blend right in

It sleeted a bit. V padded across the field, ignoring the freezing water that came down from the sky and humming songs to herself. Not much here. Just open grass and the occasional crater in the ground. V wasn't sure what had caused these, and no amount of scraping at the frozen ground had helped her solve the mystery. Would have to just live without knowing. Right now it was maybe not such a bad idea to find a dry spot to hang out until the sleet stopped. Although honestly it probably wouldn't and she would just get hungrier and hungrier until she had to go out or start eating her own tail or something. It reminded her faintly of home.

Not really, though. Too much mud for that. The ranger splashed along through it, a smile still hovering on her face because staying positive and her eyes wandering along the horizon in search of some trees or a pile of rocks that might hide a cave. It was as flat as the ocean out there. The brownish winter grass just went along until it ended at a steel-gray sky. The girl's eyes fastened on a flock of geese that went across the horizon briefly before dissapearing. Sighed, watched her breath float off into the sleet, and kept going. This was too boring. If she stopped she'd have to live in this boring for even longer and not get anywhere else. If there was anywhere else to get. She wasn't convinced that this entire country wasn't a weird dream that she was having and she'd wake up pretty soon and it would be summer at the seashore. All her friends would be there. They could play tag.

This time she yawned and decided to look for a hole in the mud to sleep in for a few hours. To this end V put her nose to the ground and started sniffing, following her nose along trails of wild horses that zagged along in the grass and mud. Horses didn't live in caves, though. Or holes anyhow. Neither did geese, which was the next animal she smelled. She found an interesting scrap on the ground; some kind of ragged blue stuff like grass or a feather or something. Picked it up and carried it along. Eventually she stopped looking and settled back into humping along through the field.
Half an hour later and the world was going from a daytime grayish to a nighttime blueish and the sleet had turned to snow, but it wasn't a big deal. V had finally stumbled on a island of trees out in the middle of the grass. Which was good, except that the ranger could still smell despite how cold her nose was and someone else already seemed to be inhabiting these trees. It was too cold to keep moving on, though. They would just have to share. V approached the trees, red eyes hunting through the darkness under them, sniffed twice, and wagged her tail. Maybe they'd trade her scrap of blue stuff and let her stay there. Yeah. She set it down, trapped it under a paw, and barked at the trees for attention.