Cendrillion was not doing okay. After her father's... Well his death, she was old enough now to know he had been dying the whole time he'd promised her they'd see each other again, she and her uncle had gone north, had tried to anyways but the long night had snuck up on them. And the girl had gotten sick, so very sick. Her mind had been lost in the fog of it all, she had heard her mother and father all around her and one night she had fled into the dark to try and find them, to ask them why they'd left her all alone, and yet when she'd finally regained herself they were nowhere to be found, they likely had never even been there to begin with.

And she'd been alone ever since, half delirious from sickness and her mounting weakness the girl could neither find her uncle nor her way back to him. She'd been scavenging where she could and wandering in what she hoped would be the direction that took her back up north and back to the only wolf still in her life. But that wasn't exactly working out. How she'd found her paws on the sand the girl would never know, the sickness had fled her with the returning of the sun but she was badly dehydrated and starved and so her sense of direction wasn't exactly great.

The tiny girl, a young woman now more than a little aware she was alone in a world she hardly knew anything about and without the skills to save herself collapsed at the edge of the water, feeling cool grass under her paws for the first time in a while and hungrily lapping at the fresh water. Her stomach twisted painfully in hunger and she curled in upon herself. Cen was pretty sure she was going to die, but if she did maybe she could finally be with maman and papa again, that would be nice.

"Speech"

Image by Honrin

A hefty rabbit swung from his jaws as he walked with a sense of purpose, head held high and tail waving behind him. It had been one of his first successful hunts for very small prey and he was feeling pretty proud of himself, considering he was quite large and lumbering. But his stomach wasn't grumbling quite yet which had prompted him to carry it with him as he travelled to keep it for a snack when he started to feel peckish. The scent of water drew him in through the drooping and swaying willows, eager to quench his thirst, and maybe even take a short rest. Raylan had no specific destination in mind, but he did like to pick a direction and head straight, rather than meandering around in circles. But when he reached the water he spotted the absolutely tiny form of a wolf collapsed at the edge, drinking from the water like she would die of thirst at any moment. He dropped the rabbit at his feet, lowering his head down as his front end crouched slightly, not wanting to seem too much like an imposing figure to the small girl. "You need any help, lass?" His words were a gentle rumble, tinged only with a slight trace of his Scottish accent. She looked so tiny, and he had to wonder if she was maybe a pup that was lost from her parents.

Cen hadn't really expected to bump into another living wolf, well she assumed he was living. Her sickness seemed to have died with the return of the sun but she had no way of knowing if the ghosts that had plagued the land had all be vanquished with the day's return. So the tiny girl practically jumped out of her skin when she heard a voice behind her, a tiny high-pitched yelp of surprise lifting from her lungs.

Mismatched gaze scanned the horizon frantically as Cendrillion's head swung around towards the voice, her lips pulling back to expose protruding fangs but she wasn't snarling, no it was more a grimace of fear, of terror. Images of her father's killer raced through her mind and though she and her uncle had reason to believe the man was dead he still stalked her nightmares and some part of her feared that he was searching for her still, to finish the job he'd started when he'd murdered her father...

But the man she saw was not the fiery man from her nightmares, still the small girl hardly perked up, she blinked at him slowly, clearly still warry though her terror was gone, for now. She shook her head in response to his question but the scent of blood drew her gaze to the rabbit, and despite herself, she couldn't help but salivate. It had been so long since she'd last eaten.
"Speech"

Image by Honrin