Respite

Walk | Talk | Think

Any other day Yin might have considered herself a formidable wolf, made of muscle and mass enough even to take on the robust males of her kind. There was nothing to be feared, nothing to give her pause. She was capable and knew it, and was too stubborn and impersonable to let anyone tell her otherwise. But no amount of physical strength had been enough to counter the effects that the hurricane had wrecked upon the lands.

The immense downpour had been bad enough, but the volcano had been considerably worse. It had awoken during the chaos of the storm and spewed its ash very heavily into the sky, mingling with the rain and making the air horrendous to breathe in. And Yin had been right in the middle of it. She had not found shelter soon enough, had no gotten away fast enough, and had breathed in her fair share of the ash that had covered the skies and hung in the air. It had all caught her by surprise, thinking at first that it might have been nothing more than a cold triggered by the storm, but even without being a healer she knew it was more complex than that.

It made her feel sluggish and listless, her wanderings becoming less precise and more ambling. She was not even sure where she was presently, green and blue eyes staring across a vast expanse of emptiness that was an inhospitable as it was unappealing. She blinked her eyes and drew in a labored breath, feeling the heaviness in her lungs and trying her best not to trigger another coughing fit. Her chest was already growing sore from it.

Being lost and ill might have put her in a sour mood any other day, but circumstances of late had all but drained her of her ability to care enough to be angry or upset. No growls and no scowls were heard or seen from the white and black she-wolf as she traveled aimlessly along, head and tail low in a downtrodden manner. Respite. That was all the able-bodied Yin wanted now.