Stand strong

Walk | Talk



The gorge stretched out before her, immense and immeasurable in the twisting, winding route it took through the valley. She couldn’t see past the first twist in the smooth rock,but she knew the journey through would be long and dark. She pressed her cold nose against the wall to her right shoulder, sniffing the chill rock-face, curious by its well-worn surface. There use to be a river here, she was sure of it. Goosebumps flecked on her tail and spine, she didn’t know this land well. Did the water pool here when it rained? Surely it would take weeks worth of rain to full this immeasurable space. She took a stern breath, schooling her features as she slinked further forward.

She wouldn’t be cowed by her imagination, by ideas of what could be around the corner/ from grumpy grizzlies, to a towering wall of water that she could never avoid. She shook her coat. Foolishness. She continued forward, and turned the first corner of this maze, scratching a mark on the base of the wall here. She would not allow herself to get lost as easily as that.

There was a method to her madness, in the damp, cool surface below she might find rare herbs that winter had not yet managed to wither and destroy. Her herb supply had dwindled away to scraps already, and winter had barely begun. She cursed her bad luck, and considered the possibilities of a trade with a pack nearby. Rare herbs, or hunting, might make a pleasant trade to a pack. She was fleet-footed, and far-wondering. With that in mind, she might be able to scavenge herbs and prey that a pack might not have access to. It was with this in mind that she braved the fear wrought by her imagination and continued her weary passage through the gorge.

Two lefts, a right, and she already felt as though she was far into the belly of the earth. The light from the sun seemed to wayne, the towering figures of the walls above her cast a shadow down upon her, and occasionally blocked it out fully, as she ducked through passageways created by roots or rock falls. The river bed, once likely simple, when it was flowing with water, had become something of a mystery, weathered by time. She sniffed often, and pawed at the base of the rocks around her Occasionally she would find moss, and other such vegetation, and add it to the leaf bundle held gently in her mouth. Other times, she simply marked her passage. Every noise she made seemed to echo around her, a soft whisper in the shadows, that occasionally made her jump and set her heart racing, despite logic telling her it was only an echo, and, occasionally, the movement of a harmless rodent.