|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2025 11:09 pm
March 2025 Prompt The weather is turning but mother nature has one last hurrah in store - it seems she has mustered up a blizzard that's blown down from the mountains and over the majority of the Kawani lands. This is highly unusual for this time of year, it seems winter was not ready to let go! How does your soquili fair in this blizzard? Do they see the signs early and manage to avoid it completely? Do they seek shelter in time and wait it out? Do they find themselves stranded and in danger? Do they fend for themselves or do they help others around them?
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 18, 2025 11:13 pm
There wasn't much Rosaline could do - she'd been caught out on her own when the heavy snow started. With her short stature the trek was quickly getting more difficult, but she did her best to press on in hopes of finding shelter to pass the time in. Thankfully her mane kept much of the snow and wind away from her eyes and much of her face so she could still pick out the path ahead by the shape of the brush to either side of it. A gap in the tree canopy revealed a grey sky, almost like a false night. So the snow would likely continue a while longer, maybe even get worse before it tapered off. Rosaline knew there were at least a couple of caves relatively close by, assuming they weren't already snowed in or occupied by anything that loathed company.
She headed for the first, barely managing to find it with all the brush collapsed at the entrance under the weight of the snow. Checking for a space to squeeze in dumped even more snow onto it and her. So that option was right out. She tried to shake the snow out of her mane as she headed for the next possibility.
This one was thankfully more promising. The entrance was shielded by other larger rocks, cutting off the the worst of the wind and blowing snow. Even before getting into the cave itself she felt much better. There were no signs of tracks or remains of food that she could see, so it seemed safe enough to stay for remain here for now to wait out the weather. If she stayed near to the entrance it wouldn't be much darker than outside and she could easily keep an eye on the wind and snow from this vantage.
She shimmied to rid herself of what remaining snow she could. Better to leave as much of the cold and damp outside as was feasible. Cold would take any chance it could to linger.
And now all there was to do was wait.
.
.
.
.
Rosaline half closed her eyes and then there was a space of time she couldn't seem to recall. Had she dozed? Perhaps it didn't matter. The sky was a deeper grey - perhaps it was actually night now - and the snow was still falling heavily. But at least the wind had died down. It was almost peaceful.
But the peace didn't last long. She had had just enough time to settle down again and was watching the snow when a skittering noise rang through the cave behind her.
"Who is there!?" Rosaline's tail near whipped the small creature when she spun around, ready to defend herself. The creature wasn't quite what she was expecting.
A diminutive little creature with antlers... a rabbit? Uh. That was the first time she had seen one of those. The rabbit had leapt back, grumbling and startled, and was surrounded by bits of scattered forage. "I'm so sorry... I was afraid you might've been a wolf or something."
More grumbling as the rabbit sat up to collect it's spilled forage into the makeshift container she had brought along. Evidently this was the source of the skittering noise as the rabbit had pushed it across the cave floor. "I got this before the snow got bad, thought you might be hungry too."
It took Rosaline a moment to process what she was seeing and had heard before and now she felt sheepish. "Again I'm so sorry..." She didn't have a good way to help. Sweeping with her tail was likely to more harm than good at this point. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" Hopefully not. While she did have a little experience healing she hadn't ever tended to any major hurts.
"No no. Just scared." The rabbit's head shook, lightly rattling the beads and the feathers. With the forage now recollected the container was slid toward the minicorn and the overlooked question asked a second time. "Hungry?"
"Yes." Now that she was sure no harm had been done she could comfortably pay attention to her own needs. "What's your name?"
"Widget Foundplume." She tilted her head and looked toward one of her feathers for emphasis. She'd found those fair and square, cleaned them and made them decorations for herself. Once her sudden companion had taken a bit of food she took some for herself, not even waiting to finish crunching on it for her next question. "Who are you?" She wasn't always eloquent, but Widget's mother had taught her enough manners to avoid becoming someone's lunch.
"Rosaline." It might have been hard to see from her current vantage, but once she bent her head down to eat Widget would be able to see the bow and beads atop her curls.
"Shiny." Well kept, like the rest of minicorn from the looks of things. "Fluffy too. Easy to hide in snow." If Rosaline had a mind to she could just completely disappear out there. But she didn't seem the type, not with all those curls trailing behind anyway. "Headed somewhere?"
"Mmm.. not really." Rosaline answered between bites. Widget had done pretty well with this, despite the sudden spring blizzard outside the door. "Didn't have a set plan, anyway." No real home and it wasn't a story she felt like telling right now.
"Can I go with you?" Widget sat back on her hindquarters and looked up at Rosaline. "Nowhere for me to go either." Like Rosaline she had her own story and wasn't quite up to telling it just yet.
Admittedly that caught Rosaline a bit offguard. "Sure, I don't see why not." From their brief interaction this antlered rabbit - Widget (it seemed politer just to think of her by name) seemed pretty decent. They could both keep eyes and ears out for predators together while on the road. And Rosaline's presence would help keep the smaller ones away at the very least.
The snow continued to fall outside and the conversation kept on until the need for rest crept up on them. And the newly minted friends took turns keeping watch while the other slept. And once the clouds broke the two were up and continuing on their way.
-fin
(1,038 total)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
