Bramblepoint one for sorrow

She swallowed the berries, feeling the cold juices dribble out of the corners of her mouth and running down her chest. It was unladylike, but she didn't care— after the loss of her first litter and her personal near-death experience, Magpie wanted to feel everything. It made her feel alive. She moved to the next bunch, but as she opened her mouth to take another bite, the tell-tale sounds of another coming near made her paused. If the winds weren't in his favor, they were in hers, and she knew it was a male— and a loner, by the distinct lack of other wolves in his scent.

Magpie wasn't sure company was a good idea, but she craved it. Loneliness had been her undoing at every turn, had been the source of every bad decision she had ever made. This could be another, but she didn't see how life could get worse. And so she ignored the pangs of hunger in her belly, and moved dreamlike toward the stranger.

Dark. Handsome. Molten gold eyes.

"Su—" she began, but immediately stopped, the sound strangled in her throat. She was being silly; he was long gone, and probably never thought of her at all. How childish to still be mooning over a wolf she had known only briefly in her youth, especially after all that had happened, all that had changed. Turn it off. Magpie shook her head, and loosed a sheepish laugh. "Sorry. You look like someone I knew, once. I'm..." she paused for a heartbeat, then said, "I'm Maudlin."

Magpie had been a failure, but perhaps Maudlin could be someone greater.

Maudlin could be her fresh start.