
As the breeze picked up, it began to carry on it the thick scent of pine sap and crushed needles as it smoothed over the surface of the snow again. Some five feet up, on a thick branch of the damaged tree, the culprit lounged, absently munching on a handful of pine needles as she surveyed her morning's handiwork. Tearing off another another mouthful the young mare reviewed her morning.
The previous night she had reached the outer boundaries of the Rainbow Hotsprings, a place she had been quite curious about ever since hearing about it from one of the random, oddly nervous, Samanayrs she had met on her meandering travels after leaving home. Gradually her path had drifted this way, leading her here just in time for night to fall. Not that night really bothered her, but the air had been unpleasantly cold, the fluffy still green trees were hard to see through, and some of them had branches growing right down to the ground, providing cozy little dens to curl up in and sleep warm in the piles of strange pointy leaves that had fallen into the space. All things considered, it had seemed like a good idea to sleep here and approach the Hotsprings well rested and alert.
However, her plans for the day had changed drastically as soon as she had poked her nose out from the cozy shelter of the pine tree and seen the world turned white. Licking the strange white stuff had left her tongue feeling slightly numbed with cold and had gotten her nothing but a mouthful of icy water. Poking the stuff with one spiked foot had left a hole in the sparkly crust. After that...well, anyone who had happened to stumble upon the small clearing would have seen her dancing and prancing just over the surface of the snow for hours, now just skimming the surface with the sharp tips of her spikes, now letting herself sink in enough to leave long gashes as she leapt back out.
At last she had worn herself out. A few mouthfuls of the fluffy snow had eased her thirst. And a combination of leaping, levitation, and awkwardly clinging to the trunk of one of the pines with her sharp feet had enabled Wrath to work her way up to a comfortable perch where she could oversee the area and admire the neat little marks her feet had left as she rested and pondered her next course of action. This white stuff was great fun, though very cold. Surely some of the others who were supposed to be gathered here would come out of the trees to where they could play with it too. Probably they were just slow to wake up today. Perhaps she should try to catch one of those little birds fluttering around up there to have ready as a gift for the first ones to show up?
Glancing upwards Wrath decided that was too much effort just now. Anyways, no one she'd met since leaving home had seemed to like gifts of birds, lizards or fish. Right now she was feeling too contentedly lazy to go to the effort of catching one, so she settled more comfortably on her branch and dozed, one eye still half open, watching the clearing for any new friends in the area.
((*stares at Wrath* She's...sweet, really she is. Just a little...er...twisted?))