Firestone Hot Springs I got what I got all despite you

OOC: All welcome but it'd be fun if a BDPer could pop up! This is set after Jinx is (I think) accepted into SC, but if she isn't accepted it shouldn't affect this thread much.

IC: No matter the weather, be it unbearably cold or heavily snowing, be it torrential downpour or even the hottest summer day, steam hung like a curtain over the hot springs. Their heat was stifling in summer, but in the clutches of winter, the muggy air was a welcome sanctuary from the bitter cold claws of the mountain valley. The coast was warmer than inland, but it was still cold enough to make a wolf wish for a warm subterranean hideaway. Because Jinx was a wolf who did not subscribe to denning underground like an expectant mother, and because she no longer called the temperate coast her home, she sought the comfort of the springs when the temperature dropped in the afternoon and ushered in a light haze of rain.

It was atypical for the Mambo to seek hot water and not bring an assortment of plants and stones to boil into infusions, but there was a marked scarcity of these materials in winter. She had moved on from her pack for what seemed to be the third time, now, and left behind what stores she'd had... But those few stores had mostly been put into her gifts for Pied and Kisu, and the rest were poisons. As she strode across the packed dirt devoid of snow in the springs' vicinity, she was reminded of her designs to cause Pied misery in her eventual pregnancy with the power of the catnip on her totem, and wondered if the dappled wolf still kept the amulet nearby.

She had learned once before that sinking into the springs was a good way to ask for hypothermia or pneumonia, and so she halted her prowl at the edge of one of the misting pools. She drank in the scent of sulphurous water and felt the steam condensing on her cool tongue with every breath she took through her slack mouth, and was comforted; it reminded her somewhat of Shearwater Bay in the summer, when the small lakes grew warm with the sun's persistent stare. This water was much warmer, of course... But the reminiscing brought her peace.

She laid herself sphinx-like at the water's edge, peering into its bubbling depths as though hoping to see the future in its confused currents, but there was nothing to be seen.