Duck Lake blue heron

He was sharp.  She did not bow her head but she did not question further.  The words she felt had been spoken and now were his to carry as he wished.

One of them did not understand.  She saw a throughline where he did not and she considered that it was possible either might be mistaken.  Perhaps the caribou were eternal enough.  Or perhaps, with little else to hold them, this pack too would crumble.  She would take nothing for granted.

Until a new way is needed.  She could move forward.  If he could not then, and perhaps only then, would he learn that he was placing his trust in the wrong hearts.

The hearts of caribou held no loyalty nor love.  Only fear.

He wouldn’t hear it.  So she watched him go, wordlessly, before turning and loping on her own path.  She would learn but she did not think she would change, not in the ways that were unnecessary.  She slept under the sky and ran free on the wind.  She had little need for the tattered hide of a caribou.  Her own fur served well against the cold.