@Ava Amara got better as the days ran on. the chaos of the passing weeks began to settle, and with it came new faces; an aunt in the form of @Druid, the man @Glaukos, and there were the names @Etienne and @Anselm that haunted her.
dinah had begun to feel as if she didn't have a place in all of this. she sat and watched things happen, buried herself in between the tapered peaks of the mountains and kept quiet while the world turned without her. she felt — replaced.
anything that had once been familiar was now gone. daddy and judah and simeon were not here to see the woman she was becoming, and she began to think of the bypass as home. that frightened her.
but if there was one thing the redheaded girl had learned, it was that life must go on. you must stare hardship and despair in the eyes and face it with clenched teeth; you must cover the bags beneath your eyes and smooth your hair. a woman's strength is in her gentleness and beauty. and so, she swallowed the icy shards of dread and numbness that kept her awake at night and instead turned her focus to work.
today, it was the new garden she had been cultivating in preparation for the snowthaw. her paws are wet and cold and sticky with mud, but she is now halfway done with clearing out the soil and burying seeds. soon, there would be blooms, and maybe by then she will feel alright again.

there's the thud of footfalls coming up beside her, and when dinah looks up she cannot help but smile at the stumped expression upon ava's face. hey, dork, she gestures with an extended forelimb for her to come closer. i'm planting a garden for the summer.
given the lack of opposable thumbs, it was rather rudimentary; some holes dug much deeper than others, some seeds scattered in a haphazard array. but it felt good to have something to focus on. in a few months, there'll be mountainbells and rhododendrons, dogwood and salmonberry. she thought about whether or not daddy would've liked it, and she can hear the ghost of his voice in her head. it's gonna be beautiful, dinah marina.
you feeling any better? she purls. maybe you can help me.

i gotta even out these holes, she thinks aloud, wiping a peppering of dirt from her brow. and i gotta figure out how on earth to water the seeds. maybe, like, a leaf dipped in the creek, or something? do you have any ideas?
she knew, admittedly, very little about how to care for a garden.
dinah pauses to watch as ava positions herself in front of one of the shallow holes, a giggle lovingly passing from her lips. if you feel like digging, knock yourself out. i've got a whooooole lot more seeds that need to be scattered.

dinah returns to her own task after her sister wanders off, and does not look up again until she hears the flop of something wet and soft upon the ground. her gaze lights up when she sees it, dorky little smile beaming down upon ava like a concentrated ray of sunshine. oh, you little genius, she reaches out to pat her on the shoulder with a paw — gently, of course, given her rather fragile state — and scoots the moss closer to her.
c'mere, we gotta go soak it. she gathers it into her mouth, little clumps of dirt falling away and sticking to her chin. she leaves a trail of little brown prints upon the earth as she begins to lead ava to the lakeside. oh, gosh, mama's gonna kill us, won't she? we're a fuckin' mess, dude.

dinah knew her sister well enough to recognize when she was tiring. she slows down herself, and when the pair reach the shore, she lets the freezing shock of the lakewater soak into her muscles. the mud dissipates and scatters around her in a pool of muck.
thank you for helping me with this, the girl glances over her shoulder to look at her sibling with unspoken affection. to think, a year ago they were childishly bickering, so unsure around each other; and now they are all the other has left. you know i love you, right?

ava concurred wordlessly, and dinah took this moment to meet her eyes. she had grown into a strong young woman, bathed in the soot of a lineage they were perhaps both clueless about; but ava, she decided, was as much of a redhawk as she and her blood-brothers. daddy would want her to share the surname, she thought, and she hides the emotional glaze of her expression with a turn of her head.
when dinah turns back around, ava is already gone! she stumbles into laughter before shouting wait for me! and turning to lope after her, leaving a trail of wet grass behind her.
if only she had known this would be the last happy memory the sisters would share for a long while.