Ouroboros Spine under cloud & under star,

aw! keeping this vague for now
maybe meet some of her pack members?

A few days passed since her initiation in Moonglow. The argent was now one of the moonwoman’s people, no longer alone. And yet, she could not feel more alone. The people she knew were long gone, Sagtannet was dead, the vale was empty. Nostalgia hit a nerve and she couldn’t stay in one place, she needed to move.

So she did. The Spine held so many secrets, Agana had to know them all. Her pace was slow, movement was steady, no longer the lively body she had as a young woman. Age began to make itself known. Back pain was ever so present, accentuating over the years after her one and only birth. Her body was frail, barely held on to the pregnancy, but still managed to survive.

The woman stopped by a large boulder, known as the grandfather stone. She laid there for a while, lingering.

The former star hunter, hunted. He found solace in that which he always had. And he already had a small cache of weasels and stats nearby. Now he was on the hunt for a small deer. One that had been a runt and sickly. Though had survived. She ran with a limp.

He trailed her only to be stopped short by another. A small dip of his muzzle downard. He took a breath to scent which way the deer had run and then circled to sat hello to the she wolf.

Hello.

The woman could not help but feel like an outsider here, as if she were far too old to be meeting new souls. Yet, perhaps this was exactly what she needed—a gentle nudge toward the living, a reason to stop speaking only of the dead.

Then, like a shadow stirred by memory, a dark figure approached. A familiar presence, one long buried in time. Her golden gaze turned, meeting another set of gilded eyes—a reflection of her own. A faint smile found its way to her lips. 

„Hello,” she greeted, the tip of her tail flicking with a quiet, almost reluctant excitement. She knew him. They had fished together once, long ago. A chuckle rose from her lips, light as the tide. „I remember you,” she mused, eyes warm with recollection. „You taught me to fish, a long time ago.” A lesson well learned, a skill carried through the years.

Rodyn could admit to feeling like an outsider himself. And he did. Frankly put. He was back in a place he did not think he would ever be. With very few prospects for a better life. But that was okay. He was comfortable with being a doting uncle or friend. Hunting his time away. But sometimes the pain of loss, crept up on him.

Hiya. He tilted an ear forward and listened as she psoke and then smiled with recognition. He had to think. Her name had stared with an A. She had known Moonwoman. Then it came to him.

Agana. I remember.

What was his name again? Rodyn, yes. They had crossed paths before, back when Agana had returned, desperate to find her lost child. He had spoken to her of Moonglow, of the Moonwoman.

And yet, when he uttered her name, an unfamiliar unease settled over her. She had never questioned it before; the name the world had come to know her by. But they did not know the woman who came before it, the weight of the past it carried. The things done under that name.

The argent would have to think on it. But not now.

Pushing the thought aside, Agana nodded and stepped closer, her voice warm, familiar. „Rodyn!” A pause, a small smile. „How have you been? It’s been so long.” She remembered his kindness, how he had never ridiculed her when they fished together, even in moments of failure. That kind of patience; she valued it more than words could say.

Rodyn remembered her. She had been shy and quiet. More happy to be taken to see Moonwoman than other things. Glad she was here now. Had stayed this time.

I have not been the greatest, but life tends to make fools of us all sometimes. Sadness creeped into his gaze and his voice. He had lost his wife, his daughter, his two sons were gone to the winds. The pack too lay in ruin now.

How about you? Have you settled into moonglow well?

He smiled then, Eyes a little lighter. A settling of paws to dirt, rear end too, tail curled around. All his attention upon her.

Agana's gaze softened, a flicker of something unreadable passing through her eyes as she observed Rodyn. His words carried weight, the kind born from hardship. Life had not been kind to him.
„What has happened?” The question left her lips smoothly, unhurried, as she lowered herself onto her haunches a short distance from him; close enough to listen, far enough to give him space should he need it.
When she spoke again, there was a wistful lilt to her tone, the kind that came with memories stretching far beyond the present. „I have been well. Months of travel led me back here.” Her gaze drifted, tracing the familiar landscape: the trees standing like silent sentinels, the stones worn by time, the sky stretching endless above them. „Yes, I love it so far. I am glad to be back.”
A small smile graced her lips, a quiet invitation. If he wished to share his story, she would listen.

