Northstar Vale girl, with an accent of blood

for @Aurëwenn. tags for reference!

once more, praimfaya finds herself — shadowed by her setnes @Blodreina, as always — making the short trek from diaspora's claimed territory to northstar vale, drawn to the emerald sanctuary with it's crystalline lakes and jagged tooth-like peaks that rise from the earth like a natural fortress. the vale calls to her in a way she cannot explain, a song like a sirens luring her into it's lush and vibrant depths. a claim waiting to be staked. the wanheda in training is still too young to make such a brazen and bold move, but perhaps one day. it was in her blood, after all. she was a commander.

jus kom heda laik yu jus. praimfaya says to herself as she wanders towards the heart of the vale, ear flicking back towards her mother as blodreina climes in with a "sha, wanheda." in agreement. praimfaya offers her mother a soft albeit quick smile before the pair breach the treeline where it gives way the lotus lake, and praimfaya heads towards the bank to lap at the crisp, cool waters.

Her first passage with her children was not unlike her lone trek, now; it seemed that whenever Aurëwen drifted through this vale, she was in a more monotonous state of listlessness, with scarred lips a bit parted and lashes hooded low over the murky mirrors of her eyes. Her mind, labyrinth that it was, had decided that she roost in the flowing land for the night — rather than return to the riverlands, as she ought. But then, in a flush of something bright, the druid remembered that she was promised to none but her children and she may roam wherever she longed. ...It’d become her occupation, anyways, and Egg could only agreed with a coo.

And this late morning, she was exceedingly patient with the dove; even as he strutted from her narrow hips and along her white spine to finally, finally settle in the plush and wisping ruff between scrawny shoulders. Now situated, his keeper set off once more, with sleepy-eyed intentions unknown ... until she thinks of the little lotus realm. It was the first place the three had taken respite after her poor performance in Diaspora; the first place where she’s reunited with their would-be’s guide. It was enough reason for her to stride in that samewise direction, no matter how differently she felt about it.

But, then, the fierce scents  (both)  made the silver go rigid upon her own threshold of willows, her ruff struggling to shiver alive beneath the plump Aegelius and then— Blodreina. Praimfaya. 
What tales of her had the basilisk hissed to them? 

"sen in, wanheda," blodreina breaks her usually held silence. blodreina does not strive to taint praimfaya's opinions with her own — as the future commander is imperative that praimfaya makes her own decisions and forms her own opinions without being forced to follow her mother's own grudges — but the scent of aurëwen on the wind, though unfamiliar to praimfaya has blodreina bristling. it is somewhat familiar to praimfaya — though unlike her mother, she cannot place precise name or face to scent. "aurëwen." blodreina helpfully supplies and something clicks in to place.

the mother to the other two children of what was left ( or so she was led to believe ) of drageda. the one that stigmata had spoken of, praimfaya remembers. the one that challenged him and lost, chased from the borders of diaspora with her brood. a harsh punishment, perhaps, but praimfaya had been quick to learn that it was the ways of diaskru. at the time, the adults conversation meant little to the young wanheda aside from meaning that her playmates were gone.

bak op, wanlida. praimfaya tells her using her title as the pale, scarred sylph comes into view. commanding her mother might not seem right to most wolves but she is the future commander and while blodreina might be her mother, praimfaya is her commander first and daughter second. though blodreina had not had such a visceral reaction to verx praimfaya thinks that perhaps what her mother sees as aurëwen's betrayal hurt her the most. hei. praimfaya calls out in greeting to her, casting a brief look to blodreina to ensure that her setnes obeyed her command. this was apart of praimfaya's training, after all.

Shame, white and blistering, surges up through the tight, shaking muscles in her back; makes her wish to grow wings as a dove and fly from this encounter. Shame wants Bounkola to curve her spine and barter pleas for apology. Shame has her wondering if she should have stayed, albeit beneath the reign of a creed she couldn’t breathe under. Shame has her biting her down into a lower lip, for though she’d left prominently for her children, it’d been to bring their father back into their lives, too. And, o! wasn’t he? And yet ... shame would never be through with her — and she pitilessly believed she was deserving of the blame, all. 

