Swiftcurrent Creek i know how it goes from wrong and right

what was she good at? constantine had told her a few times now that she was a scout-- and she remembered a few of the excursions she'd gone on. but, she hadn't grown up with an itch to explore and map. she'd grown up learning to heal, to run out into the middle of a fight and heal. of course, not every day had been a battle-- but she was stuck in the middle of a cold war and had been trained to expect the worse. so she always did. aria always expected the worse. even now, after all she'd forgotten and remembered.

but she was turning a new leaf. trying to just... be aria-- whoever that was. she was figuring it out, slowly. even if it was different from who she used to be, she'd figure it out.

so today, as usual, as she walked on eggshells around constantine's mate, aria stuck to the outskirts of the territory. patrolling.

"And no more berries! They make you smell like a nuclear dump," she hollered over her shoulder to Tiercel, even knowing that merely mentioning the word "berries" would send her daughter scampering off into the bushes the second she turned her back. Fucking kids. She was never gonna let a man touch her again. She couldn't abide another round of this complete stupidity, even if there was the slightest chance she would get an angel child named Tasha.

Fat chance that Wylla would have anything go right in her life. Got separated from her mom, got threatened out of her own pack by the crankiest piece of shriveled leather going, lost her brother, was completely estranged from the other one and would probably never see him again, and had a child with 1/3 of a brain left after falling on her noggin out of the birth canal. Amazing life so far.

She came across Aria patrolling without even realizing it, and was stalking directly toward the pale-furred woman with a completely unwarranted scowl on her face before ever even noticing her. She was quick to draw up short and rearrange her face into something moderately pleasant with a half-hearted attempt at a smile, which teetered on the edge of outright mental exhaustion, and said, "sorry, just... thinking bout something bad. Wasn't frowning at you. Promise."