Time ticked by slowly, with seconds bleeding into minutes, and hours bleeding into days. Ducky wasn't sure how much time had even passed anymore, just that her and Boneset had been waiting for too long, but their mother was coming back for them. Really, she was, they just had to wait. The landscape was about as barren as her stomach, and from what she could tell it seemed to stretch on forever in every direction. Her mouth was dry now too as the summer heat began evaporating the small pools of rainwater that had collected in dips and divots.  Nothing else seemed to live here, save for the occasional mouse they'd plucked from the wreckage of a fallen tree, or at least if something did live here then it didn't seem to live above ground, and there wasn't a single cell in her body that wanted to explore the caves long enough to test that theory. All in all, Duckweed felt like an intruder here in lands that just weren't meant for the living.

"Ducky... We gotta talk about this.." Boneset sighed, smacking a little pebble away from her as far as she could.  That was about their only form of entertainment around this dull, dry place, smacking rocks around.   Bones wasn't excited to have this conversation.  Duckweed wasn't like her in the sense that it was obvious that the girl still managed to hold on to the slightest sliver of hope.  Boneset's last bit had escaped her hours and hours ago.  The longer the pair remained out here without even the tiniest of signs that their mother was coming back, the more apparent it became that they we're orphans now.  Surely Ducky knew that deep down, though that didn't really make any of this any easier.

Duckweed turned away at her sister's voice, hiding her grimace behind the pretense that something more interesting might have caught her attention. Whatever talk Bonnie wanted to have, Ducky had no interest in. "We should look for water." Her voice was small, but the inflection was clear, let's change the subject. If she could just ignore the problem then it would go away. As much as the cub might have known in her heart that it was time, that they needed to move on, and that if they didn't they would end up wasting away in this barren hellscape, she'd been holding out hope that their mother would return. The woman had taken her time coming back before, hadn't she? Sure, it might not have ever been this long, but Duckweed wasn't ready to just give up on her.

Boneset sighed and invited a few brief moments of silence between the pair so that she could collect her thoughts.  Hurting Ducky wasn't something the child ever wanted to do, but what else was there when the only options were to rip the band aid off or die out here with her sister?  She'd personally already made her mind up, she was leaving this place in search of somewhere she'd maybe stand a chance.  She'd drag Ducky out of here if she had to.  It was so frustrating.  She was just a kid, why'd she have to do big adult things like this?  It wasn't fair. "She ain't comin' back, Ducky.  She left us 'cause she didn't want us 'n if we wait longer we're gonna die.  Help me find Turkey Tail, haven't seem 'em since this mornin'.  After we find 'em we can go look for water somewhere else." Clenching her teeth, the girl motioned toward the direction she'd thought they'd came from in the first place.

Duckweed tried not to listen to her sister's words, tried to ignore the way they tore and cut at the little bit of hope she'd been clinging to because she needed it. She needed to know that she hadn't been abandoned and left to die. If their mom never came back then something must have happened. She'd gotten herself tied up somewhere, or hurt, or something and eventually she'd return for them, and if they weren't there then.. then.. Ducky wanted to be angry with Bones for even suggesting it, but when the words fell from her lips, like prayers to the wind, the most she could manage was a small, weary, "That's not true." Whether it was or wasn't, the mottled girl wasn't want to admit even the possibility out loud.  "And he was up by the tree earlier." She rose to stand, taking a moment to shake off her coat before beginning the search for Bonnie's little squirrel friend.

The girl ignored how wounded her sister's words sounded, not out of cruelty, but because she had to.  Boneset had grown rather adept at ignoring the way really bad things made her feel, but that didn't mean that those feelings didn't still exist somewhere deep within her.  They'd dwell there for some time until too many of them piled up and it manifested into the physical world like some sort of catastrophic bomb of anger, and hate, and hurt.  It wasn't something the young child was particularly proud of, but it's what allowed her to carry on, and she had to carry on. "Oh."  is all the young girl offered in return as she made her way to the tree in question.  "Turkey come on, we're leavin'. " and just like that, the now malnourished ball of red fur flopped off of it's branch and onto Bones' back.  "Heh, you were right."  the poor squirrel was blatantly much closer to death than the two pups had been, guess this place wasn't fit for them either. "We'll go the way we came.  Saw lotsa water n' food n' stuff that way."  She started a slow walk in the direction she'd motioned to just moments ago, keeping eyes on Ducky to make sure the girl followed.   She was pretty sure it was the right way.

She watched with dull eyes as the squirrel fell from the tree, his poorly condition serving as another stark reminder that it was time to go, but it hurt. Either way Duckweed was about to lose something important to her and even worse, she had to be the one to decide what to give up. Leaving the hills would mean leaving behind their mother, but staying might mean losing Boneset. These were big decisions meant for wolves far beyond their years, and yet there they were, two young cubs with uncertain futures making choices that they never should have had to make. Boneset began moving first, unwilling to waste away in these barren lands, but Ducky's paws remained firmly rooted to the ground below. This was it, time to decide. Her chocolatey head swiveled, surveying the area that they'd inhabited, the last place they had ever seen their mother, and her heart ached. "But.." But what? The girl already knew what Bones would say, and she just didn't have it in her to counter it. "Ok." Broken and defeated, Duckweed stepped toward her sister, unable to deny the discomfort in her stomach and the weariness she felt in her bones any longer. It was time.

Relief like she'd never felt before rushed through every fiber of Boneset's being as her kin reluctantly decided that leaving this deathtrap outweighed staying and waiting for a mother who would never come.  Again, the girl was prepared to drag her kin out of here one way or the other, but the reality of the situation was that she was tired and weak, and any motion outside of necessity right now felt like taking minutes off of her life.  If there were to have been a fight over this, it would have been nothing worth spectating. "Thank you, Ducky.." she whispered, nuzzling into the girl's side as they began to leave these dry lands behind.

She hardly acknowledged her sister's nuzzle, too lost in her thoughts to even really notice, but she was moving, so that was a start. Perhaps in time she would understand how right her sister was, and how wrong she was for ignoring the obvious, but that time was certainly not now, and it took just about all she had left inside not to stop or look back at the lands they were leaving behind. A chapter was closing, a period of her life was coming to an end, and in that moment she didn't have the tools or the will to see that that meant there was another one beginning. (FADE)