Being a year older did not only bring tons of new chores and responsabilities, it also demanded change --and that was exactly what she intended to do that lovely late-summer afternoon. She had left the Plateu after having eaten a squirrel that had practically jumped at her feet.
She was willing to expand her horizons and meet new places she had not seen before. As she trotted through the flatlands a distand hiss caught her attention. At first she thought an animal like a lynx or some kind of feline was wandering around the Kintla flatlands -- but as she crept closer she realized the sizzling sound came from an irregular hole in the ground that slowly expelled steam.
She looked in awe as she noticed there was not only one of these peculiar holes covering the flatland's carpet. The yearling took a step forth and sniffed the ground curiously at the space next to the crater.
What was burning inside those holes to make steam come out??
At first she'd seen no need to leave. Her months of wandering had left her longing for a place to call home and, when she'd first laid her eyes on this land, she'd joined the Plateau in haste. Over the past few suns, however, the foolishness in her decision had been brought to light, and Kaihra became painfully aware of how little she knew of these lands, and how little she'd known of this pack before swearing her allegiance to them.
These thoughts plagued her as she patrolled the borders that day, watching another of her packmates bound past the borders to the flatlands below. Kaihra stood in a moment of uncertainty, but after a moment's hesitation, crawled toward the gentle slope that led to the flatlands below as she resisted the urge to stay. She follow her packmate's scent with a careful pace and picked her way through the flatlands with every sense alert, careful to keep her body low as she followed from a distance.
Now the air grew heavy around her, and Kaihra slowed as a growing discomfort prickled through her fur. She spotted her packmate and hung back, watching as the dark girl sniffed around a patchwork of steaming pools. Kaihra didn't dare walk closer. The air felt muggy, even for a summer's day, and plastered her fur with a layer of moisture Kaihra couldn't shake. Steam rose all around and gave the area an unnatural haze. What is this place? A prickle of anxiety crawled through her fur as she watched her packmate carefully. Though she questioned her decision to follow her here, Kaihra stubbornly resisted the urge to turn and run.
Show me where my skin begins.
As her nose hovered above the crater, the steam that evaporated from its core filled her nostrils and flooded her lungs, she backed away and shook her head while blowing the hot and foggy air out of her system. Right at that moment the crater gave a furious hiss as if it had been offended by Amelie's retreat, then without further advice a column of boiling water rose to the sky. Luckily for the yealing the burning water did not reach her, but still a cautious step back was taken after the crater erupted.
She admired silently the force of the water stream expelled by the crater, her yellow eyes glued to the spectacular natural phenomenom that laid before her eyes. The natural fountain was turned off after a few seconds and the crater returned to its initial peace. The young black female murmured a quiet wow and turned her head to see if any other crater would rise from their deep slumber.
It was then that she caught a glimpse of another wolf from the corner of her eye. She turned her head to see her packmate stare back at her with a hint of uncertainty gleaming in her eyes. Quickly she turned from the geisers and padded a bot closer to the female that despite knowing she was a packmate she didn't knoow her name.
"Hello, did you see it?" she asked unable to hide her enthusiams towards the newly dicovered water-shooting craters.
Her packmate must have felt her stare, for at that moment their eyes locked. Hesitation met glowing excitement and the dark yearling wasted no time in trotting closer to where Kaihra stood. Kaihra herself remained rooted in place, content for the girl to move closer to safety and further from the scalding vomit of the ground. She tried to count the craters that lined this part of the flatlands but quickly gave up. Her ears twitched backward, lopsided, and her mouth remained a grim line. Maybe this hadn't been the smartest idea.
A nod was all she could muster in response to the yearling's question, which Kaihra took as an overflow of the young wolf's suppressed excitement more than an inquiry looking for an answer. Kaihra wondered how the yearling felt excited at all, given she’d nearly become a cooked dinner. Still, the Theta let her shoulders drop, though her gaze remain hesitant as she eyed the crater nearest the young wolf, as if waiting for it to spew its hot contents over them both. ”What are they?” She raised a paw and let it hover in midair, but made no motion to walk any closer. She would keep her distance until she knew what they were dealing with.
