Blackfeather Woods sometimes it seems to me as if i'm just being used

northwestern edge of the forest, by the creek. AW but looking for an @Aries -- all other tags are for reference. weather is cool and foggy

@Euron darted in and out of the woods, his angular, mocking face in focus one moment, disappearing into shadow the next. His pelt of silvers and grays, whites and blacks, shimmering in some light she couldn't see, yet they were both steeped in darkness, trapped in an endless forest, she in pursuit, he the pursued. . .or was it the other way around?

His laughter chilled her spine, sent every hair of her pelt prickling as it echoed back through the trees. His tail in front of her, just out of reach. Blood around his muzzle. A bloody pawprint on his shoulder, dripping as if he himself were wounded, rather than just marked.

Tee hee, tee hee, she heard him giggle, and he disappeared. For a moment. Then, without warning, he reappeared in front of her, facing her, bicolored eyes flashing with something she couldn't place. Grinning down on her, his face looking more like a skull than something living. And it transformed into a skull, quite suddenly, spiders crawling out of the sockets of his eyes and nostrils and mouth.

She shrieked, and felt teeth on her neck. And Euron's voice, crooning as gently into her ear as if it had been one of Potema's lullabies, if she'd ever sang them any.

I will never. . .come back. . .to. . .you.

Her body convulsed, and she awoke, groggy and dazed and shuddering uncontrollably in the silent darkness of Blackfeather Woods.

Maegi knew something had changed, and her suspicions were further confirmed when she rose to her feet and found that the tightness around her throat, the weight upon her spine, had disappeared. She rose a tentative forepaw to her neck and gasped as her pad found pelt rather than the cold, hard yoke she'd endured for a moon, now.

The girl had fallen asleep--how curious, as she didn't remember falling asleep, really--by the creek, and she dipped her muzzle to the surface of the water, taking long, thirsty swallows. Tiny drops dribbled from her chin as she raised her head again, blearily surveying her surroundings. Why was she here? She spent most of her time by the Temple or the poison tree; this part of the forest was as unfamiliar to her as if she'd been dropped into some faraway territory.

She stumbled up the bank of the stream, meandering through the Woods and hoping to find familiar landmarks, or at least find another living soul. Blackfeather was quite empty these days, with wolves leaving or dying or being kidnapped and all that, and oftentimes Maegi found it was like living alone, rather than with a pack.

Even her collar had been some company to her in this time of great solitude. Now she didn't even have that.