just bad planning

Of course when she heard there was a place called the Deluge she would have to check it out on her way home, right? Now that golden eyes scanned the cracked and baked mud and the swiftly coursing water, a bitter chuckle bubbled at the back of her throat. Of course her mother would name her after a muddy riverbed, right? With small green spots of moss and some weird looking plants. It wouldn’t be a veritable oasis, or a deeply carved river with rapids and waterfalls? No, it was water that bubbled up out of the ground and made the earth around it muddy.

She supposed it was possible that under the right conditions it might swell and surge, maybe it was just this time of year? Perhaps if she came back after the Autumn rainfall it would look a little more impressive? Well, she’d come all this way, and broken away from her brothers, she might was well poke around a bit.

The Fallen girl made her way down the steep embankment and followed the coursing water upstream, trying to determine it’s source. She took note of the reeds and the mosses, the strange little ferny looking plants, thinking that if only Eden were with her, well, she might learn of some new use for them. Cat like claws scratched through the mud and the water had a strong mineral tang to it, almost as if it came from under the ground, instead of from the sky. Her head canted as she considered the possibility of water under the earth. Surely not? Wouldn’t it all just wash away?

A tangle of roots stretched across the ground and she wondered where the trees they grew from were? She couldn’t see anything glaringly obvious on the banks, more out towards the middling distance. Surely they didn’t stretch that far? Perhaps there was once a great forest here, and now this was all that was left? This hardened muddy slash in the earth.

Deluge looked to the sky with squinted eyes. This place should be west of their home, which would mean they would have to travel east. With the sun beating down on her though, and her light skin tingling with the beginning of a burn she wondered if it was worth finding a sheltered cove to bunk down in for the worst of the midday heat?

The mud closer to the water’s edge squelched pleasantly between her toes and gave her another idea. She held her breath and pressed her nose into the mud, coating the bridge of her muzzle where the fur was thinnest and her pink nose in mud. The relief was instantaneous and a bright smile covered her face. Her mother would hate it. That thought alone was enough to have the child throwing herself shoulder first into the mud, rolling over to coat her glowing coat and all the places her pink skin might be prone to burn. After all, once she was back, she could wash herself at the beach and all would be well. She just had to get there first, and didn’t feel like wasting the brightest daylight hours to get there.

Climbing back out on the other side might prove a bit harder than getting down here now that she looked at it. Protruding roots and half exposed rocks revealed some footholds for the girl, but the banks were crumbling and steep. She started with a run up and lunged to grab at an exposed root, sharp front claws and dull back scrabbling for purchase amongst the falling debris. The muscles in her neck strained and finally a paw came to rest against a smooth rock that jutted from the bank. She tested it’s soundness and then pushed, relinquishing her hold on the root and swinging her head to try and catch another. When finally her front paws felt sparse grass beneath them she knew she was almost there, but she was running out of things to pull herself up with.

A back paw slipped and claws uprooted grass as the girl slid back down the bank and landed on her backside at the bottom of the ravine with a frustrated Oof. She sighed heavily and picked herself up to shake, the sticky mud making her coat stick up in all directions. Right, she had almost forgotten about that and it made her giggle. She was going to feel that in the morning, but her mother was going to be mad, and that would make it all worth it in the end.

She strolled back the way she had come scanning the banks for an easier exit point, knowing that the earth must slope down the closer she got to the sea, and all rivers led there eventually. One way or another, the girl was going to find her way home.