Bearclaw Valley we rush the west in silence

Thank you! <3 Also, I absolutely adore your writing. You have a beautiful way with words <3

She pushed against the wind, her eyes narrow slits against the stinging gusts. All around, the forest shuddered and stretched out gnarled limbs to grasp her. But she twisted with them, and though their claws scored her, their lashes missed her flesh, striping only her stormy fur with their fleeting scores of light and shadow.

She could not tell where she was going, but the farther she ran, the less she cared to know. Sunlight peered like eyes through the canopy, and her skin burned beneath their stare and filled her with a trembling awareness she was not alone. Her ghosts lived here; she felt them watching, too. She heard their footfalls join her flight, the chilling sound of their breath. Nanook did not dare look back, but let the momentum of the sloping land carry her faster.

Ahead, the breadth of the valley peered through the thinning tree line, and with a final push, Nanook erupted into the bright and blinding haze of stormy sunlight that blinked like a fallen galaxy off the gushing river. With a lurch, she scrambled to route herself in a tight semi-circle, until she stood with her face to the forest, and the blood-freezing spectre who peeled itself from its shadows.