Shadewood a setting sun, or rolling waves at sea

She tried to smile and wasn't sure if the expression registered across her gaunt face, but it felt like muscles were tugged in to place and before long, when it became clear what the plan was and that the black wolf could not stay lucid for much longer, the expression felt as if it faded. No more constriction wrought across her features. When Maiira shushed her and told her to relax, the woman wanted to—very much so—and let herself slink out of the pooling light and in to the dark again, and her forelimbs were thankful for the reprieve. They were sore already; the woman did not weigh much but it was enough to cause aches and pains.

Oh.. okay, the woman sighed. Her eyes slowly closed, blinked, opened, and she could have sworn Maiira had just been standing in front of her, but the red wolf was already gone. There was no way for the weary wolf to recognize how much time had passed—or if it was passing at all, as this could have been some kind of limbo, or a punishment, something unholy built to make her suffer. The woman could not affix her mind for long on any one tangent of thoughts; she drifted through them, and eventually she did sleep, or something close to it. The woods were lovely, dark, and deep...

Something cracked between the trees—a weak branch coming loose maybe—and the sound of wooden limbs snapping and hitting the forest floor was enough to startle the lost wolf back to coherent thought; her eyelids fluttered and she inhaled a sharp breath, lifting her head.

On the air was the scent of something foul and when the wolf opened her eyes she saw—well, she wasn't sure. The dark shapes of the woods merged and twisted in to a canine shape but it was larger than Maiira had been, and darker. It moved with many limbs; eight in all if she had counted right. It skittered rather than stalked and the motions left the wolf feeling extraordinarily tense. As the creature neared its eyes opened—one, two, ten, fifteen—! Its mouth opened and words spilled out like vomit: You left me you left me youleftmeyouLEFT!

With a gag she recoils, and this time she wakes, the feeling of her forelimbs jamming against the dirt is enough to break the spell of sleep and pull her from the nightmare; and when the wolf opens her eyes this time they are wide and full of terror, but they land upon the approaching silhouette of something red between the trees.