Til Death Do Us Part

With the change in leadership and the bad weather, it was pretty imperative that she stay fairly near to the pack's lands, but with a lack of specialist hunters in the pack now the burden fell entirely on the few remaining pack members, nearly all of them warriors rather than hunters, with a few healers sprinkled in. Pack hunts were unlikely to be successful, so they'd been sticking to smaller game. But that was also a problem, because they could very well hunt out the small game on the pack lands to the point that they would be slow in recovering that spring.

To top it off, she was feeling restless, depressed, and lonely. So to compromise, she left word that she'd be gone for a while and set off to hunt in nearby lands. She was certain Aurielle would have given her a longer leave if she’d asked, but she felt guilty enough taking just a short one as it was. She’d hunt for a while in adjoining lands and then transport the bounty back to the pack when she was ready to return - the cold temperatures would mean that the meat would keep quite well.

She'd found a hare right off, but she accidentally startled it into running. Over tired from her lack of sleep and irritated by the restless feelings that she'd been having, instead of letting it go and finding another Gwen took off after the white-furred creature. Predator and prey raced along the edge of the ravine, the hare zig zagging back and forth and Gwen following on its heels. Her paws slid on a layer of ice over stone beneath the snow, but if she slowed for the treacherous terrain she'd lose the hare, so she simply dug her claws in as well as she could with each step.

It is no surprise at all that her reckless speed would have dire results - the hare zigzagged them close enough to the cliff edge that when Gwen’s forepaw suddenly slid on the ice and she stumbled, she couldn’t catch herself before there was suddenly nothing beneath her paws at all.

For one long, breathless moment she seemed to hang in the air. Between one heartbeat and the next time felt suspended for an eternity where she knew she would fall but was not yet doing so. An eternity in which she could come to grips with the fact that yes, she would fall, and yes, it would probably kill her, to feel vaguely guilty and sad for leaving Aurielle without a mentor but also vaguely welcoming the chance to be with Lanse once again, and even guiltier for welcoming it.

Then gravity caught up to her and she fell into blackness.

She was surprised to be alive when she came to, and it was clearly life and not some heavenly afterlife because she hurt, it seemed like that was all she could feel was pain, and she blacked out again.

She faded in and out of consciousness a couple more times, always waking to a pain that was slowly beginning to fade into a numbness that was far more worrying considering that its source was the extreme drop in temperature rather than actual improvement. Always she woke alone until suddenly… she wasn’t.

The slim male form that seemed to waver in her failing eyesight as her eyes blinked open once more looked vaguely familiar. Through a pain-wracked fog that had settled over her vision his golden form came closer. She could barely distinguish him as a wolf, barely able to distinguish dark shapes against the brightness of the twilight that hurt her head so badly. “Lanse?” she gasped aloud. Was she dead after all? Was this it? Was death just pain unending?

The form drew back. “You’re not dead,” a voice said, as though reading her mind. A moment’s hesitation, then, “You will be if you stay out in the cold any longer.” She felt teeth grasp her scruff firmly, then she blacked out once again to the sensation of her battered body being dragged over the icy ground. In and out, confused visions of being dragged out of the cold into a cave in the ravine wall. A golden, green-eyed form making soothing noises to her. “Lanse,” she murmured again and again, each time tumbling back into darkness until mercifully she fell completely unconscious.

She surfaced from darkness and dream-memories of her time with Lanse in pain but on fire with need for him. “Lanse!” she cried out. Her voice was barely a hoarse croak through the pain but suddenly he was there beside her, the slim golden form of the male who’d saved her. Yes, oh yes, it was really him, he was really there. It had been so long since she’d been with him, and with her confusion and her heat fogging her head she knew only how much she missed him, how much she needed him, and the pain didn’t matter quite so much as she pressed herself against him.

The male seemed to hesitate and pull away from her. “It’s ok, it’s ok, Lanse, please, I want to be with you,” she pleaded, her voice very small. “I need you. Please.”

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She awoke some time later alone, with an aching head and body but finally clear-headed. All she had were vague impressions of what had happened after she’d fallen from the cliff face.

With more than a hint of chagrin, she examined those snippets of memory. Had she really convinced herself that she had seen Lanse? That he had saved her from freezing to death in the snow? To have been so desperate as to have her mind conjure a ghost…! No, she decided after a bout of self disgust. No, she had dragged herself to this cave. She had no broken bones - well, not broken legs anyway, she amended with a grimace when an incautious shift sent fresh pain spasming through her ribs and head - so there was no reason to think she would have been incapable of doing so. The delusion of Lanse was just that - a delusion.

Groaning, she inched her way out into the dawn light. Dawn?! It had been early morning when she had scared up that hare. So… dawn of which day?! It was a good thing she had warned Aurielle she would be gone for a couple days or she might have had the cavalry out looking for her by this time.

Mentally shaking her head (actually shaking her head hurt too much) she started the long, slow, painful trek home.