The Heartwood the time is near. be warned.

Her energies were higher than normal, as was her aggression; she knew what this precluded by now, but had no interest in expending her aggression upon her subordinates. They had all been enforced out of their heat but for Alya, who had yet to request her own cubs (did she wish for them still?), and so went for a quick jaunt beyond the borders. She did not expect to be long. 

Backturned ears caught the sound of Desdemona, who had taken to being nearer to her as of late. No doubt she noted the change as she endured the immediate effects of her preestrus as surely as any other did. Hydra was testier than normal as of late, and still she did not turn her fang toward Desdemona. There was no reason to; Hydra had long since established her authority among the females in her hierarchy. 

A scent on the wind, then. Familiar. Too familiar. 

For the Queen whose peripherals were already dotted and blurred with red, it was enough to push her just beyond the edge. It was not her own voice that spoke—in fact, Hydra hardly recognized that she spoke at all—as she rumbled: how dare she return? pausing for a moment before pressing on, ears forward and hackles blown: the wretch who hurt my mother—I told her to never return, told her I would kill her for it. 

Speedy. Hydra smelled Speedy on the wind. Her keen nose had picked it up, and she was none too far from Soleil for that to be possible; in fact, as she rounded the tree, Hydra spotted her just there. Hydra did not notice the difference in their fur patterns, blotted out by the shadows and by 

red, nothing but red for this woman who had ripped from her, her family, her parents—her childrens grandparents—everything. The void left behind by it could be felt then, but it could be filled. It could be filled with the blood of the bitch to blame. Then, then there would no longer be that emptiness. 

Hydra surged forward, as silent and sudden as death often was with nothing but the gleam of her fangs to be seen beyond the pitch black of her. 

Speedy had killed her; and now, Speedy would die.