“I’m way too tired for all of this,” She mumbled quietly beneath the slowly returning reds and oranges of the trees above her, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath through her nose before pushing it out of her mouth. Both her eyelids and tongue just felt so heavy in saying them, that she wasn’t entirely sure she’d be able to open her eyes again. Everything just felt like it cost too much energy, too much of her time, too much of everything about and of her. It had been like this ever since she’d been on her own. A bone deep weariness had settled in her bones and Gwendolyn wasn’t sure it’d ever leave now.
There was no reason for her to have been gone for so long - Gwendolyn felt terrible for leaving, after promising to meet up with Flair after the winter thaws had well, thawed. But it was spring again at least? And while it had been a whole year just about, she promised to be back by time the ice had melted and things had grown so technically -
Shaking out those thoughts from her brain, Gwendolyn knew why she’d left, deep down. She had gotten scared. Flair had been so nice and kind to her and Gwendolyn had been such a weirdo and -
She’d never admit it out loud, because for all her bravado about just wanting to know where the man wound up; there had been a scared young girl in her chest ever since her mother died, all alone with the briefest glint of hope that maybe if her father had been here and alive, she’d have slightest reason to call somewhere home. Even if it was just to tell him a ‘fuck you.’ and find herself on the other side of the lands he called home.
Maybe then he’d know the fraction of pain her mother went through and by extension, Gwendolyn when her last parent passed, knowing his daughter was so close but so far away.
But he’d gone and died years ago, buried in the very same pack lands he’d loved more than the mate he’d grown to love or the daughter he never stayed to know.
There had also been a disconcerting feeling that had settled even deeper in her heart, that Gwendolyn had yet to shake. It was a sort of disquieting bafflement, she supposed, that had settled into her bones too, after talking to Flair and how she'd had a mother and whole pack to rely on, after her own father’s death. While Gwendolyn had had no one but herself to look after. There were no siblings to ease the pain with, no uncles or aunts or cousins to share in the heartache, at least as far as she knew. There weren't even trusted friends and comrades to come to her aid, for the first month or two of darkness that enshrouded her, that barely left her able to hunt. There wasn’t even time or enough grace in the world for Gwendolyn to mourn those first few months and she wasn’t sure there’d ever be enough.
All she could have done and still could do was to survive, nothing more.