Show me where my skin begins.
It was then that Amelie realized her introduction hadn't been the best, she had prodded the stranger with questions instead of actually asking her name or even giving hers. She waved her tail in a snake-like manner and a tiny smile began to poise itself in her lips she noticed the female's ears twitching and her eyes falling onto the crater covered earth with worry. She took a cautious step away from the natural time bombs and invited Kaihra to do the same.
"I don't really know, though they're very strange don't you think? she gushed while glancing sideways at the crater that had firts reacted to her presence spewing boiling water into the air as a greeting. Once again the black yearling noticed a dim glimmer of fear in her companion's eyes so she began walking away from the geisers.
Then once she had placed a decent distance between them and the sizzling holes in the ground Amelie decided to introduce herself properly, "I'm Amelie by the way.." she barked quietly, while offering her packmate yet another smile.
Despite the distance they put between themselves and the spring, Kaihra felt a quiver in her legs. She stared at the place a heartbeat longer before her packmate interrupted her trance. Amelie. Kaihra had heard the yearling's name in passing, but never more than that. She took the introduction as reason to pull her eyes from the hot springs to focus on the tall dark figure of Amelie, already a formidable height for such a young wolf, though she stood with a gentle grace that left Kaihra unintimidated by her size. The Theta bobbed her head and gave a quick, "Kaihra," to return the greeting. She tested a wary smile to respond to her packmate's glowing face, but let the meager grin fall from her maw as a geyser hissed behind her, louder than the others. She whipped her head around and braced herself for another attack, but the ground only gurgled with laughter and the water stayed well in the ground. Kaihra forced her fur to lie flat and narrowed her eyes at the crater before turning back to face Amelie. She felt her fear subside as questions overrode her worries. "You got close to them. Did you see inside?"
Show me where my skin begins.
Amelie simply nodded in a 'i know right?' manner as the female gave a confirmation of what the yearling had just stated. There was no arguing that these water-shooting mini volcanoes were indeed strange. As they began to walk away from the hissing geisers one of them belched out another column of steaming water as a rather rude goodbye.
Amelie flicked an ear back to the murmuring craters but didn't turn her attention from the female, the truth was she hadn't seen her before and it was kind of embarrasing to admit since as a younger member of the pack she should've probably taken more interest in the residents of the Plateu. She offered the stranger her name along with a friendly smile but she didn't even recieve a twitch.
It seemed that the other female was far more interested in the craters behind them than in her, and not as if Amelie would blame her; the carved out holes that spewed water angrily when one came close were both intriguing and captivating --more than she'd ever be. Aside from her long svelte legs and the lush coat that had come as a bonus for her birthday, the young girl didn't think of herself as anything extraordinary -- not in the ways nature was.
The question that bubbled from the still unnamed female's mouth amused Amelie. She instantly felt her imagination create a vivid image of a parallel world hidden in the core of the crater (Amelie had always been the imaginative type). After a few seconds of admiring the picturesque scene created by her mind, she turned her gaze back onto her packmate and shook her head sadly.
"Not really, I just took a quick peek before the steam filled my nose.. " she shrugged wondering what lied under the steam cloth that protected the crater's insides from prying eyes like hers
Kaihra felt her heart sink deeper as the yearling shook her head. 'Not really.' So they still knew nothing of the mystery of these steaming holes. 'I just took a quick peek before the steam filled my nose.' Kaihra remained silent and cast her gaze to the ground, flicking her eyes this way and that in tune with the churning of her mind. She rose to watch the springs again, this time pushing fear from her mind to focus on the reality before her. Steam thickened and thinned with little order, but rose predominantly from the holes. The land around remained dormant. Some holes gurgled, some spat, while others only mocked with a prickling mist. Still, they held one thing in common: all radiated with that same vibrant, otherwordly heat.
