Wapun Meadow Courageous, stumbling

She’s hunts for the boy. She has made the offer, after all.

But she is utter garbage at it.

The meadow’s frolicking with spring activity. Rabbits and fieldmice and big blue butterflies flutter and flaunt themselves, mocking her with their April merriment. She hides and stalks and leaps and still every living thing manages to evade her pursuit. The winter alone has created a graceless and rash creature, with muscles all but dwindled and a dearth of hunter’s patience.

She slumps down into the beargrass, a splat of exhaustion. There is no way she is returning to Kvarsheim empty-handed.

She huffs a strand of grass away from her face and peers through the swaying ocean of green.

Guess I live here now.

Bless Akavir and his wise, wise decision to send her to the packs of the valley! Despite the heaviness of the things he’d given her to relay to their allies, Jasmine felt lighter the further she removed herself from the Creek. And though she felt like he hadn’t given her every answer to her questions, what he gave her was honestly enough. When stuff got weird, it was best to know enough to get by and leave the rest for others to deal with.

Springtime had melted the snow that once covered the now flower speckled meadow. Would’ve been pretty if she thought she had the time to saunter through. Instead she cut a straight path towards Kvarsheim, already having to hop through the grass to get some clear view of which way she was headed.

Honestly would have been easier to make her way around.

With her cheek pressed against the earth she smells the ferment of dirt. Her vista is a whirl of dandelion blades and a tickle of sidewinds. Maybe a nap is deserved. Her eyelids shut.

But peace is stolen.

There’s a vicious step nearby, a plunging of wolf-paw upon her glade. She squints but will not lift her head.

“I’m hunting over here,” she growls in a half-daze to the creature somewhere above her, “go find your own meadow.”

She springs along, like a rabbit or something cute and stupid like that, and comes closer and closer to Kvarsheim — until a girl’s voice growls from the grasses and she almost pees herself.

As it is, she misses her step and tumbles through the tall grass in an even noisier somersault. Prairie birds scatter into the open air. Grouse, they looked like, or maybe quail. Whatever they were she can’t see them anymore, no less make sense of up or down or left or right.

Geez, who twisted a pickle up your butt? she mumbled, probably loud enough for the other girl to hear, though she didn’t really care if she did. I’ll romp through any meadow I want, thank you very much.

She peels herself up with a begrudging groan and a roll of eyes.

“Look, you’ve got an entire valley’s worth of meadows to ‘romp’ about aimlessly. This one with the rabbits, is mine," she hisses and crests the line of grass with a sharp nose, ready to stare daggers into her intruder. 

…But there is only an open stretch of mead. She spins a little circle in the grass, there’s not another wolf in sight.

“Um.. Where the hell are you?” She asks in a big very scary voice.

It was straight up ridiculous to think that any one wolf could claim an entire meadow for themselves. Unless she was trying to start a pack. But that was ridiculous too. As far as Jasmine could tell, her charisma was in the dumps. Nobody wins wolves over by snarking at them. Not sane ones, any way.

Jasmine lay on her back as she sniffed out a juicy retort — she wasn’t the one trying to win wolves over, after all — when the other lady growled again.

And this time, Jasmine gave a little giggle.

Oooh big scary hunter! Why don’t you come and find me? she teased. She considered that this lady could be that one she was on her way to tell Kvarsheim about, but nah, this one just seemed grumpy she’s interrupted her hunt. Probably not a good idea to nip at her heels like this, buuut…

“Ha!” She barks, anger whipping, eyes narrowing as she scans the reeds for the owner of the mysterious voice. “As if I’d stoop to your little game? I’ve got important things to do!” There was a starving boy who needed her!

And well, ok, she’d been napping, but she had every intention of picking the hunt back up again after a short rest! And this stranger was scaring off her quarry!

“Come out and face me!” She snorts, but begins to probe through the grass anyway with her nose. “When I find you…”