-natured, and chuffed. Perhaps Coyote would know more.

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The tail slurped right down his throat like an awkward piece of spaghetti, almost choking him in the process. But Lakhos, for all he was worth, handled it like a champ. He had already choked on a previous lizard and didn’t fancy making that mistake again… which was pretty well timed considering that someone else had stumbled across him.

Swallowing roughly as he turned his head and ears this way and that, he found the source trying to get his attention—a wolf. The frown he made wasn’t hidden by any means, but the eyeroll that followed it came as he turned his head away from his company. Figures, every time he swore he was trying to enjoy a meal someone had to come and party crash. They always slid right up like some skeezy guy at a bar on ladies night.

“Hey man, I’m kind of busy here in case you didn’t notice so if you wanna get this over with,” he trailed off—getting over just what, well, he didn’t know. Presumably a thrashing or some talk about how he was going to shrivel up and turn to dust to blow away on the warm wind… which was turn around to him freezing to death in the wilderness in the midwinter but still somehow option too.
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 It seemed obvious that Coyote didn't want to be bothered, but Sam was desperate. Exasperation showed in his gaze, but the desert creature turned his head away as if to leave. “W-wait,” he said weakly, just as the small creature explained, of course, that he was a very busy coyote and had little time for Sam. Samson? Samwise?
 It didn't keep Sam from following with a set of quickly paced trots toward him. But when Sam was only a metre from the coyote, he realized two things: first, that this animal didn't really look like a coyote, or a wolf for that matter. It was like he was in between. Second was that Sam had no plan for what to ask or how to ask it.
 “Uuuuh,” he trailed, blinking and bending his ears backward. “I uh.. I don't remember...”
 And then, finally, “do you know where this is?” It was such a vague question, but he had to start somewhere.

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Oh man, this guy was fucked up in the head.

It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out honestly, but Lakhos almost felt like one when he connected two and two together. Though truth be told, he didn’t know how he had ended up here but he also didn’t care that much. He just presumed he wasn’t that far off from where he began and had come full circle because that was the easy way out on this.

“Uh,” he started off, suddenly off put by the question. His attention swung back around on the wolf, this time looking him over like he truly was sick in the head. He had to be—why else would he be so confused about shit? The world was what it was and none of it had ever really made sense to Lakhos.

“Bro, we are in the desert.” There, question answered. “Use your damn eyes or something, okay? It’s warm, there’s sand, and all of these lizards are mine for the taking.”
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The coldness of Coyote's voice that might have caused the boy in him to cry or run bounced off, and instead Sam did nothing except tilt his head slightly to one side as though he had trouble hearing. Of course they were in the desert. He was no idiot, right? He took a moment to glance around them, noting the red rocks, the sand, the sun, and then staring back at Coyote. Well, yeah, he said with his eyes.

The lizards, however, were another matter. “Well you can have those,” he offered plainly. There was no disgust, only apathy. He felt full, and he didn't imagine the armoured animals were all that easy to stomach. Sam twisted his mouth, confused even still. “So, what way is not the desert?” he asked, fully expecting that Coyote lived here and would tell him the way, if for no other reason then it might get him to leave him to his... lizard-eating, which was very important.

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Well, at least he wouldn’t have competition over the lizards. But the look on the face of the wolf didn’t really go over with him well enough, not that Lakhos was ever really inclined to be that helpful anyway. His vision narrowed ever so slightly in response, but it may as well have been more because of the question that followed it.

“Pick a direction and find out,” he offered instead. Truth be told, he had no idea. He was just glad that it was bitter cold and snowy, even if he had been surprised by the transition that seemed to happen so quickly. The last thing Lakhos really remembered was venturing out in what felt like the never ending blizzard of the century and eventually stumbling to wherever… here was.

“I don’t really care to find out any time soon where the desert ends. Maybe it doesn’t end. I bet it doesn’t, actually,” he went on with the next breath. “Beats being stuck in the snow twenty-four seven. That shit got old and fast.” He huffed to himself. Definitely beat scavenging for garbage or whatever someone else left behind—he’d eat lizards for as long as he could stomach them.
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 Coyote didn't know. That much seemed clear, even to the trusting Sam. Samantha?
 Sam looked beyond the coyote-wolf, trying to gauge exactly how far it was to the nearest wherever. Wherever they were, it wasn't ending anytime soon. His mouth hung open in awe of the distance, wondering how long and how far he'd need to walk to get to the place that was not here. The coyote-wolf continued on about snow, and something about being stuck in it. Sam walked forward as though to pass Coyote, but stopped.
 “I dunno, I like snow,” he answered, still looking at the great beyond. The heat from the sun made the sands dance, so it was impossible to see what was in the distance. He turned a ninety degree angle and stared, but it was much of the same. It was as though they were in a void of existence. Sam wondered for a moment if he was dreaming, and looked at his paw as if to check it was still there. He placed it back onto the ground and pushed down to make a paw print, then moved it to inspect the mark.
 It was an accurate paw print. He was... not dreaming? Sammy?
 “I think I'm gonna go that way,” he said, glancing at Coyote. “Are you gonna live here now?” He seemed perfectly happy eating his lizards and being a jerk.

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Was he gonna live there now… did he really… just… ask that?

Lakhos let his gaze fix on some distant point, which was more than likely the horizon. There really wasn’t anything huge that he could just let his gaze linger on—it was the desert, it went on for miles and miles and as far as he could tell it was actually pretty damn boring.

“Well, uh, yeah,” he said after a lengthy pause. There was warmth and there was food… finding water may have been tricky but it wasn’t anything he wasn’t used to. Life was full of trials and tribulations and he never expected anything to be easy. Sure would have been nice, but he was far too used to being kicked while he was down.

Feeling that their conversation had reached some sort of end, the coywolf turned away from the wolf to step off across the sands. It felt a bit weird taking that risk, but the wolf seemed way too perplexed about shit that didn’t matter that it seemed worth taking the chance. Lakhos had his doubts he was about to get his ass bit in any case, and enough confidence that he thought he could make a quick get away if things suddenly went south.
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 “Oh,” said Sam half-heartedly, unsure of this other. In a weird way, Coyote seemed almost as confused as Sam was, but the source of this was surely different. The sands of time went on and on, entering into an oblivion that Sam had never known. Whatever the reason why he was here, he was here, and now it was their job to make it meaningful. Sam tried to remember something meaningful. Family. Belonging. Love.
 But there was nothing. His mind fell blank as the sand whipped uncomfortably through his legs and over his feet. Coyote seemed fine to simply accept things as they were, but that was just not Sam.
 As the coyote-wolf turned from him, Sam didn't follow. He blinked, confused by this abrupt end, but eventually accepted it and turned the opposite direction. They walked on. Sam realized only later that Coyote's name was not really Coyote, but when he turned to correct this, the coy-wolf was gone. Now, all that was left to do was go on, whatever it meant.

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