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She had made certain.

The walk to the lake of Fate’s Respite was not so long given Avon’s proximity to their territory, and so she’d embarked on a short trip to assess the status of the fouled plague-water. A part of her still half expected to find it thick and acrid with that awful, sludge-like consistency, slick with a sickly purple hue that somehow drew you in but left an endless, burning thirst.

Yet the Howling River had begun to run clear, and hope sprang anew within her chest.

Was it time?

Valeska quickened her pace, tongue lolling distractedly as her eyes widened with ever-increasing excitement. She could just see over the hill now, the grey light from the heavy clouds overhead casting a dim glimmer across some great, glassy surface – her heart threatened to rattle out of her own chest.

Even in that dreary light the lake stretched out before her like the sparkling jewel of a crown, clear and crisp and free of the poison that had tainted its waters for so long.

A cold wind whipped through the air as if to make a point; Valeska shuddered. She acknowledged there had been an… exchange of some kind. The plagues for something else. There was something deeply wrong with this winter, for already it had grown far too cold, too quickly, and she hadn’t seen the sun in days – or was it weeks?

She shook her head; no, it had been a month.

The world had not seen the sun for a full month.

Her gaze shifted toward the dancing blue flame in the distance, flickering close to where the lake’s mouth opened and emptied out into the Howling River. She remembered its pervasive heat – how it spread far beyond the flame itself in a wide radius, like a pair of open arms struggling eagerly to embrace all that they could.
Warmth enough.

Valeska snorted, her breath coming out in a soft plume of steam. She was well-suited to the cold, but even she could feel the bite of winter’s fury beneath the thickness of her fluffy coat.

It was time to come home. They had been too scattered for too long.

She made the effort to climb a portion of the way up one of the great mountains that ringed their home, grunting with the strain as she scrabbled with dull claws to gain purchase; a wolf’s howl could be heard for six miles on a good day, and more than ten if she could achieve a solid vantage point.

She stopped to catch her breath. This was good enough.

Looking toward the south, she could see the vast expanse of the Respite in all of its frozen splendor; she could easily gaze upon the mountains of the Vale, even the distant tips of Northfall’s mighty peaks through the great stretch of land before her.
Avon nestled comfortably somewhere within that space.

Valeska took a deep, steadying breath, lifted her head, and called them home.