Cedar Sweep Blood of a fool

Maybe one day! Thanks for threading. She needed it for her trade.

"Hello?" she called, stepping into the little hollow where she'd left him. Left who? A boy, her little son... no. Someone else. Someone she needed, but... The wolf gave a nervous whine and shook her head to clear it of such ramblings. "Hello," she called more firmly, trotting around the surrounding area, now. "Please, say something so I can find you."

Dread coiled low in her belly, and she spat out the precious herbs she'd brought to heal - someone. "Where are you?" she cried, darting through the trees, now. All she could smell was his blood, all around the hollow and stuck to her very tongue. Had she killed him? Had something else? She couldn't remember, but she knew - without really knowing - that he'd been alive when she left.

"Friend!" she wailed, trotting in wider and wider circles as she searched every nook and cranny of the area. In bushes, up trees, under rocks - for she did not know what her friend had been. Bird, climber, buzzer, wolf? All she could do was cry for him - "Friend! Please, my friend!" - her voice was a shrill, piping alarm call, sounding again and again through the trees.

She did not know how long she searched. Time seemed to blur together, all parched throat and torn paws, laughing darkness and silent, silent, silent woods.

Sleep took her, eventually - the herbs she'd gathered for someone now working against her. She didn't have the presence of mind to fight it, but laid down where she stood and closed her eyes. The wolf dreamed of blood and bones, both chasing after and fleeing before her, and when she awoke, she knew no more of the stranger wolf from the day before, who had strengthened her with his blood as she had tried to strengthen him with her saliva. She knew only that the loneliness was more oppressive than ever before, that her body felt stronger than it had in days, and that Shink was waiting for her at the den, where she'd left him buried under dirt and rabbit pellets.