Swiftcurrent Creek The Shadows you Cast over me

Bitter and vile is what his mouth tasted of. There was darkness blanketing the Teekon wilds in the shape of wolves and the color green. Etienne stared in horror at the plants he so painstakingly gathered. That such beautiful wonderful medicines could do just as much harm.

These were not the horrors that had been brought these were safe, but hadn't Etienne himself been the harbinger of death on heels of green. He sighed and stared out.

A soft bitter laugh on lips brittle with want and grief. Heda and Anselm were probably running off into the sunset together. Both selfish lovers. And Etienne bargained for their lives over and over depleting his own moral compass to help wolves that thought of him in terms of what he could do for them.

But the sad, painful truth. He'd save them over and over again. Just to give them the joy he knew he could never attain.

Projects my own self-caused agonies onto my poor characters lol

The month of October flew by – at least it felt like it would have, if wolves had any concept of what a month was.

Regardless, Pukei had spent most of the spooky season keeping to herself, battling an ear infection caused by an incident with an itchy ear, a carefully positioned q-tip stick, and an unfortunate jump-scare. Her hearing was still not quite back to normal, but at least the dizziness and fever had been beaten away with the concoction Arlette and herself had put together. She was glad now that she had put together that little secondary herb garden. Or had she jinxed herself by building it? Hm.

A creamy-coated figure up ahead pulled her from her thoughts, and she perked up, directing herself in his direction. A few new members had joined in the past couple of months, but Pukei would be lying if she said she could name even a single one. Well, it was time to change that!

She approached on light, dancing steps but paused when she got closer and saw the dour expression on his darkened face. She could practically see the stormy dark cloud hovering above him!

"Lay it on me, boss," she said via way of introduction in a tone that was half-jovial, half-concerned. "What's gotcha so down, huh?"