The Heartwood setting fires to keep you warm

Tags for reference.   :)

"Katavra," her mother had said as their family gathered to bid their crimson fledgling a fond farewell, "you'll be careful out there, won't you?"

She was not the first of the dragoness' cubs to fly the nest, and would surely not be the last. This one, however, the first of her second brood, had always been too brash for her own good. Durnehviir worried that her daughter might overstep her boundaries and provoke a hostile reaction.

While the Alphess fretted for her yearling's safety, Tavra was too busy cringing at the formality of her forename. She'd reduced her own moniker as soon as she could voice such a preference, and associated Katavra with getting into trouble- which happened more often than she cared to admit. She wanted to curl her lip at her dam, bark her offence at her, but she was quick to remind herself of the purpose behind that gathering: it could be the final one.

Tavra had no regrets in leaving her birthplace. Instead, she embraced the taste of freedom she'd so longed for and welcomed each new day with unbridled enthusiasm. She'd met so many wonderful acquaintances (as well as some unsavoury ones!) and looked forward to reacquainting with her big brother, @Akavir.

She padded quietly through an unfamiliar woodland, ginger ears alert and copper eyes searching through the haze for anything she should be concerned about. The blackened tree bark made her curious and the she-wolf paused here and there to test for strange scents, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Having never experienced the devastation of fire, the young Frostfur-Mayfair failed to appreciate how the heartwood had suffered.

"Hey!" Tavra called out in a cheerful greeting as she identified a dark figure within the mist, and picked her way across rugged terrain to get a better look at him from the opposite edge of the stream. She offered a friendly sway of her snow-tipped tail and her brightest smile; "pretty creepy here, huh?"