It had taken securing the knowledge that Nike really did exist to make me finally leave the area after spending several days pacing around. Waiting to verify that he wasn't coming back. That something had happened. My gut twitched so much in the last few days that I found myself running in frantic circles often. I was already thin enough from barely scraping by enough to feed me and Nike and as the snow set deeper into Molodian, along with my lack of appetite, I began to grow even thinner. Hunting was harder as a loner and since Zeus had gone it had been just me and Nike. For him I could find all the energy to scrape up meals but without him I was... adrift.
This morning I had thought I caught a whiff of his scent and took off after it, my steel gray eyes wild as I made sporadic runs and intermittent stops. A few loners gave me alarmed looks when I would demand they tell me where Nike was, assuming he had went past them. I grew furious when they acted LIKE THEY DIDN'T KNOW. THEY HAD TO KNOW! He was only the most magnificent wolf ever.
Truthfully I didn't realize I had cross the Aplos, despite the way my toes were swiftly becoming frozen and numb, because I just followed the faint scent in the wind. It was my head playing tricks on me but how did I know that?
Not until another scent crossed my path. My eyes flash open - apparently i had been wandering with them closed. I knew that scent. It scent a swoop of intense fear down into my belly and I gasp because I can see her at a distance. SELINE. She strode towards me in all her fierce glory and I yipped in fear, remembered pain making me cower down as she draws closer.
Because Im certain the curse has returned and Seline is back to drag me back to her den, to feast off me, to make me her thrall or meal. But in this moment I am braver than I was. I have something to fight for now.