[she doesn't know that the world is turning just for her]

skill: [none]

---

If Euphemia was not within Dawnbrak, then she was just beyond. The world was great and vast and wide, yet the maiden found such comfort within the enveloping arms of the frostfang mountains. It was the true height of summer, but so far north, the air felt tepid at worst and warm at best. The wind blew and the rains fell often, cleansing the land and keeping it fresh. Nothing was stagnant; nor was Euphemia.

The emotions that she felt so keenly had settled. There was not much happening within Dawnbreak, and it was a welcome reprieve. There had been so much in the recent year – the many deaths, births, unifications and interpersonal gateways that comprised a small society like theirs – that when Euphemia looked around and saw nothing but expansive sameness, she felt soothed where she once might have felt stifled.

But the land was not quiet. Dreams plagued them all. Euphemia slept soundly at night despite it all, eager to dismiss what seemed like such an ominous threat. It was less easy to ignore when Euphemia poked around just south of her home. She gazed deep into the miasma, not willing to get close and enter. There was something that gripped her heart when she looked into it, though she had seen strange things, such as visions and glowing snow, more than once. Never once had it resulted in anything of significance.

Even still, the earth might crack open and swallow them whole. They all may perish – but would they not die anyway, at some point? They would reawaken and live life anew. This, Phia did not fear. She sighed, knowing she did not welcome it either.

Just like the eventuality that she would one day wake up in a different world, as virginal as a babe once more, Euphemia turned away from the land that harbored such a plague, and walked back towards her own.

---

SKILL: ghost

Sifting among trees, the huntress could not even have told the figure’s color, it’s build, nor size, except that they stepped with a certain quiet confidence as they moved back through the weald.
Iglux was alone beneath the pine boughs, coat hanging in windswept tangles that spoke of far rovings. Pack saturated her nose, and the silver discovered she had been trying to pass near as silently as possible, as though stillness were vital in this span of wood.
She should turn back along the divide. Heavy scents had caught her with an atavistic turn in the belly, and she did not yet know Saatsine’s dealings with neighboring tribes.
But curiosity wins out in a slow sweep around cedar hull and gentle chuff which alerts the other to her presence.

[she doesn't know that the world is turning just for her]

skill: [none]

---

She had never known the lands around Dawnbreak to be particularly populated, so Euphemia maintained an at-ease demeanor, one that grew with every footstep she took away from the plighted place. Her piqued ears and lifted tail connoted that, should anything arise, she was open to it – come what may! This was the thrill of leaving the lands of her birth. She knew nearly everything that happened within. Beyond, anything might happen.

Even the mere limits of what might occur, she knew naught.

Not that anything interesting ever did happen. Not to her, at least. Vidarr was a stone wall of obliviousness, and the only responsibilities she had were the ones she gave herself. It was almost as if she walked amongst the open lands as a bid for interaction, an openness to the unknown, so that she might mean something in that moment. Something more than sister or packmate – something that was new.

The universe responded in kind, offering her a small silver woman to converse with. She looked somewhat like mother.

Hail, Euphemia greeted, smiling sweetly, attempting to mask her eagerness with a sense of solemnity. I advise you to go no further, she spoke more quietly. The lands beyond are polluted. Scent already told her what Euphemia needed to know. The other woman was not of a pack she could identify, but she was not alone. Perhaps she did not know the danger – even if Euphemia herself did not know what it was, or even believed in its existence.

---

SKILL: ranger

It was the shock of seeing such a peaceable smile which gave inquisitive rise to the silver, who understood only precious smatterings of her language.
Hail. No further. Advise. Yes, the lanzadoii parsed this much and gave a gentle nod, the universal way to say that she’d understood the warning to some degree, at any rate. She let her tail fall towards her hocks, not a challenger to any claim— merely a passerby.
“Hello,” she shares a common greeting never once before spoken. She watched the Gold-eyed face for understanding, to see that things were pronounced correctly, or at least in a way that might be understood.
“Being Iglux of Saatsine. See taiga. Sensing wolf.” Here the huntress quieted to give room to the Goldfinch girl.

[she doesn't know that the world is turning just for her]

skill: [none]

---

Oh, she stammered quite inanely, realizing this other woman only barely spoke the common tongue. Euphemia herself knew several languages and immediately wondered if they happened to speak one that was familiar to them both, but she figured it was more simple and straightforward to continue in whatever broken understanding they could muster.

Euphemia was immediately curious about the foreigner. The maiden did not encounter those of vastly different cultures often, and she wondered what brought her here. Perhaps some tragedy, some sad story that she would become an audience to. Tears and grief transcended all languages; but this silvery woman did not seem to hold either.

This being is Euphemia of Dawnbreak. Euphemia spoke simply, like she was talking to one of Golde’s kids. She tightened her gaze a minute, similarly searching the other’s face for perceived understanding. There was so much that could be communicated by eyes, ears and fur - resources that she did not ordinarily need to utilize so deeply. Then, Euphemia looked behind her.

Have friends? she probed, never having heard the name the stranger was associated with. What did she call it, saatsine?

---

SKILL: ranger

Euphemia. Iglux had never heard a name like it, and did not wish to butcher it upon her own tongue. But she likes its sound and tests it in her mind: Euphemia, the woman with goldfinch eyes. The silver’s ears press forward slightly, concentrating. She was a creature used to silence, to watching from trees, but something about the kind way Euphemia speaks keeps her present.
She imparts a second name: Dawnbreak. Iglux concludes it is the territory which rises behind her, thick with the breath and scent of its dwellers. Dark eyes wander to the treetops, then to the distant drape of mist curling over ice-capped mountains. It was the hunter’s most dogged quality to try to understand what things she did not— and the existence of Dawnbreak and Euphemia’s unknown world intrigues her. A nod once more seeks to convey mutual understanding.
“Yes. Friends, pack. Saatsine, caribou hunters,” she answers shortly, not yet trusting the words she must borrow to speak plainly. “What is wolf of Dawnbreak? Caribou hunters?” She asks, wishing to know a great deal more than her limited vocabulary could conjure.

