Stone Circle i'm so much older than i can take

 @Valette  

Red had been gone from Teekon for… what was it? A year now? Had it really been that long? As she traveled back towards a place she had almost forgotten how to get to, she thought of all that had happened. And what hadn’t happened. She hadn’t found Clary. How was she going to tell Valette? And would Valette even believe her? How did she know Valette wouldn’t think that she had simply abandoned Easthollow? After all, she hadn’t even said anything before she’d left, too worried about Clary to let anyone know that she was leaving to go find her. But… she had failed that quest. 

Red sighed as she came to the edge of the territory. She had not seen the Easthollow wolves in so long that none of the scents were familiar. She couldn’t have picked out Valette’s if she had tried, and she could hardly recall what the woman looked like. Yet Clary’s smiling, bouncing, happy face was engrained into her memory as if it had been branded to her brain. The girl who was, Red presumed, dead. That or Red desperately needed her nose checked, for she had never failed so horribly to locate someone before. She took a deep breath, aware that Valette might not accept her back and willing to move on if that were the case. Red, herself, gave everyone too many chances, but she understood that not everyone was as willing as she was to forgive.

She took another deep breath for courage, tipped back her head, and howled.