Grouse Thicket We are not pissing on the corpse of Joan Rivers.

A month is a long time for a dog. A month consists of two walks a day, maybe three if you're lucky and the weather is agreeable. A month is new-scent after new-scent gathered up for future trace. It is three days of chasing the neighbours cat, then two weeks of midnight racoons while still having space in between for a gold old-fashioned garbage dive; and that's not even the half of it. A dog could live it up within the span of one month and have plenty of stories to share at the dog park.

Except if you've found yourself lost in the biggest off-leash park ever, surrounded by the same smells day in, day out. With no idea where to find the kibble stash. A month of confused dashing-about between clusters of weird trees. Of peeing on the same stump over and over because you forgot you'd revisited the same area eight or nine times by then, and thought, Oh! There's someone else out here like me! If I find them maybe they have answers. A month of wondering why your one possible friend - who looked like some kind of wildly unkempt shepherd - escorted you through the woods only to leave you somewhere new, to start the process over again.

One month. Blackheart had very little to show for it. A few scrapes and fresh bruises, with her older bruises - along her lower back - having bloomed and mostly faded by now. No kibble. But she'd found the smell of something almost like chicken and had been tracking it to the best of her ability. What she'd do upon finding this thing, she wasn't quite sure. It called to some deep part of her psyche — and more importantly, her stomach. Sometimes her belly flip-flopped at some of the scents she'd discovered during her roaming, but it was this musky almost-familiar aroma that drew her onward now, through the thicket.

And out of the corner of her eye she saw something strut among the bushes. It was the first motion she'd seen, the first proof of life, since @Bronco. Blackheart dove towards it through shafts of broken sunlight, kicking up motes of pollen and whatever else lined the forest's floor. She got so very close! But her instinct was to chase, and as eager as she was for something to eat, and as close as she got to the fat, ginger-mottled pheasant, she did not think to grab.

There was a small window of opportunity during which the sleek dog with its long stride was looming over the bird, but she did not know what to do in that moment, and the window shut. Blackheart was watching the pheasant so intently that she wasn't aware of the contours of the forest around her; the tangle of brambles, patches of dry needles, piles of sticks that sagged beneath her steps — and then the stump. She hit it with her chest and the meaty thunk punctuated the moment.

The bird kept racing through the undergrowth, and as the wind was briefly knocked from Blackheart's lungs and she bowed beside the stump, the pheasant's hurried laughter drifted to nothing.