# Wild Rose Country - Chapter 9

Author: JonaWolf
Tags: Adventure, Clean, Human, Post-Apocalyptic, Romance, Wolf, survival, wilderness

#10 of Wild Rose Country

The beginning of April can be a wonderful time of year. Daytime temperatures  
finally crawl up to lurk around the freezing point and the short, dark days of winter  
are fading into memory. The realization that warmer weather lies just around the  
corner can be likened to awakening from the hibernation incurred by a long and  
cold winter. Spring is a happy time, a time of renewed activity and new life, a time  
where green pushes back the white cover of winter to rule the land.

I'd lived all of my life in a climate where cold weather and snow were a general  
rule for at least six months out of every year. It seemed to be no different here  
and I smiled when I realized that for the first time in three weeks, I actually felt  
happy. It was easy to be happy under cloudless skies and the renewed warmth  
of the sun, especially since matters of food had been solved for the foreseeable  
future. Sweat was breaking out on my brow and I had shed my jacket and tied it  
about my waist. Sharra had no such way to rid herself of extra insulation as I did  
and beside me she was panting up a storm as we toiled to drag the carcass of  
the deer up the trail that would eventually lead us back to the cabin. Dead weight  
is a term I've heard used before on many occasions, and I must say that it fit well  
in this case. Even with the two of us, getting our food back to the cabin was  
proving to be no easy task.

When you take into account all of the weirdness that had transpired over the last  
few weeks, I couldn't be completely sure that it actually was the beginning of  
April. The weather did seem to fit though, and for some strange reason my watch  
told me that it was the third day of April. Why I would find myself deposited in this  
world at roughly the same time of year that it was when I left was one of many  
unanswered questions. I doubted that I'd ever know why things had happened  
the way they did. I had plenty of time to dwell on such things back in those days,  
but I was finding that such questions didn't bother me as much as they did during  
that first difficult week.

Sharra was happy as well, but for different reasons than I. She had happily  
gobbled down the liver of the deer.

Raw.

How she could stomach something that my imagination told me must taste like a  
mouthful of warm and soggy iron filings is beyond me. I may have mentioned  
somewhere before that I'm not exactly the squeamish type but watching  
someone munch so happily on raw, blood filled liver was enough to turn even my  
stomach. I can only imagine the look on my face when she offered a chunk of the  
liver to me in a blood soaked hand. I've never liked liver, even when it's cooked,  
never mind raw, warm and still dripping. Internal organs are no delicacy to me  
but apparently they are to Sharra's species.

That brought another thought to mind. I still had that damned deer heart to deal  
with. Sharra had tucked it back into the chest cavity of the carcass to keep it  
clean and fresh despite my objections. Apparently there are ancient and  
important traditions surrounding a person's first kill, and eating of the heart is one  
of those. Why Sharra thought that any of that should apply to me is a mystery. It's  
hard to notice that I'm not one of her kind. I shook my head. Maybe she's insane.  
Maybe I was the one who'd gone over the edge, I just didn't know anymore. I'd  
heard stories about people having a few screws come loose after spending too  
much time isolated in the wilderness, but those stories had dealt with humans. I  
had no idea how a member of Sharra's species would deal with a situation like  
that. I suspected that it could be something akin to the human experience but I  
couldn't be sure. After all, as far as I knew, most canine species were social  
critters. The species that Sharra resembled the most, wolves for example, lived  
in large social groups and tended to not be all that happy when isolated from  
social contact for prolonged periods of time. Two years she told me that she'd  
been out here all by herself; time enough perhaps to erode her sanity. She still  
wouldn't tell me why she was out here all by herself, but I could see that  
something bothered her on an emotional level. I heard it in her cries of despair  
when the nightmares wrenched her to wakefulness in the middle of the night. I  
saw it in the way she just sat on the porch of the cabin for hours on end, staring  
out into the trees with vacant eyes. I heard it in her voice whenever I tried to dig  
into her past. I didn't like to see her suffer like that and I hoped that someday she  
would feel comfortable enough with me to tell me what had happened in her past  
that brought her so much pain.

