Twilight fast approached; leaving the dense, summer air alive and stirring with tremors of last minute activity.
There was a buzzing symphony of insect wings, joined by the feverish flutters of nest-bound birds as they strained to collect any last treasures before the night. The crepuscular -- similarly aware that the final hour of daylight was upon them -- added a trudging sort of warmth to the orchestra, as they began to rise and root about, at last heralding a recovery from the perpetual sluggishness of high-noon.
And there was another source of music, too, as someone toyed charmingly with an ocarina in the distance; Softly, and not terribly well, but neither was the sound grating or unpleasant.
This thrumming of life, however, did not reach a desolated tree in the midst of that wide, grassy Bay. It appeared to have not bloomed for several years now, and its barren husks, formerly branches, reached up dryly with desperate gnarls -- petrified in agony.
A small menagerie of animals moved along a trodden game trail heading towards the plant. The lot of them were made up of two shifters, a horse, a nocturnal bird, and a ghostly, half-blind moose with her recent, equally haunting calf -- and when they came near enough to pass by this corpse of a tree, the notes of the ocarina stopped abruptly.
Steadying her nag, and before the navigator of their excursion could refuse, the woman added:
Canon did not argue. He had learned better than to dispute with her over the living totems she kept as pets -- they were her
He watched Shoshana as she made to dismount from Wilma, instinctively on guard due to his companion's peg leg. But as usual, perhaps from years of practice, she landed deftly on her good limb and required no balancing as she rolled into a lopsided stride that was committed to her camp duties.
Canon still wasn't used to how unaffected she seemed by the amputation. But he supposed she had lived with it for some time now.
As the one-legged waif hitched her resentful mare to the tree, then guided Nagini and Mardröm nearby to feed, and unburden the cow of their tent, Canon mutely departed on a patrol of their surroundings -- eager to make sure they were alone.