Unfamiliar Home

CALLISTO

Walk | Talk | Think

She could recall her father saying after they had been ousted from their home that he intended to get it back for them. The thought had been comforting at the time, but the stretch of weeks that had followed it had felt like years to the young pup. She had thought his word gospel to start, refusing to become comfortable upon the lands of their mother's favored known as Ludicael, spending as much of her time out of it as she did within. But somewhere along the way she had grown complacent, a rhythm of sorts guiding her days and actions. Hiding, hunting, gathering; she spent her time as she deemed fit, avoiding those that she wished to do without and only keeping company with those she could not only tolerate but learn from. Callisto had been doing well to feed her ever-hungry mind, always on the lookout for her next lesson.

It had not occurred to her that her father, making good on his word, would bring her family suddenly north, back to the Red Forest and the lands of her birth. The move was easily a surprise for her, having kept to herself a majority of the time and paying less attention still to the business that revolved around the adults. She was not one with an interest in adult politics, nor was she interested in their immediate affairs. Only now did the black and grey pup wish she had paid at least a little more attention; then it might not have caught her so wholly off guard.

More unfortunate still, blanketed under the remnants of winter's snow it was impossible for her to determine a familiar landscape. It had been so long since she had been there, and she had been so little, that none of it she truly recognized. True, the giant red trees were a feature only to be found there and unique in that aspect, but not one could be distinguished from its neighbors. Nor the paths between them. The silvery-blue-eyed girl walked amongst them as if seeing them for the first time, studying their bright bark with a calculating eye. So odd. So different. I wonder if they have a use to healers?

Image by Maka.