――――tl;dr: There are wreaths (plain, still needing further decoration) up for grabs, and Rhiannon silently reflects on her time at the Pitt and her blindness. Don't feel the need to match!

Desert and winter didn't really go together. Perhaps the notion in it of itself was self-explanatory. Where was winter when there was no snow? And where was the winter spirit when the majority of winter projects, celebrations, and activities, were under the premise that you had a foot of snow and a lake full of ice? In the Pitt, it was far different. They were still sweltering under the desert sun, and freezing into blocks of ice at the desert moon; in the Jungle, it was still humid and uncomfortable, especially for one who relied so much on sensation. Rhiannon had grown used to the feeling of grainy sand beneath her paws, and at least was glad it was no longer accompanied by heavy chains or any adornments she had been forced to mark herself as a Slave not so long ago. This was the first season where she was truly... free in the sense to celebrate as she pleased. And while it seemed a bit counter-intuitive, she was determined to make herself a wreath crown. Her... clanmates, as it were, seemed to also be enjoying the holiday season, so while she had idle thoughts to make extra, full-size wreaths for decorations, hers was to be more personalized.

As per usual, these things took her a little while. Armed with a basket, the blind leopard slowly made her way out into the depths of the territory, further away from the center of the town. It would be much easier to find plants and vegetation to use for wreaths where footsteps did not trod and trample them down. Of course, blindly navigating desert sands was another matter, but it was all about patience. Patience, blessedly, was something Rhiannon had a lot of. Sometimes, her feet would graze against a small succlent, and she would pause to gingerly uproot it from the earth, murmuring some softly spoken words to the still-living plant, some promise to provide for it in its new arrangement. Sometimes, it was desert roses, which Rhiannon was more than eager to gather up for herself. But, the blind female had grown used to her navigation. While she had to be careful to only walk one direction, or consider where she had last turned, she tried not to linger too far from the Pitt's central camp. Even if you had lived here all your life- or perhaps more so because of it- it was to be known that the desert was deadly, even to those so well-meaning. Perhaps it was this fact alone that had kept her tethered to the Pitt, even after her grant of freedom from slavery. Perhaps it was another reason, but Rhiannon was trying to make the best of it. Even as much as she could recall her early days here, having to pluck out desert thorns and prickles out of her skin and fur every time she would inadvertently brush up against a prickle pear or some other small cacti. Ever since then, she had taken to wearing her cloak, or some light covering across her face or body, so that it, before herself, would catch any dangers that her senses had not alerted her to. But, even the cacti had some use in wreaths, even if it took far longer to harvest them safely. In time, her basket was full, and some hour or two since she had departed the camp, she turned and began to carefully retrace her steps. Her pawprints were already lost to the sand, but following the familiar trail of the Pitt's scent was relatively easy enough.

Finding a comfortable place amidst the camp with her basket to sit, she began to carefully rifle through her basket for some of the longer stems of greenery and branches to begin weaving them together. She figured she'd start with her crown first, just to get a feel for it all. When a small frame was finally twisted, it was the careful process of weaving in bright desert roses and blossoms, with the rare touch of greenry that was almost, almost akin to a normal flower crown, if not slightly more muted and suited for the desert around them. Gingerly placing it atop her head, her paws returned to her basket, weaving yet again a larger frame for a bigger wreath, her paws oh-so softly touching the top of her basket and the plants she had carefully tucked within. There was an order to the madness of bunched up plants and cacti within the wicker, an order known only to her as she seemed to reach, smooth her paw over the top to count some invisible barrier, before pulling out what she knew to be a flower, ora piece of cacti, or a succlent that looked similar to a rose bud. Her blindness didn't bother her anymore. Of course, it wasn't to say that she was completely blind either. Like many things, it was a spectrum. Light- reflection- she could see, as well as dark shadows in contrast to it. It was something her gaze was always drawn to, her mind wanting that stimulation that her cataract-covered eyes could not truly provide anymore. She worked quietly upon the wreaths, gently laying the ones she had finished with aisde before starting a new one, weaving together interesting patterns and textures of cacti, flowers, and greenry across a wide circle. There could have been further decorations, she knew, like ribbons or something else, but she figured the foundation was enough.

Rhiannon had been going blind since she was a child. It had not been an injury, nor anything that had been inflicted upon her in her time at the Pitt, though it was perhaps, at the time, a weakness that had allowed her to be captured and smothered into the ranks in the first place. But she had some level of sight once before; colors, the faces of her family, her own face, in the reflection of a pond; the color of the sky, the wisps of clouds and the image of fog stretching across a wide plain. She had never had any depth perception, but she liked to imagine that it went on for miles and miles. But as she grew, it was more fleeting. She got to watch the colors fade as her eyes degraded; she had to adjust to not knowing where steps were, and navigating more carefully, to not fall, to not rely on eyes that were giving up on her. A few months after that, just before she was one years old, she could remember seeing her mother's face for the last time, even though she could no longer recall the details of it. By the time she was one, her vision was only slightly better than it was now. Some would have thought it a weakness, and perhaps in some ways it still was, but for Rhiannon, it was just a fact of life. It was something that she would always have to live with; not knowing what anyone looked like, not remembering the features of her own face, nor what she looked like now; dependant on others to tell her if she was holding the right thing, or if she was really wearing the color blue. It was the sort of dependency that she could not rely upon in the Pitt when she had first arrived. It was something she had to figure out for herself, or hope that someone was telling the truth. As ironic as it was, as degrading as it is, slavery had only done one good thing for her. Only one.

"Wreaths, to celebrate the holidays," her voice would lift suddenly into the air as her head raised slightly, a habit to try and address those she was speaking to, even if she couldn't see them. It was something many took for granted, yet for her took some effort to remember to acknowledge the presence of those who spoke to her. "All sorts, for anyone it suits."