i miss the misery ( lolaf )

doesn't matter

how hard I try, half the words don't mean a thing

She moved with precise steps, carefully placing her red and white paws down in the snow. The ice beneath creaked in places where it was thinnest, near the peaking tree tops and she wrinkled her lip back in distaste. The further in she went the sturdier the ice, but the more likely she would get lost. She sighed, eyeing the unfamiliar land she stood on- no, frozen lake. What had happened here that the trees were so deep in water? She sneezed, her breath pluming in a thick steaming cloud in front of her amber nose. Her mouth opened, exposing sharp, young teeth as she tried to protect her sensitive nostrils from the cold air by breathing that way. It didn't help much, the cold seared her throat and lungs instead.

Where in the world was she? Somewhere north, she knew that much. North, very north, with a great deal more north to go. Who knew you could never run out of north?  She curled her lips in a silent snarl before smoothing her expression back down. Her coat, thicker, plumper with the winter padding she had put on stood out at odd ends when she tried to smooth it down, giving her hackles a permanently raised appearance. She had long ago given up trying to smooth them down and the clumps of snow clinging to her back in patches only made the raised appearance worse. It did, however, give her an excuse for not laying her fur flat if anyone came across her. She had already been accused many times of hostility, undue aggression, and being out-right rude for simply keeping her fur up. No one ever accepted that it was just what her coat did. If her undercarriage, now tangled and matted with snow, was so long and silky and soft why would her topline be coarse? Bad genes? she offered to herself with a silent huff.

She stretched her long legs out in front of her and leapt up onto a tree top, the thick branches forming an odd net beneath her. She balanced for a moment before stepping to its heart, careful not to loose her footing on the ice covered bark, and sat to clean the snow from the longer fur along her belly. This makes what, the fourth time today? Get out of the North, Ra. Just go South. Surely the rest of the world was thawing by now. Surely they couldn't all be like this North, like Winter still. You never know.

418 words | Lolaf