She found the mire as she found anything.
Uruuk woke early in the morning, before the sun had even woken. The light had been deep, deep purple at the edge of the world - the color of bruises and crushed flowers - and the trees had pointed skinny, skeletal, black fingers to the sky. The thick clouds had hung low, smothering the sky so that no star could twinkle and the half moon she'd seen two nights before could not shine as she wound her away from the thin, empty forest where she had made her bed the night before.
The sky had lightened gradually, from that rich violet to navy to storm grey to white. The sky overhead was whitish grey now, the color of bones, and the thick black clouds pressed, suffocating, overhead. She was trapped under that blanket of grey, or so it felt, when the mire loomed ahead.
A gruel-thick mud sucked at her limbs in greeting when she reached the marshlands - each step requiring her to pull each limb from the ooze with a loud sucking sound. Gnats drifted through the humid air like so many fine particles of pollen or flakes of snow - if only they were something so innocuous and pretty.
The bugs burrowed under her fur, between her toes, into her eyes and muzzle and ears, they bit the tender skin in the heated hollows of her body and left red, raised bumps.
Uruuk sighed aloud with relief as she reached the stream, not caring how murky and clogged it was with dead fish. The stench of it didn't seem to bother her either - the scent of mud and rotten fish and stagnant creek water - as she let it embrace her with its cool arms.
She continued on her path, trekking through mud and tangle grass and stream alike - feasting on dead fish, dead frogs, and snapping both at the bugs that hovered around her stinky, wet pelt and the ones that glided over the surface of the water.
Uruuk woke early in the morning, before the sun had even woken. The light had been deep, deep purple at the edge of the world - the color of bruises and crushed flowers - and the trees had pointed skinny, skeletal, black fingers to the sky. The thick clouds had hung low, smothering the sky so that no star could twinkle and the half moon she'd seen two nights before could not shine as she wound her away from the thin, empty forest where she had made her bed the night before.
The sky had lightened gradually, from that rich violet to navy to storm grey to white. The sky overhead was whitish grey now, the color of bones, and the thick black clouds pressed, suffocating, overhead. She was trapped under that blanket of grey, or so it felt, when the mire loomed ahead.
A gruel-thick mud sucked at her limbs in greeting when she reached the marshlands - each step requiring her to pull each limb from the ooze with a loud sucking sound. Gnats drifted through the humid air like so many fine particles of pollen or flakes of snow - if only they were something so innocuous and pretty.
The bugs burrowed under her fur, between her toes, into her eyes and muzzle and ears, they bit the tender skin in the heated hollows of her body and left red, raised bumps.
Uruuk sighed aloud with relief as she reached the stream, not caring how murky and clogged it was with dead fish. The stench of it didn't seem to bother her either - the scent of mud and rotten fish and stagnant creek water - as she let it embrace her with its cool arms.
She continued on her path, trekking through mud and tangle grass and stream alike - feasting on dead fish, dead frogs, and snapping both at the bugs that hovered around her stinky, wet pelt and the ones that glided over the surface of the water.
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