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 Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:54 pm
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The Old Mountain (March 21 - April 20): There are seven stones standing in a wide, empty field.
Kin: Sacred Grove
Word Count: 516
The memory was difficult to hold onto, like the wisp of a scent or something seen out of the corner of one's eye. Ascent tilted her head back to gaze up at the stones that reached skyward, imagining that the standing blocks were attempting to piece the great blue above. Perhaps the stones served to support it, instead? She smiled in a lazy, distant way, not sure why the thought amused her. The idea of the sky blanketing the world like reverse snow was ridiculous. It was like a story she'd tell her children, just like...just like the other...what was it?
The Kiokote felt she'd seen this before, or something like it. Something taller. Something in grains of gold. Sometimes she couldn't hold onto, but that stirred at her thoughts, something locked away from her ability to recollect, aware of it all the same. Repressed as it was, the memory felt distant on her tongue like a long forgotten taste, and gazing up at the seven stones that were out of place yet so natural in her homeland, Ascent wondered if she hadn't seen them before. If she hadn't, perhaps, touched something similar to it. Been in the presence of something so much more than herself.
She could feel the wind lacing through her hair, drawing through her auburn locks and tail with familiarity. It was a warm wind, reminiscent of the desert, of her mate that was not with her, made her ache for the family she did not yet have. The Kiokote thought of her given family that were surely nearby, much closer than she wished, and so far from the family she desired with all her heart and soul. Her mind wandered from her troubles to the stones before her, taking slow, languid strides around the one closest to her. It was like circling another world, so large that she could not clearly see the other side of it, the bend and curve of the stone making it impossible to circle it cleanly. Even so, she continued her lazy round about, curious but peaceful, basking more in the familiarity and the memory it tried to recall than the strangeness of the entire situation.
It was tiring, it was a consuming thought. Ascent couldn't tell if it was a memory, a real memory, or a dream -- she knew too little, and could feel too much about it that was real despite the vague fog that hung around her. Picking her way across the green plains dotted by the whites and yellows of the flowers that bloom in spring, she felt apprehensive to touch the stone. She had no way of knowing if she'd wake--
--when was the last time she'd been in the plains...? She'd left with Descent years ago, they started their life in the desert until she went into the swamp for answers, for help with conceiving...
Spring flowers. It was winter.
Ascent awoke with a start, lungs heavy with icy air in the swamp where she'd fallen asleep, the dream gone from her as the first one had been.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:55 pm
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The Mangrove (April 21 - May 21): A sweet doe sings a song of lost love.
Kin: Unyielding Winter
Word Count: 555
Weak.
Kill the weak.
The thought flowed through her mind and into her blood like fire, making Winter feel tense and almost immediately angry. The doe was beyond tired of the the other that continued to sing mournfully, a continual and broken repeat of some supposedly romantic song that told of love lost. Had Winter a weaker mind, she would have surely memorized the droning wail of a song by now; as it were, she was able to block the caterwauling with images of her past hunts or even better -- going out to kill something just to get away from the sound.
She wasn't usually in one place long enough for the song to matter, but it was the season of her namesake and it was a particularly frigid one, making the ground as sheer as a frozen lake, every step through underbrush cracking and snapping for what felt like miles around. The echo of the frozen tundra and the constant movement of other kin and query was already enough to set her on edge, going against everything she was. Add the mournful song of the love-lost doe and Winter was ready to hunt the b***h just to end her suffering. Or Winter's suffering. She was fairly certain her own suffering was far worse than the broken-hearted doe that sung her misery to the moon and sun and everything else that would listen. Even that which wouldn't, herself included.
It was the third day - three days too long, by her count, she'd reflect with clenched teeth - that Winter's patience was extinguished. It was three more days than anyone else had ever had, her own children included. She had tried to ignore it, tried to tell herself she wouldn't be stationary long, but even she could tell by the perfectly clear sky and lack of thaw that the days were going to have a winter as unyielding as her namesake. Frostbite was still curled in the makeshift cave with the remains of their last kill when Winter set out over the snow, fleet of hoof, easily pinpointing the singing and the voice it belonged to. It was a good ten minute jog from her current place, but the ugly doe was easy to find on a fallen log over a frozen bog, undoubtedly a romantic setting if someone were inclined to give two shakes of an Acha's tail.
