Leera noses her way through the draping vines, all crisp and brown in winter's breath, parting them to reveal the same falls she'd visited only a short time ago. She hasn't meant to return to this place, or perhaps she has meant this precisely; there's a lingering, dull-ache of familiarity to this oasis. She recalls it, not these falls, but falls on the other side of the world, miles and miles from here, falls she might've once considered home.
Home. Her ears fold tight against her head. Those falls, the ones plaguing her memory, are not home and had never been. Home is not where your children are left dead and bleeding.
Children. She hasn't remembered them in weeks. In fact, she finds it easiest to push every echo of them out of her mind, erase every mental photo she's taken of them. Three litters over the years and she has nothing to show for it -- yes, her children were strong, leaders undoubtedly, but they were also dead. There's no use in remembering what could never be.
Leera slid her tongue over her teeth, growling gently to herself, trying hard to forget the ghost feeling of their tiny muzzles against her teats. They were dead. They are dead. They mean nothing to her now. They can't. Leera steps through the decaying leaves, finding a spot near a half-frozen pool to groom herself.
speech action
Leera is a mature character.
Force/violence is permitted within reason.
Plot with us here!
