God Bless The Broken Road

Homeless. It was a term that Vaishya was not familiar with, one that she still did not realize described her now under the circumstances though it did. Nothing had really been said except for maybe that they needed to go, to get up and out of their den and follow Momma and Da through the little bit of the Plains they had been given the go ahead to explore and even beyond the boundary. Somewhere along the way Ashelia had needed to be picked up, the going long and tiring, but the small, deep grey girl was fighting it. Her paws might have ached but the soft soil here seemed to know, making her footfalls gentle and easy. Just a little further, she continued to tell herself, certain eventually it would be true.

Stopping came a little sooner than expected, and with her eyes still as wide as they had been through the whole journey she stopped a little apart from her siblings and parents to survey the location. She had to admit, it seemed pretty. Trees and large shrubs sang with the calls of birds within, a surprisingly welcoming tune. The marshy puddles that she could see did not entirely look appealing, but maybe they were fed from something cleaner. Vaishya turned in place, finally glancing toward both parents, and stopped. Something was wrong. She had sensed it along their journey, adding to her own nervous tendency of curving her body in a gentle arc, head and tail low with her wide gaze constantly on the move. But now that they were here - wherever here was - everything seemed to bubble up and leak out in earnest.

She went back to looking around, her brown ears tucking a little more securely to her head and her tail swishing uncertainly about her hind legs. What was this noisy place? When would they go back home?