Wild Berry Meadow You're headed for heaven

AW! experimental gal

wild berries don’t grow for the hungry. they grow for the birds, the wind, the ghosts who sip from their sweetness when no one’s looking. but that never stopped her from plucking them anyway, rolling them over her tongue like a secret, letting the juice stain her teeth like the kiss of something half-forgotten.
the meadow hums with the voices of things unseen, leaves rustling like whispers passed in the dark. she knows better than to listen too closely—some songs aren’t meant to be heard all the way through.
a crow calls from the crooked fencepost, watching, waiting.
ain’t nothin’ free in this world, sugar, she murmurs to it, tongue curling lazy around the words. not even the sun.
she moves slow, easy, a shadow stretching between golden stalks. the wind tugs at her fur, playful, like it might carry her off if she lets it. maybe she should. maybe she will.
but not today. today, the berries are ripe, and the world still spins.

The world is unforgiving, and Calfuray feels as though it has ate her alive.

Her injuries from the Bearclaw wolves have long been healed over, but the hurt in her heart from her falling out with Rala is still ever-present. She knows that she should have been more forgiving with the snow woman.

Paws carry her through the berry bushes, single eye set on the path ahead of her. Today her mind wanders, focus lost in it's endless pursuit to shame her. She thinks of opportunities lost, relationships destroyed, her daughter left behind.

Maybe none of it should matter now. The world is a vast canvas, and as unforgiving as it may be, maybe there is room for revision.

She craves something new. Something to make her forget the before.

ain’t often you see a ghost walkin’ in broad daylight.
eulie dawn don’t startle, but she does pause, mid-step, a berry still caught between her teeth. the woman ahead is cut from shadow, all sharp edges and old wounds, wearing a past that don’t seem to wanna let her go. she carries it like a heavy quilt stitched from bad luck and bad choices.
reckon you’re lost or lookin’ to be found? eulie asks, voice smooth as creekwater, soft as the hush before a storm. she don’t look right at the missing eye, but she don’t ignore it neither. she knows better than to pry where she ain’t wanted.
she rolls the berry over her tongue, swallows.
funny thing ‘bout these berries, she muses, stepping slow through the brush, they only sweet if you pick ‘em just right. too soon, too late—makes no difference. bitter all the same.
her head tilts, candlelit eyes flicking over the woman’s radio collar, the stub of a tail, the map of scars hidden ‘neath thick fur.
you tastein’ bitter or sweet these days, miss?

Someone speaks, pulling Calfuray from her trance.

They try to be poetic, it seems to her, but she has never been one for poetry. The stranger is long-limbed and unscarred, far different from herself in every sense it seems. If she was a bit paler she would have reminded her of a smaller Dione.

The questions proposed are strange to her, and she does not exactly have an answer. She opts out of responding, rather grunting instead.

She is however interested in the berries. Calfuray has avoided them for her three turns of life, unable to tell which were edible and which were poisonous - she was no medic. Eyeing the other she makes a slow approach, first sniffing at one of the clusters before taking one of the berries herself, carefully picking it with her teeth and letting it sit on her tongue.

They were right, this one is sweet. Her ears perk momentarily - the taste is new to her, and a bit exciting.

eulie dawn did not seem to mind the silence, not one bit. it came with most wild things—most women who had seen too much and said too little for too long.
she watched the amber, brown-coated stranger pluck the berry, soft and slow, as if waiting to be bitten by something other than sweetness. eulie dawn, already laid out like some stretched song across the meadow, just smiled faintly.
reckon you got a tongue for truth after all, she murmured, voice lilting like wind through reeds. sweet like a lie, that berry. but better on the teeth.
a pause, her eyes slanting up toward the fractured face, unbothered by the scars.
ain’t gotta talk, she said, soft now, half-lidded. most don’t. the land remembers what we don’t say. it holds the shape of every foot that’s fled, every throat that’s wept quiet. i just talk so it don’t get too loud in my own head.
she plucked another berry with her teeth and sighed like the day itself was getting heavy.
but if you ever feel like speakin’, i’ll be here.

She didn't mind being talked at. It was soothing, in a way. Taking a branch of berries off the bush she made the choice to lay down next to the woman; an offer to share.

The day was long, she had nowhere to be and nowhere to go. Maybe she never did. She would stay, so long as the other allowed it.

Looking out upon the flatlands, she grunted at the sight of a fox emerging from a den followed by three smaller, fuzzy heads. Spring really had come - a joy for some, but to Calfuray it mostly meant that she would need to steer far clear of packland.

She hoped the fawns would be born soon. They were an easy meal.

eulie dawn watched the foxes with a quiet sort of reverence, her eyes soft as butter in the warm light. the little heads bobbed like weeds in a breeze, small and blinking and brand new. she didn’t speak at first, just followed her line of sight with a tilt of her chin and a low hum in her throat.
then, softly, like she’d plucked the words out of the air:
they don’t know nothin’ of fear yet. ain’t that somethin’?
she laid her head down on her forearms, a slow breath leaving her chest. spring’s cruel like that. sweet at first glance, but full of teeth underneath.
her voice was melodic, but her eyes flicked sidelong, catching the other woman’s face in brief study. the scars. the stillness. the weight.
eulie dawn didn’t press. she never did.
instead, she nudged the berries closer between them with her paw, then rested again.

Once she would have leapt up at the chance to snatch one of those fox kits. She had been grazed by spring's teeth, but she was those teeth all the same. She only laid still now, head resting upon her paws.

Listening to poetic speeches and allowing herself to laze about, it was not such a bad way to spend her day. She could hunt later, feasting only on sweet berries for now. She would leave when the aches in her legs ceased, continue her journey and let nature take it's course. She would find a new woman, someone who could pull the words from her throat.

Would you like to fade here?