ten feet under and upside down

Saskia's joining thread! Feel free to invade!

The sky was still dark when she woke, and though the day was humid and warm, it was as if the sun had been blocked out entirely. The storm must have worked its way through the coast. The girl was exhausted after another day of running, but she couldn't quit - not when he was out there, alone, and wounded. What if the storm had touched down and swallowed him up? The very thought was quickly banished, but Saskia felt a constriction in her throat that did not abate, even after a solid hour of wandering. She tried to focus on other things, on hopeful anecdotes, but her mind wandered. She had never been this far from home before; the trees had thinned out a day or so ago, leaving her exposed atop some cliffs, while the brooding ocean rocked haphazardly below. This was not what she had imagined when she thought of the sea - or of seeing it for the first time. The poor girl was out of her element. Every boom of the tide, or shift of the dark clouds overhead, or flash from the still-raging storm, made her quiver and hunch. She was hardly lady-like as she fought against the elements, tasting the salty rain and feeling the cold through her drenched coat. But if this is what it took to find her lost love, she would continue - heck, she couldn't exactly turn tail now.

When she made it to the tree line again, she was thoroughly frozen by the rain. It sluiced through the gaps in the canopy and sliced between the tree trunks, hardly any better than being out in the open. Still, she cowered in the mud, pressing herself against a well rooted tree with extensive branches; it afforded some shelter, meager though it was, and the girl quickly burrowed in to the soft soil. The feeling of mud upon her coat wasn't wholly new (she had siblings after all, and they loved to track mud through the den or at the very least, streak it through her pelt after a good bath); but the mud was slick and wet against her body. She tried to work her body in to a curled shape, to make a ball and keep the heat contained, but Saskia only managed to smear more mud across her snout and throat. It would have to do. All she needed now was to wait a few hours until the worst of the rain stopped - or at least eased - and she could be on her merry way.

"If I can find his scent again..." The girl mumbled to herself, and then swiftly shut her lips to the dirt as it dribbled in to her mouth. She reared her head back and - imitating one of her brothers - spat the wad of mud back out. This adventure was awful, why had she ever considered this to be a viable plan? "Should'a stayed home."