Her steady breathing slowly slipped with a new wave of unease. She could think of only two things that gave heat to the world, and both left a bitter taste in her throat. Her leg began to quiver again and she turned to face Amelie with uncertainty in her eyes. "Could there be an underground sun heating them?" At a different time, in a different place, the idea would have seemed foolish to her, but not here and not now. She turned her eyes to the ground again and raised her forepaw as an imagined surge of heat scorched through her limb and along her spine. What if they were standing on fire?
Show me where my skin begins.
Amelie had noted the female's discomfort, she could see her twitch every time a crater hissed or groaned from the corner of her eye. Still she made no mention of it, everyone had their fears, and while Kaihra's seemed to be the boiling geisers Amelie's were far from being something to do with nature.
She watched closely the female's face when she absorbed the teen's answer, neither knew what caused the caved out holes to spit out water laced with steam, but they were both interested --though Amelie's curiosity was a bit more morbid than the female's, who was probably asking out of fear. Is she had the certaintly a column of fire-water wouldn't shoot at her face as she bent to inspect the crater she would probably not even noticed the other female.
Kaihra gave an interesting theory for the crater's heat that left the yearling staring at one particular crater for a while. Her eyes danced across the naturaly formed holes that hissed and sizzled their fiery threats. She thought about the theory for a while until she decided that a it was false; if there was a sun hiding under the earth's mantle why wasn't all the land covered in these holes? And why didn't the craters irradiate light instead of water if there was such thing hidden underneath?
Finally she pulled her gaze away from some of the quieter geisers, if there was a sun why were some of the craters still locked in a permanent slumber? "Maybe not.. I'm more intrigued about the purpose of them.. " she mused out loud while making a note to ask her mother about it when she returned home.
Kaihra felt the sudden urge to flee back to the Plateau, back North away from these lands heated by underground flames, but Amelie's reply made her pause. The yearling did not agree with her theory, and that was fine by her: Amelie could believe what she wanted. But a purpose? To these lands? She flashed the girl a skeptical look. "You think think they have one?" Maybe this was just how things were. You go North, you get ice. You go South, you get fire. You stay here, you get... something in between. At least the Plateau didn't seem to have any of these bubbling holes, though Kaihra vowed to triple check the territory once she got back from this place.
Show me where my skin begins.
The little detective act she had tried to pull off, quickly crumbled when her companion voiced her doubts about Amelie's theories. She had thought that there had to be a reasonable and clear explanation veiled behind the steam, she had believed that there had to be a reason for the craters to exist in the first place. Like the sun was meant for warming the Earth and lighting up the sky; and the clouds were used to water the trees and plants there had to be a reason for those boiling holes in the ground to exist.
She began to doubt herself, was there really a use for those tiny pits of fire? She must think I'm stupid, she thought suddenly as she flicked an ear back. She pursed her lips thoughtfully and shrugged her shoulders with a mix of embarrassment and doubt shining in her eyes."Um, yes. I mean there has to be a reason why they're there.. or something they can do..", she trailed off. It was highly unlikely Kaihra would share her almost religious belief that there was a way to connect with nature on a more spiritual level.
Kaihra noticed the shift in Amelie's confidence, the gentle shrug of her shoulders, the doubt that laced her trailing words, and the Theta felt her brow twitch. She raced over the words she had spoken and felt her skin tingle with more than just the heavy humidity that plastered her fur against her frame. Amelie really believed the springs had a purpose, and while Kaihra couldn't bring herself to believe that, she felt her stomach twist at the carelessness of her remark - and at the tone with which she had spoken it. She knew that chide, and to hear it now coming from her own lips made a wave of nausea ebb in her chest.
