Redhawk Caldera So you can say letting go is easy

Set a few days after January 1st and open to anyone.

Sassafras trudged forward, completely lacking the usual gleam of her spirited mahogany gaze and not much more than a bag of bones after weeks on her own. During the time she had been away from the Caldera, she had continued to search for Lucy despite the one reasonable thought she had: her pursuit was futile.

She had paid a portion of her weight to continue on alone after attacking Moonspear’s Alpha male, but the skin of her ruff that Charon had pierced had healed as well as could be expected. It was only due to the fact that she couldn’t possibly reach the wound to pick at it that the fur there had grown in like wild vines in a jungle to fill the gaps where a scar would always lie beneath.

Her mental state was ragged as she finally spotted a familiar sapling she had seen a handful of times before, and it was probably her exhaustion alone that prevented her from turning away from where it stood on the borders. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be there any longer — she was simply certain they wouldn’t want her back.

She slowly approached the tree, and not only did she tentatively sniff, but she pressed her nose against its bark. As she closed her eyes for a split second, her legs buckled and she crumpled beside the tiny tree that would struggle to survive the winter. Her eyelids fluttered briefly before she allowed them to remain closed.

If she could only take a quick nap…

Everything would be fine.