The Tangle that wasn't very cash money of you

She’d spent enough time out of Drageda and had to get back. After several days of searching, and no sign of Saarthal, she decides to give up. She hates it. She doesn’t want to be a quitter, but her priorities are different. She can’t search for one wolf the rest of her life. It seems she doesn’t want to be found and she has to accept that, like Varinril. So, Mallaidh makes her return a failure.
 
When she gets to the tangle, she does not go around it and works her way inside. The one place she hadn’t looked. It’s going to be an empty gesture but shed spent time with her here, once, and so she makes her way through the difficult tangle and a familiar path until she finds one of the few clearings and sits down, taking a deep breath for any trace left. Not even the scents remained from the last time they were here, so she sighs and lowers all the way to the ground and takes a little while to herself.

the lost dragon's journey is long and perilous. successful hunts have been far and few in-between and wounds treated with salves and pastes from the stranger whom he'd allowed to treat him on borrowed but not extended trust aside the his haggard form puts on display that he's suffered. he's slimmer than he should be; eyes haunted. fear, pain that quickly translate to aggression and hostility. he feels it bubble and burn like lava seething beneath the surface of a volcano as he becomes aware that he's not alone. he dines on a corpse — a few days old, the meat hard and partially frozen. meat is meat and beggars cannot be choosers. he thinks he's close to drageda now, but he's exhausted and it weighs heavily upon him so there is nothing but never-ending uncertainty.

his hackles bristle and he noses through the partially frozen corpse before deducing that he's polished off what is good. the scent has been wafting towards him but even with ears perked he's heard no sign of approach. it would be easy to avoid the other all together. there is enough distance, enough of labyrinth between them that he could slip away unnoticed. but he yearns for home and he catches drageda's scent. there is a familiarity there, he thinks, but he cannot outright place it.

home, home, home...; it is home that forces his long legs forward, towards the scent that grows stronger with each harsh breath he takes. he's seen her. in passing. maybe. he thinks. he isn't sure. he doesn't know her, though, and despite that he desires to sink into the comfort of scents he does know that cling to her pelt he tenses and lets out a choked noise at war with himself again.

---

295 words

Mallaidh is quiet for a long moment, trying to muster up whatever energy she has left to go home and throw in the towel. Saarthal is gone, without a trace, and she has to accept that. Like Varinril. All the girls to make promises to her have vanished and she doesn’t know why it hurts so much.
 
Another scent eventually wafts in her direction and one ear twitches, listening to the noise of the forest, and slowly turning her head to look around. It isn’t until the strangled sound comes that she locates the exact location and she shifts her weight, making to stand and turn at the same time to stand face to face with someone that should look like her Étoille. Even one of the wounds bears similar to her… father? She misses him and it hurts to look at the boy, turning away to gather herself.
 
It is not the actual wounds, as painful as they look, do not caught her to turn and she clears her head and looks back to young wolf. “I’m sorry, you look like someone I know.” Mallaidh swallows the lump and steels herself, shifting her initial strain into something productive. “Do you need help?”

It doesn’t take much to figure out Silkie is part of Drageda and that he’s been missing but it does take time to coax him to follow, taking him back with her.