Nova Peak umwerben

Wylla wore frigidity around her like a shawl, wielded it as though it could protect her damaged self from further harm, and so Mahler's visits were received with a forced cordiality that lacked the warmth of weeks prior. More often than not, they didn't interact at all, but Wylla would return from a patrol or a hunt to find some bauble laid alongside a flattened stone that marked the general location of her home.

At first she didn't realize what they were. A chipped rock that glimmered was met with complete indifference—simply something she hadn't noticed there before, but that had always been there, dislodged by a wandering paw. The spruce needles, merely blown through on the wind or dropped there by some wandering critter. The cedar encasing some soft, downy feathers was more curious, and it was that which first grabbed Wylla's attention. She assumed it was from Phaedra or Thade, denying Mahler's scent upon it as a coincidence. Perhaps he had helped his children to put it together. She didn't have enough faith that he would deliver a gift on his own, especially when he seemed determined to be rid of her, to see her in another's arms, and then to depart.

But as days went on and she woke to find other things, a cracked bit of antler or a rabbit's ear or a curious stone from the river, she began to loosen the winter shawl that choked her. She knew then who they came from. She tucked each trinket carefully away in the knotted roots of trees around her homestead where she thought only she would be able to find them, and each night sought another place to lay down and gather some close to her and cherish them, all while feeling that this was too late, too late by far...

And yet, each gesture chipped at the ice she'd built around her heart and granted another small, fleeting spark of hope. Of love, despite the pain of it all.