Why do all the monsters come out at night?

A phantom wandering the desolate lands - where was he? Why did his back feel like it was on fucking fire, why his toes ached more than anything he had ever felt before? Lifeless eyes kept staring forward as he simply kept walking. It felt like he had been walking for a lifetime now. Has it been days? Weeks? Months? Years? It was all a blurr. All he knew is that he felt incredibly tired, every bit of him felt heavier than he had ever felt before as if he was trying to walk through elbow-deep sludge. 

“Ah.” He croaked finally, snapping out of the trans as he glanced out absent-mindedly to his paws. They were coated in blood and dirt, scratches, and possibly bruises from the looks of it. "It explains things." The usual warmth and life in his tone was gone, sucked out from his very soul as he tried to understand where he was now, what was he doing? The last he remembered was following into a fog, something calling him here and then ---

Nothing.

Nothing came of following that voice? Feeling? Whatever it was, the prize, no, reward for following left him lost and empty as if he had left a years behind him, nameless faces and faceless strangers to which should be familiar to the retentive-mind-vampire. Finally his pace slowed to a halt, the ground felt sharp against his pads but standing still felt better than constantly trudging through mindlessly. Where was he to go now, he wondered? 

---

Setting: Nighttime 

the staff team luvs u

 The night was peaceful as ever. Tsetseg watched over the herd, keeping an eye out for anything that might be dangerous. Anything with teeth. Anything that made noise. Anything that smelled funny. It was all fair game to be absolutely terrifying to all things even-toed, or perhaps even their single-toed weirdo friends down south.
 Tsetseg chewed something dry and thorny, crunching each individual sharp edge as though it was a candy between her teeth. She grazed.
 It was something white on the rocks that she spotted movement from. Tsetseg stopped chewing, opening her nostrils to try to inhale the scent, but there was nothing. Downwind. “BRAHP,” she declared, annoyed at this... thing.

the staff team luvs u

Sore, hungry, exhausted, and fucking filthy; Abaddon sneered at his own feet dreading to see what the rest of him looked like. Not to mention for a desert-looking place, it was colder than it looked. The longer he lingered on the situation the more it confused him. For now, he decided to sit for a while, let the stinging in his paws fade just a little before trying to gingerly find somewhere softer to walk than this razorblade sands.

With an involuntary twit of his eye, an irksome sound echoed in his ears. What the hell was that? With a glare he looked out, ears and head twisting in all directions to try and narrow down whatever that noise was. It was strange, alien even, stranger than any horny elk cry he had ever heard. "Shut—UP." At this point he was almost certain he was imagining it.

If he were, it would have been easier to keep the sound silent, but no, eventually he saw the even more alien creatures in the distance. Some messed up idea of a horse with a broken back and snake-like neck. "What the fuck are you?" It looked like prey, although... how delicious and edible it was, was still up for debate.

the staff team luvs u

 She frowned. The white thing told her and her herd to shut up, and at this she continued chewing and looking on at the beast, snorting with displeasure. At that point, several other members of the small herd had woken to look up at the animal.
 One of them bellowed loudly in response to the command, but Tsetseg simply stared at the animal, trying to discern what it was and its purpose. She looked on the rocky, still horizon, hunting for other animals that might be with this one. Her poor night vision was not a help here. She lifted her head, eyes bulging even more than usual from the potential threat. Flicking her tail, she chewed faster and spoke again to the distant dot.
 “Nooooooope,” she brayed, having not much idea what it was thinking, saying, or feeling, but knowing that whatever it was, the answer was "no." Four of the five other herd members had lifted their heads to try to gauge the danger, but remained rather silent after the frank bellow. If the beast approached, Tsetseg knew that they would all startle and run. She, being young and boastful, believed they could take on the white blob whatever it threw at them.

the staff team luvs u

What kind of situation did he find himself in? He could have sworn he had walked into heaven at first, the mist was so soft, soothing, comforting, it carried him for what felt like miles with no effort at all - but this, the sharp sand and antler-less moose rejects yelling at him made this place feel more akin to something like hell.

