Otter Creek Why should you believe in magic,

@Viorel! hope this is alright :-D

She can see the eagle as it shifts its head on some gyroscopic axis as it roasts. She lets loose a bark that has it leap off of the branch and into the sky. Roosts.

The girl thinks that she has never walked so much in her life. Every time her feet make contact with the floor, an obscure nerve in her heel is singed with pain. The discomfort passes, becoming dull and distant. Then it returns. Agh!

Her face, pitted and bland, clenches like a fist in frustration. She is ragged, starving, a sight. She belongs on a brochure. An advertisement. Cue the sad paino. Piano.

its great!! thank you for starting <3

mile after mile went by. viorel was not fond of the winter most of the time, and this one felt as though it was overstaying its welcome. it was made worse with nowhere to stay, no pack to wait out the snow as they had in years past. the cold was yet more pleasant than the alternative.

they could not have called themselves content, but it was what it was. the day lengthened; by the time they found themselves walking with their flank to the river, full to its banks with splintered ice and fur frozen stiff by the spray, what muted light could break through the clouds was already dimming.

the bark -- the resounding splinter of wood -- echoed like a gunshot. viorel startled, and the snow under their paws snapped and cracked as they swiped their tail over their hind legs and tucked their head in tighter over their throat, but there was nothing in the distance beyond the sharp-edged smear of black, a shape that was instantly familiar.

they had not expected to find another here. they had not, after all, in weeks -- they had avoided the borders they had come across, and world sometimes seemed as though it was nothing but snow and ice. they did not mind the quiet -- only the cold. but viorel turned elbow-deep in the drift, unfolding their muzzle where it pressed against the damp hollow of their chest.

their step was not delicate. certainly not after months of cold and wind. but they were not one for care anyways; they crunched through the ice, clouds of fog misting from their lips, eyes trained towards the smudge of black.

viorel was not expecting much from another lone drifter in the snow. she did not smell like many others, and nobody with a safer place to be would have chosen to spend their time in this.

indeed. as they approached, craning their muzzle upward, they looked her over with a clinician's eye that caught swiftly on the line of her ribs under her skin. they kept the distance courtesy would dictate; it was still close enough to observe her, gaunt and ragged as they were from the cold.

"evening," viorel said, their accent rasping over each syllable. they did not find themselves worried she might react poorly to their presence, now now. "i see you have also been enjoying," their teeth clipped on the word, "the season."

<3

The frustration disappears from her face as she spies a stranger. There is a latency there - a jittery recalibration. Her ears sweep back from her broad head, and her eyes narrow.

But I haven't been, she says, with the solemnity usually reserved for funerals and federal investigations. I swear... so help me God, et cetera.

She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. The pain is always catching up to her, no matter how hard she tries not to think about it. She imagines grass thick with dew over loamy boil, but doesn't get much farther than that. Soil.

Now she is turning her head as if through a viscous fluid, trying to get a better look. There is something childishly malevolent about her, like a boy bringing his face close to a mason jar filled with dead or dying little animals.

You look funny. And then, through an inexplicable yawn, My feet hurt.

viorel leant back, suspecting some poor attempt at a joke and finding only unveiled sincerity. it should not have been that peculiar – wandering in the snow was the occupation of travelers or fools.

they smiled, a brief thing, there one moment and gone the next. they knew how it must look on their elongated face; they had been told of how unpleasant it was before. “no,” they said, wryly, “i would think not.”

something about the way she looked at them – a sort of speculatory cruelty – was familiar. the silver disc of her eye gleamed; the attention made the back of their neck prickle.

“do i.” viorel looked over her face, the scarring that lingered where it could not be hidden. an old wound. they held her gaze, let their tongue roll over the words. “the doing of my mother, i suspect. which of yours was the dog?”

My dad, she responds, face lit with a momentary curiosity. Her dad had really been an effette nothing but he still occupied some hallowed ground in her mind, limned with bright light in the eyes of the daughter.

She was not as careful as she thought she was. If she went into a china shop and came out trailing pieces of broken porcelain was that really her problem? She did not consider things like her own girth and her own proclivity for clumsiness. Life only ever happened to her.

Funny doesn't mean ugly, she laughs, tosses her head. Her laughter tinkles clear and light, at odds with the rest of her.

At her feet the snow slowly melts away in rings around her ankles from her body heat.

viorel never had been terribly inclined to sentimentality. that was a safer thing to convince yourself of than its opposite, and not something their family had partaken of or deserved. the knowledge lingered on, if nothing else; they had always found themselves quite proud of their ability to adapt to what was required of them. it did rather ease the burden of having to learn a lesson once more.

the curiosity in her face was not quite mirrored in theirs; they loosed a low breath that smoked in the air, tongue curling up over their lips.

perhaps it was a flaw of theirs, how...unaccustomed they were to dealing with people who were not looking for a weakness to needle. they could not pretend they did not have plenty of those. their appearance, however, had long ago ceased to be one; they did not laugh, but they favored her with a little twitch of their head, as much agreement as they were ever comfortable enough to give. "no. but i have not found many of that opinion. you may be the first."

she had not been aggressive. and a thought lingered on their tongue. but they did not know how to shape any word that was friendly, viorel knew this from experience; they let the budding remark die there.

the wind had already begun to bite deep, sinking in where the snow melted around their ankles. "i'm afraid i cannot do much for your feet," viorel said, instead. "it is rather difficult to treat an injury when nothing grows. you will just have to rest." they did not doubt it would be difficult, without a pack; their paws did not feel much better than they imagined hers must have. "if you can manage, on your own."

for a moment -- just a moment -- viorel thought of theirs, left too many miles away to count. their lip curled, and they shook the thought away before it could take hold. not inclined to sentimentality, indeed.