Hoshor Plains the walls

she couldn't remember the last time she'd been here, or why it was she had returned.

the grassy plains caressed at her ribs as she tread between golden flecks of pasture. hills rolled in the distance, and with them the silhouette of a many migrating bison. it filled her with some tethered semblance of nostalgic depression, and with the next step she had turned from the herd.

her paws led her south, toward a ridge etched in worn and weathered dirt. there beneath it lay nestled in a shadow a life once lived. the mouth of a once familiar den greeted her, now so changed it was barely recognizable.

hesitant footsteps brought her near enough to peer in, a fog hazing over her eyes of memories she'd rather leave buried beneath rubble. but there was a part of her that longed for what had once been had. as if clawing it back to life, she swept at the dried dirt that walled up the burrow, a nose pressed against the now freshly revealed soil.

and with a breath so deep it threatened to burn her lungs, she tried with desperation to remember their scents — their smell.

but there was nothing there except the scent of earth and musk.

she thought it for the better, curling into herself to slip into a dream and forget.

Set after his elk hunt with Beau & Ludovic! Tags for reference.

He was still bloody from his meal, and from carefully snipping the pelt away from the kill. It was soaking in the river, now, weighed down by rocks. He'd learned enough from Ajei to do this much, at least.

While Ludo rested, Valiant left him briefly with @Beau — a stand-up and thoroughly trustworthy man, in his opinion. He wanted to patrol the area, wary of those who might be drawn in by the scent of a fresh kill. He prowled through the log grasses, following his whims more than his nose until the scent of a stranger reached him.

A stranger, but one Valiant thought he must have crossed paths with before. He couldn't place where he recognized the scent from, but the familiarity of it set him at least partially at ease.

He came up on her curled before the remnants of an empty den. The sight of her was unfamiliar, but he maintained a certain sense of familiarity all the same. And her beauty — he was struck by it, in a way that made him somehow sad.

"Ma'am?" he called, his voice soft. Perhaps if he could look her in the eyes, she would become familiar to him.