aw

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She was one of the forgotten. A sielka'rin, nothing more, nothing less.

The name played in her head like a hymn, repeated again and again, and it was difficult to stay focused. How had Aska always kept it together? She wished for his strength now, for his will to feel nothing like unwashed stone. Cold, and immovable, she envied him now.

Holding back a broken sob, she focused on the items before her. A few stray feathers, some bones—splintered and stained—and freshly plucked petals, lain out in a small circle, with one of Talta’s feathers tucked gently in the center. She had nothing else to offer, no food of real substance, no proper gifts, just her words now.

Head dipping low, Teyani moved a step closer, just above her makeshift altar. A beat of silence passed, one that felt loud and angry in its stillness, before words slipped freely. She whispered a prayer, eyes filled with tears, grief settling into her bones like waterlogged roots, clinging and cold.

This was no life she wanted. Where were the sounds of life? The sound of crackling coals, and wood splintering? The constant squeals and peals of children, the warm chatter of kin?

Oh, how she missed them, even if they had made her who she was now. Sielka'rin, just a girl with no home left to call her back.

SKILL: Ranger

When Thirra awoke, she was alone.

She had swallowed back a cry of alarm: she was no child, now, and she knew that the world could offer more cruelty than kindness. How she had come to lay here, nestled in a meadow that burned red and brown, Thirra could not recall. But if she wanted to find her sister, she had to be subtle and clever. No matter how much her heart yearned for her to blaze forward like the vegetation of this land.

She did not know how far she walked in this unfamiliar landscape before, at last, she found what she sought. She caught her sister's scent on the winds that came down the rolling slope, and Thirra trotted over cool, hard earth at a swift pace. There was a coldness within the ground she was unused to, and Thirra wondered if beneath the soft ground ice lingered. Yet she could not mull over these questions for long, for she spotted a cream-and-brown shape up ahead. Somehow, she knew it was her--even if, dimly, she recalled that once, neither of them wore the shapes they did now.

Sisko! (Sister) Thirra called out, her long limbs picking up speed.

A voice broke through her tearful whispers. It was as unfamiliar as it was known, and it made her startle, and stumble over words meant for prayer.

Sisko.

Hers. Hers!

Her sister!

It couldn’t be? Could it?

Had her alter been seen by Her? Had her offering been accepted so quickly?

A sound left her—inhuman, feral. A sound tangled up in grief, shock and relief. It poured out of her like water rushing down a mountainside, impossible to contain or temper. Too broken. Too full. Too everything.

Even Talta shrieked beside her, mottled body fluffed, wings flapping wild.

Altar forgotten, gifts ignored, paws tore through their remains as Teyani flung herself toward the voice—towards another piece of her heart with a desperation that spilled out in ragged, bated breaths.

She ran and ran until bodies collided.

And when they did—sister to sister, soul to soul—a sound left her again. Muffled this time, by the way she buried her snout into Thirra's nape. Tears bled freely, soaking into fur as she wrapped her paws around her sister in a bone-tight hold, clutching her close in an embrace tight enough to leave them both breathless. She did not care.

Her sister!

She had found her—even here. She had come.