Frankly, he had no interest in trying to taste the beasts in the distance. The blood prince was far more concerned with what he had jus-- well, where he had just woken up in instead of dealing with trivial things like a lumpy horse doing whatever the fuck it was doing. Like what was before the mist? Figures, faces, all silhouettes lost in the vague sea of thoughts —

“Nooooooope,” Twitch.

Aggravated, the boy's right eye twitched furiously with guard hairs rising along his spine, standing to attention as they rose with his temper. Damn the sands, he was gonna go and march over there to give that Rorschach creature a piece of his mind. “Listen here you ugly, lumpy, horse, I have half the mind to take my frustrations out on you and your sorry excuse for a herd.” Flashing his ivories, the Rache son simply didn't have any patience for a sassy camel today.

the staff team luvs u

 All right. Okay. Now he was stomping toward them. One of the males in the herd made a low, rumbling growling noise, at which Tsetseg kicked one of her wide feet. They would stand their ground. Whatever this white, ugly beast was, it had nothing on their powerful kicks and angry teeth. A female moved to shove her dominantly, not-so-subtly answering that they should run. Tsetseg would simply not have it. She would not allow a singular ugly thing to ruin their peaceful cool evening of grazing.
 To wit, the skeleton dog spoke foul language at them, mistaking them for common horses rather than the graceful swans of the hoofed world they they were. Tsetseg's nostrils narrowed and she once more raised her head to look at him in an angry, sideways glance so that he might see the white of her eye while she snapped back at him.
 “Nasty cur go now,” she grumbled, standing her ground with the herd and begging him internally to come close so that she might throw rumen contents upon his jackass of a face or bite off his ugly, fluffy tail. Kintara, the younger female camel who often helped back her up in times like these, grumbled low and daringly at him too. “This land ours,” Tsetseg rumbled.

the staff team luvs u

He had a nasty surprise coming. Had he known the disgusting defense Abaddon may have thought twice about picking a fight with these strange creatures. Blood and bruising was one thing, but... well, he was oblivious to how these things reacted to a threat. He would not be turned away as the group of cows on stilts made their displeasure clear, the prince of blood was simply not in the mood to be bossed around by these things. His own paws stung with each step but he approached nevertheless, ready to bite one of them in their bulgy knees.

“You can have this foul place,” He growled, staring the creature in its huge ass frog-like eyes. “I cannot think with your squawking, so shut up and I can find my way out.” He reiterated his point from earlier, fur bristling along his spine in agitation to needing to repeat himself.

the staff team luvs u

 Aaaand she spit.
 In camels, spit is not saliva. Spit is the beautiful green and glorious nature known as ruminant contents, thrown usually without intent at anything that feels like a threat.
 But Tsetseg did it on purpose. She knew the disgust from other animals. She knew immediately that she hated this dog-wolf-thing.
 Tsetseg even moved to bite, if only because the animal had decided to insult her and her herd on a second occasion. So while he bristled and did whatever it was that dog-things did to defend themselves, she spat the contents of her stomach at him, and shouted, “You cunt of a cur!!”

the staff team luvs u

Well he wasn't expecting that. The sticky, slimy sensation of goo running down his face and muzzle, staining his beautiful pearl coat a gross greenish hue; of which he could only see as it dripped down his head and face, onto his shoulder, paws and ground in little globs of its own. “You revolting beasts!” The young man cried out angrily, immediately taking a step back and away from these sickening things.

All the while as he stepped back one of them even tried to bite him!! Another step back - apparently he had taken way more than he can chew on this one.

Without another word, he was quick to turn tail and make his escape. Ignoring the stinging pain in his paws and leaving behind him a small trail of blood with every step he took - hoping he could at least out run these things if he could not scare them.

the staff team luvs u