Lizards are friends, not food.

Life had become so difficult and Aryn didn't even know when it happened. At some point she was a ridiculously happy young yearling, loving life and exploration with no worries as to her future career path or how she might best benefit Lirim. Somehow the feeling of uselessness had grew and grew, until her conversation with Aurielle about finding a gentleman to settle down with, having kids, and spending her life exploring seemed almost childlike. More and more she realized that who she used to be was not who she was raised to be, her father had done better than that. Talking with Tyrian over the mutilated corpse of his sheep had opened her eyes, and they'd only further widened when she heard news of her mother and brother captive in some other wolf's paws.

No longer was Aryn lost in daydreams about handsome tall men and little babies at her breast, now she was consumed with feelings of not being good enough and bringing shame to her pack and family. Lirim was disbanding anyways but it didn't make her feel any more secure in being such a stupid cowardly wolf. Whomever her next pack was to be, she still needed to prove herself capable enough and useful enough to stay there with the rest of her family. She considered approaching Tyrian's borders for more hard-earned lessons, though pushed away the thought as the memory of blood and guts and butchery flooded back. No, his lessons were much too hard learned. She'd do it the old fashioned way, work off instinct and bring home something she could be proud of - or at least feed herself for the first time in her life.

She'd decided upon looking for something small, something not too difficult that might injure her if it fought back. It had to have some heft to it however, because bringing home a rabbit wasn't much of a trophy for an adult wolf. She wandered around the valley looking almost hesitant. This was her home, she knew it like the back of her paw. She spent countless hours wandering alongside the lazy river and staring into it's clear sparkling waters. She basked on it's sandy shores, and she watched the prey animals great and small as they grazed and eventually scampered over the hills or back into their burrows. Aryn knew she'd find something to kill here, and maybe it was the knowledge that she could come away successful that made her so very nervous now.

The first thing that caught her eye was the one she'd hunt - Aryn had decided this ahead of time, fully knowing that once she started considering too hard over her choice of kill that she'd find a way to talk herself out of it. She could do this, Tyrian had said it, and she knew it somewhere inside too. She slunk into the pose that instinct demanded, staying low to the ground and circling downwind of the sunbathing lizard. It almost hurt to imagine him between her jaws, his enjoyment of the beautiful summer day destroyed as she spilled his blood and ate - nevermind, she couldn't even think about that.

Putting her mind firmly upon the here and now, she inched forward towards the stone and the lizard that had made it's bed there. Slower and slower she moved forward, until she finally was within range to strike. Hesitance gripped her like a vice and she felt like she might have a panic attack then or there - that, or vomit all over the poor creature. She forced herself to leap, though it was half-hearted and she landed both paws on either side of the lizard and not at all close enough to trap it.

The fear in the critters eyes mirrored her own and Aryn knew she'd have only a moment to strike, bite, and kill, but still she hesitated. She couldn't force herself forward, wouldn't take this creature's life so unfairly. The two stared each other down for a long moment both equally paralyzed by terror, and then Aryn's walls broke and the crying started once more.

She tore away from the rock and threw herself at the boulder's base, her head buried in her paws to muffle her sobs. She was broken, Tyrian was wrong, and she'd never be able to do this. Her sobs got louder, until she felt a tiny webbed foot upon her toe and looked up, her breath catching. Before her was the tiny lizard, holding her toe with it's foot and looking up into her eyes with an empathy that Aryn had never seen before in a prey animal. She sniffed hard, putting her other paw upon the lizards tiny foot, and then pressing her nose gently into it's side.

When eventually she stood, the lizard came along with her clinging to her nose. Aryn tried to encourage it off gently, but the thing would not budge. It did not take her long to decide that he would be coming home with her, and maybe they could conquer her fears together.

OOC: Word count: 849