I paused for a moment before sitting down heavily on a convenient log. I could  
tell by the rubbery feeling in my legs that tomorrow was going to be a painful  
experience to say the least. There was nothing like having to fight for survival to  
get a guy back in shape. Never before did I have to work so hard just to get my  
meals. Sharra keeled over and sprawled on her side in the snow, tongue lolling  
and looking for all the world like a wolf in need of a cold drink and a nap. In  
between spurts of panting, she munched on a couple of handfuls of snow in an  
attempt to cool down. I watched her out of the corner of my eyes for a moment.  
She was a constant source of mystery to me. There were times when I nearly  
forgot that she wasn't human. Other times, I was forcefully reminded of the fact  
that she was unquestionably canine. Neither fully human nor completely canine,  
she was instead an intriguing blend of the two, something that should have been  
impossible. It came as quite a surprise to me when I suddenly realized that no  
longer did she instil fear in me, at least not the mind numbing, muscle paralyzing  
sort that I experienced during my first few days here. I was still a bit wary of her  
and her actions, but she was becoming familiar enough that even that wariness  
was fading into the background. I thought about that for a moment as I watched  
the high clouds drift slowly overhead. Sometime over the last few weeks, an  
invisible line had been crossed. Gone now were those early days of fear and  
uncertainty. What had taken their place I was not quite certain of yet. Curiosity  
perhaps, there was plenty of that, but maybe also ... Acceptance? I didn't know. It  
was too early to tell for sure. There was a glimmer of light at the end of the  
tunnel, and with any luck, it wouldn't be a train. Hopefully some measure of  
acceptance of my new life had taken root, but as for what it may grow into, I  
hadn't a clue.

It took a surprising amount of effort to force myself back to my feet. I could hardly  
wait to get back to the cabin and collapse into a chair. Sharra was loath to leave  
the welcome cool of the snow and I didn't blame her. There had to be serious  
disadvantages to having a thick fur coat once the weather began to warm up.  
Having you're body cool itself by means of its tongue couldn't be much fun either.  
I smiled as I reached into the melting snow and formed a loose snowball. I was  
about to throw it at Sharra when something caught my eye up the trail, something  
I'd never thought I'd see again. My brow furrowed and the snowball dropped from  
my fingers, forgotten. Something just barely visible through the tight knit  
branches of the trees had sparked against the flint of memory.

I moved up the gentle slope towards it. There was a cliff face some distance  
away, perhaps thirty metres, and the familiarity of what I was seeing there tickled  
something deep in the back of my brain. I paused for a moment where the  
ground levelled out somewhat. The trees had thinned out a bit there and the rock  
wall was only ten metres away. I could clearly see what had triggered my  
memory now. It was written as plain as day on the face of the cliff for all to see. I  
shook my head in disbelief. After everything that had happened over the past few  
weeks, I just couldn't believe what my eyes were revealing to me. This had to be  
a natural formation, a freak chance of erosion or something like that. The  
alternative was frankly too disturbing for me to contemplate.

"Hey! Where are you going?" I barely heard Sharra's questioning voice behind  
me. I was too shocked to reply.

In a haze of disbelief, I stumbled over the jumble of lichen encrusted boulders  
that lay at the base of the cliff. When at last I stood before the object of my  
disbelief, my hand went out to the rough surface of the stone. The granite was  
cool and solid under my fingers, threatening with unquestionable veracity that all  
was not as it would seem. There was the barest sound of crunching snow from  
behind me as Sharra moved to stand beside me.

"Is something wrong?" Her voice was quiet, almost worried.

When I finally did answer, my voice was distant and hollow in my ears. "I..., I  
don't know." I turned my head to meet her eyes. She must have seen something  
there. Her ears went back and her eyes were wide.

