Janine climbed out of her sleeping bag and pulled on a pair of loose jeans. She had considered not dressing at all then remembered she had to walk into the bushes a little ways to take care of some natural urges and didn't want her legs scratched by the bushes. They weren't tall enough to bother her above the waist, though, so she passed on wearing a shirt. She'd been wearing less and less as time went on. She looked at her upper body, pleased with the light brown color it had developed.
Returning to the campsite, her feet a little worse for the venture barefoot, she wasn't too displeased. Stripping the jeans from her legs, she sat cross legged in the dirt beside the dead campfire and looked at the soles of her feet, shaking her head. It was amazing to her that no matter how much she abused her feet they never toughened up. Everyone else she knew of that went barefoot eventually grew a leathery feel to the bottom of their feet, and many had callouses on the heels and balls of their feet. Not hers. They insisted on staying as soft as a baby's. She pulled a thorn out of one and a small shard of some kind of crystal from the other. Massaging them both, she decided there was an upside to the softness. It felt really nice.
Making sure the fire was really out, she wandered out into the grassland opposite the wooded side of her camp with her binoculars. The tall grass sliding over her naked body felt good, although it made some of the more sensitive areas itchy at first. Those parts needed to be less sensitive, and exposure should help that. After several minutes she was noticing the touches less and relaxed more, aiming for a slight hill that would let her get a good view of the watering hole she'd been watching for the last month.
Lying in the grass she made a mental note to get up after a while to avoid sunburn on the parts of her that hadn't developed a tan yet. Looking at her waist she was pleased to note that the change from tanned to white was gradual, probably from wearing pants of varying waist heights. The shocking white didn't start until quite lower on her body than she'd thought and smirked at not realizing before how much of her she'd been exposing to the elements.
Studying her binoculars, she made sure the camera was properly attached and the battery fully charged, smirking again at the idea that she'd walked all the way out here without checking that back at the camp where she could have done something about it if she'd needed to. Fortunately, she didn't need to. Pulling off the lens caps, grinning ruefully at the memory of her first two days of shooting without doing that. If she'd been using film instead of electronic memory cards that could have been an expensive mistake. At least she hadn't missed any great shots those days, since nothing had come to the area.
Looking through the lenses she noticed more of the strange prints in the mud that she'd come up here to study. Whatever it was that made them always seemed to know when she would be around, no matter what time of day she chose to look. If she stayed all day, they only appeared overnight. If she stayed all night, they appeared while she was sleeping in the day. She really needed a partner, but no one she knew cared about strange prints in the mud of a valley no one had a reason to go to. Well, one guy had, but it became obvious before they'd even gotten into the planning that his interest was more in making prints of his own. On her. She wasn't interested in that and when she told him he lost interest in the trip. She grinned, thinking how upset he'd be to know she was walking around nude and he missed it.
Zooming in on the mudflat around the watering hole, Janine noticed that the newest set of prints seemed to appear in the middle of a flat area, with no tracks leading up to them, then a couple of meters closer to the water, and that was it. No trail to or from them. Either the thing was an incredible jumper or could fly, but they were too large for anything she knew of that flew. Without going down and comparing she couldn't be sure, but she was estimating them at twice the length of her foot, but with the shape of a lizard's.
She probably should have brought her laptop out with her so she could look up things like that, but it didn't have a satellite net connection so she'd left it back in the camp as only useful for seeing bigger images of what she snapped, forgetting the encyclopedia it had on its drive. She didn't really know that much about animals, she just liked taking pictures of them. Catching them doing what they do without people around was a big thrill for her. She snapped some pictures of a large turtle snapping at a leaf.
With nothing else moving down by the water, she rolled onto her back to let the sun get a new place before it ruined her bottom and the backs of her legs. Several very large birds of prey circled a few times and flew off, none even a tenth the size necessary to make the marks that had captured her interest. A smaller bird flew into view and she looked at it through the binoculars just in time to see one of the larger ones drop into view from above and snatch it out of the air. She caught several good frames of it before it was over.
Back at her camp, she pulled the memory card from the camera and put in a new one, then connected the whole thing to the solar charger she'd brought along. Not much battery had been used, but she didn't want to risk being caught with it low when the good shots came. She made herself some lunch and sat in the shadow of her awning to eat and ponder how long she would be able to stand the boredom of not finding what she wanted. She'd planned for three months but she was starting to doubt her ability to last that long. Not that she did much that was more interesting back home.
The lack of sunburn encouraged her to stay naked and she continued over the next few days, her legs gradually growing as dark as her upper body. She liked the color. Setting up the camera on a tripod she took some pictures she would never let anyone else see.
There were more prints in the mud. Many more. They were scattered all around the edges of the water, some of them in short trails as if the thing had been walking instead of jumping or flying. The trails wandered randomly, though, some even making circles that had no beginning or end. There were no turtles around any more. There didn't seem to be any animals larger than small rabbits anymore, and they didn't stay exposed for long, as if afraid of some new threat. She was used to rabbits that would hop around nibbling for hours at a time.
A shadow slid over the water. Looking up, all she saw was huge wings, looking like a bat's but with no body between them. She zoomed in but the thing flew away before she could get a picture of the little body between the giant wings. A bat with a long lizard-like tail. She giggled as she named it a dragon.
