L O S T
It had been a long and unsuccessful day of tracking. For all the hours Lief had put in to her hunt, she had come out of it with nothing to show but an increasingly hungry stomach. The Vhaanir she'd followed from the heart of the forest to its edge had been tricksy, fleet of foot and oh so aware of her every move in spite of her own featherlight footsteps.
When it had reached the edge of the grove and ran off down the vast hillside she'd shot at it one last time. The arrow whistled on by, missing by a hair's width and sinking into the ground. After that the beast was long gone. Trudging down the hill, she plucked up the arrow, the last one which was not snapped or missing its cockfeather, and placed it into the small quiver which hung down by her side. She'd collected the others, of course, but the process of mending them would take time.
Time she realistically did not have.
The walk back up the hill was worse than the entire hunt combined, it was steep and seemingly never ending. By the time she was back on the threshold of the forest, the young Aelvar was thoroughly exhausted. She slumped down to the ground at the base of a pine tree and stared out over the landscape. The Vhaanir was long gone by now. Another grumble from her stomach made even the toxic mushrooms growing up the tree seem like a palatable option.
As she set a hand down to try and push herself back up to her feet, she felt something firm under her palm and began to rummage through the carpet of freshly shed needles. Amidst them were small pinecones which had dropped from above, and while most had already shed their seeds a few of them had small nuts hidden inside the woody cone.
Thanking her lucky stars, she immediately began to pry them free. They were tiny little things, barely worth the energy it took to remove them much less chew, but they were a fatty nut and tasty enough to be worth it for her. Even if they were gone much, much too fast. Moving onto all fours, she began to scramble around to find more.
