For the past few months, Nara had been keeping to herself most of the time. She had spent her days away from the pack and she could scarcely be found where there were others. This wasn't her usual behavior, but lately she hadn't been feeling like her usual self either. And even though her new home seemed peaceful and secluded—with big trees and a lot of secret places to discover, surely a place she could feel at home—it all felt less exciting than she had first imagined it to be. In her eyes, everything had changed to a dull, bland color.
Nara could pinpoint all this unhappiness to one day—when Wraen left. Wraen might have seen her as a good friend and a hunting buddy, but to Nara, Wraen had also been her mentor and, sometimes, her only friend. Then she left—and it stung. It still did.
To pass the time and give herself some literal space to come to terms with the decision of her friend, Nara had kept herself busy with exploring the new area for signs of animals and herds and tracking them to find out where they were hiding. It would be the perfect therapy. Or so she thought. Nothing went the way she wanted it to go. While tracking a waesel, she later found out that it wasn't a weasel at all but in fact a not-so-happy fox. Another time she scared away an entire herd of deer while tripping over a root. Yes, a root. And all that only made her realize how much Wraen could still teach her. And how much she missed her buddy.
But when Coelho died and Rannoch got badly hurt, Nara realized that she needed to put her hurt aside for the sake of the pack. The way she had been acting was selfish, and self-pity never did anyone any good.
She thought about this before curling up deeper into her den. There was a sliver of light on the horizon, and soon the sun would be out again. Nara would not go off alone tomorrow, instead she decided she'd spend her day in the Hollow.
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