Gawd, everything hurt. Perhaps this really wasn't the best of ideas. Cas was pretty sure they weren't even halfway to the new pack's location, and she was ready to collapse. She'd lost weight again, and as the warmer weather blew in and spring approached, her fur was shedding and her ribs were showing. And, though she was no expert on the inner workings of a woman's body, but she should have been approaching sexual maturity, and she wasn't feeling or smelling any different. She still wanted Niles around, but not for any other reason besides the fact that she adored him and wanted his company. There was just... nothing different. She wondered if it was just another thing to do with her sickness; if she was infertile or whatever. It didn't truly matter, though. She wouldn't have been able to have pups without dying, regardless. It was probably better that she couldn't have them at all.
She had wandered away from the others, including Niles, because she desperately needed some time to drop the ruse and let herself rest. She'd found herself drawn to the freedom of Luna Hill, where there were few trees and she could feel like she wasn't stuck. Her mind was doing something strange - she bet she had a fever, because though it was warmer than she'd been used to recently, she was trembling and hot and cold at the same exact time. Plus everything was kinda foggy. Not much made perfect sense at that moment; she wasn't one-hundred-percent sure why she had wandered so far away anymore, and her mouth was dry and sticky from thirst, but her stomach was rolling and she wasn't even sure if she could put water in it at the moment.
A soft whine escaped her throat as she limped up underneath the single tree on the top of the hill and pressed her flank into it as she lay down. Her glassy eyes scanned the blurry fields below her; at the cherry trees in the distance and the blackberry fields where she met Niles. She didn't realized she was whimpering with every shallow, panted breath, and barely registered that there was a very familiar scent in the air - a wolf she knew, but couldn't place a name to in her muddled mind. She didn't even lift her head from her miserable position on the ground, and though she was too dehydrated to produce tears, her breathing was stuttered and hitched in pain and from the exertion of climbing the hill.
She was glad nobody else was around to see it.