Fox in the snow, where do you go?

ooc: This song inspired the title. Dated 11/7/15, if that's okay. Early evening. @Enloexian, your gem's out looking for you! Gent and Raela, this thread is not for you - the tags are only there to attract ooc attention for the thread. :D

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The first downy, swiftly-melted snows of the year had given way to thicker, sturdier drifts; each day it seemed the sun worked harder and harder to clear the ground, slowly but surely losing ground in its battle to retain her rulership over the forest. The nights were freezing cold now, the moonlight not nearly enough to take the place of the sunlight in warming or lighting the earth, and the rest of the pack were curled together by now in the den, sound asleep and warm in defiance of the coming winter. Hopefully they would all stay that way, especially @Gent and @Raela, who would be the hardest to convince to let her go on this excursion tonight no matter what ecuse she came up with - and it would be an excuse. Neither Alpha would ever accept the truth, and that fact made her stomach twist itself into knots even long after she crossed the eastern border.

It was bitingly cold, and no small portion of her wanted to turn back around and get back to her nice, warm den and sleep among her pack mates, where by all rights she should have been all along. But the small part that kept her moving forward was a strong part, empowered by curiosity and something else, something she didn't have a name for and had only ever experienced one other time before - and then not nearly as strongly as she felt it now. The face that draw was attached to only made the excursion even worse, in her mind.

What business did she honestly think she had going out in the middle of a snowy night looking for Enloexian?

She stopped when she reached Bowed Maple Bend. The pool was slow-flowing enough that ice was able to encroach upon the edges of the water, lending it a silvery ring that gleamed even in what meager light the waning crescent moon above was able to offer. Snow still lay in drifts against the trees and rises in the earth, glittering even more brilliantly than the ice; the sky above was a patchwork of starry blackness and dark, wispy clouds.

It was a beautiful sight - beautiful and utterly lonely. With a sigh, Calanthe settled down beside the water, casting a hard puff of air through her nose and out across the ice. Should she keep looking for him? He was a loner, and if he had found a pack by now, it certainly hadn't been hers. How was she to know that he was anywhere around here at all? Maybe it was better if she got up again and turned back to the Crest before anyone could notice her absence. She could still claim to have gotten caught up in her thoughts on her way to get a drink if she went back now...

But what if Xian - Enloexian, she reminded herself sternly - came here just after she left? What if he was on his way here now, still wandering about, and she wound up missing him by going home too soon? The thought made her heart twist unpleasantly - unpleasantly for multiple reasons, she told herself. But what if he came after she had gone, and when he found only her scent decided she didn't want to see him again and never came back around ever again? He was too much like smoke, like a shadow, like--

After a moment she sighed and rested her head between her paws in defeat. Fine. She would stay for just a little while; the night was cold but not unbearably so, and this really was a lovely sight, all the ice and snow under the moon. A few more minutes couldn't hurt, could it?

(This post was last modified: Nov 13, 2015, 06:40 AM by Calanthe.)