Phantom Hollow Lose Your Head

She closed her eyes as she waited, listening, trying to gauge whether the wolf inside the den had heard her. Still clinging to the hope that he hadn't--he'd been snarling pretty loudly anyway--Mitanni shook in place, carefully holding her injured forelimb up and slightly tucked against her chest. Please, please...

Her ears perked as his voice spoke loudly enough for her to hear. Which meant he knew she was there and that she'd played witness to at least part of his nonsensical conversation with himself. The hope she'd been clinging to slipped out of her grasp and she sighed gently, accepting that Judas now knew she'd wandered right back to him again, despite everything. You're stupid, Mitanni, she scolded herself, he's right and you shouldn't be here. And yet she was.

But he didn't know it was her. His statements made that much clear, though rather than trying to finish what he'd started he only apologized, accepting his fate as a traitor and liar. Mitanni's eyes opened as she listened to his comment on forgiveness, judged by the sound of his voice that he was somewhere toward the very far end of his den, and though she didn't bring herself back into view, didn't move away from where she'd tucked herself against the side of the den's entrance, she spoke up, loudly so he could hear and in a voice that only slightly shook, "Who said I forgave you?"

It probably wasn't the smartest thing for her to bait the wolf that had already attacked her once, but the little black and brown female couldn't help it. "Why'd you do it?" She followed up her first question with a more direct one after a short pause, and even though she asked she was dreading whatever answer he was going to give.