White Tide Jetsam

Caspa Al-Fateh · 01-19-2012, 06:25 AM

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Word Count :: 572

So much had happened to her lately that her mind could easily have been a whirling maelstrom of chaos: a moving biro doodle of a scribble covering almost the entire page. Instead, the paper was wiped utterly blank, because Caspa had been training for months in stilling the hubbub, and she wasn't going to stop the practice now, despite the havoc that had wreaked itself on her peaceful life lately. She especially wasn't thinking about her limp, which was less pronounced now being more of a flat-footed movement where both feet barely skimmed the ground. As limps went, it was a strange one for the cause was not a discrepancy in the limbs, but the tightness in her chest which abhorred all shocks or sudden movements. It had amazed her how one beating could have set so many things wrong, and how weak she really was when she let others get close. They would never get close again.

Walking was good, it was her oldest habit and something she felt utterly comfortable in, though she worried she wouldn't be able to run for a long time as she used to through the human city. Out here in the woods though, walking seemed a more suitable gait, the still and soft snow-tipped moonlit treescapes far too quiet to warrant any kind of crazy dash. The moon was full again, or just a few days off, in the exact phase that she had last met Denver and they had agreed to meet again - only, this was the second reoccurance of the lunar date, as she'd been unable to travel during the last one. And even now she was a little late - the moon was already getting low in a steadily lightening sky, so if he had bothered to come at all after her failure to show up last time, he might have already left. At least Caspa hadn't gone much out of her way, having been travelling in the north already, and timing her return for this moment, aiming at the vague chance he would have kept faith in their tenuous agreement.

She watched the first rays of sun turn the misty clouds into pale amber liquid stains as she walked, the only thought floating into her calm mind one of relief that the cold would soon subside, if only briefly. She wore a black leather hood which extended into a shoulder-covering cape, and her long sheepskin gilet with the wide knife-bearing belt cinched tightly against her fur, but she still felt the cold through her insubstantial fur. She banished the thought though: suffering was something to be appreciated and endured, not spurned. If she'd really wanted to keep warm, she wouldn't have given her trench coat to Terra to borrow while her own garment was being worked on in secret. But then, the surprise would have been harder to cover up. She saw the rocks ahead where she'd run into Denver on that fateful day, and realised how ironic it was that she was having nostalgic thoughts of the Court while spending all her time up here where its last - or most recently known to her - disloyal member now lived. She started to circle the granite piles, searching for tracks in the creamy snow - had he been here at all, or was she a fool to assume the possibility?

Image courtesy of h.koppdelaney @ flickr; Table by the Mentors!

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