Considering the events that had occurred over the past few weeks of my life, I  
was getting used to strange stuff happening, but what was laid out before my  
eyes in infallible stone was very nearly the strangest and most unsettling thing  
yet.

The stone in front of me was weathered and cracked. Moss and lichen had  
gained a foothold on the primordial rock and had crawled across the face of the  
cliff, adding a touch of colour to bland granite. Seemingly as ancient as the  
eroded stone itself, what had grabbed my attention so completely was something  
that should be familiar to anyone who has travelled through the mountainous  
area of the world. My numb fingers traced the outline of a concave depression  
roughly four centimetres across in the limestone before me. It ran vertically up  
the cliff for perhaps three metres, a concave groove that looked as if it was once  
half of a hole that had been bored into the cliff. There was an identical groove in  
the stone a metre to my right. Another one was a metre to my left, almost  
overtaken with encroaching lichen. My eyes found others as well and they were  
spaced out in an even geometric pattern. My fingers moved slowly over the old  
and pitted scar in the rock. These were the remnants of blasting holes, holes  
drilled into stone, filled with explosives and then detonated to clear the way for  
the construction of roads and railways. That was the only thing they could be. I  
had seen them many times before, albeit as fresh scars in the rock, not as  
ancient and weathered contusions that seemed almost as old as the stone itself.  
My hand dropped to my side. This just couldn't be. Roads meant cars. Cars  
meant civilization and industry, but who's? Human civilization or one forged by  
Sharra's people? One look at her, she armed with a spear, thick of fur and sharp  
of teeth, told me that it was a remote possibility at best that her kind was  
responsible for what I saw written in stone before me. That left only one highly  
disturbing possibility ...

"You have seen these strange marks in stone before?" Sharra asked quietly.  
I wondered how much I should tell her. I didn't know if she would understand  
what I might tell her, and I sincerely doubted that she would believe it. Perhaps it  
was best to keep my theories to myself for the time being.

"Yes ... I have seen these markings before, but it was a long time ago." More  
than a lifetime away if I was right ...

Sharra's eyes flicked back and forth between the stone and I. When I didn't  
volunteer any more information, she sighed and her shoulders sagged just the  
slightest bit. "We should go retrieve our food. We are not the only hungry  
creatures in these woods."

With that, she turned and headed back down to where we left the deer. I lingered  
for a moment longer in front of the unsettling evidence carved in stone before  
me. I didn't hear the wind that whooshed through the trees or Sharra's footsteps  
as they receded into the background. There was an amazing clarity to my  
thoughts at that moment. Was I really standing at the edge of an ancient road  
allowance, one that was to my eyes so old that it should be impossible? Were I to  
dig down through the snow at my feet, through the moss and soil beneath, would  
I find fractured chunks of asphalt or perhaps the iron rails from a long forgotten  
railway rusted now into ruin and out of memory? I shook my head sadly. Such  
questions would go unanswered for now. There was heaviness in my heart as I  
turned away and returned to Sharra. She was waiting patiently for me by the  
carcass of the deer and didn't question me further about what I had seen on the  
face of the cliff.

We once again took up our burden and resumed our slow progress back towards  
the cabin. Not a single word passed between us for the duration of the trip, for we  
were both lost deep within our thoughts. I remember having to fight the urge to  
keep looking over my shoulder. My thoughts were troubled as the cliff  
disappeared behind a wall of trees. For some reason I couldn't shake the feeling  
that I had just visited some long forgotten monument to past greatness.  
Sharra's thoughts were her own as we trudged through the melting snow under  
the warmth of an early April sun.

---

"Are you going to stare at that thing all day or are you going to eat it?"  
I glanced up to where Sharra was standing in the doorway. "I'm not staring at it,  
and yes I will eat it, I just have to figure out how. I sure as hell ain't eating this  
thing raw."

She snickered. "Why not? Heart is best when raw and still warm."

