Northstar Vale two feet standing on a principle

@Mahler ! (I got excited and threw something together for them, sorry!)

With @Evergreen gone - she could not say where he had wandered to but as her saviour, he was the being she was closest to (a paltry relationship it was, the ghost hovering as a pale shadow yet a stranger to the bear) and his absence filled her with restless anxiety - it was the gentle woman of sunlight, @Sindri, she turned to to unwind the bandages from 'round her small head. 

Wounds lingered: a dashed temple that was neither deep nor shallow, scrapes where she'd crumpled into the grit of gravel. They'd scabbed and knitted though to move her head too sharply sent a knife of pain stabbing through her skull. 

Mayhaps it was foolish, slipping from the ursine's lands alone, but a wanderlust had taken hold of the northron which led her east to the mountains - only vaguely remembered since her fall. The fae found footpaths and trails, mountaineer passages automatically - veering sharply towards a hidden and narrow game trail without knowing it had been there prior. 

Or perhaps she had, as she paused midstep and turned an introspective malt gaze upon the high stone walls. It was all so confusing, this piecing together of things she had known, should have known. 

Your name was Liri. You're an age of three winters - you think. You're a healer. A hunter. Somebody hurt you. Lots of somebodies, if your dreams are to be believed. But you're okay - you think.

She repeated this mantra within as she scaled the steep paths, a flitting white dove winding through the trees, using it to steady her inner turmoil. She clung to what she did know: she wanted to be okay, she wanted to survive.

She could not say why she'd left the River in the first place though it might have something to do with the new recruits setting up camp. The waif was unseen to them - an object of pity, Evergreen's charity case. The poor, crazy girl who couldn't remember. It itched under her skin until she wanted to scream - Look at me! I am more than a ruin of flesh, more than a product of the earth's cruelty. See me. 

Please. 

A film of pain cursed her eyes with its salty sting but with a mighty inhale, she pushed it away angrily. What good would crying do? 

The path turned sharply ahead, lending an extra perk to her step - eager to see what was around the next bend. 

She paused upon the threshold of the meadow - which was much too large to be considered such. She took one step then another, something distant in her wild eyes as they slid over the curved walls, careened to forests of greens, flitted to shallow rivulets cutting through the grass like so many veins of lifeblood. 

Not a meadow but..

A vale.

The word was supplied from some recess of her mind, causing her to flinch slightly as she cast wary eyes about her searchingly. 

She was not so insipid as to think herself alone - though she appeared to be at the moment. Still, she dared to wander further into the territory - overcome with a strong sensation of deja vu as she ghosted past.