Winter didn't even hesitate when the doe came into sight. The hunter galloped towards her, swift and silent as the snow around them, knocking the doe off the log and halting the song with a sharply placed shoulder to the doe's ribs. They both spilled over the side but Winter was on top, her teeth on either side of the doe's throat. There were no words, only a predatory growl that slid over the doe's throat with Winter's hot saliva. She was certain the doe plead, cried, begged with words, but Winter heard none of it, her muzzle wrinkled with a snarl that trickled out. The two remained locked like that for time enough that Winter felt hungry. It was fortunate for the doe that Winter's hunger wasn't immediately linked to her own kind. The hunter withdrew from the doe, and in a flash color, she was off for the greater thrill.
The song was never heard again.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:55 pm
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The Twins (May 22 - June 21): The birds are out and curious despite the cold.
Kin: Bones of the Forgotten
Word Count: 818
The chirping of birds stirred him from his slumber. It didn't help that there was a ghostly press of phantom weight against his face, Fragment eager for him to get up and start the day. It was a slow thing for the kin to move and wake, the cold settling in his bones and making his muscles feel tight with the unforgiving chill of the season. It was a process, stretching out his long legs and clearing the fog of dreams behind glowing blue eyes. When he was finally awake, it was longer still for him to get to his hooves, head bowed, legs unfolding beneath him like thick petals. By the time he was upright and his skull mask pressed into place, the sun was much higher in the sky than when his familiar first tried to wake him, much of the day progressing. Grave wasn't usually so hard to waken, but the cold made him want to hibernate for long periods. It was the season of the dead; he wished to celebrate it, but he felt as empty as the hollow trees in the eternal stretch of ice and frozen boughs.
The first thing he saw after his eyes adjusted to being snowblind (and he no longer had to squint) was movement in the branches. They were unusually laden with birds, and not just any type, Grave noted. The avians that were frequenting the area were carnivorous. They swooped and chirped and swayed, communicating, warning, quarreling among themselves. The Kimeti was unfettered by their presence - he knew their purpose well - but what gave him pause was that he did know why they were there and they should not have been. The curious birds were not exactly the type to simply greet the day and guard their nests, no -- they were scavengers. Not hunters, even, but carrion feeders, those who followed the tails of true hunters...or at least, the remains that said hunters left in their wake. The sizable amount of them was not a good sign for anything; with winter heavy upon them, they were undoubtedly hungry. There was a meal to be had, which meant that Grave had a job to do.
The call of duty seized his bones far greater than any disruption to his sleep or gnawing hunger ever could hope to. Grave took his life's work very seriously, and with great interest to what could have caused this congregation of carnivorous birds, he mulled over the possibilities as he set on his frozen path of warring avians. An avalanche, perhaps? He considered the possibility, but it seemed unlikely, as the land he was in was flat and surrounded by frozen bodies of water. Then, perhaps, something captured in a weak break of ice over those bodies of water? Again, Grave dismissed the notion, knowing the winter was too deep and the thaw far too unlikely in the thick set ice to be enough for anything - even a sturdy Totoma - to breach the ice and perish beneath its surface. As he picked his way through deep banks of snow and flighty stretches of ice, Grave decided it was more likely he would find the remains of a scarce hunt or at the worst, a kin that succumbed to the weather.
He crested a small bank and slid down the snow carefully to where the thick of the hungry birds that were more vicious had convened, scattering them in a flurry of caws and sparse feathers. Some dared to dive at him, but he was working; his blood was full of zeal and he snapped back at them with his jagged maw, warding them with his horns and kicking one that thought to graze his flank. Once he had established his dominance, bone tail wavering and threatening to skew any that tried to test him - which, thankfully, none had, he wasn't keen on taking life, only honoring the dead - he was able to nose through the snow and find his way through the wreckage of bloody snow to the origin of the mess. His worst thought was correct, however, he was incorrect on how bad it was.
It was a dead doe, mostly picked clean, likely dead for at least three days. Next to her remains were three broken eggs and a mismatch of smaller bones that could not have belonged to her; he surmised, after going over the bones, that there had been two foals with her. Most of their remains were carried off, small and tender as they were, but there was enough for him to bury and send off. Grave did not mourn their loss, it was not his duty to do so: instead, he celebrated that they were found in death, and could be put to rest for their next journey.
It was a grisly job, but someone had to do it, and he was only too happy to.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:56 pm
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The Hunter (July 23 - August 22): In the dream you turn and see no shadow behind you.
