Frost on the Grasslands | Shelha Series 1 | ✔

Chapter Three: River Moon

I watched a river cascade down,

Its banks a throne, its froth a crown,

Its voice a happy, joyful song;

I heard it laugh the whole night long.

I watched a river boiling brown,

Its banks a cage, its froth a frown,

Its voice a rumble, fearful strong;

I heard it sing a stormy song.

I watched a river, smooth and black,

No froth upon its glassy back,

Its voice a murmur, hardly there;

I felt it cool the summer air.

I watched a river, gathered wide,

And asked it where it got its pride;

It said, a river's strength it comes

From streamlets gathered into one.

It had been a quiet cool season. Sethral draped herself backwards over a tree fork and counted ants marching up—down—the trunk in front of her. After leaving the Coppertail herd, she had attempted to follow Winter, only to find the Mountainair and her pack already gone. She had then tried to locate the black fuzz, but he too had disappeared. After scouring the forest for a quarter moon, she had decided a visit to the Coppertails was worth her while and had flown back to the South Flats. The coulee had been empty. Departing just days before, the herd had headed out onto the flats at a speed, judging by their tracks, that meant they intended to go far. They didn't usually go far.

And so she had stayed in the South Forest; stayed through the cool season, though she had near frozen her wings off and frozen her brain for lack of anything—anything—to do. The South Forest's only notable features were inherently uninteresting: a complete lack of native, intelligent species; and trees so uniformly aged and sized that it looked as though someone had taken seven or eight, copied them like a stamp and stamped them across an area the size of the Lowland basin. Their deep shade and lack of successful offspring left their understory as barren as the Rock Flats.

Realizing she had never really gotten to know them, Sethral had explored for most of Hunter's Moon, and liked to think she had seen most things of interest by the end of it. The upside was that she now knew a lot of little nooks she hadn't before. The downside was that Glass Moon had then left her stranded in a place whose lack of variation she was intimately familiar with.