Blacktail Deer Plateau Well you only need the light when it's burning low

It had been a very rough month for Osprey - first Pied's death, then the birth of the children, which had had a very unsettling effect on her and then the disappearance of Crete caught her totally off guard. She had waited for him to return and then gone looking for him, going far beyond the borders of the pack, but to no avail. The fact that he had left her, just like that without an explanation or a warning, was very hard to accept. The young wolf didn't want to make the same mistake she had done with Atticus, by falsely assuming the other's indifference. Therefore she wished him well, regardless of where he had gone and why.

But this was not an end to her troubles. She hadn't felt very well for a while having random onsets of fever and sudden weakness. It was hard for her to run without feeling ache in the chest and a prolonged activity made her lose her breath and was followed by heart pounding heavily against her ribcage. Osprey was no medic, therefore rather than suspecting that she was ill and seeking out help, she felt frustrated, because her body, who had once worked perfectly, was failing her now. She hated not being able to provide herself and rather than feasting in caches often, she ate little to nothing at all, because hunger was another thing that disappeared, when she felt really, really bad.

This morning she had returned to the Plateu for good. One reason was that she had stopped looking for Crete, but the real one - if she was weak, she preferred to be like this in a safe place and not in the wilds. The first thought was to pay a visit to Perry, who she had neglected for quite some time, but the exhaustion was too great, therefore she returned to the den she had once shared with her brother, crawled inside and curled up in a tight ball, wishing that all of what had happened was just a bad dream and once she woke up, everything would be fine again.