cut the hand that feeds you

Everything down here was strange. The wolves were strange, the weight of the air was strange. The plants were strange and it makes the young girls fur stand on end... well, what fur hadn't been burned off in that strange encounter with the big black wolf-dog.

She placed her paws ever so carefully on the steep incline down to the bottom of the bend. Even the colours of the stones were off. Where rock should have been shades of grey it was streaked with yellows and oranges and reds. Unnatural. She pulled a face. Was that a cave just ahead? Dare she wander inside? Maybe it would give her an easier passage down to the riverbed at the bottom. It was worth a look, right?

“Speech”