Lost Creek Hollow Lynx

@Ash Paw 

Daylight hours in November were becoming shorter with every week. On days, when the blanket of steel grey clouds so thick that not a single ray of sunlight could break through, Esma felt as if someone had stolen the sun altogether. She tried to remember, which bear-god should she address to change the situation, only to humble herself with the idea that the two great spirits had way more important business to deal with than to answer a young girl's questions or do any favours to her. Same as adults, towards whom she had great respect and never argued or questioned their decisions and requests. 

Still she wondered, if just like there were small people like her in the world, there were also small gods too? Not as all powerful as the big ones, who kept the weight of this world on their shoulders, but who still had access to the wealth of knowledge she did not? This thought excited and consumed her and she decided to try and contact them. Gods liked gifts, right? So, what could a teenager, who did not own anything and was not particularly talented in anything (yet), offer? 

Food. That would be first. Luck would have it that Esma had a leftover bone from a feast few days ago. She liked it very much and was not particularly willing to part from it, but she knew that the knowledge she was seeking did not come for free. You had to sacrifice something. The second was more difficult to come up with, though she thought very hard, while digging a hole right next to the roots of a tall fir tree. There she placed her bone and added some conifer cones, because they looked peculiar and gods had to like peculiar stuff.

The third thing that came to her mind was plants. Mother had a stash of dried plants and some of them smelled really nice. So off she went, hoping that Ash Paw would be there so that Esma could ask for permission. She was not and being the obedient child she was, despite her wish to go and rummage through the stash, Esma sat down and waited patiently.