Neck bones strained beneath skin and hide from their hollow above her breast; as Praimfaya steps ever closer, airgetlám kneads her claws into the moss, the loam, to root herself in place. Egg coos.  “Os sonop. Ste yu—?”  and the tentative use of Trig has become bitter on her foreign tongue. Everything had.  “What are you doing, here? Scouting?”

praimfaya watches aurëwen's approach with a lift to her muzzle, ignoring the draconian ferocity that emits from her sentes, ready to warn her off again if the wanlida seeks to come between them, ready to reaffirm that she is in command and that blodreina should only step in if physical confrontation is happening — though praimfaya thinks that she is the commander and no one fights for her even though she acknowledges at her tender and young age that she is no where near as experienced as her warrior mother. blodreina was titled bringer of death for a reason.

the pale, scarred slyph greets her in trigedasleng though appears to stumble upon the words. for a brief moment a soft 'coo' begs to distract praimfaya and nearly succeeds as she peers at the bird perched atop the junction of aurëwen's shoulders — a bizarre sight indeed — but her lips pull into a terse line as her attention returns to the woman taking in her visage again with frostbound silver eyes as the common tongue question is asked.

in the weight of wanheda it is easy for praimfaya to forget that she is still just a child and the question comes as abrupt, too forward to be asked of a future commander. i am training. she corrects, but could not deny that it could also be considered 'scouting'. she supposed while seeking others to hone her diplomatic skills she was learning the layout of neutral territories bordering or close to diaspora. i am praimfaya. she offers the introduction in case aurëwen has forgotten though leaves out blodreina who stonily watches from a distance.

“I remember,”  the silver relays in a terse murmur, her own frosted gaze flitting back and forth between the sea-sculpted viper and her ascendant, one eye forever misted. There was no impending doom to be felt by the presence of kru, other than the painstakingly felt. And though Aurëwen had been kru, she was also not, and so did not follow their ways any longer; but she wouldn’t look down on those younger than her in the least.  “My Dragomir, my Isilmë — they used to play with you.”

She felt disheveled, and probably looked as worn as the moon’s trials caught up to her; but here, there was no care for it. For days and days her brow had been drawn low and her features had been ungentled, warding off every wolf she cherished; wishing to be held and spoken to and yet, not. Aurëwen didn’t try to comprehend what she should and should not do, or how her frozen, unfavorable impressions only harried those further from her.

So instead, the druid veered without fear from the wanheda, and threaded a significantly alienated way to the lake’s edge. It was only when she prepared to kneel and drink that she queried,  “How have ze mountains been treating you so far, in your endeavor?”  Quieting, then, she drank.

i remember, aurëwen offers. sha, praimfaya replies. i know. she relays to the pale, scarred mother, feeling something twist inside her as she thinks about them. she missed them, perhaps, still does. it hadn't been fair that they'd been taken from her but she'd found new playmates in stigmata's oldest litter and life kept on turning. wolves came and they left no matter how unjust or unfair it might've felt — and this was praimfaya being selfish, largely. not that praimfaya spent much time playing these days. playing taught her valuable skills to hone her primal instincts she preferred these or warrior training sessions.

aurëwen turns from her and praimfaya feels something swell in her chest — indignation, maybe — but must remind herself that she is not of their people and that a child ( future commander ) or not will not be granted the respect by others than her mother shows her. her mother is bound by her oath to the commanders but others? there are none yet.

diaspora is my home, praimfaya points out, favoring a gentle reminder though she suspects that the pale sylph needs none. why would diaskru not treat me well? she inquires with a tilt of her head as frostbound silver gaze studies the woman clinically.

