read only pls...
That night had been the longest of Finley's life. Even the night she had lost her child seemed like the blink of an eye compared to this. After she'd left Elwood, the beta - or former beta, as the Caldera would realize in the morning - had hastened to escape beyond the borders. It seemed like hours before she finally stopped running, and though her tears had fallen every step of the way, she broke into even harder sobs when she collapsed finally. She lied upon the wide plains that swept out from the Caldera for miles, not caring that she was completely exposed, exhausted, starving and weak. The gods were welcome to take her - encouraged to, actually. Fin didn't care anymore. There was nothing left to care about.
When Fin awoke, the world was covered in that ethereal glow that precedes the dawn. The Blackthorn lifted her head to stare out across the plains, not realizing until now that she had realigned her position during the night to face the little lump on the horizon that she knew was the Caldera. For a while, she did nothing but stare in silence. The grief in her heart felt almost numb, but it was not due to any new immunity to it but more because she didn't feel as though she was even truly real. It was as though the entire past month had been a dream - a nightmare, really - that she simply hadn't woke up from yet. Or perhaps it was the rest of her life that had been the dream and the misery she awoke to was the reality that Hawkin had always predicted for her.
Whatever the case, be it dream or awakening, Finley knew that it was time to move on. She pulled herself slowly onto all fours and turned away from the Caldera. Though she'd left them, she knew that she still had friends she could turn to - the Plateau for one would certainly welcome her with open arms. Or perhaps the Spine whose female alpha she'd gotten along with so very well (of course, she didn't realize that Cara had gone now). Hell, she could travel all the way up North and join the family of that imaginative bear fighter that lived along the ocean shores.
But in the end, Finley chose none of these things. Instead, she turned her paws South and began to move - away from the Caldera, away from the Plateau. Away the wole of the Wilds where she knew that no one would ever find her and maybe.. just maybe... she could find a new life, and it would be one that she both dreamed of and to which she felt truly happy to awaken.
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