Kin: Unyielding Winter
Word Count: 543
Winter was being stalked, she knew it, but there was nothing there.
As a hunter, she knew well what it was like to stalk prey. She knew the ins and outs of slinking, camouflaging, using the surroundings to her benefit; she knew about having hoof falls that were light and delicate in the dry weather and the heavy rains, knew that she could be heavier-hoofed but much more careful when the ground was heavy with leaves and boughs (for sudden falls or getting stuck in a fallen branch was certainly no way for a hunter to move). The doe was very well aware of what it was like to follow something hapless and unaware of its plight, just as well as she knew what it was like to be on the heels of something equally hapless but very aware that it was in danger. In fact, one of her favorite things wasn't the stealth, but the chase; it was a guilty pleasure, but she lived for the thrum of blood that rushed through her when it was time to chase that which was running for its life.
It was why she was very, uncomfortably aware that she was the one being stalked this time. Someone - or something - had the proverbial balls to follow her, to stalk her, to try and make the huntress the hunted, and she was not going to bow to it, no matter how rattled it was making her in her own head. Winter was proud, arrogant even, and she was not going to succumb to the flight instead of fight, she would not give whatever was there the satisfaction of seeing her panic or lose her poise as an alpha. She took one step forward, then two - and turned around, but there was nothing there. Almost, she could almost swear she saw a shadow in the corner of her eye, but when she looked...
...nothing is there. She told herself this time and time again, but she knew it was a lie, and a pointless one: as a huntress, she simply knew. The doe was being stalked, but for what nefarious end, she didn't know. She was getting angry, her pelt prickling and her fur practically rigid on her hackles. It was only then, ears pinned back and annoyance at an all time high, that she realized Frostbite wasn't with her. No wonder she felt out of sorts - her other half was missing. She knew well the gryphon hadn't fallen prey to whatever was stalking her, she'd surely have felt half her soul die, but it did make her wonder where the other was...
and why there was nothing there--
Winter snarled, the sound low and unusually lethargic to her ears, as if the world around her had suddenly slowed down with her reaction. There was a distance sense of concern for herself - was it fear? she may never know - a deep sense of missing Frostbite, but even as she whipped around, there was no shadow that was unnatural to the land around her. No sound, no hoof fall, no creak of branch nor sway of bough, no birds chirping, no beasts rustling.
Just like that which was stalking her, there was nothing, and she knew there was something.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:56 pm
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The Familiar (August 23 - September 23): Something about today's crisp, cold air makes it difficult to stop talking.
Kin: Herald-of-Dawn
Word Count: 510
"It's a beautiful day," he said to no one in particular as he left his home, and it was only the beginning. Herald wasn't talkative by nature, and he knew that when he informed the day itself that it was beautiful the moment he set hoof outside, that the day was going to be most interesting indeed. He wasn't one to balk from the unknown of the day (though he would most certainly balk from the routine chore of snow sweeping), and even if it did mean he heard his voice more today than he did all year...he could deal with that. Get it out of his system, as it were, and set the balance back in place.
And that was what it felt like. The air was cool, crisp like a fresh apple, just as refreshing; it should have been icy, frigid and uncomfortable to even breathe, but Herald found himself breathing deeply of the air, exhaling it in soft words of contentment or bits of a song he remembered from years prior. The snow was even a bit lighter, a delicate crunch that didn't cling to his hooves rather than the sopping, knee-deep mess he was used to this winter. "It's still cold," he informed the snow, in case it didn't know. "But not unpleasant. It doesn't feel like my bones will ache for a lifetime after a mere step." He appreciated that the winter was less abrasive, even for the day.
As Herald made his way through the swamp, he felt overwhelmed with words that usually had no place passing his muzzle. It was both amusing and frustrating, mostly not knowing where the chatty feeling was coming from but not entirely against it. It was just...weird. Not quite himself. But everyone had those days. He drank in the crisp air and smiled in a lazy manner at a dragonfly that zipped by, watching the iridescent flicker of colors off the slim body. And quite without warning, even to himself, the buck broke into song.
"The sun is high and bright this day;
the snow at hoof is a-melting --
winter is here, easy to say,
nurturing a song worth belting~
With glistening ice, frigid cold,
and trees heavy with yesterday --
winter takes all, the young and old,
take warmth wherever you just may.
