Raven's Watch illuktuk

Kigipigak nodded, but she was still. Her excitement from mere minutes ago had been leeched from her body. Stjornuati left behind a cold, chained creature that had no business being on such a short leash. She knew that this discovery had given him reason never to trust her again. She knew that there was no longer hope of de-throning him in the quiet, calculated way that she had planned for. Where before the wheels in her mind had been turning to find the next phase of their plan, now the cogs were stopped, left to sit and rust. She couldn't think. She couldn't feel.
Now what?
The fires in her heart turned instead to embers. She stood there in silence for some time, chest heaving visibly, staring at the dirt. She moved away from Kigipigak, her footsteps soft, broken, like the ash from the remnants of a blaze. She could not bring herself to look at him, for where once stood a powerful leader, now there was a girl.
Slowly, she wandered on wobbling, toddler steps to the base of a tree. She lay down, curling her red tail in front of her face. The girl became a ball. She would not move from there for many hours.