vaya

This land was familiar.

It was the closest she had found in this land to her own homeland. She drifts like a red shadow under the boughs of the evergreens, using their bare bases to more easily traverse the snowy landscape. The quiet filled her, jumpstarting the same old thoughts. She wasn’t really sure what she was looking for anymore. This land had plenty of game (that she couldn’t catch), and plenty of scavenge (that she could) – enough to support one lone wolf. She had a few times brushed up against the distinct smell of claimed land and avoided it.

Yet, despite the unclaimed areas of this new land providing all she needed… She was a wolf that needed a place to belong. She had met a few inhabitants of the land around and made some friends but there was still a hole in her soul. Before she had been forced to leave the land of her birth… Her life had been proceeding exactly according to plan. Pausing in a clearing among the trees, she lowers her haunches into a sit down in the powdery snow. The sun cast shadows around her russet form as the memories finally caught up to her fleeing form.

Theirs had been a small pack, only her parents and their pups. The land couldn’t support much more than that and her father had always chased off the intruders. But it had been her haven. She hadn’t been much of a hunter, nor was she the coveted attractive daughter that could be bartered for alliances. Her two siblings filled those roles. She had always been the average one. Not a bad pup, but the one that flew under the radar. If she brought home a mouse, her brother brought home a deer. If she found a new, better cave her sister would come home with a new possible alliance she won through her charm. It wasn’t that she wasn’t loved… It was just that she always lived in the shadow of her siblings.

But she was fine with that. That had been her place in life since birth and she had been raised to accept it. And any tiny shred of praise thrown her way was the greatest gift.

She always knew she would never grow to be an alpha in her own right. She would always be the omega – the caretaker for her pack. Looking after everyone else. And she had looked forward to it – waiting for her parents to have another litter so she could be the doting aunt and babysitter. The only way she could cherish pups of her own soul. But then the drought had come… And suddenly her homeland could only support 4 wolves.

The omega was chased out. And she understood. She was the average one, so it made sense she be the first to seek out the new home as she had the least to contribute. So why did it hurt?