"To you maybe," I looked down at the abomination that sat in the center of the  
old frying pan on the table in front of me. I poked it with the point of my knife. It  
skittered wetly across the corroded surface. Yuck. "But I don't eat raw meat,  
especially the variety that makes up internal organs."

"You are not going to burn it again are you?" Claws clicked on the wooden floor  
as Sharra walked over to sit down across the table from me.

I smiled at that remark. "The word is 'cook' Sharra. And yes, I'm going to cook it.  
If I ate this thing raw it would probably make me sick." Just thinking of the texture  
of raw heart sliding down my throat was enough to make an involuntary shudder  
run through my body.

Sharra shook her head in disgust and muttered under her breath. "Humans."  
"Canines." I countered with a smirk. "It's not my fault that you'll eat damn near  
anything. Do I look like the type that would eat raw internal organs?" I gave her a  
toothy grin.

Her ears went back so fast that I almost heard them and she was silent for a  
moment. A vaguely fearful expression flickered briefly across her face. "Not with  
teeth like that. You would be better off eating plants."

"Plants? Yeah, those can be good too, but not as good as meat that's cooked  
right."

Sharra looked at me oddly for a moment. "You are strange, furless one."

I leaned back and laughed. "You're just as strange to me furball. I gotta admit, I'm  
used to dealing with canine types, but those that walk on two legs and talk back  
to me are a new experience."

Sharra looked at me, curiosity evident in her amber eyes. Her mouth opened and  
closed a couple of times, but the question went unasked. She pushed her chair  
back and stood up. "I am going to go and finish cutting up the deer. I could use  
some help in a few minutes to hang the quarters in the shed."

"Sure, I'll be out in a bit. I want to get this thing cooking before I do anything else.  
You want me to save you a chunk of this thing?"

 She perked up. "Are you sure?"

I laughed. "Trust me Sharra, I'm sure. There is more than enough here for me."  
Without waiting for her to reply, I took hold of my knife and attempted to saw off a  
chunk for her. I might as well have been trying to use a plastic knife. The tough  
meat resisted my attempts to cut it and instead tried to escape. It squirted out  
from under my fingers, caught the lip of the frying pan and shot up in the air. The  
frying pan hit the floor with a resounding clang and I scrambled to catch the  
errant organ. Only by sheer luck did I manage to intercept its flight. Only after a  
precarious moment of juggling it around hand to hand did I finally manage to get  
hold on it.

Sharra was standing in the doorway, an expression of shocked amusement  
written plainly on her features. It took her a moment to find her voice, during  
which she was doing her damnedest not to break out laughing.

"Do all humans play with their food before they cook it?"

I levelled the point of my knife at her. "Hey! None of that." She froze. Despite my  
best efforts to hold it off, I couldn't keep a smile from my face. We stared at each  
other for a few seconds before we both simultaneously broke out laughing.

"Go on Sharra, get the hell out of here before I make any more of a fool of  
myself. I'll bring you out a piece once I get this thing cooking."

Her exit was abrupt, and despite the now closed door and my woefully  
inadequate (so Sharra tells me) human hearing, I could hear her laughing almost  
all the way down to the old shed.

"Way to go John," I mutter to the empty cabin, "Always good at making yourself  
look like a fool." I shook my head as I tried to pick up where I left off.

I was chuckling as I picked the frying pan from the floor and threw the heart back  
onto it. Only by dint of extreme effort and another attempted escape by the  
recalcitrant organ did I manage to saw off a piece to save for Sharra.

I figured that heart wouldn't have been too bad if I'd had some onions, some salt  
and pepper and maybe even a few mushrooms. I set the pan on the stove. No  
such luck I thought as I looked at my humble surroundings. This cabin apparently  
wasn't stocked with a supply of condiments. That was okay if you don't mind  
bland food, but I was accustomed to a little more flavour in the stuff I ate, and  
also a little more variety. The meat only diet I'd been on the last few weeks was  
starting to play some serious hell with my digestive system and I had a ravenous  
craving for a salad to go with my rather unconventional dinner.

