In a time when some took up guns and others drew bows to hunt or kill, there lived a woman in a quiet village. Her name was Sandra Wilmington. As pious as Ruth, the foremother of David, she was also full of wonder and adventure—free-spirited and wind-kissed, with an untethered heart.
To those her age, she was odd, a creature of peculiar habits and distant thoughts. And so, she often wandered alone into the forest just beyond the village gate. There, through her childhood, she danced between the trees, played in the tall grass, and splashed her bare feet in the stream that sang beneath the canopy.
She spent her childhood in the village, until she came of marriageable age at twenty. From that time on, offers poured in—and she refused them all with unshaken resolve. Most had come from men known throughout the village to be of the lowest moral rung, and Sandra would not lower herself to be tethered to such as they.
Then came the day she turned on her parents before the eyes of the town. If they would not cease pressing her to marry, she vowed, then she would leave them behind—vanish into the wilderness, where God and her Lord Jesus would provide for her as they had for those who walked through wilderness before her.
At this, her father, Mr. Wilmington, struck her across the face. He seized her by the neck and dragged her through the doorway, yet still their argument could be heard spilling from the house into the square.
She wept and screamed, raw with fury, refusing to be turned into a broodmare for her family’s gain. But her parents stood firm. She must marry into a household that could provide. A woman alone could not make her way, they said; such women were cast out as burdens.
Through her sobs, Sandra declared, “Very well. I will depart from this forsaken place. I will make the wilds my home.”
She rushed to her room on the second floor, her breath ragged, her limbs shaking with fury and heartbreak. With trembling hands, she gathered her stash—sacks of food she could carry, the essential tools she’d need to endure. Over her dress, she fastened a thick cloak for the winter and laced up boots fit for unforgiving terrain.
When she opened the door to leave, her father’s voice roared after her: if she crossed that threshold, she was never to return—not to the house, not to the village, not to them.
Sandra said nothing. She only gripped the straps of her belongings tighter and stepped out, as behind her, her mother sobbed into Mr. Wilmington’s arms.
While Sandra made her way to the village gate, a boy named Silas Thorne emerged by her side with his own satchel and load of weapons and supplies. “Depart from me,” she said, “I seek no one’s company but God’s.”
“Come now,” Silas chuckled with a raised brow. “How are you certain that God didn’t send me to aide your journey? The savage wilderness is hardly to be taken lightly.”
Sandra grumbled under her breath, glancing a sidelong glare at him, and so tolerated his companionship. “Very well. Though, do please keep quiet. I’ve no desire for conversation on the road.”
He offered a chuckle—quiet and full of trouble. “As you wish.”
They went on their way to the unknown—
Sandra, with hope and faith in God,
and Silas with determination and courage,
though fear still lingered at the edges of his resolve.
After having traveled some distance, Sandra’s stomach gave a low protest. She paused just long enough to pull a piece of wrapped bread and an apple from her pack. Apple in one hand, bread in the other, Sandra moved with quiet purpose—eating as she walked, eyes scanning the underbrush for anything that might fill the space her meal would leave behind. She wasn’t foraging for tomorrow, just enough to keep the rations steady.
I’ll also need to keep up my water supply. . . make a bow and arrows.
Making a quiver shouldn’t be too hard, Sandra thought. I’ve spent my whole life doing needlework.
She went over the list of things she’d need to survive this new life. She trusted God to give her food, water, and protection—but she knew she’d have to do her part to thrive.
As thoughts of survival turned over in her mind, a fox wandered onto the path just a few feet ahead, causing them both to halt. Silas notched an arrow, eyeing the animal as it paused in their way.
Instinct moved faster than thought. Sandra reached out and laid her hand gently over the arrowhead, halting him.
“Hold on,” she murmured—just loud enough for Silas to hear through the still wind threading the woods.
Something in her spirit urged her to watch.
The fox paused ahead, then turned and gave a subtle nod—an unmistakable motion, as if inviting them to follow.
“Lower your arrow. The fox is not to be our meal,” Sandra said gravely.
Silas blinked, stunned, but obeyed. As Sandra stepped after the creature with quiet purpose, Silas trailed a few paces behind.
“We’re. . . following a fox. . . for help?” he muttered, incredulous.
“That’s right,” she replied matter-of-factly, a smirk ghosting across her expression. “It may look like madness, but this is where discernment matters—knowing when it’s God lending aid, and when it’s the devil luring you astray.” She glanced at the path ahead. “Given our circumstances—and the fact that I, at least, am a devoted follower—I’m willing to believe this is the former.”
