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Hrefna · 8 hours ago

Previously, plucked from the black-beached sea, a shivering tower of stone and ice. Days turned to weeks; what remained of the salted air had long since washed from dark furs, replaced by something cooler, icier, accompanied by the warm, aromatic smell of mulled wine and meat. Muscle swelled beneath flesh now; her strides instilled with their former power, thunderous paws climbing the terrain with hardly a breath. Hrefna crested the dune-like moorlands, drinking in the brisk morning air with a warm fire in her belly. Summer had passed in a hurry; the years' whelps had been born- a scent even the maiden couldn't ignore- and the leaves seemed to waste no time shedding their inviting greens for a more favourable crimson and amber. The sun dipped behind clouds, a dull gray blanketing the highlands.

Much had changed. The North had been left to her rear, frozen lands that reeked of a home she couldn't find- a home forged in mountains and ice, one she missed ever so dearly.

Hrefna descended the crest, obsidian and smoke furs blown from her face. Her time had been spent travelling alone, a ghost of her former glory. Once a warrior, an heir to power, now reduced to a mere loner, savouring the silence of her travels. Granted, faces had peered from the shadows, but the woman, at the time, had felt no need to mingle with others.

Now, though, the loneliness of her own voice seemed louder than any other. Another face, someone to call company- it was an idea that reached for her more than once a night. She yearned for her mother, father, a warm body to press tightly against her own, someone, anyone. But the highlands remained still, winds that sang of coming frost whistling through withering grass. Lost in thought, her paws had come to an inkling of a stream, a tendril of icy water bound to freeze when winter came.

Her chin dipped, salmon tongue sliding from between leather lips to gulp up mouthfuls of water, droplets dribbling from whiskers. An exasperated gasp of breath blew from flared nostrils, olive eyes scouring the bleak highlands. Nothing. There was nothing here- no reason to stay any longer.

Just a moment of rest. She found herself murmuring, a whisper of a thought amongst the many louder ones. Front limbs collapsed into one another, folding neatly against her chest as she came to slump forward lazily, nothing like the proper version of herself she'd since abandoned at Stormrift. Warmth pooled in her belly, and for a moment she allowed her eyelids to flutter shut.

Oxana

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Spirited Highlands

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