Spelunking and Thunderstorms [AW Nav]

She’d explored a great deal of the Dancefloor, but the next day, she rose before dawn, stretching and yawning quietly before shaking out her snow and silver coat and grooming down the fur, until her silky, black-harnessed fur lay flat rather than fluffed and squashed from sleep.

Carefully, she picked her way around the pile of legs, ears and tails that were her snoring half-siblings, pausing to nuzzle one pup into the rest of the pile and the warmth of their frames. Then she smiled at her mother, speaking just loudly enough for her mother to hear without waking the pups, "Táim chun dul in olcas soir ón damhsa damhsa. Is féidir liom a bheith ar ais go déanach."

Eramaya nodded, smiling softly after her daughter as Legacy slipped from the yurt.

The yearling broke into a lope, heading east. By the time she reached the distant tree-line, the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, and with it a rolling thunderhead, and Legacy squinted at it, gauging the time it might take to reach the camp.

With a tut she decided that by the time she was halfway through exploring some of the gorge now laying open at her paws, with the mouths of caves peeking out here and there in its walls, both low and high, the storm would be on top of her. Best to stick to the upper levels, then. Flash floods were never good news for the unaware down-stream, and this place definitely had the water-hewn look of what once might have been a mighty river full of rapids and falls.

As she picked her way down a path, she wondered what must have happened to the river, if indeed there ever was one. Had it dried up? Become blocked upstream and diverted into one of the other rivers in the west?

She paused, peering into a likely looking cave, sapphire and amethyst eyes squinting against the morning gloom and testing the scents with her nose. Nothing fresh in terms of predators, but she thought she could smell the fresher spore of a rat or two. She wasn’t that keen on hunting, and rats weren’t very appealing as fast food went, but she decided to make a note of them, just in case she did happen to get peckish.

She slipped into the cave, walking carefully in case the floor wasn’t as sound as it looked.

Walk ---- "Speak" ---- "Labhair an Sean-Teanga." ---- "Hear" ---- Think