If a mushroom can grow from sh*t, so can you

She doesn’t have a lay of the land yet, and that’s enough to make her uncomfortable. On edge. More than just on edge, but not quite paranoid. No, Sanna wouldn’t call herself paranoid yet. Her steps are high and confident as she eats the ground beneath her with long strides. For as oddly proportioned as she was, she’d always get the job done. Utilitarian, or whatever it was called. That’s what you call girls that aren’t pretty and aren’t strong– utilitarian. Sanna was used to hearing it. She’d long since learned to apply it to herself. Gritting her teeth as she moved over her still sore but mostly healed leg, she fixed her gaze on the world around her.

Hunting for herbs had never been a particularly strong suit. May as well learn what’s out here, though. This was a bitch who’d splint her own leg with a piece of driftwood and some scavenged cordage and move on, not someone who’d try to dull her own pain. Better to feel pain, feel anything at all– that’s what would keep her alive out here. Need to hurt to know your own limits. Need to hurt to thrive properly. That’s what she’d always been taught, at least. As long as she was still hurting, as long as she was still actively bleeding, then she was still alive. For as long as she’s alive, she should figure out how to do the actual healing things a pack probably needed. If she was going to be in a pack, she had to be useful to them. Couldn’t be a burden, but also this sucked to a degree. Scowling, she fixed her gaze back on the ground and her nose back to the herb hunt.

As Sanna browses, she becomes acutely aware that she’s not alone. The frantic flapping of wings, and then someone yelling at the birds. Yelling at the birds? What the fuck? Whoever else was out here, they were far too close to continue to ignore. Not that the girl was necessarily worried about being attacked, but it would probably be beneficial to not startle a stranger. She would know– talk about someone who does poorly when taken by surprise. Her gaze narrows, trying to pinpoint the source of the movement, the scent of another on the breeze. Ah– there. Someone who also appeared to be looking for something.

Looking for mushrooms. Functionally the same thing that Sanna was doing, but… what the fuck? She squinted, gaze finally settling on what could only be a child. What business did a child have with mushrooms? How much did Sanna really care to find out? Still, she couldn’t very well continue to ignore the girl. “Which mushrooms?” She finally calls out. Not much of a conversationalist, but it would do.


"Speech"