Firefly Glen I wish you well, but desire never leaves

purposefully vague! To work around joining things

It was late afternoon as Fennec broke away and walked the familiar path leading to the old den. The sound of a waterfall rushed past, drowning out most of the surrounding noise, but no scents were apparent to have claimed or visited this place recently. It seemed to be as vacant as she’d left it.

Most of this place was the same, really. Fennec stood at the entrance a moment, breathing in the stale earth, before heaving a slight sigh and sitting down. Her ears flicked, but she likely wouldn’t hear anyone approaching anyway.

The place was the same but everyone in it was gone. Meerkat hated her; for the first time, she wondered if her sister had known all along. For all Fennec knew, Bronco had painted her as the wife he couldn’t love but who forced him into staying with her regardless. Maybe that was why she refused to ever acknowledge her. Bronco was gone, dead to her as anyone could be. And the rest of them were either scattered or actually dead. For most she barely remembered their names. Pretty shitty of her, actually; no wonder they hadn’t wanted her back.

Fennec’s ears flattened and she turned, curling up in the entrance with her muzzle facing out towards the ledge. This would have been a stupid spot for kids anyway; the mist in the air was refreshing, but the sheer drop off that ended in a pool and, most likely, a river wasn’t anything to even bring a family near. This den really had been a stupid idea from the start.

The start, and now the culmination, of a series of failures. Every single one felt worse than the last.

And now Penn had to show up, confessing feelings. Feelings she had definitely returned on more than a few occasions, but feelings she didn’t know she could trust him with now. Still; how long would he stick around, if she didn’t? She fucking hated that she cared. But she didn’t know, and the idea that he’d get tired of waiting both scared the fuck out of her and satisfied her feelings that inevitably this shit was going to end badly.

She couldn’t avoid it forever. Fennec wasn’t worried about being honest. She just didn’t know how she was going to trust anything he promised or said. What was the point, until she figured that out?