Blackfoot Forest Step by Step

<3

She planned their goodbye to be clean and quick. Leave it to Sebastian to pull a fast one. Andalusia barely had time to flinch before he attacked her with the sloppiest kiss she'd ever been dealt, and she jerked away just as he pulled back himself.

"You - !" She ducked her head to rub his slobber from the other side of her face and turned her head to glare upward through her dry eye. "Got a funny way of thanking a woman."

He'd already started moving away by the time she could look through both eyes again, and she let his words sound on the morning air. His sentiment was sweet, but she doubted she would come this way again. Not that she wouldn't like to see what became of the boy, or if her labour to bring him back in one piece would even prove fruitful. Her travels with him had simply shed light on a different directive. If Mordecai hadn't been wiped out in the fire, she still had family here. Sebastian had managed to forge ties with a pack foreign to him, but as long as wolves with shared blood walked the wilds, her loyalties ran with them.

"Don't do anything stupid," she called after his retreating form. Andalusia watched him a heartbeat more, before she shook her head and turned to strike a path away from the Caldera. With her task complete, the pull of weariness seized her mind and the morning light did nothing to wake her. She gaped her mouth in a large yawn and shook herself again. She would find her way north later. For now, she simply wanted to find a place to sleep.