Blackfoot Forest Dark was the night when our tale was begun

@Merrigan

For weeks The Girl kept her head down and her heart low.

She allowed neither to rise in her loneliness— unwilling to plague herself with the ideal that hope could be found so easily— and she avoided others completely; afraid of acceptance and rejection, both in equal measures. So far she had been able to swallow back her curiosities and steer clear of the trails that might lead her into company, but each passing day became harder to bear alone.

She had even begun to miss the horrible things: the vicious fights to claim her, the verbal and physical torment of the jealous breeders; the overwhelming need to be as special as everyone thought her, and the additionally stinging desire to not be worth anything at all. But not all of it had been bad. The males were sweet when they wanted to be, and Yellow Bitch...

As the sun hung low in the sky, preparing to tuck itself in the for the night, The Girl felt a wild pang of guilt for the wolf who had lost her life trying to free her. She felt guilty for missing it; for wondering if there truly was better out there. YB had assured her of such, and had given her last breaths to the cause of freeing her— how could she doubt this?

How could she continue to be so afraid?

She found a tree trunk to curl up inside, but the darker it grew, the more menacing the forest became. The cries of foxes rang out, keeping her awake and in a perpetual state of alarm as she fearfully waited for the yowling ghouls of her imagination to hunt her down.