breaking the ice

Vesper · 12-02-2011, 09:53 PM

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Creative title!

Lupus form. Time of day up to you.

Oh, and don't worry about matching length. D:

Light snows blanked the wide plains north of the bay—not enough to cause a hindrance, but enough to cover the world in patches of white. The crisp, cool air was almost rejuvenating—wintry but not yet uncomfortably cold. Loping along on four legs through the field, Vesper was brought back to the months she had spent roving after her mother had died, a life simplistic through driven by a vague concept of vengeance. She had crossed several stretches of grassland like this, doggedly pursuing a grey-brown doe or pouncing for mice buried under the snow.

Right now, the Tirones was interested not in food, but in scouting farther than she had before. She was unfamiliar with the northwestern area of Nova Scotia, having visited only that time she and Helotes had encountered the strange Oriental girl. Thoughts of the “tea party” made her lips tug back in an undecided expression, something between a smirk of amusement and a grimace of irritation—a muddled state that described her feelings toward her dusky pack mate quite well.

She shook away thoughts of him and paused, her coat blending quite well in the surroundings: light tawny against brownish grass, pale underside against the frost. Blue eyes reflecting the color of the sky scanned the territory thoughtfully. The early December snow had changed the view since she’d last looked in mid-November, but it was nothing a born wanderer couldn’t adapt to. She trotted onward again, her gait an enduring one, paying no heed to the position of the sun in the sky.

Vesper remembered a river the last time she’d come here. She figured that she would cross that and see what lay beyond. That is, if there was anything. She knew that the “entrance” to the peninsula was in the general area, though she’d crossed directly through the mountain range from the rest of Canada. She certainly didn’t harbor any thoughts of leaving.

When she found the river, there were no easy points to cross, such as a log or cluster of rocks she had optimistically hoped for. However, it was coated in a layer of ice; the temperature had fallen low enough the previous night to freeze it.

The coywolf lowered her ears and stepped down the bank, setting paw out on the ice. She eased across the water carefully, one large ear perked forward to catch the telltale sound of cracking ice. When she was more than halfway across, she allowed herself the slightest of smirks, but as always pride became her immediate downfall.

One small paw settled down on the ice then broke through it, underestimating how thin it was since being warmed by the sun. She snarled sharply as her pad was immersed in the frigid water, and she jerked back, shaking that foreleg then stepping away from the hole she’d created. A careless misstep on an area she hadn’t tested yet revealed more thin ice, and she whirled around, not knowing if she should chance the far bank or go back where she’d come from.

The untouched land was closer. She leaped that way, claws scratching in the ice and every few steps causing more to drop away from the water. She finally scrambled up onto the bank, her paws cold and her tail lashing as she looked back at the river.

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