The wee beasts are stirring to life,
the flowers have not yet wakened,
as sure as spring is winter's wife,
we will never be forsaken --
When cold has run its given course
and our lives resume as normal,
when heat comes, will we feel remorse
for treating this season formal?
Winter will come, winter will go,
and we'll be here -- or we will not,
no matter which, I always know
I'll miss winter when it is hot!"
Herald finished his song with flourish, dipping his legs as though in a bow, though he instead pressed his muzzle into the icy clear pool of the watering hole he'd ended up by and drank deeply of the lung-freezing liquid. Maybe that would shut him up.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:56 pm
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The Winged One (September 24 - October 23): Twelve stars form a constellation you've never seen before.
Kin: Bones of the Forgotten
Word Count: 508
It had been a slow day, which Grave supposed was to the benefit of those who hadn't died, but it meant he was restless. The sun had long since set and the buck was still on the move, his two familiars sleeping peacefully between the long bones of his back, used to his sway and rocking movement to remain undisturbed. He felt like he was having trouble grounding himself when he wasn't working, had difficulty getting through the day when his duties could not be performed. It wasn't his fault, given that others had to be dead for him to work at all, but it still gave him a sense of restlessness. The absence of death in winter was...like winter being absent from the seasons. It was unnatural and it threw off the order of his existence.
Hooves crunching over the slushy snow that was trying desperately to give into a spring that was not yet here, Grave actually wasn't certain when the last time he slept was. Time was precious to a kin like him that dealt in time expired and time to continue, so he didn't quite measure his days in the traditional rise and fall of the sun. All he knew was that in that darkness, the only things glowing were his eyes, the likes of which left small streaks of blue with his passage. The boughs above began to give way to a stretch of swamp that had some clearing to the sky above, bending away to allow the stars to be seen. Grave didn't usually pay a whole lot of mind to the night sky, but it was how he told time and where he was; he glanced up, and slowly, his hoof steps came to a stop, his head remaining tilted back to gaze upwards.
The night stretched high and as far as he could see, with no promise of sun to rise just yet, blanketed with twinkling sequins of stars that were intimately familiar to the buck. And yet, standing there in that semi-clearing in the dead of a winter's night, he found himself marveling at a set of stars he'd never seen before. Twelve, to be exact.
Grave turned in a slow circle as he picked out where the stars set in those he was familiar with, belatedly realizing that the reason those stars were unfamiliar to him was because it was the dead of winter and he was often looking down at the ground for bones, not up to the sky for unfamiliar bodies of light. Three rounded out the 'top' of the image that he could see, two at the bottom, two below the first three and the rest offset beneath. It took some time of gazing and mulling over what he was looking at before he saw what it fashioned - in his head, at least - and despite himself, his jagged maw curved into an amused, if not cynical smile. Of course, just because he wasn't looking up, didn't mean he wasn't being watched from on high.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:57 pm
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The Web (October 24 - November 22): An unexpectedly warm day encourages new exploration.
Kin: Unyielding Winter
Word Count: 575
The sun was immediately warmer than usual; she could feel it on her fur, heating her much faster that morning than it had in the past. Winter stirred and awakened from slumber as the sun filtered through the lowest part of the swamp, turning her ears towards it as though it were calling to her. A warmer day meant she wouldn't have to stay where she was for hunt and game. It meant she had the opportunity to change her hunting site, to find fresh and untouched land to sustain herself and Frostbite. To Winter, this was a very good sign, and very much to her advantage given that it was still her season.
She didn't have to rouse Frostbite, the griffon already taking to the sky as she got to her hooves and shook off the night's light sheen of frost on her fur. Her sunrise eyes all but glowed as she immediately took off to the east, chasing the rising sun through dappled shadows to find her new hunting grounds.
It was a new direction for the doe, but it was immediately rewarding. Winter noted that the land swelled a little higher than where she usually hunted, the hill that should have been snow-covered already melted into mushy green in the sun's warmth for the day. She imagined it was lush and dense when winter was slumbering, giving her a good view over the stretch of land that spread out before and beneath it, a copse encircled by willows and brush. It was open enough and dotted with just enough rocks and the promise of thicker underbrush and cattails that plenty of prey could hide and make home, a self-replenishing supply of food for the huntress. Granted, such a thing didn't offer much thrill of the hunt and she'd only rely on it for the winter, but...it was something she could rely on when the snow was too deep for her to move. The land, unfamiliar to her, made her uneasy for her lack of knowledge of the area, but already able to survey the new grounds and see each point of pouncing and stalking and hiding...was an immense comfort. She could easily hunker here for the rest of winter.