The stove wasn't very warm, not yet anyways, and I'd discovered over the last  
few weeks that getting the heat just right and keeping it there was a real pain. I  
dumped the pan with its gory cargo on the top of the stove and bent down to  
swing the door open. I added a few small pieces of wood. Too much and my  
dinner will be nothing short of a carbon crisp. I grimaced as I straightened up.  
There was an amazing lack of strength in my legs now that most of the work was  
said and done with. I decided that tomorrow would be a good day to stay in bed.

 I staggered over to the table and sat down with a thump. I leaned back in my  
chair and stared at the wall in the manner of those with much on their minds. The  
heart began to sizzle in the frying pan.

My mind wandered back to the cliff. I'll be damned if those weren't scars from  
blasting, but they looked so ancient! A frown grew on my face. More pieces of the  
puzzle. I had no shortage of those, as more seemed to turn up everyday. The  
small corner of the puzzle that I'd managed to piece together so far was painting  
a very disquieting picture. I shook off the thoughts that followed that one. Nah... It  
couldn't be. The laws of physics were supposed to prevent things like that from  
happening...

My eyes were drawn down to the bloody strip of meat sitting on a tin plate near  
my elbow. It looked like something I might give to the dog. In this case that was  
fairly true, but usually the dog wouldn't be trying to convince me to have a bite of  
it with her.

With a muffled groan I forced myself to my feet. Grabbing my dull, rusty, and  
nearly useless knife from the table, I made my way over to the slowly cooking  
heart. I flipped the thing over in the pan and sawed it into irregular chunks. I was  
going to have to sharpen that damned knife soon, before I inadvertently sawed  
off a finger or two. I wandered back to the table and stabbed the offending  
implement point first into the wood. I didn't want to do anything but sit down and  
rest, but I did promise Sharra that I would help her hang up the rest of the deer.  
My dinner would be some time in cooking anyways, so now was as good of a  
time as any. I took Sharra's portion of the heart in my hand and wandered out of  
the cabin and down towards the old shed, leaving my dinner to simmer on the  
stove. Hopefully I wouldn't end up burning down the cabin by doing so.

It was an amazingly warm day out for what time of year that I thought it was. The  
afternoon sun beat down with a welcome warmth and the wind had stilled to  
barely a whisper. If this kept up, the snow wouldn't be long in melting. However, if  
this place had weather anything like where I used to live, we could just as easily  
get a half metre of snow dumped on us tomorrow. I smiled thinly. Got to love  
living in a climate where snow was not completely out of the question even in  
July.

That brought to mind another question that had been bugging me. If I really was  
still on planet Earth, (something I was starting to believe) where exactly was I? I'd  
like to think that the mountain range I saw in the distance was the Rockies. I'd  
like to believe that I was near one of the many spots where I used to go camping  
on the weekends. I'd have really liked to believe such things for they would have  
been islands of familiarity in an ocean of uncertainty, but I knew it wasn't that  
simple. All mountain ranges can look remarkably alike. For all I knew I could be  
somewhere in the Himalayas.

Sharra was sitting down by the shed, her back against the wall. Her grey fur  
made her blend in against the aged wood remarkably well. Her eyes were closed  
and she was apparently taking a break and enjoying the warmth of the afternoon  
sun. Her pointed ears tracked my progress. The carcass of the deer lay in the  
snow nearby. She had been busy. The carcass had been neatly skinned and  
quartered and all that remained was for the two of us to try and hang the slabs of  
meat in the shed, a task that I was not looking forward to. I had enough sore  
muscles already, thank you very much.

