Ocean's Breath Plateau When our hearts are heavy burdens we shouldn't have to bear alone

Like he was not there.

Marina wondered, sometimes. Her mother had told tales of spirits from rivers, from woodlands, from mountain peaks who wandered in search of mortal companionship — and sometimes they found it. But they could never stay long.

She wondered, but these were words for another time.

First she would tell her husband of her hunt. Well — less a hunt than a mix of luck and long experience. Her childhood, a time she rarely spoke of now, had taught her much in the way of survival, of using the land and its many gifts to her own advantage.

The cat had been injured — not mortally, but she'd smelled the blood and followed its source. From a distance she'd seen it limping along with a hungry look, blood long-dried on its hind leg; searching for an easy meal, she saw. A wolf alone was no match for the beast, even injured, but far too much trouble to be worth pursuit. Marina had traveled downwind, not wanting to make the cat wary.

But she'd wanted that pelt.

Rather than risk herself, she'd killed a squirrel. Its head done away with, its innards smeared with the grume of a toxic amphibian crushed to a near-paste, she'd left it near the lake and chose a different path to stalk the cat. It'd only taken a few hours for the starving creature to find her offering; far less for the spasms to begin.

While it stumbled and frothed, Marina was quick; she'd shoved it into the water, and watched it drown with no small amount of smug satisfaction. Not a drop of her own blood shed — and the pelt would not be ruined as she'd feared her teeth would.

The whole story told now, Marina smiled again, a bit teasingly; Is that how a seal hunter would have done it?