Winter
05-19-2017, 02:13 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-20-2017, 12:39 AM by Eo..)
|
. E O .
...`There was something damning about winter that Eo found refreshing. It was as if spring and summer had found the world wanting and decided to inflict the harshness of winter upon their thin skins. With freezing temperatures and a plague of snow it would drive out the weakness that had accumulated and force strength down the throats of the worthy. Which was really to say, that it fed the wolves on the weakness of others, fattening them up on the starvation and hypothermia of lesser species. Autumn could be a hard time for wolves, with no young deer to steal and all the males high on testosterone as they stalked about barbarically 'claiming' helpless females and waving their hard bone antlers about like swords. Many young wolves lost their lives trying to joust with young stags drunk on raging lust. Autumn was a time to hunt small as rodents feasted on the rotting leftovers of summer and plumped themselves for hibernation and food shortages. But winter... winter took the weak and threw them into the gnashing jaws of the strong. Those bucks who maimed strong predators were suddenly fodder for yearling wolves as their injuries from the rut made them easy targets. Such thoughts, such worship of the seasons and elements, ran rampant through Eo's mind as she stalked through the dead vegetation of the Tall Grass Plains. A place normally filled with the buzz of insects and the patter of little rodent feet was silent in the clutches of jack frost. Iced pebbles scratched against her nails and frosted stalks caressed her red coat, begging for attention she had naught to give. A steel sky hovered low overhead, pressing down on her back with a pressure that promised snow without the bitter bite of a storm. ...`Her stride was slow, with her red tail in a neutral hang and her ears flitting side to side as she sought to catch the sounds of midwinter. A great breath was pulled in through her narrow nostrils, cold burning her airways even as she sifted through the smells, sorting them away in her brain in a catalog of most to least recent. Rabbits were somewhere. She could smell their polluting perfume and golden eyes kept catching on frozen pebbles of scat. But her effort wasn't there. A chase she would gladly give, but the stalking and searching, the finding a nest and digging it open simply wasn't in her schedule for the day. Instead she wove her way through the grasses without purpose, ruminating on the seasons and the love Winter had for her wolves. "speech" |