Mercy
From the way her father has spoken of Boreas she might have been led to assume that it was a verdant paradise of eternal summer, full of frolicking wolves and fairies. Not that it was all sunshine and rainbows of course, no Yale hadn't exactly sugar coated what had happened to him when he had deemed them old enough to know. Still she was surprised to find the continent of her father's stories was so... normal... of course she wasn't sure this was Boreas. She was wandering in the midst of a ravine, autumnal trees dotting the top of the cliff faces she found herself beside. Snow had yet to really build yet, seemingly too warm here for it to stack but it had tried it's best, piling in areas of shade and dusting most everywhere else. She hadn't exactly been here long enough to really meet anyone yet. In fact she had yet to meet another living soul yet, there were scents of prey all around her and a few faint scent trails of wolves but nothing to indicate this area had seen much traffic in recent days. In fact some part of her was worried she'd wandered into some kind of natural trap that the residents were all too smart to find themselves in. She imagined the walls of ravine snapping closed around her like a giant set of jaws. Instead she heard something else, a slow building rumble. Every once and while she heard strange bellows. Medea stopped, frowning and turning towards the sound, her eyes widening as she suddenly saw a herd of elk rushing down the ravine pass towards her. Medea acted before she could even start thinking, turning suddenly to begin racing away from the incoming stampede. She veered hard to the right trying to press herself close to the wall in the hopes the herd wouldn't trample her to death when they inevitably caught up with her. The sheer walls kept her from running off their path though and she felt the ground beneath her paws vibrate with the encroaching hoof beats, gritting her teeth. Then the world gave a great heaving groan and began to shake even more than before. Suddenly she stopped, horror washing over her face. The herd rushed past her, battering her against the stone wall as she struggled to turn around. The world heaved and a great crack sounded and Medea spotted the path she'd taken into the ravine get swallowed, a great wave of earth and snow and trees crashing down towards her. She flinched as a particularly panicked elk lashed out at her, digging a cut into her right foreleg. Then the herd was gone, racing away from the incoming wave of earth. Medea blinked then, with a deliberate movement she turned back around again and began to run this time there was no panic; just a knowledge of what she had to do. The woman clamped her mouth shut, and narrowed her eyes. She moved towards the middle of the narrow path again, not wanting to be slammed into the walls by the incoming wave. Glancing back over her shoulder she could see the avalanche wasn't slowing. Paws flew over the earth and she watched after the retreating herd, she imagined she was chasing them, trying to keep herself calm as she ran. Then she felt it, the wave of earth starting to swallow up. Medea transferred from running to swimming, pumping her legs in an upwards motion as she was swept along by the rolling earth, trying, almost desperately, to keep her head above the snow and dirt and praying she'd be able to last as long as it took for the avalanche to slow as she screwed her eyes shut against the splatter of dust and dirt that was flying around her. |
| Art by Atillur |