Chasing the Present, Escaping the Past
The sun was starting it's downward climb but the massive size of the forest made the landscape seem darker than it was. Massive redwood trees soared into the sky, their great limbs stretching forth so high sometimes Natha wondered if she could walk right up into the stars if she climbed one. At the moment she moved along a trail of moss, nimbly navigating across the forest litter that dotted the ground. Reaching a particularly large tree she gently rubbed her left side against it. Sure turned to face Tamsyn and rubbed the other side of her face against the tree with a grin on her face.
"I like trees, can you tell? What do you think?" There were a few patches of snow on the ground but most of it had melted. Probably a brief autumn snow fall. It would only increase as winter moved in but at least the great branches of the trees offered some protection.
Knight
The moment she laid eyes on the massive trees that Natha had led them to all she could do was look at them with absolute awe and shock. They were huge! The twisted, curved trees they had just experienced had been very interesting and fun to play around on, but these... These blew her mind. It was quite the finale to their explanation and Tamsyn couldn’t help but laugh as she started walking a circle around one of the huge trunks and began to think she’d never make her way back to the beginning.
”These are great!” she exclaimed with a giggle when she finally got back to where she could see Natha again. All of these fantastical places they had been to over the last couple of days easily brought out a child-like wonder in her that she had never been able to really enjoy until now. ”If these were hollow a whole family could live in one of these things!” The idea of using one of these trees as a home was both humorous and intriguing to her all at the same time
Natha's legs coiled beneath her and she sprang up into the tree. Her claws helped her latch on and she climbed a few feet up but not so high she wouldn't be able to comfortably talk with Tamsyn. "No kidding! How cool would that be? This is quite a work out though. I have to climb a good ways just to get to a lower branch." Deciding she didn't quite feel like testing herself right now she carefully worked her way down the tree taking one step at a time until she was back on the ground.
"Let's see if we can try to find one with a hollow!" She pranced across the forest floor, looking here and there but most of the trees she saw were all in one piece. A startled squirrel scrambled up a nearby tree before turning and chattering at her. Natha stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at the annoying creature.
Tamsyn watched her friend attempt to climb one of the huge trees in question, only to come back down with a comment on how high the branches were. She tipped her head back to look at the branches in question and it did indeed soon like they were way farther above her head than any other tree she had ever seen. It made sense considering how large they were though. It was as if they took a normal sized tree and expanded it by a hundred times.
She was more than happy to follow along behind Natha as they set out in search of a tree with the hollow she imagined. Eventually she knew she would have to let Natha get back to her own life and plans, but Tamsyn sure was going to miss these explorations they had been on. Her paws crunched though a few patches of snow as they passed through them, a slight reminder that they were in the north. Soon enough the snow would be everywhere once winter came, but there was a little bit of time still before that happened.
The squirrel that darted away from them and up a tree startled her a bit, she quickly recovered and she laughed as Natha taunted the fluffy rodent. ”Tell that squirrel who’s boss,” she teased with a giggle.
"I'd be half tempted to chase him but he's more nimble than me." She'd made an idiot of herself chasing after squirrels quite frequently when she was younger. Now she knew when the squirrels were at an advantage and when she had a decent chance of catching one. Natha turned her attention back to the task at hand, finding a tree that could work as a dwelling. It took some doing but at last she found something that kind of worked.
"Tamsyn, over here!" It was half a red wood tree, split by lightning and felled some time ago. It's top portion lay partially held up by its neighbors while the lower half bore a spiked crown from the injury. The base of the trunk had an opening just big enough for a large wolf to fit through. She poked her head in, caught by the scent of the old wood and the slightly moldy smell. That would be the one thing about a home like this, the decomposition process was pretty indiscriminate.
Tamsyn’s gaze was pulled from the tree she had been inspecting when Natha called over to her. She turned and saw the split tree that Natha had found. She trotted over to look at it as well, slightly amazed that the lightening strike had been enough to split even a tree this large. “Wow,” she breathed with a soft chuckle. ”Lightening is kind of scary, huh?” Her eyes traced down the broken tree till she got to the make shift entrance that Natha was currently investigating.
She padded forward to poke her head in as well, grinning a little as she looked around the space that time and decay had hollowed out in the trunk of this tree. ”I don’t know if I’d want to live with this smell all the time, but this is a pretty good den in a pinch! I wonder if it would be possible to clean it up a bit and make it a little more permanent...” she mused thoughtfully, scanning the walls of the would-be den in what little day light they had left. The sun was quickly escaping them and when she backed away from the tree to peer at the sky she could see the colors of the sunset starting to color the sky.
Natha gazed at the place where the tree was rendered in two and nodded. "Yea, no kidding. If lightning struck one of us I don't think there's be much of anything left." She'd probably just be a pile of vaguely cat-like ashes. Luckily she rarely had reason to be out in a storm and her displeasure at getting wet prompted her to seek shelter early and stay hidden until storms ran their course.
Natha nodded. "Yea, it would be a good place to get out of the wind and snow if you were traveling during winter and needed a little place to warm up. I'm not much of a handy cat. I'm not sure the best way to mend an old tree but I bet there's some way." Natha felt the tug to keep moving and her gaze turned northwest to the marble wash before glancing at the sky. "I think we've still got some time left in the day. One more territory?"