The Tangle i’m in trauma it’s got me singing-

Isleña was starting to get used to being alone, as much as she hated to admit it. It was an unwilling thing; most unwilling! The woman did not want to admit that her solitude might persist  [for even if she relented and joined another pack within which to weather these dreary winter months, she would still be alone because she would be like a body with no soul; a vein with no blood; a Luk without her family.  This was her new reality, and though it had taken her a while to reach such a conclusion, it dawned on her now all the same.

So, finally, the banshee’s priorities shifted from frantically scouring every nook and cranny of the winter-bare terrain to find her lost blood to… well, surviving. For now she survived alone, because at this point, being around other wolves just seemed superfluous. At moments, she even wanted to die. 

Eventually, Isleña decided she did not actually want to die, because life was much too fun in too many different ways to forsake so easily. This might have been the first true test to have befallen the girl, sheltered and apparently coddled from a life with a deep and expansive family, but was she not a warrior princess of the flames — fire untamed? Was Isleña not a trained assassin, skilled in the ways of subterfuge? Oh, the cocoa woman was all of these things and so much more beyond that. She would be fine, and maybe one day, the gods would reward her good sense with the return of her loved ones. In the meantime, she must persist.

The tiny woman had taken up residence in the tangle and felt quite proud of the decision. If she were going to be a grouchy old maid now, destined to always be alone, she might as well do it in a place that offered decent protection. She, herself, was small enough to weave her way through the mess of brambles with ease and she felt quite safe here. Sometimes the endless thornes even combed through the fur of her back, and it felt so eerily like the touch of her mother, that Isleña could almost fool herself that she was home.

Such a pretty picture was ruined one day, when a large white wolfess came traipsing clumsily though her home. How annoying. Isleña immediately jumped to the defenses. “Ummm,” she questioned indignantly, letting the word [one that was understood in almost any language] carry her meaning.