Felltree Marsh You dream the dream that I do.

A novel for u <3

After his encounter with the kinda mean, auburn-haired woman and the subsequent run in with a murky-eyed boy who had mocked him, Lucca had fled Rusalka, the final straw being the incident where a cougar had decided to infiltrate the territory. The rest of the pack had taken care of it while the Blackthorn coward bolted.

He hoped his skedaddling out of there would go completely unnoticed. He knew that they knew that he wouldn't stay for long, that it had only been for the winter. He had made a promise to their leader (who unbeknownst to the boy, no longer led the pack), and guilt and fear alike about it gnawed at his conscience. But it was fine. This was fine. He would just avoid the coast from now on.

Because you didn't have to confront your problems if you just never faced them, right?

Unfortunately leaving the safety of a pack (even one as tumultuous as Rusalka) at the height of winter was not exactly an award-winning idea. Somehow, amazingly, he had come out the other side only slightly worse for wear. He wore the signs of a struggling loner through his matted coat and aching paws, but his health was really no more terrible than it had been when he initially joined the coastal pack. Maybe just a little hungrier and sadder than before.

Speaking of, the boy only realised his wanderings had taken him in a giant, aimless loop when he started to recognise familiar surroundings, having come back through the Tangle after his journey up north. He would have thrown back his head in a cry of utter defeat — how could someone travel for two months only to end up in the same place as they started? — but his would-be lamentation was silenced before it had even begun by the sound of a distant splash.

Lucca's downcast gaze swept upwards, trailing a heron who had taken to the air after claiming its meal. He watched it for a moment, wishing idly that he had wings, before he looked to the waterlogged ground again, only then noticing he was not alone. A patchwork woman was in the distance, seemingly bored with the landscape and beginning to move onwards. To where, Lucca of course had no idea, but she was the only other he had seen in weeks. His paws seemed to move on their own accord as he waded as quickly as he could through the marshy waters towards the stranger. "H-hey, wait up!" he called breathlessly.