Jade Fern Grove everybody waddles in the duck parade.

There were tears in Eshe's eyes as she slowed to a stop near the edge of the grove--tears that had no right to be there. She'd known it was a long shot that Breccan would be at the Hollow. She'd known he had left their family to find his own path, which would logically suggest he hadn't intended to return to one he'd trodden already. Still, that moment she'd accepted that none of the scents near Lost Creek Hollow were his had been terrible. She'd never felt so scared before. So hopeless. So (ironically) lost.

She had fled. It was stupid to do so. She could've approached the pack and asked about him. She had smelled Tiarnach there. But Eshe hadn't wanted to embarrass herself with how hard she was taking it. Her mother had been so against this whole expedition--so negative, so... So right.

The young Frostfur crumpled into the ferns. Like herself, their edges were rimmed with white from the early morning chill. It would've been surprising to find them still so alive like this had she been less wrapped up in her own misery, but y'know, semi-realism.