Ouroboros Spine momentum

Doe, nose tucked beneath her leg.

Will you return?

There was no answer.

Doe, unyielding.

Will you return? Moondoe, sunspear, wrath of flame?

A moan from the ether.

Why? There is nothing.

Old Doe, hooves slicing through the air-.

You are foolish! You have been foolish! Your herd waits your guidance, your matriarch looks for rest, and here you are, foolish, selfish girl! Wallowing. Dying so slowly your body has not accepted it, even when your soul burns for it. Sedna will not take you so early, burning girl. Rise again. Rise anew.

Old Doe, rising.

Vairë, rising with her.

She hadn’t been comatose this entire time. There had been moments of wakefulness, even lucidity, but she was quick to dive beneath the black ice again. As though she was a seal, swallowed by dark waters. She had waited, soul listless and limp, for something that would not happen. Sedna did not take her.

Vairë remembered none of her lucid moments save this one, blinking open her eyes to find two white shapes walking her way. Her nose wrinkled, ears swaying back for a brief moment as her eyes closed, but she blinked them back open moments later.

Anaa? Her voice was a croak, barely audible, and her throat ached like a creek bed without rain.