Kestrel was wandering....always wandering. She wanted so badly to find a home and yet young enough that exploring hadn't quite given up its call to her yet. So much to see! Surely, as she discovered new places, she'd find where she belonged. Least that's what she kept telling herself and she was young and naive enough to believe nothing bad could happen should she keep her wits about her. She was smart, she'd survived the remainder of her puphood on her own for the most part, with the occasional bit of wisdom from some other kindly old rogues she'd met along the way.
By this time in her story, she'd mostly forgotten the trauma of her childhood. Her alpha father who'd been so adamant no outsiders could join the pack, his strict ways with both her and her brother...well, mostly her brother. He was the heir after all.She was....well, he never seemed quite to know what to do with her. Mostly she'd been forced to stay back with the pupsitter who'd made quite clear what she thought of her, least as long as her father wasn't around to see. Her father did expect a certain decorum from his offspring, and though his attention had largely been spent on her brother, she had tried hard to make her father happy, but she was but a shadow within the tiny pack. The last memory she has hidden in her subconscious is the night the majority of the tiny pack left to kill some outsiders, and she was left back in the den with the pupsitter. This was to be her brother's true first 'hunt', what he had been trained for. He had been so excited!! He'd practically strutted as he'd left her behind, eager for the kill.
No one returned.
By the next evening, the pupsitter made some pretense of going hunting and left as well.
She'd waited one more day. She'd left when her hunger drove her out into the world and never looked back. She'd never known what happened to them, and by this point she no longer even dreamed about them.
Her journey had taken her, at this point, far into the north. At least far enough that she didn't know how quickly storms could come once winter started, nor had she ever experienced a complete whiteout. This one came out of nowhere mid-hunt, and stupidly she'd tried to wander to find someplace she recognized only to become more and more lost. Finally, digging into a drift, she'd made a hole into which she'd curled up as tight as possible, letting the surrounding show insulate her. With nothing else to do, she'd fallen asleep to wait out the storm.
Hours later, Kestrel slowly awakened,her ears flicking a little. Was the storm finally over? The quiet pervaded everything now. She waited a bit longer before finally digging herself back out and poking her head into the world of white around her. Breathless at the beauty, she took a few steps, shook the remaining snow off her coat and simply stood there as the sun started to rise, heedless of anything else that might be around.
