Whitebark Stream food nor memory

for adanya

She was a dark shape in a juxstaposed landscape that the birch trees both rejected and welcomed. Their dark stripes matched her own burn-hued coat, while the whites of the bark tried to chase her away. She had been following a scent that tasted like a memory, but the trail had faded quick, washed by snow and sleet.

Her tongue wet her cold nose, a wrinkle to her lip the only hint of her distaste. There was no smell of prey here, at least none appealing to her stomach. The river was sure to hold something, but the thought of fish - the wrinkle of her snout made her lip tug, and she let her expression fall to blandness.

She walked, trekking over stone, nearing the bank nonetheless, when the shape of another moving through the wood gave her pause. She froze in place, paw still dangling above earth; stock-still. Matasvintha had come searching for either something she knew, or a meal, and it seemed she had found neither.