Though she hears footsteps, Foxtail hopes that it is a bear coming to eat her and keeps still. She’d rather be dead anyway, even if it means being killed and eaten. They’re lighter than a bear though, closer to those of a wolf, and she feels her breath catch in her throat. It’s a familiar smell, watered down by the rain, but she is sure that she knows it. She doesn’t turn around, until she feels the pressure on her back, a companion curling down beside her. Foxtail could swear that her heart stops beating for several long seconds, and she stands very slowly, sure that she will see Bramble’s dark face and familiar eyes.

But it is Tybalt, alone, and the joy leaves Foxtail’s face in one fell swoop. “You!”She growls, ignoring whatever he has to say to her, preferring to release her sadness in the form of anger.

“It’s your fault!” she snarls, digging her black clawed feet into the soil as she backs away. Her signature red tail is held high over her rusty black body, her fur standing on end as she tries to make herself appear threatening for reasons she doesn’t quite understand. “You killed her! You! And the puppies! If we’d never met you she’d still be alive!” Even as she says it, Foxtail knows that it isn’t true, but she can’t stop the words from pouring out. Despite the fact that she’s not tired anymore, her breath comes in short quick pants as she tries to take control of her emotions.

She charges, teeth bared and hackles raised, as starling as ever with her graceful speed. But when she reaches him in a single leap, she doesn’t bury her teeth in the tawny fur of Tybalt’s neck as she had been sure she could. She hits him with her forehead and collapses, knowing that she’s probably knocked him over as well but unable to care. “I’m sorry.” she whines into his soft shoulder, burying her face in his familiar smelling fur. He still smells like Bramble and she soaks in it, rubbing her muzzle against his side. She curls into him as she had so often curled into Bramble, seeking comfort in his physical nearness. “I didn’t mean it.”

Though imprinting would insist that Tybalt’s anguish is worse than Foxtail’s, she is sure that she misses Bramble the most. They’ve never been separated a day in their lives, from the moment they were blind and mewling pups to the day that they had been digging a den for the next generation. And now Foxtail is all alone; with Tybalt. And that’s worse than being alone, she thinks even as she tucks her muzzle beneath his neck and whines sadly, because he doesn’t even like her – not as much as he had liked Bramble. She’s still the third wheel, and there are only two of them.