Redhawk Caldera If the whole wide world stops spinning

You don't understand.  Maia had never felt so tempted to yell at him before, not out of anger, but simply because how couldn't he see it?  She was useless.  She wasn't brave because brave wolves didn't run.  Brave wolves stuck around and made sure no one else got hurt because of them.  What if she'd led him here and something happened to Eljay because she was too weak to do what needed to be done?  What if something happened to Weejay now, or one of the other younger kids?  There were too many what if's to name.

It didn't feel good at all to put all of these feelings into words, but now that the floodgates were down, Maia couldn't stop.  She shook her head and stood up, taking a step away from him.  I wasn't brave.  'This' is all of it.  I'd love to be a wolf who can protect the things I care about, like the ones who I tell stories about, but I'm not.  I'm nothing like them, I never will be like them, and I need to stop kidding myself.  She would never stop telling the stories, but she'd always remember that they were just that; stories.  She had no part in them.  Girls like me don't deserve to have stories told about them.  I guess that's okay, since not everyone can.  Her tone belied the words though; it was obviously not okay in the least.

Sorry I'm such a drag.  She added finally, with a ghost of a smile and trying to inject some amount of cheer into the words.  She'd hit her max on honesty for the day, and now was scrambling to pull together some semblance of the facade she usually wore.  Her energy for it was on critical low but that didn't mean she couldn't fire up the generator and get something working.

WC: 311