Save Me from the Big Bad Wolf

She didn't know how much time passed - it could have been minutes or hours. The cool autumn air started to sink in through her drenched coat, seeping into her bones and making her shiver and shake on top of the fearful, panicked trembling. She went back and forth between wanting to completely disappear and needing someone to find her, not wanting to admit to anyone how helpless she had been and yet still wanting so badly to just be home. The man's face continued to paint itself against the darkness behind her eyelids while she hid in herself, curled up tight with her forelegs hiding her face, his words replaying over and over in her head until they began to feel like the truth. Everything he said about her not being good enough, about her being weak, about her not deserving the name her mother had given her... They slowly gripped into her mind so tightly she wasn't sure they'd ever let go.

But as she spiraled deeper and deeper into herself, she suddenly felt someone press into her side and nose at her ear and immediately she jumped with fear, startled and scrambling to make her stiff, frozen body move as she pushed blindly away from whoever it was. In her mind it had to be that man coming back to find her and she whipped her head around to stare at him with huge, frightened mint and lavender eyes - only to see that it wasn't that nameless brute at all. There was heart beat before her mind caught up with her and she recognized the blue and silver eyes of the boy she had helped at the Ashen festival. "Y-Ysmir..." she breathed after a moment, everything crashing down around her as tears collected in her eyes. The relief at seeing a familiar, friendly face, even if they had only met once before, was palpable and she clung to it like it was the only thing that might keep her sane.

She shifted back into him and his warmth, completely disregarding the fact that they hardly knew one another as she clung to him like a life preserver in a storm, pressing her face into his chest and curling into him as sobs shook her form among the shivers and trembles that already racked her. She let his scent replace the scent of her attacker than had clung stubbornly to her nose, putting her entire focus on this young man who had become a fast friend the last time they met. She was glad it was him that found her and not one of her siblings or pack mates. The idea of them seeing her like this stabbed at her already fragile confidence and took advantage of this quiet moment to just let out all of the fear and the pain that terrifying man had instilled in her. She cried hard into his chest, the sound of her sobbing breaking the strongly peaceful and quiet surroundings with just the sound of the running water beside them filling the air.

It took a while, but eventually she was able to pull the scraps of herself together with hiccuping gasps, tentatively lifting her head from Ysmir's chest to look up at him with apologetic, guilty eyes. She didn't know why she felt so guilty, maybe for crying all into his fur or maybe for pulling him into her terror out of a sense of necessity, but despite her guilt she couldn't have been more grateful that he had found her. She didn't know how or why he had made it to her, but she didn't want to question it either. Something or someone was looking out for her and that was what she needed more than anything. "I'm sorry..." she said quietly once she was able to catch her breath, her paw brushing across the damp fur on his chest form her tears and the water that had dripped off of her onto him.

Gwynevere began to carefully pull herself to her paws, but as soon as she put pressure on her back leg that had been bitten it buckled under her weight with a sharp stab of pain. She winced with a gasp and caught herself, shifting her weight onto her other paws. She glanced around, realizing that her bag was gone and all the herbs she had collected along with it, likely washed down the river. Her ears fell back against her head defeated, lingering on the edge of more tears as she just wanted to give up. But she couldn't, not when her family and pack depended on her so heavily. A shaky sigh passed her lips and she looked up at Ysmir again, asking softly, "Could you help me get home? It's... It's not that far, over that direction."

Gwynevere | Eilwen