Silas lowered his bow, hesitant to follow. He glanced at Sandra, who showed no trace of doubt or reluctance. That steady certainty in her made it easier—though the turmoil inside him didn’t vanish. It only quieted, like a storm drawing back into cloud.
They followed in the fox’s silent wake, the hush of the woods curling around them. It never strayed far—always just ahead, weaving through the trees like a whisper.
Along the way, Sandra spotted common mallow growing low beneath a maple. She paused to gather a few soft leaves, then noticed a scattering of ripe elderberries tucked between brambles. She picked what she could carry, careful to leave enough behind, and slipped the finds into her pouch.
They didn’t speak much—each step was guided more by instinct than conversation.
Eventually, the fox led them to a clearing where a small herd of wild boars grazed along the forest floor. Though the common mallow and apples had satisfied their hunger, both felt the craving of fresh meat for restocking their packs.
The fox halted at the edge of the clearing, still as stone, staring at the boars with unblinking focus—even as Sandra and Silas stood above it.
“Do you think we can eat those?” Silas murmured in an exaggerated tone.
“I would think so,” she drawled. “Considering the fox is acting like a statue right now.”
Sandra reached for her dagger, readying her stance—but Silas gently stopped her. Wordlessly, he raised his bow. With one silent, swift shot, his arrow struck true. The nearest boar collapsed instantly, causing the rest to scatter in alarm. Silas loosed another arrow before they were gone, catching a second one cleanly.
With the rope Silas brought, they each tied a boar’s legs together. The boar’s weight pressed down on Sandra’s shoulders like a sack of stones—dense, unyielding, and heavier than anything she’d ever carried. Her muscles strained and her breath drew tighter with each step. But she bore it in silence. It wasn’t just meat she carried—it was a blessing with weight, something given and not without cost. And she would carry it as far as her small body can out of gratitude for the boar’s sacrifice.
Silas hefted his boar across his shoulders, the weight digging in with every incline. It wasn’t unbearable—but it was stubborn, awkward, and insistent, like the land itself had no intention of making things easy for him. He adjusted his grip, the scent of raw earth and iron following him as he walked. Provision, yes. But it demanded strength to carry. He gave it willingly—for Sandra’s sake.
With each burdened step, they followed the fox’s silent lead—not with certainty, but with a reverent trust that made no demand for why. When Sandra’s strength emptied, she flung the boar to the ground just before collapsing beside it, breath breaking through her in labored gusts.
Silas stopped, lowered his own burden, and stood while she recovered.
“Typical. . .” he muttered.
“What. . . was that?” Sandra asked, breath hitching between each word.
He didn’t look nearly as worn from the distance they’d walked—hauling what they had.
“It’s nothing you should concern yourself with,” he said in a scoff-laced breath.
“Apparently. . . I. . . do. . . if. . . you. . . have. . . a. . . grievance. . . against. . . me. . .” she pushed the words out through her heaving chest. At times she held her breath after a deep inhale, hoping to quiet the huffing—but she’d misjudged how far her breath had fled.
“It’s not . . .” Silas half-scoffed, half-laughed, running his hands down his face before pressing them at his nose in a prayer-like fold.
“You women, always fainting. Whether to catch a man’s attention, or to prove how well your skirts stay unrumpled after the fall. . . It’s ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous?” she squeaked, outrage sharp through breath.
“Can’t. . . you see. . . I’m hardly. . . seeking courtship?” she snapped, once her breath found her somewhat. “The wilderness is hardly. . . . a place. . . . for courting. . . . or catching. . . a husband.”
“Even a child would know that,” he said. “Though to think a frail woman would take it upon herself to carry a full-grown boar makes me wonder if there’s any sense in that head of yours beyond foraging and hunting.”
“It’s not like. . . we have. . . horses. . . to carry. . . the second one. . .” she breathed.
“You’d have done better collecting rocks. Marking the path back. Let me do the heavy lifting. You’re fortunate you stopped when you did—rather than die trying to prove something no one asked of you.”
“If I had. . . .collected rocks. . . .and marked. . . .the path. . . . .for the second. . . .boar. . . .then it would have spoiled. . . . .by the time we could. . . .butcher it. . . . .in this climate,” she heaved and coughed.
Before Silas could counter, a slow, curling whimper unfurled across the silence with quiet insistence that edged between soft and sharp.
