The Bracken Woods blood thorns [m]

it was hard not to miss home.
a sheltered girl, red leaf had never before been so far away from it. when any of the sharadoii's tribesmen went to track the caribou or bring back a haul, she had always been among the scattered clusters of women awaiting their husbands and children awaiting their fathers. only the strongest and fastest went beyond the glacier walls, and red leaf had never been such a thing.
and it was strange, to no longer have a home to bless with fragrant herbs, to no longer have paths to carve into the ice with aapa, to no longer sing with aaka while they wait for the leather to dry. the way red leaf missed them had not truly hit her until now, as her paws traverse the oily fur of her husband's shoulders, digging into the hardened muscle.
since she met him, she had thought that he could be her new home. now she was beginning to wonder if she would lose herself in him.
he praises her lanzadoii and she hides the sharp cut of his condescension by biting the inside of her cheek. i try, a laugh; a small one, a fake one, but still a laugh. she maneuvers herself so that she may now reach his chest, his forelimbs. if it was not a true hunt, i worry for what a real one may do to you. i am worried you may get yourself hurt. a horrible, cruel part of her spoke up inside her mind to suggest that maybe such an accident would not be so bad.