Firefly Glen lix. we were covered in rain

for @Iota (realized I haven't written much about Lótë coming to grips with everything so you get a sad novel. XD sorry about that!)

She could not truly name what possessed her to leave her dozing children, though that in itself was a lie. 

Another dream. A nightmare, of things past.

A man, as dark as her dear son of twilight, who was meant to protect her but had only stolen what was not his to take. A huge silhouette of white he-wolf, lip curled in disgust. A den full of smashed toys and ripped pelts, her carefully crafted paints flung like blood against the walls of what had once been a happy home -- if only briefly. A monstrous shadow, glinting eyes and claws raking through her flesh. 

She had woken not with a thrash or wrenching gasp. The cloudberry had merely opened her eyes, heart racing until she remembered where and who she was. 

Anaa. Second wife. Sistraa. Nuiruk. Lótë.

She was safe now. Despite this fact, something clawed beneath her skin until she could no longer find refuge, even surrounded by her growing children (those who had chosen to den at her hearth for the night) and stepchildren. 

Silently, the bear-marked woman had risen and drifted from her ulaq to wind through the sleeping village. Her wandering led her down from the heights of the Spine's ring of protective peaks, to the foothills of their borders and beyond. 

Aiwë had simply been cooped up too long as she healed from her ordeal in the Sunspire, or so she attributed the claustrophobia that sent her from their home. She only needed an hour or two to breathe. To be alone and release the knot tightening beneath her breastbone. 

Her stride lengthened, growing fiercer and wilder as she left the Spine behind, until she was sprinting across the dark plains. 

The herd stalker stopped only when it felt her lungs might burst, when her leg began to burn from the misuse of not running in moons. Panting, she cast pale peridots around to survey her surroundings. 

After a heartbeat, she recognized the Glen. It was here she had met...Meerkat? No. Fennec? Maybe. This was where Keyni had come from, she recalled with a brief stab of pain for her lost friend. 

It was a shock to realize much of the territory had recovered from the star's fall. How quickly the land had bounced back, even after being torn asunder. The mother mused on it as she began to drift amongst the trees aimlessly. The sky broke open, a light drizzle falling as the bird-watcher padded through the woodland, sheltered (mostly) from the rain by the moss trailing from the canopy. 

If only she could bounce back from being torn apart half as quickly.