stranger than earth

her heaven is only half alive
i fell asleep in his, but he could not breathe in mine

The lake was too cold to swim in, but Jendayi was never one to throw such an opportunity away. The water was always inviting—it allowed her some distant escape, a blissful drawback to the days of her youth spent in places much warmer, thick swamps ruled by the glorious self-proclaimed swamp Queen, Jendayi’s self-proclaimed mother (although some other distant relative) who taught her all she’d ever known: to ignore the shackles of culture and instead revel in all the world had to offer. To learn through experience, to not tie herself to one place for longer than she needed to. Eventually, Jendayi had left, and had found herself here, in this land where she knew not the pathway home. Everywhere was home, now; it was a thought that made things easier to forget, and eventually, Jendayi lost most of her past identity. The life of a nomad had its ideals and pleasantries, but so far north brought with it smaller and well-hidden prey, and Jendayi was simply not powerful enough to trek through the billows of snow that reached far over her head. She soon abandoned the mountain and headed south, and it was there where she discovered the vast lake. The humid sun above cast a blistering shine upon the shallows, but with the winter came the frost, and much of it had long frozen over. Jendayi thought to break the ice simply to submerge herself—it was the coldest water, after all, that woke her up the best, but the ice had soon proven far too thick to break, as if it had been this way for years.

Once the wintry maiden had tired herself out, she resolved to laying along the banks. Here, the wind was not as harsh as it had been in the higher altitudes, and the clear skies a fickle promise that perhaps it would last—the snowstorms the night before had nearly thrown her off the mountain, and the cliffsides above her ached with heavy snow, the sound of thunderous rapor terrifying in the dead of night when avalanches assaulted the other side of the mountain. It was dangerous, but Jendayi had never lived in fear of danger. It was what made her feel alive.

She had long consigned herself to some sort of half-sleep, her eyes fluttering against the harshness of the sun’s brightness on the lake, awakened only by its intensity. But it felt so nice on her back—the thickness of her winter coat strong enough now to keep most of the chill out, and the warming rays of the sun and the brief humidity in the air allowing her a lukewarm presence, if only just. An almost wolfish purr exhaled from her mouth, a girlish sigh escaping in the form of a thick vapor, before she buried her nose in the snow. Her tail curled around her hocks, and she sprawled out on her side, half-hidden in the alcove of a small rock laden with snow, leaving her lower half in the shade, and upper half in the sun. Forget the water, she thought, watching the frozen lake sit vastly before her, this was truly peaceful.