I'm just fantastic

This particular evening found Arpeggio standing vigil beneath a willow tree a ways back from the river, her eyes fixed firmly on the darkening oranges and purples of the sunset. The changes in the pack and the changes in herself were troubling the girl. Everything happening so fast now after a year of stagnation that she didn't know how to cope with it, and the distraction the Abraxas occupation provided as a bulwark against her grief at losing her mother was gone. Melancholy and grief had brought her here, where she had buried her mother a year ago. Alone, a yearling in a strange place with the prospect of needing to learn to fit in and learn to be part of a pack without her mother's guidance, she had buried Harmony here only the day before the fateful meeting that had resulted in Sparrow submitting to the Abraxas. She'd never even gotten the chance to tell Sparrow and Lark about their aunt's death before the meeting. Would things have gone differently? No, probably not. Her mother had always been a gentle soul, and she'd believed strongly in an alpha's leadership. Peggy didn't see it - maybe Bass had been the great leader Harmony had always said, but she herself had never seen an alpha worth following in Sparrow. She'd been left to drift alone and unguided, and resentment had grown in the wake of that very lack. Shaye seemed to think that she would be the leader Abaven needed, and maybe she was right. Peggy couldn't say whether she had those qualities, since she'd only ever seen Sparrow as an alpha and didn't know what to look for. She just knew she was tired of being treated like she and the rest of the pack were useless nuisances who had somehow ruined everything. And she couldn't even ask her mother's advise now, and somehow that was the hardest thing of all to bear. She ought to go find Lilliana and Lark's den and see if she could help, since there'd been no active healer in the pack for some time. But it had been Harmony who had taught her what she knew, and the idea of getting up and using that while she hadn't even been able to save her own mother brought a deep pain to her chest to choke her. But she wouldn't cry. Tomorrow - tomorrow she would go see Lilliana and see if there was anything she could do. For now, she just wanted to be with her mother.