There was no getting used to it, this hollowness. The world was dull, and simple actions were tedious. The snow that gathered between her paws caused discomfort, and she keenly felt the bite of winters lingering chillchi her ears. Even as she gazed over the vast expanse of new, unexplored territory it was as though nothing excited her anymore. Nothing sparked. All she felt was the hollow, heavy weight settled in her breast. No light, no joy. No hope. Once, she would have looked upon this aspen forest in wonder, blinking snow from her lashes as she watched the flakes gently fall. Once, the sight of it all would have made her breath catch. A smile would have lit up her face and she might have raced between the trees, weaving between them in her own personal dance. Once, she would have been roaring for adventure. Ready to take on anything.

But now.. Now she felt nothing. She felt cold. Empty. Dead. She was hollow, an empty shell where a soul should have been. Everything simply hurt, and to keep the ache at bay she'd simply frozen her own heart. Turned herself to ice and she'd fled. Elysia couldn't say exactly how she'd gotten to these lands, this place. She'd been running.. running from everything. Her lands, her pack, her life, her problems.. her ghosts. She could never go home, and even if she could somehow make the journey back, if she found her way, what would she find there? Ghosts and strangers with familiar faces. There was nothing left for her there, not anymore. They'd likely drive her off for her cowardice; for her pathetically beating, bleeding, heart.

It was one thing to be a ghost, and another to be surrounded by them.

She felt like a shadow. Malignant. A blight. She defiled these new lands. Elysia's dark, curled pelt was stark against the swirling flakes, the pale trees and bright snow. She was obvious. So, painfully obvious, and not just in the physical sense. She shouldn't be there. She didn't belong. She didn't belong anywhere. Everyone she'd ever loved, everything she'd ever cared about, had been ripped from her. Because of her. She was toxic, she was cancerous. She felt like she was filled to the brim with poison and it had leaked onto those closest to her, snuffing out their brilliant lights one by one. Too many, there were too many. She'd lost everything. Too many.

They won't be coming back. Elysia openly winced and-

Crunch.

The femmes paws stilled and her ears twitched. She looked around slowly, almost casually, but her eyes were bleak, weary. Certain she'd heard the sound of snow crunching beneath.. hooves? Paws? She wasn't sure. Elysia strained to hear something, anything. A part of her helpfully supplied that she was probably going insane. But she remained where she was, shifting her weight and gaze roving between the trees.

She did not have the energy to call out, and she felt if she did her heart would crack just a little more when she was met with empty, heavy silence. Elysia would swallow down any hope easing up. She couldn't handle another crack within her already chasmed heart... but she waited.

Something had been there afterall.

Elysia's blood froze in her veins when she heard the cries, and her head whipped in the direction of the sound, ears laid flat against her skull. She fought down the rise of her hackles and swallowed, straining once more to pick up any further sounds once everything quieted. But there was nothing. All was still, save the pounding of the muscle in her chest, which clenched painfully. She ached at those cries, related to them in some distant, phantom way. But she shook it off, shed her own demons for that moment and considered her options. An ambush? A lure, perhaps. Not a clever tactic, exactly, but one she was not unfamiliar with. Using a dying animal or even a wounded, or pseudo-wounded, packmate to lure out any intruders, preying on compassion. Or it could have been a fight between packs, between wolves, between even animals considering the odd nature of the screams. Yet there had only been one scream. One voice.

Elysia thought for a moment, eyes searching. When she had convinced herself that she was reading too much into it, she took a few tentative steps fowards. When nothing launched out of the bushes at her she picked up her pace, pushing through the snow and the ache in her paws and the blood roaring in her ears. She didn't know what she'd find at the end of the line but the dying part of her that remained compassionate, soft, didn't rightly care. So she carried on.

And then she halted, this time she let the fur on the back of her neck lift. There, some distance before her, was a large pale wolf. Male, if her nose did not decieve her. She blinked, squinted. He was far enough away, and white enough, that she couldn't make out all of his details through the abundance of surrounding snow, but she could be certain he was not bleeding. Any red staining his coat would have been obvious, even from this distance. She blinked the flakes from her lashes and considered her options. A wise wolf would turn away, head back into the forest and not look back. But, she was not a wise wolf and she had very little to lose.

"Are you hurt?" She inquired, raising her voice somewhat so he'd be more likely to hear her even from across the gap.