you say if you could fly, you’d never come back down

Amekaze · (This post was last modified: March 16, 2014, 08:28 PM by Amekaze.)

All this water, and yet still she felt unsatisfied.

Translucent, cold, dripping, with rivulets tracing her jawline as she raised it up to listen to the forests around -- just before they began to fade to beach. Quiet, still, and the chorus of the water filled her senses in its place. Ame only sighed.

The water skims at her knees, parting the fur down to the skin, where remains the subtle lines of her pale scars -- of wartime, of sibling rivalries, of mountaineering gone wrong as an ungainly youth. She remembers in a cold rush and her ears pin back. She steps further in. It's cold (but better than frozen thanks to a handful of springlike days), and rising now to her chest. Angling her muzzle down, she sharpens for the hunt.

Dark swatches of fur shift with the waters, letting them bite straight to her flesh. But inside, there is still warmth. Stifling and unfamiliar, she feels she must be careful. Different, she would keep it at bay best she could.

A gleam of scales catches her eyes then and she strikes. Quick, precise, but the water obscures her.. and she is out of practice. The world echoes oddly underwater. Distorted, nothing is quite as it seems. Her furs waft around, tossing and turning with the current. Bubbles escape from her parted lips. A sweet, cold, cold surge. Ame squeezes her eyes shut.

She breaks the surface in a rush. The process repeats, over and over, until she has collected a suitable meal of fish to ease her hunger. By then, the day's light is almost done so she calls it quits. She resigns to bask in the last of the sunlight by the riverbank with her fresh picnic. Nighttime approached fast, and she gave her furs a mighty shake. The breeze comes, cold and crisp. She does not shiver.

Amekaze eats, content in her peace and quiet here in this sunspot by the river. Eventually, after a quick grooming, she dozes off.

The forest is swathed in an amber-toned-pink under the sunset by the time she peels her eyes open again, but she decides to lounge a bit more.