Hushed Willows would you still love me the same.

@Tavi only plz :) I tagged everyone throughout just for visibility <3

Harlyn left them a mile or so away from the borders of the pack she hoped would take them in. It was with a confident smile and calm reassurance that she left her children in the care of @Shikoba and @Little Voice, in spite of the battle that had ensued when she'd had to deny @Larkspur's pleas to not be left behind. But the trek from her little clan to the borders of the Keep had seen the fall of her false optimism and the loss of her ease - a sight she did not wish for her family to see. It came upon her whenever their attention was elsewhere, and she did not think that she could keep it up now when she went to beg complete strangers to help her save the lives of her loved ones.

@Mordecai was gone. Harlyn had clung desperately to the hope that he would come back to them for the first couple of weeks since the day he went off into the Wilds to hunt for them and never returned. Warbone's offer had been on their minds, and it seemed certain that they would accept after taking the time to consider. But when her mate had disappeared, Harlyn had held ground at their little camp in the Emberwood. Too terrible was the thought that they would leave and he would find them gone. It was too painful to lose him when she had already lost so much.

It was Larkspur's recent foray into the Wilds herself that drove Harlyn's paws finally towards the Keep. They were too hungry, too anxious and too exhausted to care for three growing pups, especially those that were growing too distressed to sit still while their father was missing. As Harlyn embraced her daughter when they had found her again, she had realized that she could not doom them all to waste away while they awaited Mordecai's return. They needed to move on. She needed to move on. From him, from the Hollow. From her dreams that had come true for one fleeting moment in her life. Her time was past. It was time to look to the future, but not her own.

@Silas. Lark. @Pippin.

Harlyn stood a respectful distance from the borders, her posture neutral but not without the pride that the druid exuded simply by the grace of her character. In truth, she had no reason to be proud. She had lost her home, her mate, and most of her family. But what she kept, she was devoted to entirely. They needed her to be strong. They needed her to be humble. They needed her to tilt back her head and call for the alpha of this pack and beg for shelter from the ruin their prior lives had become, which she did in spite of the pain it caused her to make such a symbolic gesture as a final close to her prior life.