You get up, and life goes on. It's a rhythm, it's a routine, the waking up and shaking out the fur; blinking eyes greet the world anew, ears and nose getting their bearings, then you're off again, off the ground, heaviness and cold dissipating with the toil of life. It's aeterna, yet never the same, every sky different, every wind unique.
Autumn was here, in full force, trees ablaze with red, gold and yellow, frost covering the ground each night and lingering long into the mornings—and she followed the chill north, begging winter to freeze her inflamed mind over. The world was vast, and the road dangerous. Twice she'd almost stuck her head too far in under the guillotine, barely able to retract it before the blade came down.
Her breath steamed into the cold air.

It was one thing to grasp that which she had always had a right to, to lead and command those who had always known her, always known she would ascend the throne—quite another, to be out here, and try to convince the feral world to accept her, and do what she told it to. Every day was a fight of a different kind, the hunt for the food to keep her strong, every encounter in which her tail rose and lips peeled back. She almost felt as if she was getting nowhere, or as if it didn't quite matter as much anymore. She was, finally, out where blood ran hot and thick, where life snapped right back at her, sometimes catching her throat in its jaws, and it made her feel all the more alive.
But she wouldn't give up. Couldn't. She just wasn't in a hurry to return.
The forest changed, from thick to thicker, frost-blackened vines hanging from low branches to brush at her fur. Dead and decaying, waiting for the snow to cover it, the ground crunched beneath her step, and the wind keened, and trees creaked. Perhaps a lesser wolf would've shivered and turned away, but Cézanne was not a coward (albeit, she had to admit, an idiot at times). Ears perked and eyes sweeping incessantly she made her way deeper, sniffing in passing at branches and bushes. Someone else was here. She knew it; could feel it in her bones.
A shriek split the air.
Maybe another wolf would've leaped into action out of concern; Cézanne did it out of curiosity. With ease she bounded through the territory, relishing the feeling of muscles stretching out properly, taking the leap onto a boulder...
.. and came to see the scene. A most enticing dead marmot, and a she-wolf flinging her head around, pawing at her nose, as if it was on fire. Cézanne's lips curled into a lopsided grin, baring a little teeth under the thick branches and their ghastly song. It seemed this corner of the world was full of spectacular wolves.