Winter trotted over the hill and beyond the swell of trees, more than pleased to see that the icy crunch of grass and flora twisted back into the forest, into thicker lines of trees and low hanging branches that were more ideal for her hunting. It meant that, though the land was new, she could hunt and stay healthy in the small copse and spend her days exploring this new land. It could be untouched by kin, which would be ideal - being a sole hunter in a land lush with life could only be to her and Frostbite's benefit. It meant no more running into competition - though, briefly, she thought some weren't all bad, like the one she contested some time ago - but she preferred being a loner. She thrived on self reliance and comfort of knowing the land as well as she knew her own capabilities. The new area would allow her the freedom to eat to her content (which was amazing for the cold weather and something that she looked forward to) and a possible future for the rest of the year.
It could be her new home, and Winter would take what the warm day had given her.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:58 pm
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The Trickster (December 22 - January 20): You tell a lie, but it's okay, because it was a funny lie.
Kin: Herald-of-Dawn
Word Count: 567
"I'm fine," he said, and they laughed together over his predicament.
It hurt. His pride was beyond wounded, lower than he was, even though he was the one wallowing in an icy cold mud pit. He wasn't sure he could feel lower at all, but part of him was certain he could sink into the earth, be swallowed up by the swamp - or his shame - and be locked in a nightmare of embarrassment. It couldn't be seen through his light, jovial laughter or the easy smile he wore, the only pink on his bright fur being the glow that persisted through the muck that clung to him. The pristine white of his fur was sullied, just as his honor, but he kept the hurt swallowed down and the embarrassment on display, because it was infinitely easier to laugh at himself and his misfortune than to show that it actually affected him. That would open him to ridicule. That would open him to vulnerability. Herald could not open himself - he did not know how. So he hid his shame, and laughed at it openly at the same time. Would it satisfy those that reveled in his slip if he shed a tear or blushed on his fair cheeks? Would they enjoy feeling pity for the strong male that looked down or embarrassed or out of his element? He supposed it would, but he didn't know how to give them what they wanted, even if he were willing to.
"I'm fine," he repeated, some of the kin around him shaking their heads with their laughter trailing off, others trying to get fallen branches and boughs to help him up.
They certainly wouldn't risk dirtying their fur. Why, that would subject him to his level of humiliation and degradation, and they certainly couldn't do that! So no, they wouldn't touch the dirty mudbeast, they wouldn't dare set a hoof into the muck to help him. They'd offer outside assistance, improvise without risking bodily mess, even though dirty grass stuck to their hooves, the dirt-speckled snow spotting up to their forelegs. He'd have to clean himself, but they couldn't dare do the same, couldn't clean themselves innocently or otherwise. He would accept their help to get out of the sticky, frozen muck, but it was only because he had to, his strong legs pinned beneath him and heavy with the winter mud. He would laugh with them, retrace each horrible step before his fall, elaborate on the details of how uncomfortable he felt in that pit and how awful it made him feel, all with light-hearted discussion as if observing the weather on a summer's day. It would let them be closer to his pain without experience it, closer to his dismay and embarrassment without actually partaking in it and wearing that mantle themselves. They couldn't - they wouldn't put themselves at his level to help him or understand, because they couldn't hide their shame as well as he could. They might cry, or blush, or wail their embarrassment, but not Herald. It wasn't in him to show if something upset him. It was truly beyond him to manage expressing himself, and sitting there in a puddle of mud where he had slipped on broken ice and fell, he laughed with those who witnessed his fall because there was nothing else he could do.
"I'm fine," he murmured, lying with a smile.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:59 pm
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The Firefly (January 21 - February 19): Repeating the same line of a poem over and over, unsure how it ends.
Kin: Sacred Grove
Word Count: 511
Another dream slipped through her ability to retain any memory of it, frustrating her as she shook herself awake. Ascent knew it wasn't the first time she'd had a dream that seized her and shaped her, but it also wasn't the first time she'd forgotten it - or most of it. The first time, she...she knew there was something special about a dream had, something in the desert, but she recollected little behind it. She'd forgotten about it until she had met Bare Trees, but even then, she had only an inkling of familiarity and no idea where it had been from. Ascent could only fathom it was from one of her constant dreams she could not recall, having had another shortly after the meeting that jarred the notion of it. She was frustrated with her spotty, hard-to-reach dreams, not knowing if they were as important as her naming dream or simply fragments of her stressed mind.
