follow my feet [hawkeye]

1
the monster in me

If there was one constant in the short lives of wolves, it was that they were beasts of burden. Weighted by their instincts to rule and kill, Ridley had never known a wolf that wasn’t as driven to succeed as any other. They all had an insatiable desire to be the best so that they could reap the riches of what it meant to be number one. It’s inescapable; to fight instinct was to fight the very flow of blood in their veins. She presumed that was how she ended up where she was, which was not entirely a familiar place. Her predicament of a summer full hollow stomachs and the constant plague of a skinny body had driven her to the edge, with only instinct left to guide her.

She had handled tough summers before, but with her most recent one, the elk had seemed almost immortally strong. They had gone unfazed by her attempts to bring one down for a good meal and as such, Ridley had gone hungry for a majority of the long, hot season. With the deterioration of her physique as the weeks dragged on, she realized that winter would be the end of her if she did not find some sort of alliance to help her. This involved leaving her solitary life for one of coexistence, the life her father had always wanted her to have. To be part of a pack was a blessing, but also a curse. Ridley hoped to find a group that would ease the constant struggle of survival, but ultimately feared that her father would be right about her.

While alone, she had no such taste for power or glory. A loner's life was hardly one for such things. But, if confronted with the temptation of a pack's hierarchy (which any group would undoubtedly have), she feared the idea of moving up in ranking would act like a poison to her mind. If she loved power half as much as her father did or half as much as he wanted her to love it, it would prove disastrous.

Even so, Ridley was faced with little choice. She was starving, dying, on her own. If joining a pack meant facing the temptation of power and high rank, but also meant saving her own skin, she'd do it. When times were difficult, Ridley was not so proud as to deny help, if she could find it. She'd headed into the unknown territories of the Teekon Wilds in search of a pack that might be willing to take her in. While she did not look particularly healthy, nor very useful, Ridley hoped her persuasive tongue might be able to convince a pair of ears if need be. Even so, she hoped whoever she found that was willing to take her in would understand that it was simply a bout of bad luck that had wrecked her health. She was not inept; it had just been a good summer for the elk.