Blackfoot Forest Dark was the night when our tale was begun

@Merrigan

For weeks The Girl kept her head down and her heart low.

She allowed neither to rise in her loneliness— unwilling to plague herself with the ideal that hope could be found so easily— and she avoided others completely; afraid of acceptance and rejection, both in equal measures. So far she had been able to swallow back her curiosities and steer clear of the trails that might lead her into company, but each passing day became harder to bear alone.

She had even begun to miss the horrible things: the vicious fights to claim her, the verbal and physical torment of the jealous breeders; the overwhelming need to be as special as everyone thought her, and the additionally stinging desire to not be worth anything at all. But not all of it had been bad. The males were sweet when they wanted to be, and Yellow Bitch...

As the sun hung low in the sky, preparing to tuck itself in the for the night, The Girl felt a wild pang of guilt for the wolf who had lost her life trying to free her. She felt guilty for missing it; for wondering if there truly was better out there. YB had assured her of such, and had given her last breaths to the cause of freeing her— how could she doubt this?

How could she continue to be so afraid?

She found a tree trunk to curl up inside, but the darker it grew, the more menacing the forest became. The cries of foxes rang out, keeping her awake and in a perpetual state of alarm as she fearfully waited for the yowling ghouls of her imagination to hunt her down.

Merrigan was growing weary of travelling, always by herself with the occasional greeting of another. She was meant to lead a pack, not be alone and starving. She could smell that there was another female around the area, though she cared little for interaction at the moment. The sound of foxes shrieking annoyed the fuck out of her, so she growled sharply "Knock it off will ya?" she shouted with frustration.At a year old she sounded like she was an elder, bitching and complaining about everything.

With a turn of her head she caught the flash of someone's eyes. Wondering if she was going crazy she repeated the gesture, to see the flash again."OI! what're you looking at?" she grunted, lowering her rear to the ground as her vivid green eyes stared at the hidden figure. She squinted as she tried tomake out where the rest of said wolf was. There was a tree and a hole, oh she was hiding inside the hole in the tree! Curious Merri lay down and continued to look at her with curious silence.

There was no sleep to be found through the cries. It would have been logical for her to find a way immediately out of these woods, but she had no energy left from a full day's travel with nothing to eat. Even if she couldn't sleep, at least she didn't have to walk anymore; she thought that maybe she'd even welcome death!

But there suddenly came the press of new footsteps, heavier than anything that had passed her since she'd begun occupying the tree. The closer they came, the faster her heart beat. It began to pound so loudly that it drowned out the sound of the steps, and only one thought could now form in the girl's head: I don't want to die!

The "beast" cried out, bracing and angry, but it was not the horrific screech of the monster she expected. Instead she was met with a voice she recognized. Not in a personal sense, but she knew the tones to be wolf, and feminine at that. It was not some foreign ghoul or haunter come to gobble her up, but another of her kind...

She wasn't sure how much better this made her feel, if it made her feel any better at all.

The cries of the foxes died down as most in the vicinity scattered. The girl stared out fearfully from her hiding spot, bright and alarmed eyes casting an unwitting shine in the dark that gave away her position almost immediately. Her back rippled when she realized she'd been spotted, and her legs automatically began to shove her backwards until her spine was touching the walls of the trunk.

She didn't say anything— not even in feeble warning— as she felt very much trapped and disadvantaged, to such a degree she'd been rendered completely mute. Perhaps hoping the danger would simply... be on its way.

Her intentions were not to scare the piss out of the poor woman, so Merri's nose wrinkled in confusion. Staring at the cowering mass of wolf, she snorted and lay down on the hard ground rolling her eyes "You wont get anywhere in life like that sweetheart, in fact you'll be slaughtered" she said loudly her green gaze focused on the woman who was cowering in the hole before her.

Placing her head on her paws she sighed softly "Quit it. I won't hurt you" she spat out harshly though she was feeling slightly sympathetic toward the woman. Someone had to have done some serious damage to this poor girl to make her this way, and Merri's natural instincts were to protect the stranger.