Suffering Succotash

Damn the cold, Amaranth decided. Damn the cold, and the frost, and the ice and the snow. A harsh wind blew into her face and she tucked her muzzle towards her chest, altering course so it caught her crossways. In her defense, the blizzard had come out of nowhere. How was she supposed to know what towering, steely clouds and scent of snow would bring? It was bullshit, pure and simple.

She dreamed of a spring she barely remembered, harkened back to her puphood, or whatever it took to keep her placing one paw in front of another. It could be worse, she thought. At least I got within this copse. The trees surrounding her did offer some measly modicum of protection. Mara reassured herself with the knowledge that it was much better than being exposed a few hundred lengths beyond, where the treeline transitioned into more exposed space. She repeated this to herself, even as each new gust cut deep into her fur and bit at her skin.

Her joints were stiff with cold, as if the wind wrapped itself around each and every ligament and left a piece of itself behind. She imagined it crippling her bit by bit before gleefully floating off to harass some other unwitting creature, and sneered. As if she would be cut low by a storm. Hah! Not likely. She paused, turned her back the wind, and looked about.

It was hard to pick out much through the blustering snow. The ground was far too frozen to dig into the soil. She might manage a slight depression, but she’d be at the mercy of the snow to drift up around her if she expected any protection at all from the wind. The idea of placing her fate in the godsforsaken snow’s paws was unpalatable to say the least, so she moved on from that thought almost as soon as it arrived. All around her blue-gray shadows of tree trunks arched upwards. Maybe amongst their roots she might find refuge. She began to root around. At the very least she could curl up in one of their shadows and hope for the best. How long could this squall last, after all?