Firefly Glen Wouldn't you think by now I'd be ready?

The canyon has been there. Fennec’s relief was indescribable. She finally knew where she was and, more importantly, she knew where @Killdeer was too. No matter what came next, she knew what her first stop had to be.

She pushed herself hard to get there. Lack of both food and sleep were taking their toll, but she moved with the dogged determination of someone whose end goal was finally within reach. Just a few more steps. Just a few more steps.

She nearly made it. She’d left the canyon and the mountains behind, and reached a familiar Glen, before she had to stop. Well, shit. She needed to sit down a moment. Then she’d hit the border and finally be done.

Her last thought was that she could probably call, bring someone to her, but she’d barely lifted her head to do so before the entire world tilted alarmingly beneath her feet. Distantly she tried to catch herself, but before she could, there was nothing left to catch. She didn’t know if the call got out and was left sprawled in the middle of the Glen, her body finally having had enough and forcing her into submission.

gonna let whoever finds her decide if her call was successful or not! She’ll wake up on her own eventually if not, but it felt pretty in character that she’d stubbornly run herself into the ground first, lol. All welcome!

November weather was not known for its kindiness and, even though it graced the earth-dwellers with a day and a half of sunlight, it immediately decided that colors did not belong to the season of greys and browns and every shade inbetween. There were days, when the blanket of rain-ladden clouds was so thick, that you could barely tell the difference between dawn, daytime and dusk. Sometimes, when Dwin stopped to look at the sky, she had a feeling that the time stood still. It rained often, sometimes she would wake up to find frost or a thin layer of snow that would melt right away again. 

Her grayscale coat now melted perfectly with the surroundings, making it easier to sneak up on unsuspecting prey, should the conditions be favourable. At other times, however, she would have to rely on her hearing alone and spend many hours listening and pouncing at the mice and other small rodents scurrying beneath the old-yellowing grass. This was, why Dwin happened to be in the glen and why instead of her usual small gains, fate offered her something bigger and wolf-like. From a distance it looked like a pile of dirty fur and from up close it did not look much better. Before she leaned down to sniff the crumpled body, she was pretty sure that the wolf had recently deceased. Where it not for the warmth she felt and the slight heaving of the sides, indicating that the corpse was still breathing, she would have turned and left the Jane Doe to rot away. 

Now, however, that simple course of "ignore and pretend it never happened" was cut short and she felt the weight of the responsibility for this unconscious body. Though there were packs in the vicinity, none were so close that she could leave the person and return quickly enough to find them there and still alive. Instead she raked for any bits of knowledge her healer-father had instilled in her and she finally decided to try and wake the other up. Therefore she came closer and begin to push and prod the stranger's neck and shoulder in an attempt to wake them. 

Get up.

She couldn’t catch a break, it seemed. Never mind that whoever it was might be trying to help her. She was exhausted and the slow realization that something was shoving at you was a pretty abrupt wake up call.

Fennec’s instinctual response was to aim a snap at whoever was doing it. Fortunately for both of them she was still out of it and the lunge was a sluggish, awkward thing that didn’t come close to hitting the mark.

Still, she growled threateningly, showing her teeth despite not pushing herself off the ground. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to find her to be easy prey. Her guess was some kind of scavenger, but she couldn’t immediately tell.

There goes my lunch... Dwin thought to herself, when she heard a growl emanating from the otherwise pretty unconscious person. She was mindful to take notice of this, retreated a little and leaned down to have a closer look at the face of the lady in hopes that her eyes would open or she would show any signs of waking up. Simultaneously on the opposite shoulder, from where her angel was sitting, the devil raised its ugly snout and asked, why did she care and what was she going to do about the wolf, when it woke up?

All valid questions, since lone wolves were responsible for their own safety and lives in general. But she could not help, but think, how disappointed her parents would be, if they found out that Dwin had left a person in a helpless state. Not that they would ever know, but somehow, if her conscience was visualized, it would look exactly like two of them. Darn, my good heart," Dwin sighed and approached the girl again to continue to nudge her, until she finally woke up. 

She was sinking back under when whatever it was, persistent bugger, started prodding her again. This time she snapped awake, opening her eyes despite seeing nothing from them.

She lunged to her feet, her teeth flashing as she tried to take a bite at her assumed scavenger. She made it barely a step before she stumbled and fell, though, collapsing again with an annoyed hiss. She needed real rest before she could actually do anything, not whatever this had been.

Touch me again and you’re done. She growled, her ears flicking to try and tell where her assumed attacker was. Just because she wasn’t in fighting shape didn’t mean she couldn’t fight anyway.

What is life without some adrenaline rush... Dwin thought, when she had barely avoided being bitten by the very grumpy Enchanted Princess. "Yeah, you would not make a good meal for me. You are too scrawny," she remarked, circling around the lady, who had risen quickly and face-planted just as gracefull right after. 

"Believe me - I don't give a damn about you, but I would hate to see someone more sinister than me actually try to take a bite of you," she explained. "Unless you have lied down here to die and perish - that's your choice and I won't interfere. But if you wish to see another day, I suggest you drag yourself out of and away from the open," she told.

"Because right now you are an open invitation for dinner to any scavanger in the vicinity," she finished. 

Shit. She wasn’t wrong. Fennec had known that she should have taken a break the moment she’d left the last mountain range, but she’d been too eager to get where she was going now that the goal was (metaphorically) in sight. Instead she’d screwed herself over and now a wolf barely her kid’s age, from the sound of it, was giving her a lecture.

She struggled into a sitting position, her muscles protesting even that much. At least she only needed to make it to the base of the Moonspear. Once she was there she could find either shelter or someone to help her up into the claim.

Except… what time was it? And which way was the mountain now? She’d been heading the right direction before, but any sense of time or former bearing was lost when she’d passed out. Absolutely fantastic. Just point me in the direction of Moonspear, alright? I’ll figure it out from there. That’s all the farther I need to make it.

"Spot on," Dwin remarked on the lady's concise evaluation of the whole situation she was in. The young Blackthorn knew for certain that she did not want to be in the other's place, because she really looked ragged. And could barely keep herself upright. 

"Well, it is there," she beckoned to her right, without moving from her position. "Are you sure, you are going to get there? Cause - forgive my bluntness - but currently a dead slug has more odds of making there than you," she added, knowing full well that her comments were pretty useless. On the other hand - another key thing she had memorised from daddy's healer 101 was that you should never trust the judgement of an injured or incapacitated person.  She was not too sure about the former, but the stranger was an embodiment of the latter.