The pair looked ahead of them, where the fox was watching. And just past it, a cave—barely in view—waited in the hush of the setting sun.
Once a portion of Sandra’s strength returned, she gritted her teeth and hauled the meat back over her shoulders, continuing her trek at the fox’s silent insistence. Silas wanted to return to the point he’d been trying to make—but his words left him. And maybe, for now, it was better to follow her lead.
Upon reaching the cave, they began skinning and bleeding the boars in silence.
As her hands worked, Sandra came to understand what Silas had tried to tell her. She spoke while she still had the breath to do so.
“I’m not trying to be a man,” she muttered between grunts. “I’m trying to do what I can. I don’t care much for societal expectations.”
Silas exhaled heavily, his hands slowing. He searched for the right words as if measuring them out like salt over a wound.
“I know. I just don’t want you to push so hard to the point of breaking. Out here, it takes less than you’d think. There are a lot more ways to die in the wild than in a village.”
“Not when you have divine protection,” she said. “And there are actually more ways to die in a village. Just because someone’s human doesn’t mean they won’t kill you.”
Her words fell still between them, unanswered. A silence passed—not tense, but settled, like ash after flame.
Having taken his lack of response as a loss for words, Sandra laid the cut meat across the exposed carcass, which was already half-skinned and butchered. She rose and stepped away in search of water to wash the blood from her hands and arms.
Sandra’s gaze rested on the fox, lying a short distance away. No thoughts rose in her mind, but the fox stood and began to lead the path ahead—as though it knew what she hadn’t found the words to ask. Each step on the earthy ground echoed softly as she treaded further into the cave.
When the path split, the fox showed her which direction to go. She used the thick heel of her boot to mark the chosen trail in the dirt. The path split again into three, then quickly into dozens of options.
The dirt gave way to stone, and the warm air grew steadily colder, clinging to her skin in a breathless hush. She walked carefully, mindful not to slip. Eventually, the fox led her to a spacious chamber where a spring pooled farther down. At the base of the pool, an opening in the rock pulsed softly with the current—as though the water flowed in and out by quiet accord. Near the cavern’s top, a second opening let in a shaft of light filtered through a tangle of foliage.
Sandra made her way down to the spring. A small school of fish—trout, minnows, and others she couldn’t name—glided through the clear water. Along the rocks, a few crayfish scuttled and vanished into cracks the moment her shadow passed over them.
Kneeling at the edge, she scrubbed the blood from her skin, working it from beneath her fingernails and from the crust along her palms. She sent her gratitude toward her God and asked Him to bless the journey ahead with Silas. Cupping her hands, she drank from the spring. The water quenched what thirst remained, and her fatigue slipped away.
After returning to Silas, she drew her dagger and a piece of cloth, cutting a generous hunk from the meat she’d butchered earlier for the fox, careful not to get blood on her. Sandra’s mouth wasn’t dry, but thirst lingered in her thoughts like a shadow behind glass. She reached into her pack for the canteen she’d forgotten in the rush of skinning and cleansing, when her focus hadn’t spared the thought. When she tipped it, only a few reluctant drops slipped past her lips. When the fox finished eating, she brought out a piece of charcoal from her sack and one of the bowls of boar blood, grinding them together with her dagger into a dark smear. It would mark the path back to the spring in the places her heel couldn’t leave meaning behind. As she stepped toward the fox with her items, it lay down, as if to say she didn’t need to bother filling the canteen. A flicker of frustration stirred, but she set them beside her sack and left the cave to search for firewood to start the smoking.
Back in the cave with Silas, questions churned through his mind. Why was Sandra so certain the wild fox was some kind of divine guide? Why doesn’t it flee like the rest of its kind? And why, above all, hasn’t she told him where she was going—even if he could guess what she was doing, the silence gnawed. Leaving her boar half-finished like that only made it more likely to spoil and draw in bugs.
He quickened his work on what little remained of his own carcass, then turned to hers. Once Sandra’s boar was fully cut, he gathered the remaining bones and a portion of the organs they couldn’t eat and brought them near the fox.
Silas eased himself on the dusty ground, resting his sore and weary wrists after finishing preparations for hide tanning. A soft wind howled through the cave, faint and fleeting, as though a voice had been woven into its current—whispering to Silas. He bolted upright, seized by the sense that a man had spoken. But the sound, if it had ever truly formed words, was too quiet to understand.
When Silas glanced around, he found himself in a cavern he didn’t recognize. A spring pooled before him, its surface stirred by silver fish gliding beneath. At the bottom, a small hollow opened in the stone—round, dark, and waiting.
