The sound of crows flapping overhead slowly died off, and the few red streaks of color drained from the usually uniform palette of the sky above—but the silence of the oncoming night only seemed to exhilarate her. It created shadows among the gravestones, marble forms strangled by vines and tree roots and hidden by a wall of tobacco and other gone-wild plants.
Closing her blue eyes, Vesper immersed herself in the land around her. The wind ran its fingers through her fur, and late dandelions scattered their seeds. Fluff landed on her coat until she shook herself and walked on. Inhaling, she drew in every old scent scattered here: loners and pack wolves alike. In some places the scents mingled, while others were separate, wanderers crossing one another’s paths without knowing it. Her own smell would be added to this place tonight, but whether it would be with a companion, she did not know.
She trotted onward through the cemetery-turned-field, wondering at the fertile growth here. Being non-luperci, she could not take advantage of the soil to cultivate her own crops, and she wasn’t familiar with the uses of plants other than the odd healing herb. She saw this place more like a meadow of thick growth, one that she dived into looking for small prey animals in the dark.
There was a mouse here or there; she pounced on one and snapped it up before moving on to others. The small coywolf ate a few of the little creatures, something to tide her over until she was able to hunt more substantial prey. She’d wait until she was further away from pack territory to do that, however; she had smelled borders further west, dividing the field. She didn’t want to risk chasing a rabbit over the border. As alert as she was, anyone hungry could get caught up in the moment, and she didn’t want an entire pack howling at her heels.
Vesper shot a glance up at the moon then slowed her pace, once again letting the scents of the tobacco and wildflowers waft to her nose. She tilted her head curiously at a shadow behind the grass then pressed the vegetation down, eyes scanning a tombstone and its eroded, impossible-to-read symbols. She turned in a few circles to better flatten the grass then flopped down, pressing a shoulder to the cool stone and half-closing her eyes.
