Brrr,grumbled Alyx when she woke at dawn in a nest of frosty leaf litter. How she managed to stay asleep despite the chilly bite of the air was beyond her. She was surprised her whiskers weren't frozen to her muzzle. She yawned, whistling in her throat near the end, and tried to shove her face into her legs to seek sleep again, but to no avail.
With nothing better to do, the Redhawk rose and made a great deal of stretching and shivering and jogging in place to force warmth into her muscles. The sky was still dark save for a faint blush that peeked through the branches to the east, and the baleful hoot of an owl told her just how early it was. One black ear swiveled toward the crispy crunch of little feet on half-frozen grass, but when she turned to look, it was already hidden from view.
Breakfast would make things better. The lithe yearling slunk around her sleeping place with her nose lowered, sniffing louder than usual to try to prevent it from running while she searched for the critter's trail.
@Phaedra No obligation, just if you have time and want one!
gun to my head i couldn't write u less than 2 paragraphs ig
it was those noisy breaths finger-snapping at her subconscious that coaxed the earnest scholar from her studies -- for phaedra had resolved to be specially volitional in regards to her sense of belonging and purpose and therefore took to acquiescing every impulse that came to her in case it led to some unprecedented career trajectory.
recently, such impulses tended to insist upon far-flung night wanderings.
now, one might ask hey, what kind of career is 'night wandering' even relevant to?
this one might answer i dunno.
isn’t that the beauty of the scientific method? there had to be an application for wanderlust to the wolven way and this wolf was determined as ever to discover it.
come sunrise, with sky yet to veil the soul-pale face of venus and bold autumn yet to spread through the hollow her passion fires, phaedra unhitched from the shadows and began her track home.
she didn’t feel morning's bitter breath until she halted upon the trail to listen and it bit into legs tired from ranging. her muscles pleaded with her to run off the brumal leach of the wind, but the girl had already decided that impulse didn’t presently suit her.
no -- the gratification of following her senses was nearly instant when another girl came loping ‘round the bend, nose to the earth, expression sculpted by concentration and for the most part informing those around her -- phaedra -- that she was hard-pressed and time-poor, socializing wise.
her toes clenched anxiously. she was suddenly tongue-tied by the sheer indecision of having the patron’s choice of address and stared blankly at a hare sitting stock-still a few yards beyond alyx.
synapses were painfully inert after several long nights bereft of rest.
her brain didn’t thaw quickly enough and she was the fool to stand in the middle of a game trail, so unless alyx happened to glance up in time to avoid it, the two would collide on the grunt-end of a hastily assembled, “thererabbitth—!”
It wasn’t like Alyx to descend into her thoughts. That was something boring intellects did. She wasn’t unintelligent, per se, but she liked to live in the moment rather than endlessly turning thoughts over in the bleak landscape of her brain. Life was more colourful that way.
But since her mother’s death, she found herself in her head more often than she liked. While she continued to snuffle along a trail, relishing the warmth that began working its way into her muscles, she stopped paying attention to her surroundings and started on the guilty thought of her father alone at the Caldera. No, not alone … he had his new kids, and Towhee, and her crybaby son. Sniff, sniff, think, think … that was all she did, and hardly registered either activity. Disorganized thoughts played before her eyes like a movie, veiling over anything actually happening around her.
No wonder she somehow didn’t notice Phaedra right in front of her, despite the near-luminous quality of her pale coat or the smell of her. Or the rabbit, for that matter. Her nose was about as useful as her eyes right now, and she might as well have been blind for all the good those did her. Her ears did lift up at the spluttered voice, but it was too late to change her trajectory.
But since her mother’s death, she found herself in her head more often than she liked. While she continued to snuffle along a trail, relishing the warmth that began working its way into her muscles, she stopped paying attention to her surroundings and started on the guilty thought of her father alone at the Caldera. No, not alone … he had his new kids, and Towhee, and her crybaby son. Sniff, sniff, think, think … that was all she did, and hardly registered either activity. Disorganized thoughts played before her eyes like a movie, veiling over anything actually happening around her.
No wonder she somehow didn’t notice Phaedra right in front of her, despite the near-luminous quality of her pale coat or the smell of her. Or the rabbit, for that matter. Her nose was about as useful as her eyes right now, and she might as well have been blind for all the good those did her. Her ears did lift up at the spluttered voice, but it was too late to change her trajectory.
Wuhthuh—she groused when she slammed her lowered head directly into Phaedra’s side, jarring her neck and tripping over her own feet at the same time and stumbling inelegantly into the other girl. It was pretty slow, all things considered, but with the added weight of her own unawareness behind it. Somewhere behind Phaedra, a flurry of activity announced the rabbit’s fortunate flight.
Yo what the heck?she asked, sitting bolt upright and giving her sore noggin a shake. As if it was Phaedra’s fault and not her own for paying no attention to anything!
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