Moonspear allay; align

Alya was quiet when they met, going to him and pressing her muzzle to his shoulder as soon as he appeared. She drank in the quiet comfort of his presence and said, eventually, "I'll be fine." She had always been a little more distant from her mother; Amekaze was the spirit of the mountain, and she lived on in the violence and mystery of the peaks. Her absence was not felt so keenly by the girl, because she had always been a thing to strive for, and not a warm shoulder to turn to. But she felt Charon's passing like a raw and open wound, especially knowing all that'd come to pass before his death. He seemed small and fallen to her now, and it made losing him both far easier and far more painful.

She remembered thinking she would want to marry someone just like him, one day. But then she looked at Nikai and was overwhelmed with love and gratitude.

"You're nothing like my father," she told him, pulling back with a little smile on her face. "I don't know how much he would've gotten along with you, either. But I'm so glad that you're you."

She glanced down toward the valley floor and marvelled at how far up she'd found him. "You're getting around well," she told him with a wag of her tail. "How has the mountain been treating you?"