Moonspear cold wind

The deepening chill of the air had prompted Simbelmyne to find more insulation for her den. She found she was not well-suited to the cooler temperatures of the upper altitudes, and had chosen a den in the forested foothills, reinforced by a tangle of roots from a thin, wind-warped spruce tree. Its dropping boughs offered some protection from the wind, but she found the earth hard and cold beneath her as she slept. 

She had put down a layer of cattail leaves, but it wasn't enough to block out the cold that seeped into her limbs as she slept. She had made only small kills, and what pelts she could strip from them often became stiff throughout the day, warming and softening only when she lay upon them. Furthermore, they only seemed to last a short time before they began to smell, and had to be discarded. 

Slowly, slowly, she felt herself failing to thrive, here. 

She had caught another rabbit to replace a pelt which had begun to smell strongly of stale and rot, and had already devoured every bit of its innards. She worked away now trying to clean the rest of the pelt, stripping as much of the fat and tissue off as she could from the torn edges. It was not at all pleasing to look at- but it would at least last another week, she hoped. 

In the distance, she spotted one of Njord and Meerkat's children, carrying something dark and soft along with her. Her eyes shone with envy; even the youth of the pack, it seemed, were more adept at handling pelts than she was.