chronically cautious

Mist swirled thick and cool on the forest floor. Finch gulped a little bit. This place had always given her the creeps, but she knew there were rare plants and mushrooms that only grew in certain wet, dark places... like the base of this forest floor. She had put it off long enough, but now that spring was here and the world had begun to wake up in earnest, it was time to get cracking. At least the prospect of finding new and interesting plants was enough to give her courage to tread across the pillowy moss and venture deeper.

The air may have been heavy with condensation, but beneath that heavy smell of spring-warmed water and lush vegetation lurked the tinge of her first heat. It was embarrassing. Finch had known it would be coming - she was a healer, after all, and prided herself on that - but it was a different sort of thing to know something intellectually versus experiencing it firsthand. She'd tried to cover the smell by rubbing crushed lavender near the base of her spine and tail, but she couldn't really tell if it had helped. Finch was hesitant to wander away from Avalon territory with this new development, but at least she was nearby and could scamper home if something didn't feel right. For now, she trained her eyes on the shadows of the forest floor. Each nook or cranny she passed might reveal something and she was intent on keeping her wits about her.