Sunbeam Lair You are wired for struggle

You know that fleeting moment when you lose your footing, a misstep that happens so quickly that you feel as though you might tumble to the ground? When your heart skips an uncomfortable beat, followed by the spike of adrenaline that hits you so hard that your breaths come short and ragged? A normal wolf might recover speedily from this surge of anxiety, yet Nyx felt it tenfold.

The mere scent of blood on the air was enough to make her flee and, while her intention was never to abandon the wolves who'd allowed her to make her home among them, she knew right at her core that she did not have the strength to face their sorrow. She pressed on from Diaspora territory and in no particular direction, fleet of foot and feeling oddly weightless as rugged paws carried her across the terrain for a while until the flight hormone ran dry.

When at last she crashed, Nyx couldn't rid the copper odour from her nostrils. Each inhale brought a new trigger, and the paranoia had her believing that the blood might be clinging to her pelage despite having refused to be close to Stigmata's corpse. She rolled around in the dirt as soon as the thought occurred, attempting to mask this smell so engrained in her memory, until her dense fur stood out in all directions. The earth would cover it, surely?

Gathering to shaky feet, the she-wolf huffed a breath and made to continue her venture away from the lake - until her toxic gaze settled on the figure of an unfamiliar female. She stared at her, a new discomfort visible in the anxious sweep of her peppered tail, as she waited to see whether it not the stranger would try to engage.