Blackfoot Forest in the springtime of the year

Hey! I’m assuming it’s day, but if not, just gimme a shout and I can edit this very easily. (:

The ambivalence of feeling which family caused was a familiar feeling to Hiraeth. Despite how her parents’ wariness of her, despite their distancing and their calm “request” for her to strike out on her own, she had loved them, and now she found herself missing them every once in a while. What a strange, sickening feeling. Yet, it was not so bad as the wound which her brother’s death had inflicted upon her. He had been the only one to stand up for her in her entire life, and now he was dead—but not gone. No, that was the strangest bit of it; even now she could feel his presence. It was that familiar feeling you have when you are truly close to someone, like when you knew that they were at your shoulder without even turning to see. His spirit clung to her like a cobweb she had stepped through, and she had never once tried to shrug it off. It was a comfort. She might not be able to speak with him, or huddle together for warmth in the colder months, but at least she never felt alone.

Hiraeth had slept last night in Blackfoot Forest. It had probably not been the best of ideas; strange calls (of foxes, though that particular detail escaped her ken) had kept her frightened and jumpy before exhaustion had claimed her. She had never been truly frightened, however; it was hard to fear spirits and things she didn’t completely comprehend when she had been living with the same for her entire life. She had experienced spirits who had truly frightened her, and these were not the same.

She remained where she had slept well into the day. She was still tired—her muscles ached, and the weariness seeped into her mind as well. She might’ve remained there for even longer if the whisper of words—real, physical words from an actual other living wolf—reached her ears. They swiveled, picking up the other female some distance away before her eyes could detect her: another female, she would guess around her own age. She did not feel threatened by her, and Hiraeth based a good deal of her judgments on intuition and feelings.

What should she do? Her social etiquette had been, since her departure from Pacific Rim, nearly completely unused. She stood from where she rested, hesitated, words dying on the back of her throat. She made the snap decision to vocalize them regardless, but they came out as a, “H-Hello?” which was scarcely louder than talking tone. Should she be heard, she might not feel so foolish, but otherwise she might just retreat to where she had been before.