Summer Daze
05-26-2019, 12:31 PM
Temperatures climbed sky high making the noon day sun almost unbearable. Lydia flopped down beneath the shade of a burr oak tree. She'd just returned to Kesali from another trip to the Orchard and decided that was probably enough travel for a bit. She was panting and tired and new that it wood be cooler in the Weeping Woods but for now she just wanted to rest where she was and take in the splendid view that the horizon offered her. She let her thoughts drift and at one point she was certain she had drifted off to sleep. When she lifted her head she knew that storms would be building. She could feel it in the humidity in the air and the hazy gossamer of clouds that started to stretch up from the south like a canopy. Rains would be a blessing to the lands parched by drought but a sudden down pour could cause problems. The land hard and dry and would not readily soak up the rainfall. Besides it was better to have gentle but frequent rains than rare down pours. Either way it wasn't going to be up to her or Kesali to make that decision. The Lord of the sky would do as he wished. Still, Lydia was content to watch the sky shift and change and she turned her gaze south now and then to try and catch sight of the place where the storm was building. The storms had a tendency to track northeast so if one was building in the south there was a chance it could hit them. Of course it was difficult to say. Every so often a strong cold front would force its way down from the north and overpower the southernly winds, eventually pushing the storm southward though this was more common in the spring. Even so it was hard to say for certain. If there was one thing she'd observed so far this storm season was that the storms tended to track more to the east and only slightly north. It seemed like the'd just roll in lines across the land like waves across the ocean. As the minutes rolled by the storm continued to build, the clouds were now building on the horizon. The heaped upon each other like lumpy little mountains, the sky beneath them so dark it seemed as if they were rooted right to the horizon and growing ever taller. The sun was still above the horizon but the darkening of the sky started to bend and change the light which was taking on peach and amber hues. At the moment her den was beneath the roots of an old willow tree in the weeping woods but she wasn't sure that was the best place for a den. The woods had a tendency to flood whenever large rainstorms drew near and although she fortified the entrance to her den it was far from perfect. She'd laid old branches a few feet in front of the entrance and built mud up around them fortified with grasses in an effort to create a small dam that would channel water away from the entrance of her den. So far it had worked well enough. It wasn't perfect by any means but it was better than nothing. The branches of the willow tree also helped to shelter the den from extra rain fall. Even so, the woods were lowlaying and run off could cause the streams to flood swiftly to the point that a small dam like Lydia's didn't amount to much. Even so, she couldn't quite bring herself to build a new den in the grass plains. Part of it was simply a desire to not start over but also the ground there was flat as well and would also be prone to flooding though perhaps not as much as the woods. She continued to mull over what she wanted to do with her den when the first peel of thunder reached her ears. She looked to the darkening sky in the south, watching the mountains of clouds looming ever closer. Lightning danced across the clouds, looped around and through them. It was pretty if not for the inherent dangers it possessed. It was definitely time to get moving. Lydia didn't want to be caught on the plains when the storm hit. While there were a few trees here and there she still felt like a target and getting struck by lightning was not something she wished to experience. Another roar of thunder echoed across the region as she got to her feet and shook the grass from her pelt. The storm was moving quickly and she knew she would need to as well. Lydia loped across the plains and headed in the direction toward her den. No doubt Bolla had gotten everything set up to be nice and cozy so the pair could wait out the storm in relative comfort. "Talk" "Bolla" Think |