new snow.

she had taken on her ajâtsuk's name. a decision to leave everything, including the tall trees and never ending meadows. here, she could see the stretch of the sky in all it's glory. aqillutaq had recovered her mind from its bleak state.

this land was like nothing she'd ever seen and exactly the newness she'd needed. away from dreven, from all of it. away from the violence he could not keep at bay. she stopped for a drink at the narrowing stream, a sign that perhaps she should not continue. a desire to know what inhabits this desert was growing within her.

The sand warms her feet, emitting heat like a living thing. The sun is bright but the air is cold, and the wind digs its harsh edge into her scruff. There are no hills or trees around to break it.

Like a Rothko painting: there is no compromise, and any beauty present is also austere.

The pale woman that hesitates at the bank of the stream is no exception. At first she seems more mirage than corporeal.

Are you alright? Asun calls out, perhaps against better judgement. The wind snatches the words from her.

her head raised from the stream slowly, a voice beckoning to her from the desert. another wanderer seeking something in this dusty graveyard. the sound, asking her if was all right. it was something to break the ambience that was the wind in the absence of trees.

"yes," aqillutaq answered, looking over the stranger with multiple blinks to ensure the ghostly woman was real.

it was a question that she could not answer with truth, her own for that matter. the dove was as well as she could be, alive. nothing could distract her from the sureness of her own situation. she was crippled soul and body.

"are you from this place?" she shifted her weight onto an unbeaten leg, calling back out to the pale wolf. "or one like it?"

Asun thinks she can sense melancholy in the woman's bearing, something that faintly limns her shoulders like a shawl. 

But it is not her place to ask, and she is just grateful for the polite response.

One like it, she affirms, a smile crinkling the corners of her eyes. And you?

Her shuttered gaze lingers on her awkward stance, contrapposto as if to hide a weakness. The ends of her mouth tense with concern, but any wounds on her appear to be clean and well on their way to healing. She wonders if the woman has been lucky enough to encounter a healer in the wild, but she doubts it. Though Asun stands far enough from her, there is nothing about her that suggests pack.

I am Asun.

"the ocean was home." a pensive smile carved its way through a seemingly discouraged face.

aqillutaq felt the woman's eyes trace every telling feature of her body. she assumed such was normal and not to be stressed. she was a stranger after all too. her ears straightened themselves atop her head, leaning towards whatever else asun's voice had to give.

"aqillutaq." she offered her name in return.

memories of her aunt sparked a kindling of reflection as she spoke her name as her own. she missed her. aqillutaq could not feel her rage any longer. she could not utter a word of complaint; the woman was deflected and imagined herself to blame for all that had occurred.

That's a beautiful name, she murmurs, curious of the meaning. But Aqillutaq's next words are what catch her attention:

Ay, the ocean!

Asun had only seen the ocean once in her life; the river of her childhood home sheared an anguine path toward it, finally splaying itself out into a low-lying delta at the coast.

The flat infinity of the water had scared her. She had never thought the world had an end. It made her heart clench to think of Kusuma's natal islands too, somewhere beyond the Earth's curvature.

You've come a long way, surely. Don't you miss it?

She casts a look around herself to confirm the obvious. There is nothing but sun-beaten land for miles.