Falls of the Hinterlands and i'm always tired, but never of you

while the presence of her soldier always cheered mona, the melancholy that had settled over her the day she woke with the collar had not lifted. torn each day between rage and sorrow, the girl had begun to pick at her food, swallowing only what was necessary, and withdrawing from the other wolves of tindome, feeling quite othered indeed by her malaise.
such was her despair that the mayfair had become rather bedraggled from lack of preening. this ashamed the girl to no end, having been raised to keep oneself trim as a wit. 
"fuck," mona swore in a distinctly unladylike tone, tumbling out of her makeshift den and tangling her long limbs together so that down her slim body went again, into an ungainly explosion of snow. rolling her eyes at her own stupidity as hard as she could, the mayfair gathered herself and her senses. she was going to be late if she did not leave right this instant.
and so without further adieu, the firebird crossed the borders at full speed and leapt into the cracking ice of the weir, forgetting for a moment that she was utterly terrified of beavers. mona splashed to the bank as quickly as she could and shook out her coat with frantic tumbles. there! a ... a bath, of sorts. it was still a bath, the mayfair decided firmly, finding her beeline for the cedar-trees and pausing every dozen steps or so to preen whatever part of her fur seemed rather tangled.
it was a lightly damp and slightly ruffled girl that arrived shyly at the sweet-smelling sweep, her murkwater eyes searching for nathaniel's familiar form. but propriety tutted; she had time, surely. and so mona fell to her quick grooming once more, turning 'round to smooth out her red plume of which she was so proud, and so naively focused nothing else in that moment mattered.