Blind Cat's Bluff

The moon hung in the sky above the cliff, a pearly white maternal orb. The sky was clear that night, and the stars brightly lit the ground below. They lit the forest and vegetation that clung to the cliff. Wind-battered trees threw out short, stunted branches with few leaves and clung to the hard, stony ground with finger-like roots. Moss and lichen clung for dear life to the tops and sides of rocks, raised no more than a few inches off. Puddles of water gathered in countless tiny pools. In the summer, insects would have danced and buzzed around the stagnant water. But now, in the crisp and frost-touched night, they were nowhere to be seen. The moon and stars were reflected in the black puddles, disturbed only by the occasional breeze of wind. Other parts of the cliff were barren, clay-brown rock exposed to the air. The girl stepped carefully across these parts, careful not to step and lose her footing on the slippery moss. With each step she took, she left a dark footprint that shone in the silvery light.

Every breath of icy air she took was like needles in her chest. Each was shallow and expelled quickly in a puff of white steam. Blood matted her short brown hair. It had collected had collected and dried along the top of her black hairband, forming a thin crust of dark copper-brown that fell in flakes. Her ears poked out against the band. There was an odd flatness along the edge - as if they had been cut long ago. She was clad in a fine leather armour that hung loosely from her muscular frame. It was likely that the armour had been made for someone else. Any markers or identifying symbols that might have been recognizable on it were lost, either torn off or too covered in blood to read. With every step she took, a long sword slapped against her hip, enclosed in a scabbard of red-dyed leather. A quiver hung strapped to her back, half-full with arrows and a shoddy looking, unstrung bow. Pausing for a moment, the woman looked up into the sky. Her face was narrow, with sharp bones that jutted out under ruddy, blood-smeared skin. Green eyes peered out into the darkness, perhaps a little too large for her face and sunken into her sockets.