It was strange to see the tawny wolf on the move much past dawn or dusk, but under the closed cover of the Ghastly Woods, the time of day hardly mattered. This place had called to her once, so long ago, but no longer did it hold her like the mountain did. The mountain that towered over these lands, and pulled at her gut with an invisible force so impossible to ignore. Even now it continued, calling her back to her pack. Calling her back to her children. But neither were hers anymore.

She had left her son sequestered away for this jaunt. She needed to find a sizable meal soon and it was hard to hunt with the gangly pup on her heels. Not that she could pull down anything substantial on her own, but she would rather see her child eat rodents or bugs than gnaw at the moss growing on rocks as he had taken to doing of late. This was how she found herself wading into the frigid pools of the falls in search of something feathered, furred or scaled. Something that would bleed.

It was a bad habit she had picked up in her starved state, ignoring the scents around her, other than those of the edible, and now it hit her, like a collapsing beaver dam to the head. The scent washed over her like a sudden wave and her eyes narrowed, seeking the source. Sickness was there, but all of her knowledge of herbs and flowers was locked up tightly behind the wall that was holding her life together.

She was lost to herself even and the usually dominant, confident female pinned her ears flat and let her tail hang between her legs as her eyes and nose continued to search. Words eluded her, they had for months now, so she communicated the only way she remembered. An inquisitive whine escaped her chest. This wolf didn’t smell of pack, but either did she, but loners were always hungry…