Her claws glint in the newleaf morn. She studies them, ponders how many droplets of blood have been splattered across the forest's floor by them. She tries to recall precisely which claws (the middle ones? A chance swipe by a sideclaw, a lucky hit?) were used by a long-forgotten opponent to grace her already unpleasant visage with an even uglier first impression.

Whom had even given her the distinctive scars, the blemishes she couldn't even imagine herself without, now? It was the result of a battle; one of her first, just a few sunrises after her warrioress ceremony—too far back to retell. It doesn't matter, at the present, but as Yellowfang gathers the fateful deathberries with her wizened claws, she wonders how it all led to this.


A/N: A mother planning to murder her own irreparably broken child. Who can even begin to understand what thoughts are drifting through her mind? Reminiscing? Resolving?