Storm Watch Butte Melbourne

Hoping to join Verapaz, @Kemal! Other members of Verapaz welcome, too.

the world unfurls in ochre and umber, sand-bitten and sunburnt, where the sky yawns too wide for a woman so slight. storm watch butte looms as a titan above the lowlands, its jagged face cut raw against the heavens, and margarida feels very small upon its shadowed skirts.

she comes soft-footed, as if she might be swallowed whole by the desert’s patience; her ribs whisper beneath her skin, her virile shape marked by travel and hunger, yet still she holds her head as if it were wreathed in silk and laurels.

here the air tastes of grit and salt and distant lightning. she inhales it sharply, for among the scents of fox and vulture, snake and hare, another thread weaves through — the musk of wolves, the ancient musk of hearth and den. a home, perhaps. a pack.

her heart is a small bird rattling in its cage. to be caught, to be welcomed, to be turned away — which will it be?

she presses herself into the wind, nose lifted, her long limbs tremoring as she studies the butte’s stoneface. green things do not grow here, and yet, she wonders if she might.