Broken Boulder or without your smile

Liri had been here less than a week, she'd arrived shortly before the others, the ones she had not met. And while she was quickly acclimating to life in a pack once more - she had not met everyone. 

Yet, she knew the Governor and when his call came, mournful and exhausted, the winter sprite hastened on damaged steps to find him. Anxiety beat in her throat, dread coursing like blood in her veins to pool in her stomach. 

This time, it was not something she had lost. She had no pain here, only the sympathy for those who had.

She did not know the woman who lay still and frozen in time, smelling of ash and death. The apparition approached silently, respectfully, to pause by Horosk as he too looked on with quiet sorrow. 

Liri could not help but remember her last burial. 

She could still feel the pain of birthing her son, worse still the pain of losing him, losing the both of them. 

She had not buried her daughter, the tiny bloody thing she had left behind in the mountains. Instinct had called for her to keep going, to keep her other child alive. 

And all for naught.

Sometimes, the damaged girl felt she should have stayed in those mountains. She had often longed to go back, lay down and die with her children. 

Optics the color of the forest surrounding them, closed to the scene before her, shielding her from seeing it. But it could not erase the memories printed on her eyelids. 

"He will need herbs, for his lungs," the healer whispers softly, too low for anyone to hear save for the man at her side, the only to know her loss but lucky enough not to see it everyday. 

With a heavy swallow, Liri turned away. There was work to be done and she couldn't be here.