Unexpected Refuge

Quote:Inexplicably, the small grey wolf released an airy chuckle, fighting back another wave of corrupted laughter before it could manifest itself in a way to be recognizable to her company. "Horrific" hardly began to cover what Ashtoreth remembered of the escape. It had been the most terrifyingly chaotic disaster she had ever been witness to, and no words seemed to do the extent of that event and all the tumultuous emotions that surrounded it justice. As far as she was concerned, there never would be.

But laughing, even to her weary, fatigued mind, seemed entirely inappropriate for the circumstances, and so she bit her tongue, an ear flickering vaguely as the wolf down the creek mentioned his pack. Like a flood gate had been opened, a torrent of emotions and thoughts came rushing back to her. She had been too exhausted to consider it, too distracted by outrunning the disaster, that she had put the well being of her pack mates and the pack as a whole behind her, something that she felt deeply ashamed of. All that they had held dear - their home, their beliefs, their tight-knit strength - was now gone to her, and she had no infinitesimal clue whether she might ever see it again.

Her already closed eyes shut more tightly, her brow furrowing as the unpleasantness of it all fell over her exhausted body. A chill rattled her small, slender frame, though it was not entirely from the cold air. Ashtoreth was alone. She had no pack, no friends to assist her. Even the unexpected company who lay yards away within the creek could not compensate for the extreme sense of loss that overcame her. She had never felt anything like it.

"No," she responded regretfully, a small tremor of a break within her voice. She hoped it would merely be overlooked within its still gruff tone, or that the stranger would fail to notice in his own exhaustion. She hesitated a moment, swallowing as she opened her tired eyes a sliver and peered down the creek bed at the still half submerged wolf. "Have you?"

-- ashtoreth