It was perhaps not a very good idea for Fjallraven to wander away from Asteraia. Last time she had gotten hopelessly lost yet she had also found a new friend in Jericho. He had been patient and kind. A worthy friend who had taught her a little about hunting since she was incredibly stupid about it all. Sometimes, alone in the den she shared with Reich, she felt nothing but a self-hatred. It was such a strong emotion for her for honestly Fjallraven is a gentle, kind spirit. She had cried when she had snapped the neck of the racoon while Jericho had watched on, comforted her, told her she had put it out of it's misery. She was growing steadily older and she had been trying so hard to catch up to everyone else. Her mother had kept her shockingly dependent and when her beloved mother had disappeared she had been left with nothing but a skeleton body, scars on her hips, and the knowledge that she would surely die in this world.

Reich had found her and saved her. But if another had come along to see her cowering in the grass she might not have been so lucky. It wouldn't have mattered anyways. She knew that if Reich hadn't fed her or sheltered her that she would have been dead soon from starvation. She was weak. Pathetic. The word tumbles over and over in her mind in the voice of her mother and she remembers trying to prove to her that she could learn and the subsequent marks that she had taken down her side as punishment for disobedience. Sometimes, in the deepest hours of the night, she got a taste for hate. It tarnished her loved memory of her mother, a wolf who had anyone else known her was cruel, but she was Fjallraven's parent. There is a special love reserved for parents - how could Fjall have known that her life before was a travesty when it was all she had lived?

This time she wouldn't go so far from home. She slunk across the borders of Asteraia and into the woodlands, stopping occasionally to scratch at the ground or on some bark to leave a mark reminding her of a way home. A breadcrumb trail of sorts. She would test her hunting skills but she'd be lucky to find something. She was hopeless when it came to stalking. Her tiny paws sounded like a herd of horses, always stamping on the wrong thing and alerting the world.

Still, she would try.

It is a chill day and only the movement of her walking keeps her warm. Though she had been with Reich a few weeks Fjallraven still possessed a dainty frame and she had not quite gotten used to eating such good meals. The bones that still push against her thin muscles attest to such a fact. She is much healthier than before, on the verge of death, but anyone that spied her would know this is not the true beauty that she could be. Fjallraven's overlarge ears stand erect, her large golden eyes trying to spy everything, and she spots a mongoose. It's black figure shuffles around on the forest floor searching and sniffing.

Excitement zips through her and she hunkers down behind a fallen tree, it's rotting carcass covered in moss and fallen leaves. She would surprise it. Just get it behind the neck and shake like she had done the racoon. She is nervous though and her belly seems to flip but Fjallraven will not stop! With a sudden lunge she is up over the dead tree except her paws seem to catch on the downward fall and she ends up with a surprised look on her face before she tucks her head in and flips over onto her back. The mongoose screeches in protest. Even it must see how scrawny she is because before she realizes it, still in a daze, it attacks her. It comes barging at her, long teeth flashing, and she scrambles up swiftly, tucking tail and running toward a ground of boulders.

She is fast. If not quiet or not a hunter at least she has that on her side. She jumps up, scrambling up the boulder, and finds that her front paw is now sore and sprained from her fall before - overlooked in her adrenaline - and she pitches headfirst in between two boulders. Now the mongoose stands at the bottom of the boulders protesting against her and her butt is up in the air while her front half is falling down between the two boulders and her paws are scratching to push her up...