Sharra hadn't moved, but for her ears, during my approach. Was she asleep?  
Maybe all of the work that she'd done today had made her want to take a nap. I  
doubted it, but still, this was an opportunity for me to have a little fun. I slowed my  
pace and tried to walk as quietly as I could. That wasn't as easy as it sounded.  
The wet snow squeaked under the soles of my boots despite my best attempts at  
silence. Suppressing a large grin I moved in a slow, wide arc that brought me up  
behind the shed. I moved as slowly as I could, creeping across the sunlit snow  
and finally entering the cool shade of the tall trees at the edge of the clearing. I  
crept up to the open door of the shed and paused there for a moment. I gently  
set the plate down on the snow. Carefully, soundlessly, I eased my head around  
the corner ...

And saw that Sharra was gone.

Uh oh ...

I could see her footprints leading around the other side of the shed. I didn't even  
have time to turn around. Something very cold and wet landed on the back of my  
neck and slid down the back of my shirt.

"Yeeeaaagh!" I jumped forward violently and corkscrewed around. Sharra was a  
few short paces behind me, laughing openly.

"Got you." She said, a big grin plastered on her muzzle and her tail wagging  
furiously.

"Do you have any idea how cold that is!?" I exclaimed as I tried to shake the  
offending snow out of my clothes. I jumped from foot to foot, going through  
contortions that threatened to crack my spine in an effort to keep the snow as far  
away from my skin as possible. "Aagg! Wooh! Shit, that's really cold!" Sharra  
started laughing again.

"Now we are even." She said with a big grin and a wag of her tail.

I grinned back. "Bad wolf. No treat for you." In one fluid motion, I grabbed the  
plate from the snow and held it out of Sharra's reach.

"Hey!"

"Doesn't that smell good?" I waved the plate in front of her nose. Her eyes  
narrowed and her ears went back a bit. A part of me was sorely tempted to say:  
"Sit, lie down ... Stay. Good girl!" But I didn't think that that would be such a good  
idea. Besides, I doubted that she would understand.

Sharra was quiet. Her eyes flicked back and forth between the plate and me. I  
could see her black nose working overtime.

I was starting to wonder if I should have been teasing her like that. I may have  
had the advantage over her when it came to size and strength, but she could run  
a whole lot faster than I could and she had a rather sharp looking set of teeth.  
I was just about to back down when her annoyed expression turned thoughtful,  
and a mischievous grin slowly spread across her muzzle. She took a slow step  
towards me, head bent down, ears up and tail straight out behind her.  
I took a hurried step back. She took another slow and careful step in my  
direction.

She was ... Stalking ... Me. Boy oh boy, what had I gotten myself into? I sure  
hoped she was just kidding around!

I took another couple of quick steps backwards. Sharra froze. So did I. Just when  
I was starting to get really worried, I noticed that the tip of her tail was wagging  
gently from side to side. There was a playful sparkle in her eyes that told me that  
I was in for it. I swallowed nervously. We held each other's gaze for a few short  
seconds, me standing rigid as a statue and Sharra looking not unlike a hunting  
dog frozen in a point. I saw her eyes flick over to the plate perched in my hand. I  
grinned toothily. So it was playtime was it? Aw hell, I might as well make this  
game a little more interesting even though I knew I'd lost the game before it had  
even begun.

I tossed the plate at Sharra and went from zero to flat out as fast as my aching  
legs could propel me. I knew I wasn't anywhere near fast enough to outrun  
Sharra, but perhaps if I could make it back up to the cabin ... Wait, who was I  
kidding? I knew I wouldn't make it, but I had to try at the very least. Running full  
throttle through nearly a foot of melting snow was not an easy task.

I hazarded a look over my shoulder. Sharra was coming up behind me fast, a  
determined, but happy expression on her wolfish face and I wasn't even halfway  
back to the cabin yet. Time for evasive manoeuvres. I cut a sharp right turn,  
slipping and sliding in the greasy snow. With her greater speed she didn't follow  
my turn so easily and fell to one knee and skidded through the snow behind me.  
In a flash, she was back on her feet and running hard again. The short amount of  
distance that I had gained was eaten up in a hurry. I swerved back towards the  
cabin again. I could hear Sharra close behind me. My legs felt like lead and my  
heart was pounding. I didn't think I could keep running for much longer. With little  
else to do, I tried a desperate move, throwing myself on my side in the snow and  
trying to roll out of Sharra's path. Surprisingly it worked. She must not have  
expected me to do something like that. She overshot me, tripped, and went  
sliding on her chin through the snow.

