Mount Apikuni we could be immortals

still smarting after the porcupine encounter, and yet refusing to go home just yet, the girl picked her way onwards. she had spent the night in a little hollow beside a river bank, waking soaking wet, which was rather a poor way to greet the day. never the less, she had simply shaken herself, picked the mud, or most of it, from her coat, and continued on. the tiny little holes the quills had inflicted still festered, and when she came across the scent of one of the creatures around midday, she veered from its path.

early afternoon found her trotting in the shadow of some great mountain, another across the way. the earth between her paws had grown thin, and boulders spotted her path often - a glance around her had her realize that she was in the foothills of the mountain, now. she paused, the hurt in her ankle becoming more of a bother than she cared to admit, and the burn of hunger demanding to be sated.