Phoenix Maplewood i'mma turn it on with a bang

The warmth of home beckoned her, but Saena couldn't sit still, and not only because her wounds pained her and her nights were plagued with nightmares. In the last couple days, the alpha had gone from itchy to itchier. Her whole coat seemed to writhe with it, and her hide twitched involuntarily every time another itch started up. Irate hardly began to describe her; she'd spent the whole day rolling around and rubbing roughly on trees, hardly noticing when she split the scab on her leg until she spotted the blood sticky on her haunch. Leaves clung to it now and she didn't care, because all she could think about was how itchy she was.

Night was falling and Saena was wandering further and further from the heart of the pack land. Reek would probably start to worry and Citali would surely scold her for it, but she couldn't imagine facing them and feeling at all bad about this. She probably would've ripped their faces off. It was only after several long minutes of aimless wandering that the alpha was struck with the brilliant idea of submerging herself in water, or coating herself in mud, to try to find some relief. She had no idea she was harbouring fleas, courtesy of Regipre, but she somehow felt that water or mud would help.

She didn't make it as far as Feller's Pond, though. Before she even exited the maplewood and met the windy, rainy grassland beyond, she caught an unfamiliar scent and tracked it until she caught the dark flicker of a shadow between the trees. Her normal seasonal territoriality didn't rise, primarily because she was busy gnawing at an itch on her shoulder, but she did lace her tone with a growl when she called out, "who the hell're you?"