Dragonfly Fen Repose

Traitor.

The word clung to her like a parasite and despite her attempts to shake it off, held fast. Her only solution was to keep busy, and without the comfort and familiarity of her homelands, all she could do was walk on. It was possible that she was being followed, but it was more likely that her former pack was scrambling, trying to figure out what to do with a packmate dead in the midst of a war. She thought of her father, dead in the snow, and her mother, now a widow, crying. It might not have been so bad, had the death of her father brought her any sort of closure. If she'd at least had that, she would have had something.

Instead she was alone for the first time in her life. Instead she was a traitor.

Fiskbyn's legs ached, her legs threatening to give up on her every few steps. It had snowed that night, making her trek more treacherous than it should have been. She was a mess, a monster covered in dirt and old blood. Not all of it was her's, but her delicate features were marred by scrapes, which had been scabbed over at this point. She was limping, her back leg particularly red. A dried poultice, which looked more akin to greenish mud, clung to her fur. The wounds should have been healing, like the ones on her face, but were still bleeding. In her jaws a rabbit lay limp and dead, swinging wildly back and forth with every angry step that the petite woman took.

She felt one of her legs buckle, but managed to stay standing. Before she could collapse, the woman carefully sat down. She shivered, clenching her teeth tightly around the rabbit.

Maybe it was because she was raised differently, words we rarely muttered within her family. The only language they all knew was the one they could say with this bodies, a quick look of the eyes, a long flash if teeth. No matter the gesture, she could figure it out. Her name, and her brother's, were really the only things her mother might say. Her father was mute, just like herself so he was the one to teach her the most.

She missed them, wished the tragedy had never struck their home. She longed for her brother's fur against her as they slept,  had she not been good enough to be his companion?

Quickly the child shook her skull, those thoughts had no place in her mind. Instead she let her pumpkin and olive gaze wander, from the glittering snow to the pale wolf.. wait! There was another wolf! Her nostrils flared as the scent of blood reached her but it was not from the hare that dangles in her grasp. Concern colored her features as she watched the woman, watches as she nearly collapsed.

In an instant she was running, her paws kicking up snow in her wake until she reached the slightly larger girl. Without thinking she curled around her, and if she did not move she would place her head before her front paws as her body wrapped around her back half. Dual colored eyes looked up at her as if it say don't be sad and are you okay? She really wanted to help.

Any wolf with any sense would not appreciate the strange gesture, regardless of how harmless it was. And, perhaps unfortunately for the tiny girl, Fisk thought herself to have plenty of sense. She did not take kindly to not only the wolf running up to her, but also the creature daring to touch her, and then to curl around her as if she was some thing to protect. It didn't matter whether or not @Ora was harmless or not, because at that instant, she was a threat.

Although exhausted, the appearance of a new face breathed fire back into the petite woman (and mind you, not the good type of fire). She loudly snarled, dropping her precious rabbit, wildly snapping her teeth. Fiskbyn nipped at the smaller girl's scruff, her legs tiredly stumbling over themselves to put some space between them.

It was a sad, ungraceful move, but the wounded girl seemed to manage fine enough. She stood on all fours now, her tail lifting as she showed the small girl her teeth. Fisk thought for a moment that the girl was from her pack, but could not see or smell anything familiar about her. She didn't even seem like she had intended to do Fisk any harm.

In any case, she didn't let her defense down. Finally, Fisk demanded, "What do you want?"

The reaction was expected, you see the child has done this before. She really needed to think before acting on impulse, it always ended up putting her in trouble. So when the snarl came all she could do was make her ears fall to her skull, her eyes fell to the ivory snow as the feeling of pain blossomed over shoulders.

A squeak came then, it was cracked and painful sounding. An easy sign to note that her voice box was broken, she could feel the blood that swelled up in her new wound as the woman moved away. She was aggressive and defensive, Ora acted accordingly. Her ears stayed pinned, her eyes looked at the woman's pale paws. Her tail tucked to the point it touched her belly, her posture lower.

Total submission, before the question came she laid flat on the chilled ground but then it came. How was she to answer that, she wanted to comfort her. Against she opened her mouth, her eyes crept up the woman's face as the squeaking sound came again. It was all she could do, well, unless she let her touch her again.

Shallow water has trapped several fish in a small pond. Hunt Opportunity