Swiftcurrent Creek turquoise

muskrat had made her densite on a mossy cliff beneath a lone, sunken tree. waves of her determined plume had cleared the cobwebbing and old leaves dried now to powder; she had dirtied herself three nights in a row to excavate a simple, large room. on one side the swamp panther piled the few hides she had kept from her work, and the other was bare dirt, lit by a tiny aperture dug out where the ground thinned beneath the upper roots.

the skull she had been given by arric in thanks for their hunt had been carefully hung over the small entrypoint, in the longer moss that flourished there.

bones lined the path up the cliff, and it was in her frequent climbs that she found her leg had all but healed.

all muskrat missed was the sluggish lap of swampwater around her dwelling, and found she could not sleep well without it. on such nights, she felt landlocked, angry, as she did this afternoon. she dragged a fish along the bone-path and slung it to one side, muttering. nothing held her here besides her own honor, and it was a righteous flare in muskrat all the time.