He didn’t know what it waited for.
Not thirst. Not answer.
Yet something stirred in his chest—a gentle tug, steady and quiet, as though his body remembered a command his mind had never learned.
Without thought, he stepped forward, knelt, and drank.
The act felt both foreign and already finished. As though it hadn’t been his decision to make at all.
As quickly as he came to this realization, he jolted awake. The first thing he saw was Sandra carrying a bundle of sticks, branches, leaves, dead flora, and anything else that can be used for starting the fire.
Sandra spared him no glance, only placed the bundle on the ground and began with making the area ready to start the fire. Silas reached for his canteen in his sack, when he was about to drink from it, he realized he wasn’t thirsty for his mouth wasn’t dry and kept the stringed cork on it.
She knelt by the fire ring, striking the flint over the tinder she put together. When the tinder smoked yet caught no flame, despite her blowing when it smoked. Sandra kept trying to ignite it, creasing her brow and pushing her bow-shaped lips further to the side with each failure.
Silas eventually assisted her, showing her how to blow the sparks into a flame after she struck the flint over it once more. When it got big enough to burn the larger pieces of wood, they began to set up the stand with appropriately shaped branches and pierced the center of each salted meat cut with the thinner peeled branches.
“Why didn’t you tell me where you were going? A number of things could’ve happened to you. Or did you forget our conversation about such dangers?” Silas asked as he skewered two thick cubes of meat.
“It’s not like you’re obligated to look after me—or even stay,” she said coldly. “You can leave whenever you want. I didn’t think it mattered whether we kept up that kind of communication, all things considered.” She paused, turning the meat once the underside browned. “Why bother sticking around when it’s clear I can’t go back, and there’s no real point to any of this? You could’ve taken your own road at the gate. No one asked you to stay this long.”
Silas lowered his gaze to the flickering fire, listening to the crackling and popping flames as he mulled over her words. He’d already wondered, more than once, why he kept staying with her—especially when she’d given him more grief than warmth from the beginning. Was it some quiet thread of admiration? Or was he just awestruck by the way she always left an impression?
Growing up, Silas and his friends would roam from one adventure to the next—sometimes inside the village, sometimes just beyond the wooden walls. On those early outings, one of the boys would occasionally nudge the others and point: Sandra, the Chief’s only child, was out again—barefoot in plain nightdresses, twirling through the grass like a painting come to life. The wind played with her hair. Blades of grass curled around her legs. And when she splashed through the stream, the droplets caught the light like liquid jewelry. Her smiles back then were untroubled, brimming with bliss.
But as she grew into womanhood, that smile dimmed each time he saw her, until one day it was simply gone—replaced by a sorrowful quiet whenever she looked out at nature. He wasn’t sure if she noticed, but slowly, those smiles had started to return. Not the way they once were—but something sparked when she saw wild berries and greens, and again when they came upon the boars and she reached for her knife.
Ever since that memory took root in him like a picture, Silas had wanted nothing more than to see it again in the flesh.
“For the last few years, you’ve stopped smiling,” he said quietly. “I don’t know if you realize this, but you’ve started again—when we’re doing this kind of work. I’m waiting for the day your smile looks the way it used to. . . back when we were kids. And, even when we’re not ‘bound’ to each other; if you died, I’d carry that weight with me for the rest of my days. “
Sandra’s hands halted as she placed the next batch of skewered meat into place. “I didn’t think anyone saw more than the title I could afford them, or the decorations I was adorned in,” she murmured. Small, shimmering beads of water began to drip from her brave green eyes. “P–please excuse me,” she said, voice cracking, and quickly stepped away into the deeper parts of the cave, leaving Silas silenced.
Only half a day had passed since they’d fled the village, but now he realized—of course she was still raw. Exile had taken more than land and title. It had stripped comfort, shaken meaning. And here they were, two people with no plan, no guard to trade shifts with, no map of what came next. Would they stay in the cave? Search for something better? What would “better” even mean now?
Her wailing echoed down the stone corridors, rising and falling like wind through canyon walls. The fox beside him didn’t stir, only shifted into a more comfortable sprawl, as if the grief belonged here too.
Silas rose, strode toward the creature. “Will you lead me to her?” It felt absurd, asking. Yet the fox stretched, scruffing off sleep in a brisk shiver, and padded into the shadows. Just before darkness swallowed it, it paused and looked back.
