Wolf RPG

the bearwolves had a lot of strange habits.
if athalia had the language for it, she would likely describe ancelin as a bit paranoid. there were always lessons to be learned, things to be explained to her. she took very little interest in it, typically, but it seemed to make him happy, and so she went along with him if it meant he would sing her praises.
she trails along a pace behind him, hopping through ice-caked snow and bobbing her head contentedly. she enjoyed these nature walks, if anything; it got her to stretch her legs, and stretching her legs meant better sleep. she only wished the birds were here with her.
ancelin grumbles something about a bad guy. bad? athalia crows back at him, ears swiveled forward in some form of intrigue. how bad? had he met him?

oh.
he'd hurt a lady. athalia feels her skin prickle with something dusky and heavy, the age-old call for teeth to latch onto flesh. she wonders what could have come of that lady. what the smell of decay might be like emanating from her putrid bones.
she leans down to taste the broken earth with the tip of her tongue. girl, she answers quietly. two. a pair of them, if she had to guess; like ancelin and ameline.

athalia's tail drags upward and into a slow wag, thumping once, twice, thrice against ancelin's flank. she shuffles forward hesitantly at first before gaining more confidence, stopping as the tracks near a stone. when she looks closely, she can see a beige flyaway hair; the scent upon it is stale, but still traceable. she juts out her nose to point eastward.
ancelin takes a moment to scan over his shoulders, and so the bruingirl mirrors it; head darting quickly over to the left, then the right, and then the left again. she freezes.
there's someone in the distance — hidden largely behind the dewy haze of snowfall, but she can see them. her heart feels as if it is lodged in her throat as she attempts to swallow; she cannot tell if she feels excited or frightened, but she feels the pull to walk toward it.
her guardian, however, would see nothing but the hills beyond.

the figure grows more distinct as athalia gets closer to it and farther from ancelin. she can see the foreboding, cool gaze, the soft charcoal of its fur, the snow as it begins to collect upon its guard hairs. there is something so familiar about it — her. she speaks to her in a language she has never heard before; she smiles, but her teeth are like knives as she opens her mouth. hello, athalia.
the bearwolf freezes. she knows this woman; she knows, she does, she knows, but there is something wrong, something so very wrong — momma?
who is your friend, athalia? the figure steps closer, grows taller as she does so. the one you abandoned your name for? after all i did for you and your sister, this is how you two repay me?
athalia cannot move, cannot pry her eyes away from the kaleidoscope of her mother's. momma, she shouts it now, shouts it aloud to no one as if it may pull her from her spell if she says it loud enough. she thinks of what ameline had said to her once, that night she spent tucked up at the crest of her arm; you leave. ancelin stay.
you were meant to follow, the facade shouts. her voice hammers in athalia's eardrums, scraping, tearing apart from the inside out, and the girl winces; the apparition is impossibly large now, towering, reaching for her and yet pulling away simultaneously; i did not birth such a cowardly child! i did not raise a failure!

failure failure failure FAILURE

after she ducks to look for ancelin, her mother is gone.
she begins to weep.