Bearclaw Valley i drove to the mountain and a hole in the ground

the fever breaks a day or so before the howl rings out. her ears perk, at first unbelieving what she's hearing. it is the stuff of her incessant daydreams, visual and aural hallucinations that have shaken the girl to her core.

but then she remembers that the fever has, indeed, broken; the stench of illness is fading; it is cold and icy and dreary but she is alive—

and her mother is home.

with all the speed she can muster, Avicus lurches from the den in which she has been convalescing. she staggers toward the border, her glassy indigo eyes fixed on the trail ahead. a walk, then an ungainly trot; she cannot go any faster, no matter how much she wants to.

soon, it doesn't matter. Astara is ahead, drawing closer, and nothing can stop her paws now.

she crashes into her mother in haphazard embrace, taking sobbing, uneven breaths, muzzle pressed into the inky black warm musk of her neck. Astara is alive, she is home; Avicus may have failed but she hasn't ruined everything

i am sorry, she blurts, and it is the first—and perhaps only time—that she will bare her heart and voice genuine contrition.