Haunted Wood be strong sweet little one

hoping for a 1:1 thread for ves and @Blueberry!

assuming at this point, they are members of the caldera; but keeping it vague in case the thread does a 180.

her (perhaps unwarranted) loyalty to mou and maegi was rewarded with some trust in her, at least— as she entered adolescence and independence became more important to her, the adults allowed her freedom to roam nearby territories without supervision. they were only a howl away, and despite everything, they knew she would return. and so, ever the dutiful daughter, she informed them that she was going out and she'd be back before dark.

exasperated sigh. roll of the eyes.

the only downside of not being in the midst of a fucked up situation, surrounded by fucked up family, was that she had the space to really think about it. vesper dealt with her aggression through hunting small prey and picking fights with smaller creatures she knew she could ultimately take, but that could also rough her up a little bit. it felt cathartic, in a way, to release her pain on something else that was alive. and to feel pain on the outside instead of deep on the inside where it made no sense.

now, she lay under the canopy of the haunted wood, licking blood from a small scrape on her muzzle. a tussle with a wolverine gone awry, both of them deciding a fight to the death wasn't worth the energy, and vesper thought it likely the creature was licking wounds of its own. but she hadn't wanted sustenance, only for the tension in her body to be released, and so she had gotten what she had been after.

she would feel the bruises tomorrow.