August 25, 2023, 09:40 AM
At one point, the northerner got herself all turned around. Her attempt to continue West was cut short by a mountain range; even though she was not unaccustomed to navigating peaks, Kovette could not find the energy to do so just yet. Rather, she sought out a way around the mountains, which drove her South—and right towards yet another high-reaching peak. And briefly was she hit with a feeling of dread, as climbing over mountains had never come up in her father’s travel directions, thus the traveller assumed herself to have made a mistake somehow. Had she taken a wrong turn? Or had her father simply forgotten to mention that she would eventually happen upon such treacherous paths in her travels?
Only once she realised that the latter could very well be the truth—Xan had never been very directionally inclined, after all—did she settle.
And once settled, she was able to think straight once more and continued her trek East, leaving the mountains behind her for now.
Kovette knew not for how long she’d been moving, stopping as needed to rest and eat. At one point, she could have sworn she’d picked up on the scents of others, an area that she skirted around so as to avoid confrontation; she was a stranger in these lands, after all, and nearly wholly unaware of what for packs lurked, or how they’d react to her nearness. In the young Apaata’s mind, it seemed best to avoid their homes, and thus she continued through neutral lands, giving any that suggested a group might be near a wide berth.
Eventually, Kovette found herself passing through a treeline that then broke way for a clearing, in which she spotted a lake—a noisy lake, but a lake no less. And as if on cue, she could feel a low rumble in her stomach as she crept closer, eyeing the culprits behind the noise. Ever since her journey started, her primary meals included a combination of small mammals, freshly abandoned carrion, and the occasional fish. Never had she attempted to capture a bird, for their wings were reason enough to believe her attempts would be futile. Despite her previous reasons, however, Kovette was soon lunging towards a mallard that appeared to be sleeping on the lake’s bank, only to be met with a swift beating from his wings and whole mouth full of nothing.
Unfortunately for her, the commotion was enough to startle the lot, with a majority of the birds then taking flight whilst the ones that remained retreated towards the lake’s center, far from her reach. With a heavy sigh, Kovette flopped down at the water’s edge and continued to watch the ducks that remained, hoping that her stillness might make them forget her presence.