Otatso Wetlands in the end the waves will discolor me.

takes place a couple days after the locusts but before that one thread Ku just started for present day I'll link it later...

Harlyn was silent as she stood; a dark silhouette upon the landscape. The air still hummed with locusts though not nearly as severely as they had when first they'd descended upon the wilds. For the first time in days, the Druid felt immune to their presence. They were but a backdrop for her stolen moments of solitude; their thrum just background music to the thoughts that now ran free in her mind. Thoughts she'd kept in the far corners of her awareness for days, until this very moment when she'd crept off to be alone with them, to give them the full attention they warranted.

The dislodged alpha had never been a good hunter. Her nose was not strong, her sense of direction lacking, and her senses in general simply not in tune with what was needed in order to achieve extraordinary success in such an arena. But even in spite of her shortcomings, she had been unable to overlook the fading stories she'd smelled upon the abandoned borders of the Maplewood. She knew who had marked them once upon a time, and she knew perfectly well what it meant that her friend had made such an effort to enforce the boundaries of this place.

It was this more than anything that pained Harlyn the most. Of all she had been through, of all she had lost; none of it hurt as terribly as this. The Druid turned her gaze up to the sky, staring in misery and anger past the twitch of locusts that swept past the moon like dark shooting stars. Her entire life, she had felt indebted to that moon. She had worshipped the stars, the earth, the universe, and thanked hen for all they had given. But this vendetta had reached a point past her understanding, and through all of the confusion, hurt, anger and frustration, one single thought unsheathed, shaking with emotion, from her lips straight to her gods.

"I did not deserve this."