Her world is shattered. Broken. Large, sharp pices of glass twisting in the darkness of In Between, flashing with dying light.

Memories reflect in their many facets, memories of what once they were. Green covering hills and forests and everything but the tips of mountains. Skies, painting perfect blue or midnight ink or dazzling fire or gold or precious gem pink. Water, in rivers or bubbling streams, hidden ponds or shimmering lakes, roaring waterfalls with pelts of mist that gleams with every color imaginable. Animals, small footed mice or sharp teethed foxes, sweet-songed birds or quiet-stalking wild cats, proud stags and soft-eyed does, and wolves. So many wolves reflect back at her as she falls with her shattered world.

Wolves with pelts of black or white or fog-gray. Wolves with blue or purple swirled into their fur, or speckled with orange and mahogany brown. Wolves with pieces of glass tied to them with ribbon and twine, pulling earth upwards with their minds or breathing ice with a snarl. Wolves clashing together, rising to power, dying to fangs and betrayal, land stained with blood and tears. Wolves like her, scarred, scared, and scruffy small, tough and sharp as a chip of obsidian.

They want to change the world. They want peace. They want hope.

But they were slow. They were hidden, striking from the dark, nursing the injured and comforting the lost. They weren't making change, they were controlling the damage, and it wasn't stopping the cycle of death and fear. It wasn't changing the world one wolf at a time. She wanted more. She wanted it to all simply stop.

So was it wrong to seize power in her jaws? Was it wrong to carve out peace with her claws? Was it wrong to wear the mask of her enemy to come out on the top? Was it wrong the change the world with fangs and tears, to break promises and trust and hard-won treaties and everything, everyone, so that no more suffering could be done?

Her world is shattered, glass pieces slicing through her pelt. No more birds to welcome the dawn, no more wolf song to comfort the night, no more friends to fall away or stand by her side. It's her fault. She broke the Glass World, shattered everyone, to escape. Now there is no more bloodshed or suffering or needless death, but neither is there lush woods and packs and pups and warm summer days. There is nothing but jagged-edged glass and the abyss of darkness, and her.

Is this worth it to stop the cycle? Is it worth the death of my world? She stares at her reflection in a glimmering shard, watching as her younger self stares back, steely-eyed and bristle-furred, and finds no answer.