Moonspear few experiences, what you really are

Slowly and hesitantly, Cirilla Ostrega was beginning to break free of the walls she'd built up around herself. Her curiosity for the Moonspear wolves continued to grow since her accidental encounter with the mischievous Altair, but in the time between then and now she'd opted to observe others from afar.

Her mother hadn't been herself recently and, despite the girl's natural concern for her, she couldn't place or understand what the issue might be. The lioness was withdrawn more often than not, insisting that she was simply tired and wanted to rest. Ciri didn't ask for fear of the answer - was she sick? Would she die?

Were she and Elke destined to a life void not only of their father, but their mother as well?

The blackbird wandered along by herself, thinking solemnly of the gargoyle back on Sagtannet's spire as she lazily nudged a small stone ahead of her. She missed her Papa every day and just as she hoped for his visit to come sooner rather than later, a small voice distracted her from her woeful thoughts. Ciri's ears pricked and she quickened her pace, loped forward through the evergreens until her bright eyes settled on the spine of a small, silver-haired youth and the darker dorsal of -

"Du bist hier!" The cry of a daughter who longed to look upon her father once more, in that secret language they shared. Ciri bounded forward through the wilted, dewy grasses and onto the slick stone of the slope that overlooked a vast valley below, a renewed joy in her heart to know that Mahler had crossed it just for her. "Du bist hier, du bist hier, du-!"

She skidded to a halt on noticing that she was mistaken, that this frame was void of the rugged scars that adorned the gargoyle's frame. Wide-eyed, mortified at the attention she'd surely drawn to herself, the blackbird blinked up at the adult and felt herself shrink. "I'm sorry," she muttered, awkward, visibly embarrassed as she bit back the rise of disappointment, "I thought... thought you were someone else."