The Heartwood passport, please

Outrider thread and/or naturalist thread. :)

Early that morning, before night and day had entered into their 12-hourly negotiations about whose turn it was to shine (or not, as the case may be), Grimm left the Caldera. Not permanently - but for the first time since arriving. Whilst Fox and Peregrine bounced around in bed, there was precious little to do; and perhaps there wouldn't be much to do until the red damsel dropped her sprogs, either.

There was a frenzy that accompanied the birth of pups that Grimm frankly missed, no matter how much she complained about the poop, vomit, and mischief. So far, she had made a few acquaintances, even friends.. but that was it. Life carried on in much the same way as it had back home.

For that reason, she made a beeline for whatever lay north of the lake. It took a while - the sun was high in the sky (presumably; the sky was a haunting grey) - but eventually she arrived within sights of a hibernating forest. From a distance, it looked utterly naked; as though a thousand giant spiders had fallen on their backs, stretched their legs into the air, and died like that.

Some time later, Grimm was in the thick of it. She moved among the slumbering trunks like a silky black shadow, her white sock flashing with each step. The floor of the Heartwood was thick with fallen leaves, and the trees differed from those that wrapped the Caldera. Here, she spotted trees with special qualities - Dogwood, for instance, produced berries that could make stuff spray out of both ends at once. She made a mental note of the existence of the species, and moved on, cataloging the resident flora as she went.