Arianna heads to the forest line

Arianna followed her instincts as best she could. She chose a muddied path full of plant life despite the hot weather, and without a proper trail for other people to bother. Tracking a butterfly meant knowing what plants it would enjoy, and where it would return to. She believes she is getting somewhere promising when she begins to hear a small waterfall after ten minutes of walking, following plants and trudging through mud. Then, her foot was stuck.

It was a practical swamp, and she did not even notice. The mud was wet and thick. The edges of the sundress were splayed against the mud. She struggled, and noticed her other boot was sinking as well.

Her fears were mollified when she saw the rocky ground. She just stepped in a bad spot too close to the moving water beside the waterfall. She reached for the hard ground, bent forward, but still could not quite make it. She moved her feet from her boots and dragged herself across the mud to prevent sinking further, and drew herself upward.

Without hesitation, Arianna moved her sopping, muddy self under the waterfall. The front of her dress and her socks were covered, and the pressure across the dress unbuttoned the front, letting mud flow on top of her slip. Nothing showed aside from a bit more collarbone, but still she did not intend to show her slip and looked around, remembering she was ten minutes from the garden at such an early morning off the trail. She sighed. It would be okay.

She looked back warily across the mud ground where her boots remained. She would go back to them. First, she put down her bag, hat, and net, taking a little time to get the mud off them. Next, she ran her face and hair under the water. She took off her socks and tried to clean them, but decided muddy wet socks were a lost cause and let them sit on a rock beside herself. Barefoot, she cleaned the bottom of her legs. She brought her hands over her dress over and over, and saw the mud had made its way under the unbuttoned front of her dress and dip of her slip. She tried to get water underneath her slip to wash her own chest, but to no avail. She looked around once more and took the slip off from underneath her sundress. She ran water over her skin - there was not much mud there, she was happy to see, and proceeded to begin to clean off the slip.

She heard a low rumbling growl. Was there something? She did not know what. A bear? A moose? She could run, despite her bare feet, carrying what she could, or she could try to hide behind the waterfall in any crevice she could find.