It ends tonight

The adrenaline was yet to fade, and she could feel her heart thumping heavily in her chest. Almost without thought, she found herself sweeping her gaze over him. Watching the dilution of his eyes, his breathing. Searching for any sign that he had ingested the poison when he had swept the bowl away from her. Instead of finding evidence of death, she found evidence of anger. And he had that in spades. His breathing heavy, and his voice deep, threatening.

The tiny healer, who was no warrior at all, found herself cowering beneath that anger. As the one who would have found you, I deserve to know. She flinched from the truth of that statement, and of the realisation of the pain she could have caused him. “It’s… hard to speak of. But I owe you that.” She said, seating herself slowly on the ground once more, still hunched, submissive to the larger, angrier wolf.

“The Long Night that overtook the land some time ago, and the madness and sickness that came with… it all started then. I was one of the first in my family to be plagued by it. In me, it came as terrors and nightmares and visions. My husband attempted to quarantine me, but I broke free. I, a healer” the bitterness bleed through her tone. “I came into contact with my daughter, and she contracted the disease. It caused her death. But her Uncle, who caught the madness, believed he had killed her. When I… examined my daughter” she swallowed, her throat attempting to close up with grief. “I was too slow to determine the death, and he thought himself guilty. He stepped down as leader, and left the pack. Her death was my fault. His pain. My husband and son's departure. All of it.” One of her paws clutched at the bandage around her neck, and she swallowed hard. Feeling the rasp of the injury. “I am a rotten limb, and so I chose to remove myself.” She could not meet his eyes.