Firefly Ravine contralto

I was gonna wait but tbh it's just... really nice to have muse for this boy <3

Ashlar had not planned on leaving home, let alone leaving when the winds of winter were just beginning to harden the ground. Mama had said that perhaps he should wait, but he knew that he could not. He had one friend and she had left. Whatever she was doing, if he could help her to do it, he would. Their eyes had been kind with understanding but he wondered. Had they had a friend like that once? If so, what had happened?

After the war, he had thought that maybe she would stay. He did not know why she wasn't happy there but it didn't matter; she was different and he couldn't know why she did the things she did. Speaking with Baba had helped a lot with this understanding.

'We need them, but they need us too.' Ashlar had never understood healing when he was younger. He'd thought it boring when Baba made him gather plants, the names and uses garbled in his head and impossible to memorize. Why did he need to heal when Baba could? This time had been different. He understood, now, the way violence could turn a wolf. Maybe it wasn't about fixing everything. Maybe it was just about fixing something, as much as he could, with every opportunity he was given.

Baba had been trying to show him this. Finally, he saw.

He'd followed her as best he could, but she had a head start. Eventually he would find her, he knew, but for now he hummed as he weaved his way alongside a massive gorge. In the darkness he could hear the water and he knew better than to stray too close... but he did wonder what was down there.

Mysterious river, hidden and dark. What are your secrets... where do you start? He smiled, then shook his head. That wasn't right. He didn't want to know where it started, so really the whole rhyme was wrong. That would distract him well enough to take most of the night's walk, probably.