Hushed Willows sichripa

back from the borders <3

heda had left the island for the final time, she felt. 
without a word had she gone back to find @John and @Ava Amara and @Dinah. malakai was not coming, and @Simeon had gone to commune with god.
but heda could stand the sound of the coast no longer. she would not leave simeon for the remembered land of her birth until they had spoken once more; she called out for him one grey morning, to say that they would move to the southeastern forests as the weather grew harsher. 
and then without more sound, heda turned them for the wilderness beyond the coastline, one she hardly remembered.
and yet her body did so, her senses did so. she hunted and ate little, or nothing; her recollections of the journey ahead burned inside heda. they arrived in a lovely copse of willow-wood that promised respite for aching bodies, only for the too-young matriarch to discover the place was claimed. heda sighed; she kept them far from the borders, facing out toward the taiga. it was many days to noctisardor, and then — it was only she and john to protect the young against the winter to come.