Secret Falls dear prudence

I hate you, too

People will kill you over time, and how they'll kill you is with tiny, harmless phrases, like "be realistic."

• • • — Dylan Moran

With each shaky breath she grew stronger. She still thought of him, from time to time. But mostly she tried not to think about him — her brother. Her independence was slowly blossoming, but the pain was neither dulled nor dampened by her personal growth or the space and time between brother and sister. So it was easier to compartmentalize all her memories of Rook, to hastily collect any sensation or reflection that triggered thoughts of her brother and shove them into the same dark place inside her heart where she kept her fears about her future and her father. What was left of Borden's last daughter once her other half had been stripped from her? A damaged, headstrong girl with no one to contain her and no foil by which to understand herself and the world. The edges of her personality grew fuzzy and slowly bled out until she no longer knew herself. She was cruel, she was gentle, she was bitter, she was forgiving. She was just Bishop, just a girl, alone.

She tried to rebuild herself.

Over the course of the last month she had made several decisions:

1. She would not go back to Rook.
2. She was giving up on finding Grizzly Hollow.
3. She would not return to Renegade's Reach.
4. Winter was swiftly approaching, something needed to be done about that.
5. There was a world beyond her brother and her family waiting out there for her.
   

Bishop roamed vaguely throughout Relic Lore, heading one direction for days before shaking her head and turning around, picking another course at random. At all costs the pale she-wolf avoided other wolves. The scent of borders would send her reeling and racing away. She was not ready to meet anyone, she needed to figure herself out. Days would go by and no scent trail would cross her path and she used her time to untangle, to recreate. She was not sure she would ever be ready. Bishop Lyall yearned like any severed yearling, but she was twice as wary (her father was to thank for that) and fives times more awkward. I'm not ready, she pleaded without knowing why or who she was really pleading with. Please, I'm not ready.

Pangur had other intentions for his wretched, youthful daughter.

-throws Nyna at Bishop-

She had taken a quick trip. Over the mountains and to some falls. The only way she had been able to find this little heaven on earth was by following the sound of rushing water. When she had found the source she was not upset with her find. It was a true clean beauty. The falls made her think that this place had been the only place on this planet not corrupted by evil. This was the pure land.

Though the young woman was quick to find out she was not alone. Nyna had returned from an unsuccessful hunt to find the smell of another here. Being the nosy little girl she was she had followed their fresh trail. No way was she about to just let this chance of socialization go.

It had only take moments for her eyes to land on the other yearling. Finding a friendly stance she forced a shy smile and a small soft wag. "Hello." Taking another step forward she let her eyes rest at the paws of the other. "I'm Nyna. I couldn't help but be intrigued by your scent." It was the honest truth. Nyna saw no gain in lying to this other female. Last she recalled no wolf ever got anywhere quickly and successfully with lying. Then again she hadn't encountered enough wolves in her life to truly test this theory. She just liked to think of it as true to make herself feel better about being blunt.

Nyna
And every second passing reminds me I’m not home

I hate you, too

"no one asks if i'm okay and i'm both grateful and disappointed."

• • • — anonymous

She was itching a pale shoulder against the bark of a pine tree, listening intently to the sibilant tones of tumbling water. The sounds were soothing, drowning out the whispers that tried to escape from the cages of her mind. Wreathed in the mist of the falls, she felt cloaked — almost content. But her sigh was still heavy, and her prickling shoulder could not be appeased. Pouting, Bishop Lyall slumped against the trunk. Her eyes closed for a moment, and she tried to disconnect herself from her tiresome corpse. For a moment she could feel herself drifting away into the dull thrum of water. At first this sensation was pleasant: she thought of swimming with her mother in the shallow stream that hugged one of her childhood rendezvous. But then his face appeared and suddenly she couldn't breath. Her pale eyes snapped open.

A twig snapped behind her.

Instantly her head whipped back and she sprung to her feet. She crouched low to the ground and regarded the creamy stranger and her salutation, tension coiling in her back legs in the event of an attack, a conversation, a serious encounter of any kind. Should she give her name? What was so interesting about her scent? Her ears twisted uncomfortably against her head. "Bishop," she said plainly. Her voice was so hoarse from disuse it might not have been possible to say anything else even if she had wanted to. Vaguely the wolf realized that these were the first words she had spoken since...since that bitter exchange with him. Tears formed in her eyes, and she shifted her wait to step backwards. Slowly, she tried to move away from this wolf.

No one needed to see her like this.