Redhawk Caldera Overture: JCS

She collapsed against him, and in feeling the rigidity of his posture, she felt horribly soft and vulnerable, like a feather leaning, bending against a cold stone. Through her sobs she wished she could beg him to bend, to soften like a wax candle in warm hands and embrace her, but she couldn't manage the words. The closeness she craved was something driven by the grief which had settled in around her heart like water pooling around a stone, only to freeze at winter's touch. But when the sun had risen that morning, cruel instinct and nature had begun to creep in, and coerced her to cling to him now not only out of sorrow, but in need. 

But how she wished she could hold her little son again, to have him lay against her side and tell her stories. She had taken them for granted; she'd taken all of her children for granted. She couldn't do this again.

She paid no mind to the rabbit he had brought with him, for the hunger she felt came from somewhere much deeper inside of her, and its ravenous demands hurt more than the worst hunger pangs she had ever felt. While her heart was frozen, she burned nonetheless. She began to preen the fur of his shoulder, sinking her teeth through his fur to comb through the ash-flecked guard hairs, pulling again and again in an attempt to draw him nearer.