Home. Once, her home had been the Tines and her haven and the swell of her mother’s belly; the taste of milk and the feel of warm things, before she’d been looking through eyes bleary with red, stinging with salt and the burn of starslight. Once, her home had been hanno who had returned to her and then left when phayanarō had already done so twice and the silver had been shrouded in a choking anguish. Now, her children had become her home — as near and as far as they are to another. And she had told them that above all they must find the father of their family because he had been home, and so he’d been found, but at the cost of her own banishment and the fraying of all four ties to another.

And now she’d returned, in a sense.
Should she have stayed, regardless of the contempt for that creed that only’d festered further and further?

With torn lips brushing the waters — saw her eyes, her guise, felt her innards seize — she could only say,  “It is good that they tend to those amongst them, still.”  Her tone just as impersonal; another lap following her words.  “I am sure you have been thriving there, no?”  If she portrayed herself as ill and wry, Aure either didn’t notice or did not care; her words, as she learned, were prone to affront those she meant to understand, well-meaning as she tried to be. 

She wasn’t up for trying today, though.  “I only mean, never allow yourself to feel inferior, should your philosophies differ.”  A frown tugging at one corner,  “Speak your mind to what you believe should be.”  It was an immense effort, however, when the contradictory was said and absolutely everything you longed for was plunged into turmoil. ...Such was life, though, she supposes.

praimfaya listens to the pale sylph's words with an attentive cup of her ears, regarding her clinically. she is not sure how she couldn't thrive there but she is young still and recognizes with a borrowed wisdom of linkoln's spirit generations her elder that she may not always. she calls them kru but it is clear to her that they do not follow the ways of her mother, the ways of her people. their cultures are similar enough, for now, but what will happen when praimfaya comes of an age that she would traditionally take the role as commander? she thinks that is when she might stray from diaspora, to follow the laws and creed of her people. to raise her own geda from the ashes of her ancestors.

i am wanheda. a commander. the commander. though her world may not entirely match with diaspora's it is simply ...how it is. her birthright, her bloodright could not be denied; they could try but if they did she would leave. or she would fight them. surely, praimfaya — prime fire — harbors a draconian fury that would rival her mother's own. what i believe should be can only be when i make my own geda, wise beyond her tender age, praimfaya already knows how this will work. i will worry about that when the time comes. and praimfaya assumes it will not come for many months yet.

why did you challenge the general? if you would have won you would've strove to change diaspora, wouldn't you have? do you think diaskru would've supported you and those changes? why didn't you just leave on good terms and start your own pack that support your views? praimfaya, perhaps, makes assumptions, taking aurëwen's words of wisdom and filling in the blanks with what she knows of her flight. if praimfaya sounds disapproving she does not mean to, but there was no way to ask without sounding as condemning as it, perhaps, does. part of her diplomatic training is to understand why wolves work the way they do. understanding the wolf standing across from her, no matter how different their views, would aid her in being able to be the ambassador of the wolves she would stand for. to delegate and navigate sensitive matters and decide whether war or peace was the answer, to strike alliances or ultimately reject them.

praimfaya senses that aurëwen is different than her, different than blodreina and while that difference isn't a bad thing — sometimes fierce wolves needed a soft touch to remind them that not everything needed to feel a blade's sharp bite — praimfaya seeks to understand it because she finds that she cannot walk that bridge of understanding easily. our ways are harsh but it is how we survive. so then how did one of a gentler nature survive?

“I challenged Stigmata not for his post, but to make it known that I would not lie idle while ze wolves of that lake lorded over my children and I. I am a fool, it is true, but not so much to ever think my ascension wouldn’t give cause to rebellion. Diaspora was never ze breed of pack in which I would preside.”  Her tone took on a marked edge of its own; her eyes gone hard and bright as quartz as she studied the acclaimed commander without remorse. “Moon and moon, ze thought of founding my own is ... undeniably tempting. I am indebted to those who now shelter my children and I, but,”  truthfully?  “as much as I long to, there are none who follow me.”

