Overture Downs what we lost in the fire, we'll find in the ashes

@Grayday

Pipit had not had a good start to her year. The search for Shrike had proved fruitless, and a particularly harsh winter had dampened her spirits to such a low that the weight of her lonely survival was something she continued to carry with her even now. She felt very much like a failure, and solitude had only driven her deeper into the harsh confines of a newly negative mind— until simply one day, she shed her grief and replaced it self-preservation. Sulking when the earth's bounty was high and the summer air was sweet, wouldn't do for the wolf she truly wished to be.

Happy.

Such a simple thing eluded her that late afternoon on the wind-ruffled Downs, but she was determined to find it despite the heaviness clinging to the fringes of her bright soul. She lay beneath a lone tree, picking glumly at a rabbit she had no true appetite for. She'd only caught it to feel her heart race and her blood run for a time, but the feeling had gone now, and all that seemed left to do was wait for nightfall, when it might be cooler to travel. With the sun as low as it was, she wouldn't need to stay here long before she'd be able to comfortably push on.