Blacktail Deer Plateau Headlights

She walked laps around the rendezvous site without end, sometimes pausing for a brief instant to gaze outward as though she might break away and run until her legs stopped moving and she was as lost as Junior was. She had never felt a temptation so strong, yet she was tethered to the plateau, and even the thought of crossing over that threshold and fleeing from it all made her heart skip a beat. She would die if she did that, and though she was still quite young, Saēna was coming to intimately understand the limitations of death.

As she made a pass around where the others were hanging out, her eyes snagged on Blue Willow, sitting some short distance away and watching her. If one or the other spoke, they would likely be heard, but the intimacy was not there. The mottled cub stopped her walk, maintaining her distance from the Alpha female and staring blankly back. It wasn't meant to be a cold expression, yet it seemed that way.

At length, she came back to the very issue that had prompted her to scream at Blue Willow the other day. “Why did you take her side,” she flatly asked, sounding much older than she really was in light of the grief and torment they had all been through lately. The emphasis was sharp and pointed, and the word tainted with a recently discovered distaste, leaving no doubt who Saēna was referring to.