sorbet.

It was pleasant here. Nothing smelled old, which is a weird thing to make note of, but as someone who has either a) spent her time in (essentially) a nunnery surrounded by cranky old people or b) shoulder-deep in bloody woundscapes, it was a nice change. The willows looked healthy despite the summer heat which choked out all other forms of life; there were patches of reeds starting to wither and curl at the base of the same trees, and she could spy a few clusters of gorse densely woven across the stone abuttment she stood upon.

The boughs swayed in the breeze. The birds sang in the trees. There was a distant idle drone of bugs or frogs or something she could not immediately recognize, lending a hum. And then everything shattered.

A booming voice announced the presence of another wolf, which should not have startled Stryx, but it did. She spun to face the stranger while her perpetually too-thin coat bristled. The stranger looked quite intimidating from their sheer size to their snarling voice, with even their coat emblazoned in garish shades of autumn bright enough to stand out against thin white trees.

Unsure of what to do, the physician did what came naturally and blurted her purpose: I am Stryx of the Shydawn Basin, practicing physician of the Asklepeian Order, she was forgetting the most important part and tacked it on for good measure after a decidedly obvious pause, and pledge to Lumiya of the Willows.