Orin was sheltered away within the protective, safe walls of her bookstore. She had hardly gone anywhere else in the last week, but at least she had removed the shelves and chairs that she used to block herself in the store. No one had known she actually blocked herself in, except perhaps Sky or Bangle who may have heard the ruckus she made when she first did it, but had anyone actually discovered it they still probably could have forced their way into the bookstore. The only person who probably would do that was Shawchert, but he was her alpha, and had he shown up there and demanded that she open up, she would have.
But... he never showed up...
Not until a few days after the fight when he arrived to demand her presence at a nearby place, another building close to her store in Thornbury. That was the insufferable day when Shawchert bestowed the punishment on both her and Sky for their fight. The punishment that had been quite poorly weighed in Orin's mind. She had not wanted to come out before that, and she certainly did not want to be seen after that day. Shawchert had lashed her arm to Sky's and forced the women to work together. The task probably would not have been so hard had Orin not felt like it was so unfair. He was weighing her crime as heavily as he weighed Sky's, but it seemed like it should be plainly obvious to anyone that Sky had committed a far graver offense than she had.
On top of it all, Orin felt like crap lately. Not only had she spiraled down into a pit of depression that she did not understand, and that was so uncharacteristic of her, but her body felt like it had changed too. Her appetite was all wrong. She would be hungry right after she ate, and when she was ready to eat she would get nauseous. She was tired, lethargic, and was even having a hard time concentrating on her books. Sleep was difficult, though she did not know if that was because of her body, or because her brain just would not turn off.
Today she was secreted away up in the upper level of her bookstore, in the small office that she had converted into her bedroom. She had a formidable pile of pelts and blankets on the old cot that served as her bed and was nested up inside them. The shutters were half drawn and she pretended to read in the dim light, though she read the same page over and over because it was just not sinking in. She was just about to toss the book aside and try to nap when she heard the voice.
Her ears twitched, her back straightened, and she held her breath to listen. There it was again, a faint voice calling for her. Someone was at the door? But, it was unlocked... At least the downstairs level was. They could enter if they chose to. Maybe they didn't know.
Orin wondered who was downstairs as she stood up, keeping one of the blankets wrapped around her. The wrap was more for comfort than for warmth, for she did not feel cold at all. If anything, she felt like she was running a bit hot today.
The voice was familiar, she knew that she would place the face if only she could hear it clearer. She moved to her window and opened the shutters and leaned over the sill, peering into the Thornbury square. A dark, four-legged figure moved there, walking a few feet away from her door. She recognized the wolf immediately.
“Sankara, I'm up here!” She called down to her pack mate. “I'll be right there.”
With that, she disappeared back into her room and made short work of descending the stairs. She reached the front door and opened it, smiling weakly yet happily at her visitor. “Pjila'si!” She said, using the foreign word taught to her by her grizzly friend, Malachi. Sankara likely did not know what it meant unless she knew the rare Mi'kmaq language, but Orin was offering her friend to enter and make herself at home.