Totoka River sneak

The killing part was easy enough. The girl stood triumphant over a slain beaver she'd tracked overnight, face and neck dripping blood where its teeth had caught her in the struggle. The sting of it was grounding, almost welcome — because the next part was the hard part.

The way she saw it, she had a choice to make. Eat the beaver, chase a ghost, wear her solitude like a shield. Or...

She'd already dragged the beaver halfway to the river by the time she stopped to really think about it. Was this what moving on was like? She'd supposed it would feel like a battle won, but there was only cold resignation in her bones. The rest of the trip passed in a blur. She left a trail of beaver fur in her wake.

She could do both, she'd reasoned by the time Hokulani's scent materialized around her. She dropped the beaver and called out, pacing in tight possessive circles around the kill. She could do both. Chase her ghost and... whatever this was. Her hackles twitched and bristled faintly with barely-contained anticipation.