That glance tugged Silas from his stillness, and he followed.
Sandra’s cries deepened as he moved down the tunnel—each turn in the stone sharpening their edge, pulling him further into the echo of her howling.
Sandra’s crippled, writhing figure slowly emerged from the dark, her body curled against the cold stone like something hollowed out. Silas’s steps slipped quietly over the ground, their rhythm threading through the tremble that lingered between sobs.
Her wailing briefly faded into hitched, uneven breaths.
“Depart from me,” she whimpered. “I wish to weep in peace.”
“Your weeping stirs my spirit until I have no peace. Weep and wail as you wish, but I will hold and comfort you in silence until it fades.” Silas laid himself before her, encircling Sandra in his embrace as she trembles from the weight of her distress.
Sandra’s sorrow bubbled as she nestled herself against Silas. It took time for her pain to ease. When it finally did, they remained where they were, wrapped in a hush that neither moved to break.
“Is it foolish of me,” she asked softly, “to believe the fox was sent to guide us?”
He couldn’t deny the way the fox had moved—not with fear or chance, but with intention. It had appeared when they needed it, drawn their gaze, responded without being asked. It had led them to water, to food, to shelter. The pattern was too precise to dismiss. Silas could no longer pretend it wasn’t divine.
But belief comes slow to a heart used to silence.
He had spent years watching for God and seeing nothing in return. Hope had come like vapor, never holding shape. And yet Sandra had followed without question. She hadn’t asked the fox to lead—she simply believed it would. She had abandoned comfort, family, and every promise of a safe future for faith. What cost her everything, she carried like it was enough.
He didn’t understand it. But he couldn’t ignore it either.
“My mind and eyes say that God has indeed sent the fox to guide us,” he said at last, the words low and shaped by hesitation. “But my heart still struggles to accept the truth.”
Sandra flicked a glance at him—not with certainty, but with quiet understanding. “That’s alright,” she said. “It doesn’t have to come easy.” The cave held stillness like breath held in stone. Somewhere in the dark, water rippled steadily, soft as a metronome. “Saying it out loud. . . it means it matters to you. That’s enough for now.”
Sandra’s words settled, soft and steady, like water disappearing into stone. Silas sat quietly. Then, without looking at her, “Do you ever think about the cost?”
“Sometimes,” she said quietly. “I thought I was ready—that I’d already grieved it—but walking away cut deeper than I expected. They loved me, and still, they couldn’t see. Couldn’t follow. And when I left, it felt like being torn out at the core, like I walked into the silence carrying nothing but the raw weight of what I was losing.”
Silas held her quietly, then drew her into his embrace a little closer—briefly and gentle. “I’m sorry you have to endure such pain,” he said.
Sandra shook her head. “It’s my choice. It’s clear that God blesses us on this venture. I’m grateful that you came and stayed, despite how cold I treated you.”
“Regardless of the hardships, it’s been worth it thus far.”
Silas gave her one last faint press and released her as he rose. “We should go back. The smell of the meat might attract predators, and check the fire too. We may have been away from it too long.”
“I’m sorry,” she sniffled, knowing it was because of her that neither of them had been watching the fire—or the shadows.
They followed in silence, the fox leading without pause, slipping through stone and shadow like it had never needed a path. Neither of them spoke. After the heaviness between them and the long, bone-deep labor with the boars, there were no thoughts left to chase—just the quiet pull of motion and the dull ache of exhaustion settling beneath their skin as they wound their way back toward the firelight near the cave’s mouth.
The fox halted abruptly. Further ahead, near the waning fire, a pair of fully grown cougars were sniffing around. The bones scattered close by showed signs of having been chewed. As Sandra and Silas crouched behind a cluster of stalactites, the fox at their feet let out a low growl and a pitiful whine—just loud enough to catch the attention of both the humans and the cougars, yet quiet enough not to startle.
“Just what do you expect us to do?” Sandra hissed to the fox.
“Shouldn’t you be able to tame those?” Silas whispered to Sandra.
“Just because I enjoy the freedoms of being in nature doesn’t mean I’m some whisperer of wild beasts,” she snapped back quietly.
“We can’t just leave them be,” he said, eyeing the cougars. “They might go for what’s left of our food.”
“They may have already. . . .” Sandra’s voice trailed as she peered over the stone spikes again. The large cuts they’d smoked, were smoking, and had yet to touch hadn’t so much as moved. “Or not. . . . They’re just standing there.”