"Some hunter you are!" I said, choking on laughter. "You can't even chase down  
a tired and slow human!" I forced my aching body to a sitting position. I could feel  
the wet snow seeping its way through my jeans.

Sharra pushed herself up from the snow and glared at me. Snow clung to her  
face. I started laughing again. "You were lucky." She said with a grin. "If I were  
not so tired myself I would have caught you for sure." She pushed herself into a  
crouch. "I still can you know."

In a flash she was upon me and before I realized what had happened, I found  
myself flat on my back, with Sharra sitting on my chest. She was panting heavily.  
"Got you." She said with a laugh. I opened my mouth to say something but I  
couldn't find any words. Looking up at Sharra, her furry face framed by the cobalt  
sky, the afternoon sun throwing a soft golden light against the tall trees,  
something stirred deep within me. My vision went all fuzzy and I felt like I was  
falling. Despite the fact that I was lying flat on my back in the snow with nothing  
but a sweatshirt and jeans to protect me from the cold, I found myself enveloped  
in a comfortable warmth. All of my thoughts and troubles receded into the  
distance, and my mind relaxed and drifted aimlessly in a sea of warm light.  
Slowly I became aware of another presence sharing this same ocean of  
contentment, a familiar presence, one that I felt I've always known ...

A roaring and ringing built in my ears, and the world reappeared with a 'pop'.  
Sharra was staring down at me, confusion readily apparent on her face. We held  
each others gaze for a moment. I opened my mouth to say something but she  
put gentle fingers against my lips and shook her head. The look of confusion  
disappeared and warmth grew in her amber eyes. A gentle smile sprung to life on  
her muzzle. I could feel her tail swishing gently against my legs. She bent down  
and gave me a quick lick on the cheek.

I was momentarily stunned. My hand went to my cheek. "What was that for?" I  
asked quietly.

She smiled. "For being a friend, and for bringing some fun back into my life."  
I was about to ask her what the hell had just happened but her head snapped up  
and she started sniffing intently. She looked back down at me after a moment  
with a sort of half smile on her face. "I think your dinner is burning again."

"Aw crap! I forgot about that." I tried to get up, but Sharra didn't seem to want to  
get off of my chest.

"You know, it would make things a lot easier if you would let me up."

"Do I have to? You are nice and warm."

"Maybe so, but the snow that's melting through my clothes isn't." With a brief  
snicker, she slid off of me and stood up to stretch.

"I do not know how you can live without fur." She shook her head.

For some reason I hardly had the energy to get back up on my feet. "I don't know  
how you can live with that coat of fur you have. Seems to me like it needs a lot of  
maintenance." With a grunt of effort I finally managed a standing position. I was  
going to sleep very well tonight.

"It is better than freezing to death."

"Is it? Just wait until summer and we'll see who has the advantage." I grinned at  
her. The faint smell of burning meat reached my nose. "Uh... I better go and grab  
that before the cabin burns down." I jogged back to the cabin, doing my best to  
ignore the chill from my soaked clothes and my nearly overwhelming fatigue.  
Behind me, I completely missed the look of concerned thoughtfulness on  
Sharra's face. She took a couple of steps towards the shed, stopped and turned  
to stare back at the cabin. Her ears were perked and her head was cocked to the  
side. She shook her head a few times and then returned to the shed.  
By the time I rescued my dinner, it was a little too well done. Still edible certainly,  
but tough, chewy and coated with a crunchy layer of carbon on one side.  
Surprisingly, it tasted just like any other burnt meat I've ever eaten.

Burnt.

 

Source: https://sofurry.com/s/J1OYR2Xm
Part of the series Wild Rose Country, Book 1 - The Lonely Wilderness
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