She rattled about; careless of the noise that she made in leaf-crunch and step. Forests were like that; the comings and goings either noisy or loud and she fell somewhere in between. Making just enough noise to be heard but not enough to be a noticeable racket from all the rest. Let them come to her, and not her to them, as if Thistly had better things to think about - like whether or not she really would fall in love whenever she could or if she’d just bluster and bristle in the face of love and luck.
Love was less and less on her mind as she ambled down the deer trail. She noticed their cloven prints sunk deep here and there in pockets of muck the sun had not reached, or the piles of their round pelleted droppings that smelled like nothing she had known before. It just identified them as deer and poop, nothing spectacular like berries and grasses, bucks and does, and all other manner of suggestion like a stud pile could tell her. Mother would have said to read the bear claw-scratch on the tree trunks and the rings of mushrooms on the ground if she wanted to know things.
She didn’t always put much stock in what her mama said though, since the mare functioned less and less as a horse and more and more as a bear. Bears couldn’t govern wild wide-eyed little girls all that much, especially ones that bore a striking resemblance to their absent father that it made their mama’s heart hurt each time she looked at her beloved child. Thistly had borne such hurts well and often looked askance, not letting her mama know that she had seen the flashes of pain therein, like flickerings of quiet dark shadow or bright hot flames.
That’s why she decided to forsake love as much as she could. Except the world had other designs and each step she took brought her closer and closer to loving every single little thing about it. From the specks of dirt that worked their way onto her smoky blue-black skin (like old smudged bruises admits shadow and smoke) to the gales that slipped and tumbled before in admirable acrobatics that sent leaves swirling and sailing until she became caught up in their tireless ancient dance of shake, spin, and fall. She recognizes a kinship in the leaves; tossing and tumbling and leaving the parent-tree like she had.
It makes her pause and smile, all thought of her own coming and going stalled as the season further stands its ground, putting down roots before the winter comes. She can smell snow in the air and knows it won’t be long but snowflakes fall instead of leaves and the trees stand naked and eerie before her, near-dead and just wood. No leaf, no life. But she can understand and appreciate the dynamics of it - of seasonal change and dormancy. Not that she’d partake of it as the girl finds her, two lost souls in the wood before the onset of winter.
“If I did, I was smaller and sorrier for the lack of not knowing.” It is a poor excuse as her black eyed stare meets one of a startling shade of blue that she’s only ever seen in a glacial pool or two before guzzling her fill of such frigid and pure water. She is certain that Keeper must have told her tales of how it goes from spring to summer, summer to fall, fall to winter and all starts all over again. If so, there must have been some involvement of snakes and the eating of their tails and how it’s all one big endless circle.
None of that is what Thistly relays though; “Would you want it to always be just the one season?” She could list pros and cons to each but would miss the unique aspects passing from one to the next. Could she pick just one to endure in permanence? It made her smile longer, “I don’t think I could pick just one, could you?” Despite the fact it sounded like the other girl had, and she seemed partial to the season settling deeper in around them in pops of red and orange and gold. Death had never looked prettier than in the woods.
“Maybe this one…” she confided, as she looked around them and began to appreciate the explosions of color in the tree-tops and gilding the edges of bushes and ferns.