It was high time to return home, though Adelaida couldn’t consider it. Since the incident with Alexey and Savina, she had stayed well away from the pack lands. The small shack in the Dampwoods, where her and her siblings had played as children and as adults, one stormy night she had Alexey had taken shelter and reunited quite happily, was more a home than Dahlia de Mai was. Pickles stuck close to her, alternating between squeaking sympathetically and annoyed. The mocha female knew Alexey wanted her companion back, and while Pickles was free to go, at night, when the female was feeling her lousiest, she would whisper to the little rodent not to leave her all alone again and then break into weeping, which would eventually lure her into sleep. The chinchilla did not leave, and Ade knew she had hit a new low, but she couldn’t help that now.
As she marched back into the packlands she became aware of two distinct differences. The first being that the borders had increased, probably due to the large number of wolves now residing within. Dahlia de Mai was perhaps the most populated clan in the area currently. Secondly, as she caught her own reflection when she paused at Oberon’s spring, she had become smaller. Adelaida was never very big, but her coat was thick and lush normally and now it hung about her, haggard and uncared for. Her bones were just started to stick through, Adelaida hadn’t been eating properly. Pickles often had to consistently nudge her awake and annoy her, until finally Adelaida gave in to the creature she could so easily crush within her jaws, and went out to find a meal. Normally it was only the remains of someone else’s lunch, already picked over by scavengers and what meat remained became to stink, but Ade did not believe she deserved much better. Alexey had said it perfectly. “She’s not worth it.”
Her new sorrowful state gave the girl little time to think on anyone else, and so while days after their last meeting Adelaida had floated in a strange and happy high, Ril’o had been mostly forgotten in the past days. Thoughts of him had been traded in for those of Alexey and Sankor, both of whom she felt had wronged her. It wasn’t until the deer had scattered, startled by her loud and uncaring entrance into the clearing, that she noted the male, who from a distance had obviously been stalking the animals she just caused to flee. The deer were gone, running further and further away, and Adelaida realized that her co-hunter had only been doing her job, and Adelaida felt that surge of sickness which usually accompanied the act of ruining anything for anyone.
Without knowing why, she turned and ran the opposite way of the deer. She did not want to face Ril’o, not looking like this, not right after she had ruined the kill for him. The lack of nutrition caused her body to tire early, but Adelaida forced it on, running away was one of the few things she excelled at in life. Yet over tired, she stumbled and slid along the ground, feeling the sharp stab of a rock or branch as it tore at her front leg then the sticky blood mixing with dirt. Then mud, she had neared close enough to the spring again that the ground was soggy with melted snow and ice, and Adelaida knew now, covered in mud and blood, skinny and frail, she looked more pathetic than ever. Unable to will herself up, she sighed heavily,closing her eyes and consenting to lay in the muck she had fallen into.
[/html]