Kaihra looked down. She wanted to turn and flee and forget about this place, but she couldn't leave now, not like this. As much as she wanted to leave, she needed to stay. She needed to fix this. Her mind still burned with her mother's distant voice, and she pushed it to the back of her thoughts. "You... could be right." The words did not come easy. The picture of burning lands still swamped her mind. She didn't want to encourage Amelie in her beliefs, and she didn't think anything good would come of this, but she couldn't let a rift form between them, either. The steaming pits reeled of danger, but the thought of uneasy relations set Kaihra's nerves ablaze. She hesitated. "How do you plan to find out?" she paused, then added with some reluctance, "what their purpose is?"
Show me where my skin begins.
While Amelie of herself as a braniac, she suspected that her theories were true. The girl had always been one to question things, always on the prowl for new knowledge even since she had been a toddler. The question she had asked the most was 'why?' and thus she had learned that every why was always answered by a because and therefore everything that had a because had an explanation or a more extense answer. So what was the geisers because? Was there a why to them?
Did the questions in her mind even make sense?
Insane or sane, Amelie wanted to know more about the water boiling dents in the flatland's floor. While a million of new why's and because's popped into her head, she herd the soft murmur of the other female saying she could be right.
Her ears swileved to her and her eyes inspected her face for a long minute after which a smile came to her face. "You could help.. " she barked with an inviting wag of her tail, "If you want to, or course. ", she added quickly, not forgetting the look of terror in her eyes after the first crated had erupted.
"I wonder if they're also active at night..", she mused outloud, already planning to slip one night to take a look inside the slumbering hot springs.
She registered Amelie's invitation with a flick of her eyes to the hot springs again. While she no longer flinched at their hissing eruptions, they did not spark in her the wonder she felt radiating from Amelie. Her legs still itched with the desire to leave, and probably never come back, while Amelie mused of exploring their workings and likely returning again to observe them at night. She sucked in her breath and looked back briefly in the direction of the Plateau. "I... don't know how I could help." She replied with a tentative dip of her head. She wanted to leave, but would it be wise to leave her packmate here alone? She hesitated before speaking again. "I think I will pass on this one."
Show me where my skin begins.
Tiny wheels were turning and grinding inside the girl's brain, she had a million questions and little answers --and though she wanted to share those questions and that desire of knowing more with someone she understood that Kaihra rain checked her proposal.
When the female excused herself from participating, Amelie offered a light shrug of her shoulders accompanied by a smile. "That's alright, I'll tell you if I get any answers" she barked, assuming that regardless of her involvement on the experiment she'd like to know the ultimate answer.
She also sensed the disomfort the female showed when some of the geisers hissed in the background. To the aspiring Naturalist, their murmurs were like an invitation to begin her research but she could tell Kaihra was not as thrilled. "I'll be fine", she assured her softly, suspecting that the reason she had not fled was because she didn't want to leave her at the mercy of the craters.
Amelie seemed to understand Kaihra's reluctance to participate in the exploration of the craters, but she still felt her mind tread carefully through the words to speak. Under her fear there did lie a curiosity, but it was too far buried for Kaihra to consciously notice or understand. Yet when Amelie offered to share her findings, Kaihra found herself nodding at the prospect, albeit stiffly and with a general hesitance that was quickly becoming a part of her demeanour these days. "I'd like that."
She still remained wary of leaving the dark youngling by herself in a place unknown to them both, but Amelie seemed to sense this discomfort, too. Kaihra strained to take peace with the yearling's assurance that she would be fine there alone. She didn't know how to explain the sudden unease that crawled through her skin, but felt it stir in her heart nonetheless. She dared a glance at Amelie, noticing again her calmness contrasted so starkly against the dark woman's fear, and for a fleeting moment Kaihra saw through furrowed brows a part of the wolf she could have become. Without thinking, Kaihra stretched her neck toward the dark yearling and gave Amelie a soft nudge on the ruff of her neck. "You'd better be," came her simple reply before she turned away from the hotsprings and bounded away without a second glance. Soon the humidity left her fur, and she could no longer hear the hiss of the craters on the plain, but she knew the weight of her worry would only leave once she saw Amelie safe on the Plateau again.
Show me where my skin begins.