Playing-Koi

There would be no dawn today; no sunshine, no light. Morning rose from behind the distant mountains as an ugly, gray thing. Dark clouds roiled and churned down from the jagged peaks of Taniya like a large cat, rumbling with displeased thunder and a promise of hellish weather to come. Even the trees to the left of her, their fiery autumn flare now long gone with the onset of winter, seemed to claw angrily at the open air with their naked limbs. Not for the first time since she'd dared to pass through Maiksuk, Chulyin noted with dismay that the wind was not as damp and cold as it ought to have felt as it whipped through her fur. The rattle of t