penchant for trouble

Forward dated to 20 days old. :3 For Leaf.

The quaintest situation happened today: Jökull opened her eyes. The first thing that she saw was...well, nothing. Nothing but amorphous shapes of color. Even the forenoon light cascading into the den was little else but muzzy shafts. Alarmingly, some of the blobs moved. The gentle rise and fall of mother's tummy, the fallible appendages of her siblings twitching in their sleep...She saw all these things, thinking that this was how the world actually was – how it actually looked. Nothing felt this indistinct or fuzzy. Mommy was soft, just like her siblings. That is all she had known up until now; the only thing that mattered to her in this world. How indistinct everything was! She imagined things would be sharper, to where she could see each off-white fur of Tuwawi's abdomen, or the silver of her eyes. How disappointing. Still, she did not let it get to her.

Breaking free of the cluster consisting of brothers and one sister, she peered blindly into the other side of the hiding place. Where was daddy? She wanted daddy. But if there was one thing Jökull did not do, it was cry. Oh, she was capable of shrieking with the best of them. Of that, there is no doubt. If mommy was gone for a long amount of time, she would scream. But other than that? Jökull was mostly silent. Save for sounds of demand or disgruntlement, of course. Growling and woofing appealed to her more. She thought the sound of whining was irritatingly wanton? And high-pitched. Yeah. No thanks.

The opening to the outside world was terribly alluring. She could not see beyond the near solid white divider dribbling into the den. But there was something out there – something unexplored. Maybe even daddy. That gave her the courage to crawl to the opening, stopping at the mouth to appraise the area. It was morning, yet there was no gold light to be seen. The sky was lily-white, from what she could see. And then came the flora: green for what seemed like miles every which way. There really is something outside of the den. It is larger and manifestly grander than herself.

Jökull was content "sitting upright" just analyzing the sights, the smells, the noises, the air-dried earth beneath her feet...Up until her recollection of being on a mission. Where is Njal? Giving the area a once-over, she concluded that he was nowhere within the immediate vicinity. At least, not to the naked eye. As such, he was inaccessible. This newly discovered vastness was too immense. She was too tiny to cover adequate ground in search of her father. That did not stop her from trying, though.