Shades of Grey

Gwyndolyn

A misty cloud covering filled the sky - a sky seemingly ignorant of the joy spring was meant to bring. Indeed, the very surroundings seemed to have a sad heaviness to them that simply didn't match the season. A fog had rolled in with the rising sun; its light was hidden, the land still dark. Visibility was limited... but then, a wolf's senses are hardly limited by a little moisture in the air, are they? So she was not blind, though her eyes were next to useless. That could not remove the gloomy atmosphere however. There was no removing the eeriness of these woods. The grey cast of the fog, the heaviness of the mist on her coat... all miserable sensations. But she only huffed a soft sigh, watched her breath stir the coiling mists, then blinked away any worries as if they were never there to begin with. She meant to leave troubles behind her, and so she would. It mattered not the strangeness of these lands so far from home. This forest was a forest like any other to her, whether it was shrouded in mist or not.

She was travelling northward, her step soft and eyes alert. She was like a ghost in the mist... and there could be other ghosts out there. Ghosts she had not seen yet. So indeed caution was due, and that she took in small ways: the tilt of an ear, the flick of her eyes, the twitch of her nose... things that had been drilled into her since childhood to ensure her safety. In the mist she could almost imagine the shape of her mother trotting ahead, glancing over her shoulder to huff exasperatedly at her silvery daughter... Keep up dear, keep up!

Her constant step wavered only when the mists parted briefly, the vision gone... and for a moment she could see a wooden shape in the cold light. A tree - dead and broken, its shell soaking in the mist so it smelled strongly of rotting wood - presented itself briefly, then was gone as if it never had been. An ear flicked. She decided then that her paws did ache a little. She had been walking since... -she could scarcely remember how long now. Well before the sun. A little rest was her due, was it not? Just a small one. At home - she tried not to think of it too hard, too fondly - she would have been prodded forward. Sleep doesn't fill puppy bellies, and all that. But she was old enough now. She was old enough and alone, and she wanted to rest. She had no one to tell her what to do. The smell of the wood was strong and, while it could never entirely hide her wolf-smell, it wouldn't be half so bad to rest there. Mind made up, Gwyndolyn padded toward the fallen giant, a silver fish in a sea of grey.

It's where my demons hide.