Far From Home

Quote:On a whim, the timid little creamy white wolf had given in to an urge and ventured beyond the boundaries of her home, staying close and exploring the wintry wonders of the northern lands. Slowly she could feel the first suggestions of spring beginning to take hold, the air, though still chilly, warming every so slightly, the snow storms becoming less frequent. They still had a long time to go before spring would settle in completely and fully, but it was kind of nice knowing it was so close. Mercianne could hardly wait to see the blooms on the hardier flowers that even thrived in such cold, harsh climates as those she made herself home in.

But eager anticipation of all that color had caused her to travel further from home than she had anticipated, slipping quietly and slowly into southern territories. The air here was warm, snows barely clinging to the ground where it had minutely managed to make itself known where it was unable to grasp the last firmly as it did in the north. Stuffy as it made her feel, the differing scenery was quite extraordinary to her, giving her something new to stare at with every turn in the forest that she took. Her familiar coniferous forests began to give way to unfamiliar lands, the greens becoming brighter, more vibrant than the dull, forest green she was accustomed to. And flowers, even more brightly and varying than those of her home, bloomed here, their fragrances filling the air so completely that she hardly paid attention to where she was going but merely following the winding path that she wound in their midst.

The flowers, to her surprise, did not last long, and eventually the forest she had been traveling through opened up onto a field overrun with odd plants, weeds attempting to choke the other plants that shared their space. As she paused there along the edge of the treeline, her dark brown eyes shifting slowly over the unexpected open space, Merci wondered at its odd shape, the plants that seemed to grow there unnaturally amid the plants that had long ago attempted to retake their home.

Timidity and a natural hesitancy around anything unfamiliar stopped her from venturing closer, and for the first time in what felt like hours she contemplated that perhaps she had traveled too far. She was quite a distance from home, without even the slightest clue to her current location, and somehow she would still need to get back. As she glanced toward the west, the sun already starting a slow sink in the sky, she knew it would likely be night by the time she did end up making it back to the Glaciem territory. But there was nothing stopping her from looking at it for a moment. Seating herself quietly amid the trees, watching the open space that surely had housed something intriguing at one point, Mercianne let a little sigh slip from her lips to relax after her long trek before setting back out in search of home.

-- mercianne