UNFALTERING

The world was achingly quiet. There was a chilling wind whisping across the horizon, and behind it the shadowy forms of large mountains dotted across the endless gray. There was a hushed snow that fell upon the dusty gravel, and her paws had long grown worn and bloody from the trek. She did not know where she was going. Behind her were the endless trees, a thick and heavily-scented forest she’d been careful to avoid (or rather, sneak carefully through, avoiding any sort of suspicion or recognition). Her breath was lost in her chest, her fur long withered and half-wet, a blanket of snow curled onto her back. Where once it might have melted, now Aurélie had been over encumbered by the cold, and no longer had the body heat to melt it. Flanking the side of the endless field was a mountain range far sharper and clearer than the others in the background, and she began to head in its direction, if only to have a reference point, a beacon to tether her. Admittedly, she was afraid, fearful to lose herself in a potentially endless desert if she were to follow the fleeting and flat horizon. Thus, her traveling remained on the outskirts of the battlefields, and kept her even between the un-scalable and steep cliffs of the mines and the harrowing desert to her right.

Each step forward brought with it a further desire to collapse, to rest, to lose herself in a sub-consciousness reminiscent of her life before all this happened. One moment they were there—and the next, they were gone. Aurélie had long exhausted all her tears, and had instead fell into a emotional purgatory. A young heart yearned for guidance, but always the maidenly fickleness strived for independence. You are too young to be alone, she thinks, and she knows it is true. Her legs were not quite yet trained to run, and her skills not honed enough to hunt anything but field mice and sick, small deer. Her head was lowered to be level with her shoulders, and her tiredness was evident in her lanky gait, once-voluptuous elegance now subjected to a terrible sluggishness. Nearer and nearer was she to facing an entire collapse.