Fairspell Meadow Don't tell me I'm too hard to please

Fennec had needed another break. Just a short trip away, a few days to think and to try to sort out the disaster her life had become. Towhee had tried to help before the attack, but even without that... it had only hammered home, even more, that the things Fennec wanted weren't things she was going to get to have.

Then the attack, and with it, another reminder. All she wanted was to feel important - wanted, at least, if not needed. But as much as Towhee and Phox tried, they were her parents. It was different from them, and there were things she wouldn't ask for from Killdeer. Couldn't ask for.

There were two times in recent memory she'd felt it, and those times were drifting further into the span of years. The first was the day her son was born; the second was the day Bronco had asked her to form a pack with him.

Fennec reached out a paw and played with the rough grasses in front of her. She was lying near the center of an open meadow, mostly hidden by the golden autumn growth. Maybe that was the thing that had her the most scared out of all of this. She was starting to realize that it didn't matter how hard she chased that feeling - it wasn't something that could be caught.

It had to be given.

If she didn't have it, then what did she have? It was the only thing she'd ever found that gave a relationship meaning, that was capable of convincing her what was there might be real enough to risk hoping it would last. She had none of that security in Mereo outside of her family. And she certainly had no personal relationships with any kind of permanence.

You could ask. Fennec needed answers, or at least some sort of direction. She didn't remember ever bothering to do a reading for herself before but now she was just desperate enough to be willing to try it. The worst she could get was an answer she didn't want - but she already had more than enough of those. What was one more?

What do I do now?

She listened and she waited, but for a while, nothing happened. For a moment she considered quitting - this was stupid- but she couldn't bring herself to get up. The longer she sat there, the more the thoughts came. She should be happy, but she wasn't. She had family, a son, and a place in a pack with security and with respect at the very least. Things were peaceful... safe. And she chafed at it.

Safe had never suited her. Quiet, and peace, hadn't either. She was caught in a trap of her own making and held there by the expectations of others as well as herself. All of her decisions in the last few years had been mistakes and, one by one, they'd burned her life to the ground. Fennec pressed her paw to the dirt, snapping a twig beneath it as the frustration took her. Bronco was her past. Motherhood... family. The life of a "stable caretaker". Did she even really, honestly want it? Or did she just want the feeling it gave her - that feeling of being wanted? Needed.

Fennec's head snapped around as a raven croaked nearby. It sounded as if it was joined by at least two others, clicking and krrrking at one another as they investigated her from a distance. She didn't move.

She didn't want safe. She wanted to feel alive again and like she was worth something to herself. She missed knowing all of the answers because she'd convinced herself they were simple. She missed making strangers believe and wearing different faces without the guilt of the things she was running from. She missed being in charge of her own life. She'd been strong, once.

Maybe she didn't need to leave to start over. Perhaps all it took was realizing she didn't need to ask anyone but herself for permission.

As Fennec got to her paws, the ravens took off with a combined cry. She followed at a slow run, letting them lead her wherever they would. She trusted them to know where they were going.

Heart: 9 of cups
Opposing: 6 of wands
Root cause: the tower
Past: father of pentacles
Goal: ace of pentacles
Future: heirophant
Self: the emperor
External: daughter of pentacles
Hopes/aspirations: the magician
Outcome: ace of cups