zephyrhills

Pari had permanently moved from the den she'd once occupied in the maw to the divet of ground she'd once occupied on the volcano. Indeed more often than now now she was curled up to fit in the little dip in the ground. And she fit pretty well now, as underfed as she was. When she got lucky sometimes birds of prey would lose their grips on the catches and she'd quickly snatch up whatever meager offers there were, she'd learned to try and snap at the carrion birds that had started to poke and prod at her. They were too fast for the quickly weakening wolf but the hunger pangs in her stomach told her she had to at least try.

It'd been weeks since her last morsel of food and she was now too weak to really continue her once desperate attempts at finding herself a new master. Now she could barely walk away from her makeshift nest to relieve herself. So she spent most of her time conserving what little energy she had left laying against the warm stone.

And even that was starting to fade, as the seasons turned colder not even the warmth of the volcano could keep the chill at bay. She wasn't anywhere near enough the mouth of the mountain to feel any true heat from the bubbling magma and more and more she woke to find her toes or tail tip numb. Some part of the woman was sure she'd go to sleep one night and never wake up the next morning, frozen to death in her sleep. Some part of her hoped that's what would happen.