Emberwood coquilles.

Stryx managed to plod her way across a band of dry earth and when she came to the terminus point, attempted to stride over a gap which was usually full of murkwater, and then thought better of it. She teetered there a moment with her forelimb outstretched.

Her hind paws tucked neatly against her front, her back arched and tail up for counter-balance, she might have fallen if she'd moved at just the wrong angle. Instead she took a moment to place her paw down again and ducked, watching her footwork, setting back against the loam. Bits of soil came loose and tumbled in to the stagnant pool beyond where her toes hooked the ground.

It wouldn't be awful to step in to the water. She could spy the mosquito larvae wriggling inside, and imagined there'd be all kinds of other things there too. It had been a poor choice to cross the bog and she considered returning the way she'd come; the plunge would leave her slick-furred with algae and that was a level of discomfort she'd like to avoid.

As Stryx peered around on the search for somewhere stable to advance to, she saw something moving further out from her position. It was blurry at first - the immediate surroundings wavered like a mirage under the heat of the summer sun - and slowly the stranger approached, more fluid than the physician had ever been.

They looked like they were collecting snippets of moss from some of the stones, or maybe clusters of weeds that grew suspended over the water. Another physician perhaps...? An herbalist at the very least. Stryx gave a furtive glance at the dirt and decided to take the chance of a wet landing, then launched from her perch — scrambling as her paws touched down again, but managing to make it over the gap without too much fuss after all.