Sheepeater Cliff The Hunger Games

Vashti woke up with a start, flinching awake as if she had been touched by something icy and then settling again as a chill passed along her spine and racked her with a violent shiver. The morning was quite warm, but it was the cold and dead body beside her that had driven the youth suddenly into a realm of wakefulness. Her long ears perked and she glanced from side to side, drawing her limbs closer into her body as she slowly realized that this was the first morning she'd ever woken up completely and utterly alone...

Yuri was there, her mother, but as mentioned before she was dead. She had been too weak to go on the previous day, and the pair had settled beneath Sheepeater Cliff for a spell before continuing their journey northeast. Except, Yuri would never again get to her feet. She had died sometime before nightfall, and Vashti had been blankly at her side ever since, knowing her mother would not wake up but waiting for the moment anyway.

When night had cloaked them and Vashti could no longer keep her eyes open, she had curled up next to Yuri's stiffened frame and fallen asleep in the shadow of the cliff. When she was awake, and her mother was not, it truly hit her that she could not simply lie beside this cold-blooded wolf and wait for death to take her too. A punctuating growl from her slender belly accented this thought and reminded her that for several days her mother had been too uncoordinated to hunt while young Vashti herself hadn't had any luck in the venture.

But despite her aching gullet and how it verbally goaded her to get up and try again, she simply remained at Yuri's side, taking on the scent of death and chasing away any crow or creature of carrion that dared ventured too near.