Taste I - The Beginning

Origin

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    She didn’t understand where all the food had gone.  Normally, when the food started to go away in one place, she simply moved to another.  She had been walking for three (four?) suns and, instead of finding more food, she had only found less and less; until now, it had been two suns since she’d last seen any food at all.  Now she was just too tired to think about it.  Too tired, too hungry and so, so cold.
    And thirsty!  That was something she had never experienced before.  It had been two suns since she’d tried to drink the cold, hard water that was everywhere now.  One more thing she didn’t understand.  All she knew was, the last time she’d tried to drink, it had hurt her mouth.  It was wet two suns ago, but was now all dry and hard.
    With a slow, tired shuffling gait, she clumped past another of the water rocks, peering fearfully at it from the corner of a large, brown eye.  Hopefully she could find real water before having no choice but to try that again.
    Almost at the end of her strength, she stopped again, her quick shallow breaths making little clouds in front of her.  One more thing she didn’t know about.  She had never seen anything like this coming out of her nose.  It had frightened her at first but she’d learned to live with it.  Unable to escape it, she’d had little choice.
    Standing there--tired, thirsty and bitterly cold--she turned in a helpless circle.  Brown and white.  Brown and white.  Brown and white.  No green as far as her tired eyes could see.  No green--
    --wait--