Blacktail Deer Plateau Headlights

For a short time, the Redleaf-DiSarinno youth had gone through a few of the stages of grief. Denial had come first, and then rage—she remembered with some humiliation the way she had freaked out at Blue and Ty—and then something resembling delirium. The youth had imagined so clearly that Junior was beside her, a friend of her imagination, that for a time she lost her grip on the real world.

That, too, had passed. No longer did Saēna imagine Junior. She had been forced by the passage of time to accept that the Alpha pup was no longer alive, and would never be returning to the Plateau. She hadn't made amends with Blue Willow yet and, despite herself, she was frightened of Tytonidae's spacey attitude about things. Even though she was old enough now to know right from wrong and to feel guilt for her actions, Saēna continued avoiding them.

She avoided others as well. She avoided the rendezvous site fervently, and therefore managed to keep away from Pura and Peregrine and Hawkeye. Any who came across her often looked at her with pity, but she didn't notice it. She often left their presences immediately, and went into hiding again.

Today, with rain pelting the plateau relentlessly, was one of the first days Saēna ventured out. She was lonely in her subconscious, whether or not she herself admitted it, and needed the company and comfort of her family and her peers. She paced around the edge of the rendezvous site, a picture of grace, for despite her youth, she was already beginning to very closely resemble her deceased mother.