Today’s story is the second and final parts of “The River in the Mist” by Dwale, poet, singer and award-winning short story author. Its poetry collection “Face Down in the Leaves,” published by Weasel Press, is available from corporate monster Amazon dot com. You can find more of its stories on FurAffinity. 

Last time, Lusa of the Squirrel tribe bid farewell to her husband and set out on her journey in hopes of clearing their debt. She arrived at a fortified trading post and made arrangements to scavenge the landfill there. She had just been informed that bandits in the area have begun to resort to cannibalism and obtained a case of magnifying lenses from the corpse of an unlucky scavenger.

When we left off, she had hidden her find in a snow drift, intending to smuggle it out of the trading post rather than pay their tax.

Read for you by Khaki, your faithful fireside companion.