Oniakashi-hen

The thicket was empty, okay not literally empty, obviously, the pack was still evident in the milling of wolves or the occasional sign of other smaller life but it wasn't that that drew Psalm's attention. Rather it was the conspicuous lack of a certain fauna, while she hadn't known much of the world before her birth, before the long winter she had seen some from time to time in the thicket but now... well now they seemed all gone, but did they migrate with the turning of the season? She did not know. But it did make her a little concerned. Psalm had to work hard, harder than ever before. This much she knew. Her father had abandoned them and Psalm was desperate to avoid further rejection and was certain the best or maybe even only way to do that was to prove how hard a worker she was.

She had plans to hunt as much as time would allow and had been hoping to target some of the plumper birds that often made the thicket their home but while they hadn't ever been plentiful in her time they were notably absent now... which of course only made everything already swirling in her mind worse. The anxiety that pulled at Psalm was ramped up. The girl was snuffling around desperately at tree roots, her head whipping around between digging around in the leaves and dirt and scanning the now meager canopy above her, her trail clear in the moving of the grasses that dwarfed her.

WC: 255 (/1500)