batten down the hatches

*Ragnheiðr* · 06-21-2019, 03:16 PM

So far, her time in Lirim had proven relatively uneventful. After her first day of being catapulted into the pond that she now restlessly circled, things had slowed to a boring crawl. Most wolves seemed to look at her with disdain, or worse, through her, as if she wasn't there at all. Rags was intimately familiar with feeling invisible - her shuffling gait, loose tail, and limp ears were cause for most strangers to avoid her. If you didn't know her well, it was easy to quickly assume that she was, perhaps, diseased. Better keep your distance, better not catch something. Rags growled under her breath, stopping for a moment to peer up at the sky. It was overcast, but sunlight still peeked through the clouds. There was something electric on the air, though, a distinct pressure shift that made the her hackles rise of their own accord. Best to take cover soon.

Although she noted this, Rags continued to pace restlessly. She loathed being confined to Lirim territory. While it was necessary that she sought the shelter and company of a pack before winter, she hadn't quite planned on settling so soon. Given the way she'd "joined," the poor girl didn't have much choice. As a Girvin, she would be confined to the territory until further notice, and with her limited skill-set, Rags had no idea how she would prove her worth. Although she sustained significant nerve damage that altered her gait and some other soft muscle tissue, she wasn't useless But soft skills were a difficult thing to make a weapon of - her smarts wouldn't bag a buffalo or apply a life-saving salve. Perhaps she could work under a healer, though... If her paws weren't nimble and her tongue sometimes went too numb to chew herbs, at least she could offer a mental respite. Someone who needed help to come up with new remedies or brainstorm innovative treatment. Now, there was an idea!

She had been so lost in thought that Rags' hadn't noticed the cloud cover thicken and darken. Even if she had been paying attention, the weather had changed quickly. Dark, almost black clouds had crowded out the sun. They were heavy with rain and Rags could smell it. Being confined to the territory had given her, at the very least, a special kind of familiarity with the pack lands. Luckily, she knew that Torin and his children were denned away from this area somewhere in the valley - the scent of family was thick there. But, if the water pooled... As Rags stopped to think again, the rain began. It didn't start slowly, it came hard and it felt like all at once. Her body was assaulted with rain water so completely that it was almost physically painful. Willows whipped their long boughs to and fro in the wind with enough force to be a formidable weapon. The clumsy female scrambled to get her paws properly underneath herself. The rain came so heavily that the ground didn't have time to absorb the water; it had already been an uncommonly wet summer, and puddles formed quickly. Rags splashed towards the pond, worried that it might overflow. She wasn't certain, but she had thought she'd smelled dens not too far from the small body of water.

Tripping over herself, Rags careened towards the pond. Lilypads were already sloshing at the mossy edges of the pond, threatening to spill over. "Hello! Hello! Anyone?" She called, skidding around the edges of the water. There! A den! She spotted the yawning hole in the ground and sped towards it as well as she could, occasionally falling. What if someone was sleeping through the storm and the ground above the den got so waterlogged that it collapsed? They'd be buried alive. With her heart beating out of her chest, Rags reached the edge of the den and screamed down into the ground: "Wake up! Get out! You'll be flooded!" But the scent was stale. Whoever had lived here hadn't come around for some seasons. Rags let out a deep sigh, grateful that it was unoccupied. If someone else had needed physical assistance, she wasn't sure that she'd be able to help.

Rain continued to fall with no signs of stopping. In the distance, she could hear thunder rumble. If she could independently move her tail, she'd be tucking it underneath herself. It lagged loosely behind herself as she ran. As a Girvin, she hadn't really been given much instruction on where to sleep or take cover. She'd been sleeping more or less in the open since she'd arrived and hadn't gotten much sleep because of it. Rags was running on pure adrenaline.

Now that she'd ensured no one was in the area, it was time to take care of herself. She took off further away from the pond to get away from the water; at this rate, it was sure to overflow. Maybe it would leave behind some tasty fish to dry out in the sun... that would certainly be a silver lining. In the distance, between the sheets of falling water, she could spot the looming shape of an empty tree trunk. It had fallen a long time ago and split on a low-lying nearby rock, with one end leaning up in the air and the other tilted towards the ground. Ugh... she thought. The idea of being perched inside the log was undignified, to say the least. How very Girvin of her. Rags headed straight for the log and scrambled on top of the rock it had fallen on. She took a quick look around, trying to decide if there was any better place to take shelter. With this seeming her best and closest option, Rags scrambled into the log and tried to stop herself from sliding too far down. Luckily, there was a rotted out hole that was small enough for her to curl up on top of without sliding further down. The tip of her tail hung limply down through the hole. The rain beat a steady rhythm on the thin wood above her head.

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Lineart by AspenLeSheep, Colored by Lolaf

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batten down the hatches

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Ragnheiðr