The cougars’ ears flicked, their gazes shifting from one end of the cave to the other. The fox pawed at Sandra’s dress, letting out a sharp, whimpering sound—pained and urgent. The cougars stilled, eyes fixing directly on the place where she and Silas were hidden.
Seriously? I’m supposed to be doing something? But what? she screeched inwardly.
Sandra slid to the ground, pressing her back to the stone spikes. She fixed her eyes on a single point in the cave, letting the rest of the world blur and fall away. Once her breathing steadied, she glanced back.
The cougars hadn’t moved. They still stared—silent, statuesque.
She drew in a deep breath, whispered a prayer in her heart for God’s help, then slowly, with raised and open hands, stepped out from behind the stone.
Their eyes followed her every movement—guarded, cautious, but not aggressive. When enough space opened between them, she lowered herself with care, rolling from her feet onto her back, her hands still raised and open.
Sandra’s heart thundered with adrenaline—equal parts fear and exhilaration with hope in her bosom. The cougars crept closer, growling low as they sniffed her from head to toe. Once satisfied, they leaned into her with their full weight, pacing up and down her body. She could barely breathe beneath them, yet they never caused her pain.
The fox grabbed at the cloth hanging around Silas’s ankle and began pulling with all its strength. He stood frozen, staring with a dumbfounded, awestruck expression as Sandra tried to coax the cougars off, struggling for room to breathe beneath their weight.
The fox gave another hard tug.
Taking its insistence, Silas followed suit. The cougars growled low as he moved closer, but didn’t strike. He dropped beside her—more of a clumsy sideways fall than anything graceful—and rolled onto his back.
The cougars flicked their heads toward Sandra, staring blankly as she huffed and puffed from being pinned beneath them.
“Don’t know why you’re looking at me,” she said between breaths. “Do with him what you will.”
“Hey!” Silas snapped, drawing low snarls and bared teeth from the mountain lions.
“Have you forgotten? They answer only to God,” she said, sharp and defensively. “I’ve no say in what follows.”
With Sandra either unwilling or unable to intervene, Silas’s pulse pounded like war drums in his ears. Alone beneath the weight of breath and flesh, fear surged so violently it hollowed his chest. Grief, dread, and every other buried thing rose in him all at once—so fiercely he feared that darkness might claim him.
As Silas trembled, drops of water slipped from his lashes while he begged God for mercy. One mountain lion pressed a velveted paw to his chest, its nose so close he could feel the warmth of its breath brushing his skin. The other stood at his side, inhaling deeply near his scalp. Then, in perfect tandem, each one leaned in and gave a single, rasping lick to opposite sides of his cheeks before stepping away.
The terror lingered so deeply in Silas that he couldn’t move or even breathe beyond hushed, shallow pants in the cougars’ presence. Even as Sandra moved to prepare the slabs of leftover raw boar—laying them carefully on cloths wide enough to keep the meat from touching the cave floor—Silas could only look on in quiet marvel. Each mountain lion padded to opposite ends of the cave, settling down to feed in silence.
Sandra began tenderly stroking a cougar’s back as it ate, and the feline only purred in response. “How do you look so calm?” he asked in a choked voice.
“I trust God,” she said plainly, her gaze steady and cool.
Outside the cave, the sun was beginning to set. Sandra’s quiet coaxing—patient and steady—drew Silas back into himself. His awareness returned in fragments: the ache in his stomach, the tremble in his limbs, the dryness in his throat. He was calm enough now to share a meal with her—greens, smoked boar meat, and a portion of bread.
Afterward, still restless, he rose and went alone to drink from the cave’s spring. That was when he began the marking, guided by the fox, using the mix of blood and charcoal.
After everyone had cleaned and drunk, both the humans and the mountain lions settled together to sleep—the cougars by the entrance, Silas toward the back, and Sandra just behind them, at the cougars’ insistence. They had gripped her clothing gently in their teeth and let out low, meow-like growls to guide her into place, but when Silas tried to approach in offering assistance, they snarled and drove him back.
With the cougars nestled against her, their fur offered warmth and a strange comfort against the firm ground and the chill of their first night since leaving the village. The heat and flexibility of their bodies, steady and unbothered, eased sleep into Sandra’s weary limbs and heavy eyelids. Across the cave, Silas’s breathing eventually softened, slipping into its own rhythm of rest.
Thanks for reading! more chapters coming soon!
Tags: #Faith #Fantasy #Fiction #Calm #Peace. #Chapter one and two.
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