Porcupine Ridge they call holidays an option for a reason,

the world was going to shit, and caiaphas with it.

twice now she had nearly turned into a grease-spot beneath the sudden upending of a pine tree, and once even, had nearly walked right into a deadfall suspended over a fresh-laid scar in the ground. she was losing her touch, her sharpness -- more than once she had been unpleasantly surprised to catch a pair of eyes watching her.. eyes of which she would have easily detected the owners of, not so long ago.

she was hungry and in a pisspoor mood as she made her way from the collapsed moraine. it was frustrating going, and her inner compass screamed that it was all wrong -- that she should head north, not west.. but caiaphas had seen the destruction laid waste to the moraine and the prairie beyond it, and that corridor of safe passage was closed forever.

she could not decide which was worse; death by humiliating starvation, or being wiped off the map by a barely sentient tree. her energy stores were nigh depleted, and if death was coming for her, caiaphas hope it came on smooth wings -- for it was beginning to be a bumpy ride.