She had finally admitted defeat in her search for Grace. She didn’t know where her sister had gone or why, but it had been over a month and she had to accept the fact that the girl was missing. Had someone come into the lands and lured her out? Had she gone on an adventure and gotten hurt? Addison wasn’t sure. She had grown used to the company of her sibling over the months that Grace had lived with her, grown accustomed to seeing the vibrant pup and interacting with her. She had never been one for pups, never one to fawn over them or squeal on and on about their cuteness and little puppy-ness. But she’d actually begun to like Grace.
Her sister’s disappearance only reinforced her loner attitude. She shouldn’t have allowed herself to grow so close to her sister or to anyone at all. She felt stupid for having let her in the way that she had, only to be hurt when the girl disappeared. Grace was too much like Addison for her own good, perhaps. The cinnamon-hued female had always been rather flighty, never staying in one place for too long. She had left her mother and father in New Brunswick to travel to Phoenix Valley and had then departed from the Valley to join Dahlia de Mai, only to leave it a few months later to go back and find her real mother and father. Now she was back again.
What she really needed on this day was a distraction. The orange-tinged wolfess had cleaned her house already and wasn’t sure what else she could do to keep herself entertained; she had picked up her pillows and had finally packed up Grace’s toys, had swept the floor and made her bed. She sat on her sizable bed, looking about her sparse cabin for inspiration. Her days felt dull and lifeless without someone there to share them with. Her mismatched eyes fell upon her axe, which sat in the corner next to the fireplace. She could always chop up some wood for her fire.
Having decided on this task, the short female stood up. She reached for her scarf and her large gray trench coat from off of her hook by the door, putting both on and heading out the door with the axe. Addison had a small pile of logs ready to be split behind her cabin and she went for those first. It wasn’t long until she had a sizable stack of firewood ready, the logs split in half and some again into quarters if they were larger. She still wasn’t satisfied, though. She took that wood into the cabin and placed it next to the fireplace in a neat stack then headed back out the door.
It was mid-afternoon by the time that she was finished with the wood and as she walked into the forest with her axe over her shoulder her shadow stretched out in front of her. The sun had been going down earlier and earlier but now it seemed as if the days were beginning to grow again in length. It would be a few hours until the bright ball in the sky went down for good, but it was already starting to cast the land in the golden glow of a sunset.
Snow crunched beneath her feet as she made her way through the forest, observing these changes in her environment. She would look for a good tree to cut down for some more wood. Addi yawned as she went, sighing. Another day was passing by, another night alone without anyone. Since when had she become such a dependent wolf? Whether she wanted to admit it or not, her relationship with the pup had changed her. Now that the girl was gone, though, could she deal with those changes?