Verdant Basin every road takes us farther from home

@Tegan

it was, by all accounts, a perfect summer's day. the sky was pale blue and near-cloudless and the sun beat down on the grass and the gleaming surface of the lake, accompanied by a breeze that kept the heat from becoming too much. it was quiet and peaceful so, of course, as she watched the figures of elk and deer milling to and fro from the water's edge, maya was wearing her best toothily pleased grin. not that it was that visible; she was tucked down and the grass rose up around her so all that anyone could really see without getting close was a pair of bat-like ears, the briefest flicker of eyes the color of old blood, and the blunt end of her muzzle, the briefest glimmer of teeth.

she dragged herself forwards with her front paws as she stared across the water, hind legs stretched behind her in a truly ridiculous pose, until she had flattened all the grass in her way under her belly and had an uninterrupted view of the lakeside before her and, thus, the backsides of several full-grown elk. not that she was planning to chase after them; a single one could squish her with a misplaced kick, she had no illusions about that, and besides there were easier meals to find. ones she could steal, even. the less work food took, after all, the better it tasted.

but she had a plan. as her plans went it did not even make the top twenty, but she was so incredibly bored anything sounded good right now. like this. she squirmed forward, butt wiggling like a cat about to pounce as the wind swept over her face, inhaled a deep lungful of air and, comically oversized ears perched excitedly atop her head, let out the loudest bark she could manage.

the chaos that ensued was deeply satisfying on several levels. elk trumpeted and reared around and took off both towards the hills and into the lake, and even though she was soon scrabbling to her paws to avoid being pasted across the dirt like an insect she was laughing as she did so. within moments, the bankside was bare again as the animals crashed through the grass and disappeared, and maya skipped up towards the lake and planted both paws in the water as the remaining handful swam away.

for a moment she considered trying to catch up. she was good at swimming, after all, and they all looked too ungainly to do much, but she wasn't certain what to do when she actually caught up, was the thing. maybe she should have tried cutting a tendon first.

instead, she flopped dramatically down into the shallows, sending a splash directly up her nose, and instead of some witty parting remark spent the next several moments coughing as she tried to get the water out of her lungs.