“I, myself, have a creed — but with all that has happened, it is more and more becoming a mere figment, however ... when the time comes, I will make it come to fruition. But not yet. Not yet.”  Not when her son healed. Not when her daughter burned through her lessons. Not when their father scarce ever spoke to her. Not when, in her greying mind, she hadn’t the slightest inkling of how to approach all three.

She wasn’t sure who would follow her, should the phenomena ever happen.

But Aurëwen rose, anyways, gaze inscrutable, glinting.  “You are right. How I left, for all of my beliefs, was ridiculous, and there might have been another manner in which to depart ... but, I did not. I allowed my resentment to sit, and sit, and sit, and when I understood no longer and could not make others understand, I struck. For all of my ridiculousness, though, I would do ze same thing if it meant dwelling beneath one whose ideals did not suit my own.”  She regretted many things, this past season and the last — but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t have ended up where her children and herself were, now.  Given ze chance, would I have amended my mistep?

More weary than she could shoulder, the herbalist reclined upon her haunches, and resumed a ponderous look upon her ... whatever Praimfaya was through her relations with the wanlinda’s uncle. To figure out ancestry was more than her mind could stand, at the moment, and Aure did away with the sobering thought in favor of:  “What would you have done, in my place? Left, once, by mine brother; twice, by ze father of my children, promises of return or no. Feeling that none were suited for a replacement that, I’m assuming, my children might not have appreciated?”  If this budding commander truly was what she claimed, then she saw no reason to withhold her cascading thoughts.  “Feeling as if, regardless of my post as pionier, I had not earned ze respect of ze nomads? After all, we had simply arrived out of necessity to birth children.”

And that was all Aurëwen would ever see the lake-home as: yes, the place where her children were born, but there were no sentiments beyond the desperation out of the fear of laboring in the true wilds. For all its security, her time in Arrow Lake had been a place of isolation, loneliness, and anguish. Her marred brow furrows, scars writhing — at the end of the day, she’d wanted to show the wolves of Diaspora that she hadn’t become so pathetic, pining, or mindless.

But, myriad that she is, it’s safe to say that Aurëwen simply liked to think she did was what right: selfishly, considerately, and neither.

praimfaya listens to all aurëwen has to say, categorizing the points she wants to make in accordance with order in which the pale slyph speaks. it doesn't seem logical to join a pack whose ideals don't match with your own. praimfaya observes clinically. by your words diaspora was only a place to be used by you to birth your children? it is how praimfaya perceives those words and they do not sit well with the young commander at all. it twists something inside her and sits ugly upon her breast. praimfaya understands that the same could be said of her own mother, pregnant with her at the time of arrival, but diaspora wasn't too terribly different than their own culture and blodreina stayed.

they did not have to take you in, praimfaya lets out an indifferent breath. they should not have. though praimfaya missed the pale sylph's children she cannot help but wonder what her mother saw in her. why she cared so much to let the hurt of her leaving fester her. as for being left again and again, praimfaya has nothing to say, aside from perhaps that it doesn't sound normal to her. ingram has never left blodreina or vice versa. to be commander is to be alone; she already knew the path she must walk on the relationship front ( not that she was particularly interested in that kind of thing at her age anyway ). i would not have joined a pack whose ideals are so different from my own and try to change them when given a little bit of power. plain and simple. maybe it wasn't as cut and dry as that but from where praimfaya stood, it sounded bad.

klir of. you made your choice. praimfaya says with a weighty sigh, muzzle lifting imperiously, frostbound silver gaze taking in the pale, scarred slyph once more. i should be getting back, praimfaya draws, and despite how differently they view things and the world speaks, i wish you good fortune, aurëwen. she offers the woman in parting before she turns and heads back towards blodreina with a quiet command in trigedasleng.