Wapun Meadow learning that i’m deserving of love and the peaceful heart

@Merrick. <3

the black doe’s trail continued steadily westward, down through the isolated pines of bearclaw and into the snow-dotted expanse of wapun meadow. how many times had indra stood on this tundrian frontier, with marten, and merrick, and lucas, and nunataq? for a moment the redleaf forgot her chase, and reveled in the crisp morning air where memories stirred like fog on the wind, gone yet not entirely forgotten.

she walked past the plains where she had played with nunataq; past the stone where her family had once stood and played. past the pines that curled around the meadow like evergreen cowls — where once, she had met tadec and he had briefly made her life complete.

reminiscing here between the bright rags of snow and pine straw, indra lifted her gaze and solemnly looked between a pair of birch boughs where the doe’s tracks disappeared. the hunger in her gut, pressed like a knife’s edge within, had been replaced with a quiet sense of desperate purpose. the hind, a strange phantom to re-emerge from her past, was only just below; indra knew wapun’s territory well, and recognized the small landmarks that spoke to a hidden stream obscured beneath the knoll. she would catch her breath here, and resume her hunt once she was sure the doe had moved on.