gjalla slowed just enough for their shoulders to align as they descended the cliffs. her gaze stays forward, fixed on the pale expanse unfurling below, but her attention is unmistakably on the ghostly woman beside her.

eirwen’s admission didn’t shock her. soldiers, orders, driving strangers out or dragging them home by the scruff. none of it is new. gjalla's mouth tightens, pensive in memory. she does not visions to know that she had been both the teeth and the tongue in similar arrangements.

they crested the shelf of earth and frost, the plain yawning wide before them. fufilling work, i trust. gjalla remarked, turning to face her companion. is it in your desires to be one again? once a soldier, always a soldier, many argued, but perhaps this woman would find peace with a change of pace.

She was born of cruelty, and wore it as her birthright. This she remembers. Her teeth branding those less than her, while rose above. Anything for the Empire.

Eirwen’s deep brown eyes glance upon Gjalla’s icey face, queen like in her manner. A face, she imagines, many would swear fealty to.

“I have no Empire to serve anymore,” she replies plainly. “I could hunt others for the thrill of it- but where would that get me?”

Scarred, face marred, ear ripped. That’s all it got her. Funny how she can remember molten golden as clear as day.

gjalla studies the ruin written into her—torn ear, scored muzzle, a kind of damage that will never fade. her stare lingers a moment too long, though not unkind.

you do not seem like a woman keen on stagnation, nor mindless loyalty. she says eventually. it is not judgment. your empire may be lost, but you are not. her eyes cut back to eirwen, periwinkle into molten gold; find purpose beyond duty. it will suit you better.

---

short sorry ;w;

Eirwen is not so easily moved by strangers, men or women. All her life, what she can remember, the pieces she can pick out: there is a resounding theme of disappointment. From others, for she has always meant to rise above. Push the lesser down, while she climbs.

She can see the makings of a leader in Gjalla.

“You’re a wise woman. That is rare.”

Eirwen moves once again, paws finding careful placement among snow and mountain stones.

“Stormrift. Is that your clan?”

gjalla’s ears tip forward a fraction at the praise, but any reaction she may have is quickly schooled into a single nod. in her lifetime, it was more a tool more often than it is a gift, but eirwen, she sensed, had no ulterior motive for it.

stormrift, she repeats, voice low, steady but reverent. yes. my naval home. a small pause as she steps down from one shelf of stone to the next, claws finding purchase in the ice. though we were more kingdom than clan by both numbers and organization. we were disciplined, enduring, loyal. her gaze sweeps the horizon briefly before settling forward again. i miss it.

“Mm.”

Eirwen watches ice blue eyes burn, warmed by memory. Following after, her nails grip at precarious surface. Not as tall as Gjalla, she has much more heft to her.

“Good thing about a home is that it can be built again,” she remarks, albeit coldly. It is not meant to be unkind. If Stormrift means something to Gjalla, she can make it anew, build it up once more.

There is little wish to remake the Empire, or the clan that raised her, from what she remembers.