3/5/2025, 3:21 AM
She had not gathered as much information as she would have liked. By some miraculous feat, she had found herself in a new location with no apparent way out. Mountains lay to the north, south, east, and west, and she had not crossed or even seen any on her way in at the start of winter. Now, she'd found herself lost.
Of course, Jacqueline hesitated to use the word; inherently, there was blame in that word, incompetence. She trusted her own navigational skills, and she had no destination in mind anyway, so that could not mean that she was truly lost. Merely, she was exploring a new area. A totally unfamiliar area which she had no recollection of navigating to. The other half of her predicament was that it was winter, and it was forcibly winter. She was not certain if she'd seen any signs of the weather easing up. Being surrounded by mountains, she wondered if elevation might play a part. Mountains were always cold and snowy. Though, she had intentionally not climbed any mountains, knowing it was winter.
It was something of a mystery. Were she a different type of woman, she might have thought something spiritual, magical, had befallen her to place her here. Being rather pragmatic, she instead was quietly, in a way that she would never admit to another soul, stumped by the circumstances of her appearance in this land.
She'd made the best of it, but had not yet encountered many other souls. Travel was difficult through the rough conditions. She had only mapped out the perimeter of the lake, the surrounding woodlands, and then navigated the twists and turns at the base of the mountains which were now to the southwest of her. She had caught, either on the breeze or by encountering physical markers, that there wer a handful of packs in the region. It crossed her mind to cause some chaos at their borders, to create an excuse for interactions with one of the locals in the hopes of gleaning more information about this land. It was not something she'd ruled out quite yet, but she wanted to gather more information of her own first. She preferred to be seen as competent, mysterious, and cooking up a scheme to learn the bare minimum about the region had plenty of potential to make her look like neither of those things.
Presently, she was headed east, maintaining a steady trot following an early-morning meal, when her gait ended abruptly. There, in a break of the trees, she could see the ocean, shelled in plates of ice. She crept through the thinning treeline, closer to the edge of the cliff. Wind buffetted through her fur, stung her eyes with cold. Further in the distance, past the ice, she could see the cropping of a sizeable island, the peak of a mountain.
Interesting. Would she freeze to death if she swam to it?
Of course, Jacqueline hesitated to use the word; inherently, there was blame in that word, incompetence. She trusted her own navigational skills, and she had no destination in mind anyway, so that could not mean that she was truly lost. Merely, she was exploring a new area. A totally unfamiliar area which she had no recollection of navigating to. The other half of her predicament was that it was winter, and it was forcibly winter. She was not certain if she'd seen any signs of the weather easing up. Being surrounded by mountains, she wondered if elevation might play a part. Mountains were always cold and snowy. Though, she had intentionally not climbed any mountains, knowing it was winter.
It was something of a mystery. Were she a different type of woman, she might have thought something spiritual, magical, had befallen her to place her here. Being rather pragmatic, she instead was quietly, in a way that she would never admit to another soul, stumped by the circumstances of her appearance in this land.
She'd made the best of it, but had not yet encountered many other souls. Travel was difficult through the rough conditions. She had only mapped out the perimeter of the lake, the surrounding woodlands, and then navigated the twists and turns at the base of the mountains which were now to the southwest of her. She had caught, either on the breeze or by encountering physical markers, that there wer a handful of packs in the region. It crossed her mind to cause some chaos at their borders, to create an excuse for interactions with one of the locals in the hopes of gleaning more information about this land. It was not something she'd ruled out quite yet, but she wanted to gather more information of her own first. She preferred to be seen as competent, mysterious, and cooking up a scheme to learn the bare minimum about the region had plenty of potential to make her look like neither of those things.
Presently, she was headed east, maintaining a steady trot following an early-morning meal, when her gait ended abruptly. There, in a break of the trees, she could see the ocean, shelled in plates of ice. She crept through the thinning treeline, closer to the edge of the cliff. Wind buffetted through her fur, stung her eyes with cold. Further in the distance, past the ice, she could see the cropping of a sizeable island, the peak of a mountain.
Interesting. Would she freeze to death if she swam to it?