Ravensblood Forest It's sorrow that feeds your lies

Set around July 10 or so.

Over a week had passed since Junior had presumably drowned. Though the adults had spent the last week searching far and wide for the missing pup, Saēna had stayed comfortably at home, worried but not involved. Such was the life of a three month old wolf cub.

But on that day, a restlessness stole over her and she left the rendezvous site, despite whatever growled warnings might have come her way. The adults conducted themselves in a sorrowful manner, though it was an emotion she didn't quite understand. She could tell that they were upset, but other than that, didn't understand the concept of grieving. That Junior could be dead didn't ever occur to her, and so uncharacteristic disobedience replaced eagerness in the presence of the adults, and in their grief they did not come to punish her (or so she thought).

So, having left the rendezvous site, Saēna continued to boldly venture out and out, until she reached the edge of the plateau. Then she ventured further and further and further, tracing the river that the adults had collected at to the north. It was a long journey for a pup so small, and despite her frequent breaks, Saēna was too exhausted by the time she was midway through Ravensblood Forest to even consider continuing.

By some stroke of luck, where the pup chose to rest was the site of a poor silver fox's demise. Close inspection would reveal that the fox had been caught by a larger predator and killed, then dragged to the river, but all traces of its true death had been wiped away by the current it stuck out of. Fur and flesh were cleaned from the bones, leaving only the fox's black ears standing on its eerie skull. Clumps of black fur clung to scraps of meat still hanging from its bones, but otherwise, it was a skeleton as indistinguishable from a wolf pup as could be, its back end dragging through the river current.

When Saēna found it, it was irrevocable proof that Junior was dead. She didn't come to this conclusion gracefully and with acceptance, though. She found it sitting at the river's edge and with a sinking feeling, approached it. She might not have realized her own fear if it wasn't for the huge black ears standing on its bare skull. Had its scent not been washed away in the river, she might have noticed the difference.

Instead, Saēna screamed a piercing scream of absolute terror and fled the scene, being unable (and unwilling) to accept that her "leader" had, in fact, been killed by the monstrous river and its denizens.