Duskfire Glacier I feel like a monster

Scarlett trotted out of Phoenix Maple wood. She had realized while being outside of the parklands she lived now she wasn't far of to the place where she all started. The first pack she joined, the pack were she felt home and worked so hard for, Duskfire Glacier. Now she looked back on things everything she touched seemed to turn into something foul. She joined Duskfire, and then she was kicked out for being too soft. Each pup she adopted and tried to care for was gone now. Néa had gone crazy, Adlartok was somewhere else all together. Bearclaw Valley fell into doom and even her mating to Kove ended in a wreckage. Her kids were clearly also not okay with what happened all because she couldn't keep it together. Scarlett just felt horrible and not happy with herself. 

She didn't want any of her new pack members to know. She felt like they wouldn't understand. She felt already like pity case, they only took her in because they needed members and she had three young. Reek was only learning her about herbs to make her feel better. It was probably a chore that he put himself to do. Scarlett didn't feel like she was an asset. Her thoughts made everything very dark. She rushed off, further north, until she realized that she knew these lands. She was ridiculously close to Duskfire Glacier. She stopped when her paws reached the the lake in that used to be in the middle of the territory. Lake Meltwater. She remembered. The female looked up at the glacier, she once saw that thing a her shining light of hope. The ice would usually reflect shimmers of light, she wanted to a shining light for others but she only messed thing up, at least that was how she felt now. She wasn't a glacier, she was a black hole that would only bring misery. 

A soft sniffle came from her lips. Being a mother was hard, being a mother of a broken family was even harder. Surprisingly, she did feel at home at the Maple Wood pack, but she didn't feel happy. She thought she was happy at Bearclaw but now she realized that she only had a lot of stress there. She thought she would be happy without Kove but she wasn't. The mother looked at her reflection in the icy waters. He red eyes stared back at her, instantly she broke down in tears. She hated how she looked, if she hadn't looked like this she wouldn't have been bullied and her family would have liked her. It was a very naive thought of the small female. Every time she thought she was happy it was soon ruined by something else, maybe there was a curse on her. Her self doubt and insecurity were her downfall once again. She needed a distraction...

... :)

She was beginning to feel like herself again, and other than a scab, there wasn't much left of her head wound. Even so, Tail couldn't remember much of the last few days, and in particular why she happened to be... well, here. Skulls, lemons... fleas? None of it made sense, and she started to feel nauseous again if she thought too hard about it. She found herself regretting the decision to leave her family and attempt to make it on her own— but there was no way in hell she was going back. She'd rather die. She wouldn't become a coward like her elder sister; she was Teagan Blackthorn, and she was brave. She could deal with the freaky-deaky reality she had found herself in, no problem.

"Oh, FLEAS," she said loudly, not realizing at first that someone else was in close proximity. It was a sudden epiphany— Tail had been thinking about fleas because it had been a poignant memory of the first wolf she had met in the Wilds. And, oddly, that memory would lead to a place she might be able to call home. Unfortunately, her dizzy wanderings had led her somewhere else entirely.

Tail was lost.

As she began to scan the area, and really start to pay attention to where she was going, the yearling finally noticed the other female. Perhaps there was still something wrong with her head, but before she fully analyzed the stranger, she was saying— "Hey, there! I'm looking for this forest... it was all orange and yellow the last time I was there. I'm not sure if there are any leaves left now, though. It was north of some wetlands?" Tail approached cautiously as the hopeful question fell from her lips, and she could feel her ears going hot when she realized the other was crying.

She debated internally about whether it would be more awkward to apologize, or to just pretend she still hadn't noticed... leaving a perfect pause for the other female to interject.

Hi! *waves*

Scarlett almost jumped out of her skin when someone yelled. She didn't even hear the words of the sentence just the fact that something was shouted. She jumped to the side, half tumbling in the water. Her head ducked low as she spotted the female. Her red eyes looked sad and it was clear that she had been crying. Scarlett only wanted to sink lower to the ground what she actually did without realizing. Her tail close to her body. The cold water already making her feet and part of her belly wet. Luckily her thick fur was coming along, otherwise she would be cold too.

Scarlett was bombed with a question, distracting her mind from her bad thoughts and made her thing of her mental map she had from the wilds, especially this part. Was she talking about Emberwood? Scarlett was completely stiffened into place as she looked at the stranger. "Um. Emberwood?," she asked quietly, her voice was so small. She quickly made a mental route how to get there. "It is to the southwest of Phoenix Maplewood, next to the wetlands, not above it," she corrected quietly, her body stayed locked into the position she was currently in, all hunched down, looking even smaller.

Tail swiftly decided that it was better for her to ignore the other's current emotional state— not because she wasn't concerned, but because she didn't want to cause the female further embarrassment. Instead, she would do her very best to put the forlorn woman at ease. It was painful to see someone poise themselves so small, as though they were insignificant. It made Tail think of her cowardly sister, and triggered both a sense of pity and anger. The yearling did her best not to let that show, though all she really wanted was to shake the other and tell her to grow a pair.

"Oh, I don't know the name," she instead responded, her black tail sweeping in a friendly wag behind her. "I just remember that there was a pond to the east, and wetlands to the south. I met another female there. I can't remember her name, but she was white and had some dark markings on her eyes and ears." The yearling paused, then continued, "She smelled a bit like you, actually. And she had fleas at the time."

Scarlett moved herself from the cold water, being less hunched down but still not completely comfortable. The slender female nodded, it was probably Emberwood she talked about but Scarlett could be wrong, that was the forest she knew that was always having an orange glow, it had to be that one. Her red eyes made only briefly eye contact with the other, only when she spoke and wanted to show that she was listening to the stranger.

"Um.. My alpha has markings on her ears and by her eyes," she replied. Saena was the only wolf she knew with such markings so that couldn't be a coincidence. Scarlett wasn't sure if she thought they were dark markings but that was just a detail of one's perception. "Was she called Saena?," she asked.

"Maybe," she responded noncommittally. Tail tried to remember anything about the female she had given aid to weeks ago, but all that really stuck out was her unique appearance and the fact she had fleas. If Saena had introduced herself or that she was an Alpha of the pack, apparently the yearling hadn't deemed it important enough to remember at the time. "I know she was part of a pack— that's the forest I'm looking for. I was hoping to join." If it didn't work out, Tail had other offers that she could check on, but for some reason the flea-pack was most appealing.

"My name is Teagan Blackthorn, by the way," she finally introduced. "I usually go by Tail, though," the yearling further explained, sweeping her black tail pointedly. Unable to ignore the other's demure attitude any longer, she queried, "Are you okay?" As if a skinny, hungry lone wolf would be able to do anything about that.

Scarlett nodded softly as the female explained. It sounded like her pack. Saena was described and she lived in a forest maybe she could take this female back with her to make her journey easier. "Well you can walk back with me and see if it is that forest, it is on your route to the Emberwood," she spoke in return. Scarlett sounded so nice. There were literally no harsh tones as she spoke.

"Nice to meet you Tail," she returned. "I'm Scarlett." Her tears had dried by now and maybe this distraction was good and bad at the same time. It was good because her bad thought train stopped from making her feel even worse. But she hadn't dealt with the horrible thoughts train and she would need to do that if she didn't want it to ruin her. She could feel her skin heat up as the female asked if she was okay. Scarlett looked down at her paws. "No and I haven't been for awhile... I think," she admitted. "Some relationship stuff I need to deal with," she quickly excused herself.