Skye had been meeting a lot of people lately. First it had started with Shaw - before that, she hadn't really met anyone. But then - oh, then, the ball started rolling. Ouija, Lucia, Noah, Saul, Dawali, Daisuke, Pixie...the list went on and on. And now it was the beginning of winter; not a very cold one, she admitted, but one still. Of course, cold was subjective - Skye's fur tended to get very thick in the winter time, but others with thin pelts didn't have that luxury. Still...when the coldest months hit, she better have learned how to knit. She still didn't know how yet.
And her parents...her parents. She needed to visit them some time - not in the winter, of course. Her pack - her pack! - needed her. Oh, how it was good to think those words in her head - that her pack, that she had a pack, and was even one of the leaders of it. And her pack needed her. She'd been tending the small garden she'd planted - by now they were tiny little sprouts, barely visible; if she'd put another mound of dirt on them, you couldn't see them at all. But they were there - and when winter hit full-force, she would cover them with light droplets of water like her mother had taught her. That, her mother had said, would give the plants warmth through the winter. Like a jacket for bushes. Skye giggled at the thought and moved on.
Although winter hadn't really hit yet, the trees seemed to think they did - their leaves were no more, and the normally thick-looking Ethereal Eclipse looked barren and desolate. She missed the reds and yellows of fall - they were so beautiful, so magical. When they'd all fallen off, she felt sad.
Suddenly, a scent hit Skye's nose. She was beginning to be able to differentiate the different smells of the packs - Inferni had the dusty, dry scent of the Wastelands, Dahlia de Mai had the sweet scent of dahlia flowers and foliage, AniWaya had the intoxicating scent of crops, corn, and horses all mixed into one - and Crimson Dreams smelled warm and inviting. It was one of the nicer smells of the packs, and that was the smell that Skye smelled now. Following the enticing smell of open moors and farmland, she found herself in the middle of more naked trees - with a grayish blue female in the middle. Her hair was gray, and she was walking through the forest. Skye wondered if she knew Cercatori d'Arte was nearby; did Dawali tell her? Not that it mattered; Skye didn't mind. She didn't care about trespassers as much as Inferni seemed to, although she was ready to fight for her pack if needed. But this female seemed to mean no harm - and they were pretty far from the borders as it was.
Still, she felt like a creepy person, just watching the Crimson Dreamer, so she stepped out of the shadows and smiled. "Hi!" she exclaimed. "It's a lovely day, isn't it?" She immediately felt dumb. It wasn't a lovely day at all; the trees towered like skeletons over them, and drab clouds carpeted the sky.
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