Sleepy Fox Hollow Like a dream I can reach but not quite hold.

He took this opportunity to reach out to her, make attempt at comfort by sweeping his muzzle across the dense fur of her ruff, yet Nyx turned her face away. As soon as she'd sourced it, her glimmer of hope was gone - fleeting, daring her to dream, and her teeth gritted against the flood of emotion that followed her acknowledgement of such foolish thoughts.

Even after all this time, all this trauma, the depression that very nearly claimed her, every single effort to find herself a purpose was swept away. Nyx, having been a follower for her whole life, felt robbed of her ability to decide for herself. While Mahler presented glorious opportunity, Takiyok saw fit to rob all other of the choice to follow through.

"I don't understand," how a wolfess who let her children disperse one by one could seem herself the only one fit to whelp; how Mahler could allow such insubordination from his Beta; why must she be the one to suffer? "Would she kill the cubs not of her womb, Mahler? Children, a threat to her own? Is that what she has suggested?"