Living On The Wind
01-12-2020, 10:30 AM
Thistle had no love for the rumbling earth, or for the fires belching out from deep in its gut, like so much a drunken seafarer. Although the eruptions seemed to have faded from gouts of ash to farts of smoke she still found herself far afield on the northwestern coast. When the weather fouled she retreated into the extensive cave systems she had found in the spring, but most of her days were spent roaming the peninsula to the west and the tundra to the north. Large game was hard to come by, but she was not so proud to turn her nose up at the voles, mice, and rabbits which had sheltered in their own burrows during the calamity. It did not feel close enough to eking out an existence to worry her, however close it might be, so Thistle roamed on. She considered herself good company, and she should know, seeing as she was the only company to be had most days. Boredom did not come easily to someone with such a lively wit as hers, she often thought, often bordering on self-congratulation with no one available to check her ego. No one to nag her about burs in her coat, no one to chastise her for scaling dangerous heights, no one to tell her that she was being an ass for spooking what sparse herds she did come across for no reason other than jealousy. Mice were quite delicious, after all. She should know, having eaten hundreds of them since the onset of the thaw. She was simply ensuring others got to experience such joy themselves. It was a favor to them. Honest. Although the sky was often choked in smog, a westerly wind had blown in several days past and left the region shockingly bright and refreshed. She could almost convince herself that the disaster had passed and while perhaps that was true, she wasn’t keen on setting her expectations any higher than was strictly necessary for her survival. Clear skies or not it was still cooler than summer ought to be, and the bears who had left hibernation a season past had found the landscape sparse. They were as grumpy now as they were a moon ago, and she had run into several young sows and boars she would have traded her tail to avoid. It was almost enough to push her south again, and yet… She huffed, settling down onto her haunches and staring out over the landscape from her paltry vantage point. The esker was no grand elevation by any means, but one of the few high points to be found amongst bogs and boulder fields. She’d not be surprised again any time soon, thank you very much. A bear had wandered through far in the distance, and she’d spotted a wolverine two days past from the same look out, but no wolves. It had been almost a fortnight since speaking to a member of her own kind, and while Thistle was in no hurry to break her streak, she wouldn’t pass up a chance to take news from farther inland. She’d had a robust midday meal after all, (one singular hare,) so all she had left to do with her day was laze about and watch the clouds floating by. |
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