[she doesn't know that the world is turning just for her]

skill: [none]

---

It was interesting how Euphemia’s insides felt different when it finally registered within her that this was a singular wolf, it was a woman with a pack. It made more sense to Euphemia, because she walked with the confidence of one who knew they could not be fucked with. It was similar to how Euphemia had been existing in the world, walking to and from her home and the diseased lands, just a moment prior ~ without a worry, only curiosities.

But it seemed that another pack had become their neighbors in the meantime, and Dawnbreak had been none the wiser.

With Genghis dead and Dawnbreak’s pillars far too distracted with their visions and voice, it seemed that no one was watching the political climate around them ebb and flow. She wondered then if she should travel to their neighbors, their supposed allies, to ascertain their state. No one had ever come knocking on Dawnbreak’s door to care for their welfare, but they didn’t need other packs to set their own standard of conduct.

Perhaps that’s what a true Pillar of Courage would do – see a need, and deign to fill it. So that the others may do their own jobs all the better. Euphemia was more than happy to snuffle out these different interpack relations, while her superiors were busy battling nightmares.

Oh, you have a pack! she cheered just a tone too gleeful, and immediately reigned herself in. Where? she questioned, assuming that was not a too-intrusive question. She had immediately questioned herself, what would father do? Tiberii? Genghis? And all three inquiries came back: make friends, glean information. To Euphemia, the knowledge that the wolves of Saatsine were caribou hunters did not seem immediately important – but then again, neither did the term ‘sensing wolf’ or ‘taiga.’

Euphemia allowed herself to appear introspective, breaking her shared gaze with the silverwoman to look upwards at her own brow. Dawnbreak, um… we are… nothing immediately came to mind. We are, organized? Democratic? When father was alive and Shiloh roamed the Vale, they were mighty. At the moment, they did not specialize. So, rather than Dawnbreak, she spoke for herself...

and for mother.

I heal, with plants she said simply and concisely. Bless this Iglux for allowing Phia to practice her purpose on her, for Euphemia felt this might have been the first time she was truly purposeful.

---

SKILL: ranger

---

I love how you write her internal thoughts!

A gulf of language chasms between them, and yet Iglux and Euphemia are unknowingly of the same mind. It is not solely a huntress who looks upon the Goldfinch now, but a woman whose thoughts ferry softly toward the changing seasons.
She lifts her chin, directing with nose toward the northern valley lake which lay shrouded in thick winter atmosphere. “Saatsine make no land, only caribou. Move. Always move.” The words are halting but drawn with an earnest care.
She listens now to Euphemia, her mind gleaming again with unphrased questions of the snowpeak-dwellers. The title of healer is familiar and her ears shift in a show of interest. She understood the meaning of plants as not the hunt, but the tending care which follows. It would make Euphemia and her band a people who gather life in their teeth and allow it to bloom again.
A low breath stirs the silver’s lungs.
“Saatsine and Dawnbreak, make knowing?” Iglux remains poised, but a thrill in her dark eyes replicates the ask.

[she doesn't know that the world is turning just for her]

thank you, iglux is such a cutie ♥︎

---

Oh, who was she kidding? Euphemia thought, somewhat distracted. There was no room for her wants in Dawnbreak. Even if the maiden did seek to make changes and take on more tangible responsibility, she was always one step behind the others – there was always a more skilled healer than she, who was more present and available. There was a more dutiful guardian, who had already battled bears and fires and earned the trust of the plebes.

There was even her sister, Dalmatia, who had fallen in love before her, and was now on extended leave with her mate, to supposedly visit their neighbors. Euphemia sighed internally, realizing she would just need to wait at home to receive any information she sought. One step behind, always. By the time she realized she wanted to do something, whatever it was had already been done.

Despite her internal dialogue, she remained focused on the silverwomen before her. Euphemia would not turn away this opportunity to fulfill this need – even if she was the teeniest bit disappointed that Saatsine was only here temporarily, and would move again once the herds did.

As with everything, she felt it strongly and then got over it quickly. That is so interesting, she said with apparent, endearing intrigue – and it was. Such a life, Euphemia could never conceive of! What would it be like to move as the winds do, ever pushed to a place new and needy of them? You must see so many things, she said perhaps in too complicated of a sentence, and hoped that her raised eyebrows and glance askew at the great, wide yonder might communicate what she couldn’t.

Yes, the maiden agreed eagerly to the idea that the two packs should 'make knowing,' for however brief a time. You… the leader? Euphemia’s tail swayed, and the smile on her maw glimmered despite her next words. In Dawnbreak, i’m.. not and it was fine. It was fine. It was fine.

It was fine, okay?

---

SKILL: ranger

The lanzadoii has a feeling her grasp of things is tenuous at best. Euphemia makes a number of words and Iglux can only guess at their meaning. She does not rule Dawnbreak, but nothing in her dissuades still. The silver’s tail hangs easy now; a streaming brush of blue behind her to broadcast amiability.
“Iglux be hunter. Have leader: be Cen.” She does not say husband. She does not say mate. Though the idea fills her with a secretive thrill.
Dark eyes meet the stark-gold directly. Her head tilts with a question that is neither spoken nor fully formed, only given life in the muscles of her shoulders and taut flick of ears. Will you meet me halfway? Will your people do the same?
“Saatsine give,” Iglux encourages, “caribou.”
The huntress is full of hopeful trust, then. If this could work— let it be to the shared benefit of Dawnbreak, and also those of the Saatsine.