Whitefish River some sad singers, they just play tragic

@Coelacanth @Stockholm

the twilight danced, and the mice were at play,

and the winter winds rustled through the trees

and Olive concealed herself amongst the silvered grasses, watching those dancing mice at play, waiting for the right moment and wondering why she was here. Her courage had ameliorated to an amount that she found leaving her winter den to be entirely within the realm of possibility, so she had indulged. After her unceremonious departure from Moonspear and all the memories held upon that mountain, she had staked a small, masochistic claim to an enclave of rocks and shielded herself from the worst of the snows. Then she had simply stayed put, unsure where else to go and what else to do.  But this night, the sylph exited under the auspice of her beloved mother moon, avoiding Ravensblood Forest and found a well-worn path alongside the rushing water to the east. She picked her way across the landscape, drifting upon featherlight toes and pale coat glowing luminously in the moonlight, looking almost too ghost-like for comfort.

Her travel was slow, and her surefootedness was long gone; soon she was fatigued and hungry and, to be honest, a little cranky. Soon the lamb yearned to be back in the solitude of her den, the security of those earthen walls — but before long had become entirely distracted by the family of field mice in front of her. The small, warm bodies scurried amongst the dead grasses and cooled earth, gathering frostbitten seeds and storing them in a nest of woven sweetgrass. The mice seem oblivious to her being there — so involved in their winter preparations, were they! — that the pale shewolf could sit and watch from mere feet away. Once she had seen them, Olive found that she could not look away. 

Her hunger soon became a forethought, as hunger tends to do, and Olive found her tongue moistening at the sight of the tiny busybodies. Hunting, in any shape or form, was not something that came naturally to Olive, so this reaction was something unfamiliar. In fact, it was something quite offensive to her and she often went to great lengths to avoid the carnage involved in killing... but, it was entirely within the nature of the wolf to make a meal of rodents, wasn’t it? How could something that came so naturally be truly, inscrutably wrong? 

Maybe this lonely, cold winter was an ever-present concern in her mind. Not that last winter had been any better — the memories of Dakarai losing his memory plagued her almost nightly — but now it seemed that Olive needed to look out for her own good, as no one was there to do it for her.  She no longer trusted anyone to do it for her. 

Olive gritted her molars together, clearly in the grips of uncertainty. She felt her stomach keenly, knew that a wolf who couldn’t hunt was a dead wolf indeed, but she couldn’t. Her ivory visage turned sharply away, not wishing to be the harbinger of another’s demise. She was sure that the mice would feel the loss of one of their family as keenly as she felt the loss of hers, and Olive would not live to cause another such pain; it was simply too heavy a load to bear. In a rush, Olive retreated, heels skittering behind her as she darted away from the rodents’ winter stores.

It was only in her departure that the mice took notice of the shewolf and they too retreated to their warm home, oblivious to the angel of death that passed o'er their house that night.