The Heartwood i am the self-consumer of my woes—

ash beneath snow, embers long ago drowned into oblivion.
relmyna had wandered far, and now the winter winds of eventide lashed at her patchwork fur. but in the last week she had grown more hale on the blackfeather caches and what rodents she caught for herself — no longer a ragged skeleton, but bearing a thick pelt more suited for snow. her frame had remained slight, though the scarring along her muzzle had finally found its fading from raised red to the mere twist of her lips above exposed teeth on one side.
she had ranged far, and stood at sundown in ruins. her rock-of-tongues through which sithis had whispered rested on the snow between her forepaws as relmyna surveyed beneath the dying light what remained of a forest's hope, and what had been destroyed.
in time her light haunches settled to the earth and she tightened the stone between her forepaws, giving herself over to what she now knew to be beyond herself; her breathing steading and relmyna turned into her mind.