With Layers Like Pies

For Yildun, if he so chooses, as well as others who might like to join :)

    She was tired of mountain climbing. Her poor, battered legs could take no more of it, not if she ever wanted them to recover their former pristine beauty. As it was, she already feared the hard traveling of this last month might have permanently loosened a tuft or two of her feathery fur someplace on her poor broken body. Reminded of this, she paused for a moment in her travels to curve her neck about in order to examine first one forelimb, then the other. It would be utterly unfair, of course, if her journeying had marred her perfect young form, as ought to be perfectly obvious to any objective observer, but then again it wasn’t as if that vile temptress called Life had been especially kindly and fair-minded toward her of late anyhow. But to pile tragedy upon tragedy by devastating her outer form as well as her inward, now that would be low even for Her.

    But in this one small area she had thus far escaped fate’s cruel clutches. She spotted no unsightly bald patches on her long white limbs, and a quick dart of her pink tongue settled one particularly unruly whorl back into its place. Relieved, she lifted up her eyes once more and continued onward. She had angled toward the lowlands and now diverted her feet again upon spotting the river and its culminating loch, winking at her in the early-morning sunshine. Appearances might be taken care of as best she could for the moment, but the beautician treatment did nothing for her poor throbbing feet. The cool, clear waters of the loch seemed just what the doctor ordered, and she sped up her pace to a pathetic, limping trot as she approached its nearest shore. The pattering wash of the river in her ears was nearly as soothing as the chill embrace of the waters. She sighed with gusto as she stepped in with delicate, ladylike grace and it lapped between her toes. She reached her nose down to take in a few quick laps of her own before turning to regard the landscape thoughtfully.

    The greenery upslope was washed with only the first smallest touches of autumn’s red and gold. The partly tree-screened place looked quiet, restful, alluring. It was beautiful here, ’twas true, though the sight could not lift her bruised heart as it ought. The land began to rise gently again before her, but the lush carpet of grass promised a likely lack of the rocks and gravel that had given her unloved feet such a pounding these last days. Perhaps here she could enjoy both a better-cushioned walk and a vantage point from which to survey the landscape. The breeze stirred the grasses’ tufted heads as if to beckon her onward, and she stepped neatly from the water’s grasp onto a convenient flat stone, and from there onto the opposite bank where she again began to climb. She let her head droop lower once more as she hitched upward with stuttering steps, allowing the full tragedy of her circumstances to wash over her again now that her most immediate physical needs had been taken care of. She acknowledged her stomach’s quiet growling reluctantly and, though her heart might cry out against the necessity of such mundane practicalities, realized that she would need to find food again soon, as well; perhaps from the top of this plateau she might spot some easy game and not have to ask too much more of her already put-upon dainty little feet.