@iam-alpha catch me takin forever but here we goooooo
Summer had fallen heavy over the woods, as if Winter had never happened and never would again. Staying in one place the way these people did was-- an adjustment. The politics of the community was muted, so different from the razors edge of the pack. She wasn't ungrateful, but sometimes it was boring. She didn't know how to function anymore without constant threat over her head.
The little metal pedestrian bridge sat over the sluggish creek beneath it, and she sat with her back against the steel wall on the communities end of it; book closed in annoyance and put aside ages ago. What was the point of it? It didn't go towards keeping her alive.
And no matter how they tried to tell her that it might save her life one day, she couldn't see if. She had survived this long. Knowing how to read wasn't going to save her from anything, not a guardian, not her former family.
"Hi... m-- Alpha." She caught the familial term as she got up the second her head turned and saw her on the steps of the other end of the bridge; going to take a step back and then rethinking it and staying where she was. Moving away wouldn't keep her safe if her mother was angry enough.
"I didn't cross." A quick statement, old patterns restored. But this time she didn't look down, no matter how much she wanted to. Maybe it was the simmering way she felt when she thought about Henry's death that kept her in place. "Is everyone ok?" Despite everything, she wanted to know. And provoking her wouldn't do anything but end with pain.