Deep in the Preserve, Monday Dawn

Dawn came slowly deep in the preserve. It came with creeping fingers, slowly lighting up the forest leaf by leaf, stem by stem, and tree by tree. Her tree, fortified first to her satisfaction, and then further fortified, not once more, but twice over, was not spared the light. It did not touch her, not physically, not yet, but the change in the air as everything else woke was more than enough to rouse her from the small nap she’d permitted herself to have. She watched it, safe in her tree, and for the moment not moving. A moment of stillness before the battle started again. The calm before the storm.

Or something. Dawn had come. She acknowledged it with a wry twist of her lips. There’d be no more sleep for her until dusk.

( Ino had, in the last few days... )

And Ino had no intentions of just giving up. That was the cowardly way out. Yamanaka weren’t cowards.

Even when it’d be easier to be.

[Establishy.]