He waited in what felt like a slow descent between the darkness that sought to engulf him and the sands of time that wished to bury him. The shadows that peppered his sides were greedy, still, as they wavered between his peripherals. Dancing, as they so often did, between trunks of trees and veiled foliage. Amaris ignored them, as deftly as he could, as he pried his gaze toward where he had initially heard the sound of crunching earth.

The voice that called back to him sounded…real. Feminine by nature. A silhouette of moon-kissed fur and softened lavender broke out beneath a dollop of the moon’s illuminating glow, and Amaris’ breath stalled. Real, he reminded himself as the breeze that drifted toward him smelled of honey and…flowers?

He blinked that citrine gaze once more. This time, however, his brows had knitted across his features as his head swung to a place behind him. He knew that smell, did he not? Flowers..sweet, floral…he racked his memory for the source.

And then—Cvetka.

That was her scent, was it not?

He blinked along the darkened edges of the forest, spying carefully into the shadowed limbs of trees as he murmured her name in quiet confusion. Cvetka…? Perhaps he was going crazy after all.

The woman—not ghost or ghoul—spoke first, drawing the Moon out from his uncertainty and back toward the harsh reminder of reality. Is your soul also touched with loss? He questioned in the space that lingered between them.

My name is Amaris, he introduced, Amaris Callosum, it is a pleasure to meet you, Takala. At least, even with his hesitancy and uncertainty of the world around him, the Moon had been raised with the proper manners. An ode to his mothers, he was sure.

Are you lost?