Life had been kind to Rodyn. Until it wasn't. Then it had been exceptionally harsh to him. He didn't know what to do about it. Except bear it. It had been his burden to be grief stricken. But the happiness outweighed the sadness in most cases.

I met and fell in love with Kukutux's one daughter. Samani. We made a home along the coast. But I lost her and our daughter in childbirth and our two sons. They are in the wind. Then I lost more children as they were taken from our borders. Then the pack fell.

A gentle nod. These wilds have a way of calling you back home again. Even when you aren't sure it is where you want to be.

Agana listened in silence, her heart aching for the weight he carried. Loss had carved deep into him, taking piece after piece, until only sorrow remained. She did not speak at first, knowing that grief was not something to be answered but something to be understood.
When she did, her voice was gentle, threaded with the quiet sorrow of shared pain: „I am sorry, Rodyn,” she murmured, her gaze soft, searching his, „To love so deeply, only to have it torn from you… it is a grief no soul should bear.”
She exhaled slowly, the quiet between them heavy with meaning. „The wilds call us back, again and again, but not just to remind us of what we’ve lost,” her voice dropped to something almost reverent, „Perhaps they bring us back to show us that, despite it all, love still lingers. In memory, in the wind, in those who remain to listen.”
Agana approached him and took his palm into hers, golden eyes shone with quiet understanding, offering not solutions, but the certainty that his sorrow did not go unseen. „I am sure they are very proud of you.”

Rodyn had known loss, but he had also known a great love. And even though sometimes he did have ot remind himself of this. It did help with the loss. It did.

He nodded. She was right. IT was true. He had loved fiercely and it had been a pain he could not even describe to anyone. It had ripped him wide open and left him alone to die, but he couldn't. His body wouldn't let him. Even if his mind and heart felt dead or very close.

Thank you.

A laugh. I hope they are and I am so proud of them wherever they maybe.

Agana's gaze softened as Rodyn spoke, her gaze holding him like a quiet hearth, warm, steady, and undemanding. She saw the cracks in his composure, not with pity, but with something gentler… something deeply familiar. Loss had carved through her too, and she knew that particular ache; the one that lingered no matter how bravely you carried on. She didn’t speak right away. She let the silence stretch, honoring his words, letting them settle.
The argent smiled faintly, wistfully. Her voice was soft: „You should be proud.” A pause. The flicker of something bittersweet passed through her chest. „Not many can say they’ve known a love like that. Fewer still survive it!”
There was no dramatics to her comfort; just quiet understanding. And beneath it, an ache she didn’t name. One that whispered of all the things she herself had longed for, and lost before she could call them hers.

He did not know Agana well. But she came from a world that held their loves close. That liked family and hearth and warmth. Something he was glad for. He also could feel that she understood. That was a prescious gift.

He nodded. It is true. I have tried to move forward. But most of it stalled. Perhaps I am not supposed too yet. Who knows.

A small smile. I am glad you made it back to moonglow.

fade here?

Her ears tipped forward at his words, and for a moment, her eyes, bright and clear as starlight, softened. Agana breathed in the familiar scent of flowers and pine, letting it steady the ache that so often threatened to rise. „Perhaps the path is not meant to be rushed,” she began gently, voice carrying the quiet weight of one who had learned it the hard way. „You are where you need to be, even if the reason is not yet clear.”
A pause, then a small, honest smile mirrored his own, touched by a rare flicker of peace. „And I am glad, too,” Agana murmured, her gaze lifting briefly to the distant horizon where the sky kissed the sea. „It feels... right, to be here again.”
She dipped her head in a soft farewell, the gesture carrying both gratitude and the unspoken promise that she understood; and would not forget.