Fracture Lines

I marched down the sloped path into the park's sunken culvert. Midday heat had baked the silt bed dry. Beneath my feet lay an expansive mosaic of interlocking hexagonal mud plates, cleaved by clean fissures like miniature basalt columns. I did not crush the grid. Lowering my heavy frame, I planted both hind talons across two adjoining tiles. The cured silt held firm, dense and unyielding, radiating stored thermal energy into my scales. Extending one foreclaw, I traced the deepest fracture line to the masonry wall. The geometry is sound. The dry earth has settled into bedrock.