Bearclaw Valley institutionalized

Her prize was little more than a weeping skeleton. Day in and day out he wept and mourned for the life she'd ripped him away from. There was nothing satisfying about having a captive who did nothing but pine. She didn't have the wit to brainwash him, or play mental games with him, and it frustrated her. 

Occasionally, when she left to hunt or patrol, she hoped she might catch him trying to escape just so that she could drag him back and assert control. But she was disappointed every time; he was nothing more than a marionette whose strings had been cut. 

She didn't sleep directly beside him, but close enough still to stand guard over him. Her ears pricked when she heard a soft, scuffling sound, followed by gurgling screams, so guttural in nature she thought for sure someone had snuck past her to strangle him. 

She was snarling before she even scrambled to her feet and lunged through a dry bush to see him there- quiet now, startled, but unharmed. She skidded to a halt, and snapped her head this way and that to see whose throat she had to rip out for touching her captive. There was no one.

She blinked as her fierce gaze settled back on him. The fur along one side of his face was still flattened from how he'd been sleeping. This wasn't the first time she'd heard his screams- but she was never going to get used to it. There was nothing pretended about the terror in his voice when he cried out. Each and every time he screamed like someone whose life was about to end. 

He looked more lucid, now, than he had in some time. She fumed, but silently, and drew in a slow breath. "Nightmares again, Li'l Man?" She asked. "Yer never goin' get h'any taller if ye keep 'avin' them nightmares y'know," She stated, matter-of-fact, as she sat down. "Nightmares make ya short."