And then, it happened again, broken pieces of being chased and an icy plunge - but more than that, she remembered shards of a song. No -- the Kiokote shook her head, eyes narrowing as she tried to pinpoint just what it was. Not a song, but...a poem. A poem she wasn't even sure she knew in the dream, but that seemed important, that had some sort of dark purpose. She tried to remember the words, but she could only pick out the pieces she remembered of the dream itself - a chase, teeth gnashing, the idea of a field of flowers, icy, cold, water, a great fall - but the actual words to the poem seemed to elude her just then. Too much was warring for the center stage in her thoughts and attention: the dreams, their meaning, why her memory was faulty on them and more pressingly...the poem. Ascent could hear the tune of it, the lilt, and why she confused it for a song: there was a sort of melody to it that was both sing-song-esque and rhyming.
The more she focused on trying to recall the poem, the more the wavering words flit in and out of her mind, too fast to capture, and rapidly moving songbird that would not cease its mocking trill. The song of it was so loud and constant that it overshadowed the majority of the words. Snippets began to play back to her, but it was much like the dream it came from: a chase, a dark end, but it was all she could gather. It flit among words that seemed to capitalize on her inability to get pregnant, something about a mother, but she could not remember all of it or if she was just pacing it with all on her mind.
Ascent sighed. She supposed if she was meant to remember, she would, and the time had not yet come. Just as her pregnancy that had not yet come, just as the knowledge of her dreams was not yet available to her, it seemed the poem would yet remain a mystery to the troubled Kiokote.
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Posted: Thu Jan 22, 2015 12:59 pm
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The Half-Bloom (February 20 - March 20): Work is too hard, better to just lie down and take a nap.
Kin: Herald-of-Dawn
Word Count: 556
Was there anything more dismal than trying to clear snow from one's home? Herald believed that perhaps, there was very little chore that was more tiresome by mere thought of performance than the vicious cycle of clearing snow from the ground. It wasn't the first time he'd done it, and he knew well how it would go: he would use a branchy dead bough to sweep away the snow from the entrance of his home, spend all day clearing away a path and brushing off the top so it wouldn't cave in on itself, and by the time he collapsed into exhausted sleep, it would start to snow - and by the time he awakened, sore and stiff from the previous day's work, it would all be undone by a fresh gale of snow. No, Herald truly believed there was nothing sane about trying to clear out snow from his home. Wasn't that insanity? Repeating the same thing and expecting a different outcome?
Not that Herald wasn't stalwart and not that he wouldn't do it, but oh the buck was not looking forward to it. He dragged his hooves to get up from his bed of dried nettles and half-heartedly fought his way out of his partially snow-lodged home, only to stumble face first into the impressively deep bank of snow. Heaving himself back to his hooves, he sighed into the sky, having to climb and kick his back legs just so to get out of the bank that easily went to the middle of his chest and get to a more shallow swath of snow. The stuff was just everywhere; he didn't even know how it came to pass, being in the swamp, hoping the natural gasses and warmth of the land would melt the vile stuff. There was no such luck, however, miserably surveying the blanket of eye-searing white that stretched beyond his ability to care.
Trudging through the snow (and slipping a few more times, he was not terribly graceful when it came to the soft, crunchy snow or unforgiving ice), he had to check several trees for the right bough. Some were too splintered and weak from the heavy snowfall; some of the boughs were too high; some were low, but too small, or too unwieldy in their curves and gnarls. Some were too wide at the base for him to hold in his mouth, and some crumbled entirely when he attempted it at all. He realized in a dismal sort of fashion that it would take hours just to find the proper bough for cleaning. Hours of precious sunlight just to find the means to sweep away the pale fluff, not at all including the time actually spent doing the act of sweeping and packing the snow to form the path and sweep the top of his home and --
Oh, MotherFather, to the depths with it all. Herald was too grumpy and too annoyed with the routine to actually go through with it. The sun broke through the steely clouds and that would have to be enough: not about to spend another day just going through the motions, Herald uttered a soft snort and climbed above the cropping of his home to lay down, deciding a nap in the sun would do far better than spending his time accomplishing nothing at all.
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