Bearclaw Valley absent when i need you the most

for @Dolce

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night is easier.

it is the only time the valley feels small enough to hold in the palm of her paw, the only time everything hushes to a murmur, the stars blinking like half-forgotten ghosts.

twitch lingers at the outskirts, walking aimlessly on the accord of an empty belly. the trees stretch gnarled limbs toward the sky before they open up to a small clearing, a grove where she'd known deer to linger. squatted into the underbrush, she waits.

With nightfall comes peace, or at least a semblance of it, as even ghosts refuse to sleep. Insomnia plagues him, now more than ever. His den empty, the warm body of his wife curled beside him now stale and empty and cold. There are moments where her loss doesn't threaten to dismantle him. And then there are moments where it eats him alive. Claws and teeth at his skin, guilt wrapping around his mind. Her voice taunts him in the silence. It's why he can't bare to be alone. It is why he needs to move as night falls and brings quiet with.

Out near the edges of the borders is where he feels as if he can finally breathe. Away from their den, away from her ghost. The bags beneath his tired eyes betray him. But he cannot sleep, not when she haunts his dreams, too.

That's where he finds her. A young girl using the cover of night as her escape. Crouched down near a bedding place for mulies. He quiets his steps, or at least as much as possible, as he approaches. A new face, but she smelled of Bearclaw. "They ain't gonna catch ya down scent. Got decent cover." Comes his quiet and tired rumble