@Pump | Whitefish River on the Flatland side
It must have been sizable to have her limp like this. Skewering right through the callus pad to embed itself in the soft tissue. One of many consequences to walk the earth without purpose... without aim towards a destination; it always seemed that the nuisances however small would appear. In this instance a thorn, and though she could not see it, she knew it was there.
Travelling across the flatlands for game, she had been careless in her pursuit, not minding the change in terrain even in snow. The white could easily trick one's eye to believe that there was nothing beneath itself surface, and what would have been there was long since withered and dead. But even in death, nature sought to be remembered even if it was in the cruelest manner imaginable.
For the countless time the female stopped her weary march to take pause by the shallows of a river to inspect her paw. Pulling the bothering thing upward and inward she pressed her nose against the rough surface to catch a hint of infection of blood. There was a split just in the middle, but it had long since healed as it was received during the initial days of her travel, but no other wound marred it. No bead of blood would surface to hint where the thorn hid. Irritable fangs nipped sharply at the pad once again, the vain effort to force the wound to appear now a routine each time she paused. However, all it did accomplish was raising a scar and threatening to open what had already healed.
Or perhaps it had never healed, and she had imagined since then that all had been well... |