Her blood is across the snow. A deer's antler punctured her lung, from what he can guess, as the pattern in her side is consistent and the trail of blood speaks to him in words he cannot describe. Necromancy is the blackest art, but he lowers his muzzle to her form and traces the lines of carnage regardless.

Her dying pattern.

Misoka. He had shown her this land, and had been growing fond of her. Come spring, he might have left with her, and part of that, too, is told in the spilled blood. A reality: leaving with her would have been doomed. She was not his destiny, clearly, but perhaps they might have had more time.

The blood speaks also of Narcissa, the lost golden child, and how he'd never see her in this life or possibly even the next. She is truly taken, not dead, but simply gone. And now he will never know the truth of her mind. Surely, he's realizing, everyone wears a mask. And had Narcissa's kindness ever been more than that? He's not sure.

He stares across the pattern of death, then sighs deeply. Death. Death and decay. He ought to bury her, but is that her tradition? He does not know. And the ground is too hard, anyway, and it's not like she belongs on Elysium ground. With a moment, he leans, lapping up a small amount of her life-blood, and turns from the corpse. She will be remembered, and perhaps, with her family now.